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.
