the pleasure of causing pain through puncturing or slashing. It was the grave sign of a sadistic serial killer on a learning curve, like Ted Bundy, who evolved into even worse behavior, such as murder for the pleasures of necrophilia or cannibalism.
Fleisher looked up from his cheeseburger. “Thanks for mentioning it.”
“Not at all. The point is that some weeks later I was at a forensic conference in St. Louis listening to Roy Hazelwood, the FBI agent, describe a murder. It was a mysterious case of women’s corpses in Ohio. The torsos had been slashed open, and the slips were missing.”
Walter arched his eyebrow. “As it happens, Roy and I have known each other since Christ wore tennis shoes. After the speech, I said, ‘Roy, I have a question for you—what does a “J” sewn in slashed women’s underwear mean to you?’ His mouth fell open. It was the first initial of one of the victims, says he.” The two profilers pieced together the case of a serial murderer, a long-distance trucker who was convicted of killing his victims in Ohio and scattering their slips in Georgia.
Wendy came and took plates away, pouring coffee with a free hand. Walter grinned. “So there’s a certain inherent value in sharing information. We can put two and two together, make connections that others don’t see.”
Bender’s voice rose in excitement. “Exactly! Bill and I have always said we ought to form a group of forensic experts who share information and cut through all the red tape and bullshit. We could work around law enforcement, and really get things done.”
Fleisher chuckled. “They already have people doing that, Frank. Their names are Batman and Robin. We can’t skirt around law enforcement like vigilantes. We need their cooperation and information.”
He turned to Walter. “We’ve talked about getting together talking over cases like we’re doing now.”
Walter sniffed in disapproval. “I’m not much of a joiner.”
Fleisher burned to join the battle of good and evil where it counted, in the suffering of individuals crying for help. If their private club of detectives didn’t take on the mantle of crusaders, it could at least be a social club, old cops hashing over cases together in their golden years.
But their dream was missing something. The ASAC wielded tremendous power but sat dreaming with it like an aging king reluctant to rise and draw his sword. The humdrum routine of life enveloped him, sealed with an ineffable sadness he couldn’t identify.
The cafe emptied, Wendy came with pie and more coffee, the long shadows of skyscrapers striped the street. As night closed in on the cafe, the figures of homeless men passed like forgotten ghosts. The three talked about the serial killers who stalked Philadelphia, and the unprecedented levels of anxiety and fear they saw in the faces of ordinary Philadelphians. “I’m seeing criminals who are much more vicious, violent, and depraved than in the previous generation,” Walter said. “People who kill for the fun of it.” The enormity of their battle settled over them with the dusk, challenging their easy bravado.
A sharp, excited voice broke the quiet. “What are we going to call our club?” Bender asked. “The Sherlock Holmes Society?”
Fleisher grinned. His irrepressible friend was never down for long. “That’s the right idea, but too obvious. I have a better name in mind. Let’s call it the Vidocq Society.” To puzzled looks, he told them that Eugene Francois Vidocq of nineteenth-century Paris was the greatest detective who ever lived. “And he’s my hero.”
Fleisher had rediscovered Vidocq as a young man in the FBI Academy while studying the history of criminology. The French-man was legitimately the father of modern criminology. In 1811, Vidocq founded a plainclothes detective unit, composed mostly of ex-cons like himself, which Napoleon Bonaparte signed into law as a state investigative agency,
But it was Vidocq’s remarkable story of redemption and his belief in the redemption of others that touched Fleisher most deeply. The chief cop of Paris was a great friend of the poor and said he would never arrest a man for stealing bread to feed his family. Vidocq was Hugo’s model for Javert, the relentless detective in
Fleisher would write to law enforcement specialists around the world to recruit members to the Vidocq Society.
Bender’s face pinked with excitement. “We really bonded,” he told Fleisher on the way out. “We have a name, we’re going to get this done!”
Walter did not share his comrades’ excitement. As the fevered talk of forming societies and clubs and rooting out evil swirled around him, he grew quiet, and left the table early.
“I’m not much into groups,” he said. “The Vidocq Society, some kind of Sherlock Holmes club? It was simply preposterous. I quite enjoyed Frank and Bill, had a nice time and humored them both. I was trying to be polite, OK. But frankly, I thought the whole idea was foolish.”
PART THREE
THE VIDOCQ SOCIETY
• CHAPTER 19 •
THE GATHERING OF DETECTIVES
At high noon in the Navy Officers’ Club, Fleisher looked down a long table into the faces of the best and brightest federal agents and cops from New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and Washington. This was the core group Fleisher had handpicked to start the Vidocq Society, the most accomplished and colorful experts from his various tribes: federal agents, Philadelphia cops, polygraph experts, and Jewish lawmen. On either side of him sat Frank Bender and Richard Walter. Following his luncheon with them, Fleisher had written a letter to twenty-eight law enforcement colleagues around the country and world inviting them to join a private detective club dedicated to “cuisine and crime.” Twenty-six of the twenty-eight replied with a swift and enthusiastic yes.
The air in the room was electric. Never had any of them seen so much detective talent at one table. They were a collective endowment with no obligation to any government or agency. Bender was “really excited.”
Even Walter, ever the skeptic in his crisp blue suit, launched his left eyebrow into a reappraising point as he looked down the table of renowned investigators.
The charter members of the Vidocq Society had gathered to take their collective measure, determine their purpose, vote on leadership, rules, and bylaws.
Most were men Fleisher knew like brothers. Some, like veteran Customs agent Joe O’Kane, had worked with him for years on major cases.
“Me and Bill [Fleisher] and the other guys have spent the equivalent of two lifetimes together,” said O’Kane. “We live out of suitcases, sleep in cars eating burritos on surveillance, urinate in gas station men’s rooms. 007 it ain’t . . .” Others had worked with Fleisher with the FBI or the Philadelphia PD, men who’d lassoed murderers and mobsters and stood guard for everyone from the governor of Pennsylvania to the queen of England.
“Fleisher, this is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard of. It’ll never work,” laughed U.S. Treasury Department special agent William Gill, the Treasury ASAC in Philadelphia, surveying the band of tough, independent-minded cops, all of them accustomed to bureaucratic jousting and rivalry and armed to the teeth. “But I love you and if it’s a good lunch, I’m in. I’m one of Fleisher’s disciples.”
Gill was impressed with how Fleisher in the past had brought together all the ASACs who helped run federal law enforcement offices in Philadelphia—FBI, Marshals, Customs, DEA, Treasury, ATF, IRS, Secret Service—for a monthly luncheon. They got to know one another and worked together in new ways. “It was great to be able to call a guy and say, hey, Bob, I need some equipment, or I need some men.”
