Lost in his fantasy, somewhat akin to the Gentleman Rapist, he believes himself irresistible to women. Once he reveals his charms she’s going to say, “Where have you been all my life.” A large, powerful man, he intimidates Wilson when he enters the computer room, finding her alone. “He tries to chat her up for sex, or to go somewhere with him, form some sort of relationship, and she refuses. Possibly he threatens her, things like, she’s a whore being there alone and this or that, he verbally assaults her to scare her. It doesn’t matter to him. Either way it’s just a vehicle to get what he wants. He may tell himself he wants sex, a conquest, but we fool ourselves. Really he knows the bottom line is the shoes and socks.”
Wilson, like many victims in this situation, tells him no, timidly or forcefully, maybe she tells him to go to hell. It doesn’t much matter. The response is fury-the fury that sparks attack, murder, and postmortem attack. “Intellectually he knows she’s not going to cooperate, but on the level of fantasy when she tells him to fuck off or whatever he has an explosive reaction to the indignity. He’s had a power loss, not the power gain he dreamed of, and he goes ballistic. This is the energy that fuels the crime.”
The killer assaults her in the computer room, beating her face and head with his fists and possibly weapons, causing her mortal agony and terror. “She’s screaming, pleading, and he has to shut her up so he strangles her.” He drags her corpse to the bottom of the stairwell, now his dark, private lair. “This is very sexual,” the forensic psychologist said, giving voice to his earlier thoughts. “In Freudian terms, it’s the vagina and you’re going down into it. It’s a sensuality independent of the fuck. He doesn’t want the fuck, he wants the shoes. He’ll sniff them up at home. The stairwell is a foreplay kind of entrée; it helps set the sexual context later. He took what he wanted for that. He didn’t want her tingly parts. He continues to beat her out of the anger of rejection of his fantasy, but really he wants the shoes. Basically, he needs to neutralize her so he can harvest from her what he wants. He does it and leaves.”
Leaving with the shoes and socks, the killer is flooded with a powerful feeling of success. The power-reassurance killer, seeking reassurance of his power, had repaired the assault to his pride and dignity and won. “He already got what he wanted, the shoes, so he triumphs.”
Walter turned and looked at Sergeant Snyder. “That murder scene also indicates a bit of a power-assertive guy who likes to dominate and control. A guy who lifts weights, exhibits macho power and strength with guns, hobbies such as karate.”
Walter realized the fellowship of detectives was having an impact on him he hadn’t expected. He thought the federal agents who lacked murder investigation experience were “quite brilliant in the questions they ask to keep me on beam.” He told the Los Angeles Times reporter, “Our value isn’t that we’re a bunch of fucking geniuses. It’s that we can call on each other.” As usual, Walter’s remarks required editing for the newspaper. They weren’t “super-geniuses,” he said, but they worked as a team.
Snyder was pleased with the session. “The profile fits my guy to a T,” he said. His guy was Dickson.
Walter smiled. “Check Dickson’s Army records, go back and interview his girlfriends, ex-wives, see if there were any problems with shoes.”
CHAPTER 30. THE CASE OF THE PRODIGAL SON
Fleisher was sitting at his desk in the Customs House, watching sailboats dodge oil tankers on the river. It was a lovely May morning, women were out in spring finery, and the boiled brown water in the blue paper cup emblazoned with the Parthenon almost tasted like coffee. The mood in the office was light, as it was when the ASAC interspersed fighting the war on drugs with practicing his standup:
Why do Jewish men die before their wives? They want to.
I’m making a Jewish porn movie. It’s 10 percent sex, 90 percent guilt.
Someone stole my wife’s credit card, but I don’t want him found. He’s spending less than she was.
“Bill,” his secretary called, “we got another one who saw you on 48 Hours. Says he’s been looking all over the city trying to find the guy who looks like Raymond Burr.”
Fleisher chuckled. “I’m not that fat yet. Maybe by autumn.”
The soft Texas accent on the phone belonged to Jim Dunn, CEO of a marketing company in Bucks County.
“Mr. Fleisher, my son Scott disappeared in Texas. He was murdered, and I’ve been investigating myself for a year, trying to help the police, getting nowhere. When I saw 48 Hours, we were in New Mexico following a lead at the end of our rope and I said to my wife, the Vidocq Society is back home, in Philadelphia. I thought I’d see if it was at all possible for me to talk to these experts on homicide.”
Fleisher was impressed with Jim Dunn. He sounded like a gentleman, highly intelligent, and a brokenhearted father.
“I went to the City Tavern three times asking about the Vidocq Society and the bearded fellow who looked like Raymond Burr. Finally a bartender said, ‘Oh, yeah, he’s a boss in charge over at Customs.’ ”
Fleisher’s voice turned serious. “Jim, tell me what happened to your son.”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out. Scott and I were very close; we talked on the phone every Sunday. I hadn’t heard from him one Sunday last May when a woman I’d never heard of called me at home very late and asked me if I was Scott Dunn’s father. She said she was Scott’s girlfriend, his live-in girlfriend, and she was worried because he was missing. Their bedroom had been emptied out-no mattress, none of Scott’s clothes, nothing.”
“That’s certainly suspicious.”
“There was blood all over the bedroom, Scott’s blood. I won’t give up until I find out what happened to my son. I was calling to see if the Vidocq Society might help me.”
“I understand. It’s a murder, obviously. What do the police think?”
“It’s the Lubbock PD, and it started out as a missing persons case, but now they’re investigating it as a murder. But they haven’t arrested anybody, and the district attorney said we don’t have a case because there’s no body, no weapon. In Texas you can’t have a murder without a body. I’ve been on the DA’s case for a year.”
“So the case is only a year old,” Fleisher mused aloud, “and there’s no body.” He paused to take a breath. This was never easy. “I’m sorry to say this, Mr. Dunn, but this doesn’t sound like a Vidocq Society case.” He sensed the vacuum of quiet disappointment on the line.
“Number one, this case is just too fresh for us. Cases have to be cold for at least two years. You just haven’t given the police enough time to do their job. If we come in they’ll be saying, ‘Whoaah, what are you doing on our case?’ We provide advice and counsel to police departments when they ask for it. We don’t steal anybody’s thunder. We don’t harpoon cases.”
“I understand,” Dunn said evenly.
“Number two, you don’t even have a body. Technically, it’s still a missing person case. We see those all the time. Some people just disappear, they want to drop out. He could come back. He could be a suicide. We just don’t know.”
“My son didn’t commit suicide. He was murdered.”
“OK, you’re probably right. But number three, even if it’s a murder it’s almost impossible to get a murder conviction without a body. It’s one of the classic standards of homicide investigation in our legal system. You need the corpus delicti. And it doesn’t help that you’ve pissed off the district attorney, ultimately the only man who can seek justice for your son.
“I’m sorry to say we can’t help.”
Dunn didn’t pause: “Mr. Fleisher, could I just meet with you? Maybe someone in the organization might have some ideas how we could proceed, just some advice. We live right here in the area and I will meet you anywhere.”