The Murder Room

with it come expectations for consistency, so the standard always gets higher.”

On April 12, 1990, about a year after Bender and Walter had helped bring him to justice, List was convicted of five counts of first-degree murder. Though there was no capital punishment in New Jersey at the time, he was sentenced to five consecutive life terms, ensuring he would never make parole. Superior Court judge William Wertheimer said the case reminded society it must defend its bedrock values. “The name of John Emil List will be eternally synonymous with concepts of selfishness, horror, and evil,” he wrote. “He is without remorse and without honor. After eighteen years, five months, and twenty-two days, it is now time for the voices of Helen, Alma, Patricia, Frederick, and John F. List to rise from the grave.” While Bender and Walter were both gratified, Walter said, “Unfortunately he was spared the death sentence he had issued to his family.”

It was a spring of justice and redemption, of joy and celebration for Bender and Walter. They were suddenly an artist-psychologist detective team with few peers, as well as fast friends, bonded brothers, drinking buddies who’d just as soon close down a bar together as open up a cold case. But there came too intimations of a false spring. They fought like brothers, too, and over time, the voice of Bender rose in sharp complaint that Walter was stealing credit for the List case, while Walter, in stunned defense, accused Bender of slandering him and going off the deep end.

Bender and Walter were arguably the most talented detective duo on the planet, it was said in forensic circles—if they could be content with outsmarting psychopaths, redeeming victims, defeating evil, and generally destroying the lives of criminals, rather than each other.

• CHAPTER 18 •

THE RETURN OF VIDOCQ

On President’s Day, 1990, the city was dark and icy and the sky spanned the rivers like an arch of gray stone, but the small yellow cafe was awash in light. Fleisher pushed through the glass door on the corner of Twenty-first and Sansom, rubbing his hands from the cold. The small tables were crowded and noisy, the warm air smelled of soups and coffee. It was a federal holiday, and Bender had invited him to meet his partner Richard Walter, the forensic psychologist. Walter was in town from Michigan to work with Bender on tracking escaped killer Robert Thomas Nauss.

Fleisher was eager to meet the famous Walter and be cheered by Bender’s energy.

The news in the Philadelphia Inquirer over breakfast had disturbed him. Even the small print told of absurd and tragic things happening in the city, with a frequency that numbed the soul. James Wayock, husband, father of four, was selling cable-TV hookups when he was shot and killed by Benjamin Frazier, forty-one, with a stolen .38, for fun. Frazier said he just wanted to kill someone. Linda Garcia, sixteen, was shot in the neck by strangers and killed coming out of a movie theater; her fatal mistake was shouting at the car that had swerved and almost hit her. A fireball of gasoline-soaked rags was thrown into the mausoleum of the Victorian industrialist family of the Champion Blower & Forge Company, and a 125-year-old corpse attacked with a hammer. Finding a black candle at the scene, police said the attack had “Satanic overtones.”

The big man saw Bender’s face, beaming like a second sun. Then he saw the tall, balding, sallow-faced gentleman sitting with him, a thin line of darkness in a formal blue suit. Richard Walter. He had the strange and instant impression that the two men belonged to the same firmament, like the sun and the moon. Yet he’d never seen two more mismatched human beings.

Bender had said, “You’ve got to meet my friend Richard Walter, the profiler. He has the coldest eye for evil you’ll ever see.”

The thin man was wan and withered as an English butler, but Fleisher was surprised as his handshake crushed like iron tongs. Walter’s booming tubercular laugh filled the coffee shop. Above his starched Oxford collar, his words flowed as arch and cultivated as Winston Churchill’s; beneath it the blue suit was polyester and stank of a thousand cigarettes.

Wearing his trademark black T-shirt and jeans, Bender sat between the two veteran forensic detectives grinning like a boy who’d happened upon a candy-truck accident or a stack of Playboy in his father’s closet.

He’d picked the Day by Day Cafe to introduce them. It was loud and bustling with news and gossip that morning—the 76ers were winning in Philadelphia and the Communists were losing everywhere—perfect cover to discuss murder and other gruesome subjects. If lunch was disappointing, he could still advance his seduction of his favorite waitress. It was a win-win.

“Richard is the best profiler I’ve ever worked with,” Bender said eagerly.

Walter winced. “Quite true. There are only five of us in the world who know what we’re doing. Frank doesn’t know any of the others, I’m afraid.”

Fleisher laughed heartily, enjoying himself more than he had in a while. He was especially intrigued to see the wan psychologist and manic artist together for the first time. He had been stunned like every other cop in America by the duo’s prophetic work on the John List case, and now he wasn’t disappointed. He considered Frank a genius, and, he later noted, “It didn’t take long to see that Richard had an unsurpassed knowledge of the criminal mind.” Walter was equally impressed with Fleisher. “The Customs chief was quite affable and extremely bright. He had a remarkable memory for every case he ever worked.”

Wendy came to the table. Bender began to sketch her face on a napkin, demonstrating a technique to her. “A cheeseburger,” Fleisher said. “No fries.” The waitress wrote down his order. Fleisher was grinning. “Atkins is going to save my life.”

Walter ordered a cup of coffee, black.

Bender ordered a teriyaki salad, coffee, and cherry pie.

“You have quite an appetite today,” Fleisher deadpanned.

Bender watched the brunette’s hourglass figure return to the kitchen. “Look at that,” he whispered. Fleisher chuckled.

Walter stared into the gray afternoon as if he’d rather have been watching iron oxidize than Bender’s libido on exhibit.

Before the food came, the three men fell into an easy camaraderie talking murder and mayhem, including the case that connected them. They’d all worked on the U.S. Marshals’ pursuit of the fugitive killers Hans Vorhauer and Robert Thomas Nauss. “It’s because of Bill sharing his investigation with the FBI that I got a breakthrough that helped lead to Vorhauer’s capture,” Bender said. “And Richard helped me with a profile of Nauss. I still think we’ll get him one of these days.”

Bender’s face reddened in sudden anger. “That’s how it should work. But when I went to Washington to see the FBI about the List case, they were practically hostile to me. They wouldn’t give me anything. I think they had a profile of List they wouldn’t share.”

Fleisher and Walter nodded in agreement. “I’ve seen victims victimized by the justice system for thirty years,” Fleisher said sadly. His brown eyes had a faraway look.

“But why is solving a murder so hard?” Bender went on. As an artist relatively new to forensics, he was frustrated by the rigid thinking of most policemen. “They never think out of the box!”

“Police are very procedural,” Walter said, frowning. “It’s the foundation of investigative procedure, to build a case on what’s there. But sometimes what’s not there is even more important.” He smiled wickedly. “For instance”—he chuckled—“if I were sitting here naked, what was missing would become very relevant, as old and ugly as I am!”

Walter well knew the virtues of sharing information. He told them of the infamous Case of the Underwear Killer. He had just finished speaking about murder personality subtypes at a forensic conference in Atlanta when Georgia police approached him for help on the baffling case. Three women’s slips had been found strewn across the bushes of a park. The slips were bloodied and appeared to have been slashed down the middle with a knife. The garments had the letter “J” sewn into them. But there was no body. No sign of a struggle. What did it all mean?

“The police looked at it and said, ‘What happened here?’ ” Walter said mockingly. “Well, what the fuck do you mean what happened here? Anyone with half a brain can see a murder happened here. But often one doesn’t have to have half a brain to be in law enforcement.” Cutting and slicing were evidence of picquerism, Walter told them,