unsettling feeling that Laura was trying to manipulate him into getting involved as a ploy to prolong their relationship.
But as he heard her troubled voice pleading for help for her friend Kenny, his doubts washed away. He was touched. He liked the girl and decided to help. He felt he owed it to her, being as he was going to dump her and all.
“Sure, I’ll do anything I can,” Bender said. “Have Kenny call me.” Laura was deeply grateful, and Dr. Andronico didn’t waste any time. He called Bender that evening.
The voice on the line was bold and assertive.
“Hey, Frank, my good buddy,” he said.
Bender stiffened. “I barely know the guy. Now I’m his good buddy?” All six of Bender’s senses went on hyperalert.
“Frank, I need your help,” Andronico pressed on, imploringly. “My fianceé disappeared, and the police have no idea what happened to her, and I’m scared to death. I know from Laura that you’re the best forensic artist in the world, and work with the best detectives. Please help me.”
Bender remained cool. “I’ll do what I can, Kenny. Who would want to kill Zoia?”
“She was living with her sister, but there were serious conflicts in the home.” He explained that Zoia’s brother-in-law, a state police sergeant, was having sex with Zoia—sleeping with his wife’s sister under the same roof. He was afraid the cop might have had something to do with Zoia’s disappearance.
“What’s the story with the cop?” Bender asked. “Has anybody investigated him? Has he taken a polygraph?”
Yes, the policeman took a polygraph, Kenny said, and he passed it.
“OK, I’ll make a deal with you. You take a polygraph and you pass it and I’ll help you.”
“Wait a minute!” Kenny sounded furious. He was practically shouting. “I’m your good friend!”
“Kenny, you’re not my good friend. You’re a friend of Laura’s, but I barely know you. You want me to help you—you have to pass a polygraph.”
Andronico was quiet on the other end of the line.
“I work with two of the best polygraph examiners in the world—Bill Fleisher and Nate Gordon, both in Philadelphia. Both are members of the Vidocq Society, a group of detectives I belong to that looks at cold cases pro bono.”
He gave him Fleisher’s telephone number. “Call Bill and set it up. You’ll have to pay for the polygraph yourself—four or five hundred dollars. I also want you to call my friend Richard Walter. He’s a profiler; he can tell you more about what might have happened to Zoia than anyone I know.” He gave him Walter’s phone number.
Andronico grunted OK.
“Kenny, can you pass a polygraph?”
“I think I can.”
Bender’s anger flared. “You think you can? Jesus Christ, Kenny, if you pass the polygraph I’ll be happy to help you. If you don’t, and Bill tells me you’re a flat-out liar, I’ll hunt you down until the day I die.”
On Thursday, November 28, 1991, Thanksgiving evening, Richard Walter, home for a spell after trips to Hong Kong and Sydney on murder investigations, was dressing to go to a friend’s house for turkey and all the fixings. He was standing at the gilt Victorian hall mirror knotting his red tie on a white collar when the phone rang.
He stared at the bleating instrument thinking if it didn’t stop soon, one of them would have to go. Walter’s hypersensitive hearing was a gift on murder investigations, when he heard suspects whispering far out of normal earshot, and detected suprahuman signs of fear, such as sub-aural breathing increases, during interrogations. But the auditory assaults were getting worse with age. He couldn’t tolerate the sound of someone chewing food on the telephone line. When he detected the wet smacking of gum or the dry crunching of crackers on the other end, he hung up immediately.
His condition was apparently caused by sensory overload, the trademark of a man who absorbed too much information simultaneously. The aging ear sometimes lost the ability to screen noises, his doctor said.
He had been looking forward to crowning a successful year with a bottle of Chardonnay with friends. What execrable human being was delaying his celebration and jackhammering his ear-drums? He picked up the telephone.
“Who?” he exclaimed.
It sounded like a sales call. Walter prepared to hang up. He did not recognize the slippery, unctuous voice. Then he realized it was a stranger asking for a favor, and his ire rose along with his suspicion.
“Dr. who?”
“Frank told me if you want to solve this, and exonerate yourself, call Richard Walter,” the voice insisted. “He said, ‘He’s