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.”

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.”

“OK, then, why don’t you send me some materials and I’ll look them over.”

“I’m sorry, I can’t do that,” Dunn said firmly. “I’m going back to Texas next week to keep looking for my son, and I want my materials with me-it’s all I have left of Scott.” There was a long silence, and then he said, “Mr. Fleisher, I believe you are the only chance I have.”

Something clicked in that moment for Fleisher. “I knew then that Jim Dunn was a good man. He’d do anything to find his son.” Fleisher knew all about the difficult bonds of fathers and sons, the longings that survived death.

His father had taught him to keep his mind and heart open, to always be willing to listen to a good man. He often thought about how his father had learned that lesson himself, when Temple University wouldn’t let him in to take his final exam required to graduate from dental school during the Great Depression. He’d passed all the graduate school classes, but he was too poor to make his last tuition payment or even pay for his diploma. As the exam was being given, he went to see the university president, Charles E. Beury. Beury’s secretary said the president was going to a meeting and couldn’t see him. Herbert Fleisher said, “Tell him it’s a matter of life and death.” The president invited him in. Beury, a tall Princeton grad, class of 1903, looked at his watch and said, “You have five minutes, son. What’s the problem?”

Fleisher’s father began, with tears in his eyes, telling the president about his financial problems and that they would not let him take his dental final.

A half hour later, Beury looked at his watch and said, “You have five minutes left.”

When the time was up, the president took out a piece of paper and wrote a note to the dean of the dental school to let Herbert Fleisher take the test. But when he got there the test was over. The dental dean instead made him take an oral final exam, which was very tough. “My father passed and became an excellent dentist.” Years later Beury was quoted in the newspaper saying, “A university should teach not only the rudiments of education, but it should set standards whereby young men and women may learn to recognize a good man when they see one.”