Back in Union County, there was a sense of urgency that none of the investigators now nominally on the List case had ever felt before. America’s Most Wanted didn’t fool around. They insisted on working with the facts. County and municipal detectives, elated at the opportunity for what they all agreed was a long shot, and a last chance at that, scrambled to get their shopworn files in order.
Marranca assigned two detectives just to track down the people who would be witnesses if List were ever captured, Rehwinkle among them, but also school officials, bank tellers, and retired cops like Moran. Everybody was still alive and available, it seemed.
Then the Union County detectives began coordinating with the Westfield department, where the List case was now under the supervision of Bernard Tracy, a detective in his middle thirties who had been one of the teenagers in 1972 who would cruise by the old List house and scurry up the drive on a dare.
“We had to make sure we all had the same paperwork,” Marranca said. Once an investigation is as dormant as this one was, agencies jointly working on the case sometimes forget to exchange paperwork. Once the county and municipal files were reconciled, Tracy was designated as liaison to the television program. In Washington, where the show is produced, he spent hours going over the evidence with writers.
But the List segment lacked the one ingredient that the program’s producers knew was most directly responsible for the arrest of so many of the felons it featured: a current photograph. The most recent known photographs of List were nineteen years old. Maybe one of those could be retouched, enhanced to show the years, assuming the guy hadn’t had plastic surgery.
Linder thought of something that would be more visually dramatic. He knew a commercial photographer and sculptor in Philadelphia, Frank Bender, who was developing a reputation among law enforcement agencies for his ability to reconstruct, in clay, the faces of decomposed bodies that couldn’t otherwise be identified. To do this successfully, with no photographic evidence, required intuition as well as artistic skill. Bender had become successful at it. He was commissioned, for $1,500, to do a bust of List for the show.
Bender threw himself into the project enthusiastically. For help, he went to a well-known criminal psychologist, Richard Walter, who works for the state corrections agency in Michigan. Together, the two men debated John List for days—even theorizing about what color socks he might wear. They finally came up with what both agreed was a pretty good guess of how he might look. Essentially, John List wouldn’t have changed much. Always a “meat and potatoes kind of guy,” Bender said, he would probably now be a paunchier, older version of the John List who smirked from the FBI flier, with a more pronounced receding hairline. The jowls would sag a bit; that jagged mastoidectomy scar would probably still be behind his right ear because he wasn’t likely to have chanced a hospital visit for plastic surgery. As styles changed over the years, he probably wore a different kind of eyeglasses. But they would still be conservative. Nothing with wire frames.
Armed with this armchair psychological profile, Bender enlarged a photograph of List and set to work on the bust. When he was done, he drove to Washington and delivered the ten-pound clay bust, painted lifelike to highlight the facial features, to Linder. If John List was still alive, Bender believed, this was how he looked. Linder and other officials of the program concurred. The segment was ready. Advance publicity went out for newspaper television listings.
The program was broadcast on Sunday night, May 21, 1989, the week before Memorial Day weekend.
The List segment was the first of three. After taking care of some unfinished business—a rapist and jewel thief had been captured thanks to a recent viewer tip—John Walsh, the host of the program, introduced the story:
“Now tonight’s first case, the oldest we’ve ever pursued on America’s Most Wanted. The suspect, John List, is accused of murdering his family seventeen years ago … Tonight, let’s try to close the books on the most infamous murder case in the history of New Jersey.”
A history buff like Bob Clark would have known that was not exactly the case. The 1932 Lindbergh baby kidnapping and murder in New Jersey mesmerized the nation for years and certainly retained claim to the distinction of most infamous murder in the state’s history. Still, the basic outline of the John List case, simplified for its ten-minute run on national television, made for compelling viewing for those who liked this sort of thing.
An estimated twenty-two million viewers were watching with various degrees of attentiveness as the segment began with the dramatization of the Lists walking up the church steps on a sunny Sunday morning as the church bell tolled and organ music resonated above the chirping of birds.
Among the millions of viewers that night were a handful of people who watched in rapt attention. In silent communion, unaware of each others’ presence, they gathered in the lurid glow of television. In Elizabeth, Ed Illiano, aware that the doubts and the guilt would never go away. In Westfield, Jim Moran, who had retired as police chief three years earlier; hopeful and defiant, angry anew at the prim visage of the man who had got away with murder and seemed to mock him through the years. In Oklahoma, Jean Syfert, hurt and still confused, still utterly unable to comprehend the swift and terrible judgment John had pronounced on her family. In Virginia, Bob Clark, alone for the night as his wife went to Bible class; baleful, but serene and unrepentant.
In Denver, Wanda Flanery, alert for one more clue that would seal her verdict.
But that final clue never came. As the camera circled the bust that Frank Bender had created, the bust of John List, Wanda decided it didn’t look a bit like the Bob Clark she knew. And she decided that it didn’t matter about the TV show sculpture. For she had known beyond any reasonable doubt over a year earlier, when she opened that newspaper. It was up to her now. Kindness was no longer the question. Kindness was easy. Kindness made you feel better. It was more difficult to take an uncertain course that would bring misery to others and no joy to yourself. Wanda knew she had to act.
Her daughter, Eva, and son-in-law, Randy, were in the living room watching the program with her. When it was over, Wanda scribbled down the phone number given on air for tips on fugitives. She got up and turned off the set and went into the next room. In a minute, she was back with a letter she had recently received from Delores in which her friend had wondered whether “we did the right thing in coming here.” In the letter, Delores had said that Bob had mentioned that he thought Wanda had “such nice” handwriting. She had felt a chill realizing that Bob had scrutinized her handwriting. What was he looking for?
The three of them discussed the matter after the show.
“You know it’s him. You know it is!” Wanda insisted.
“Why get involved?”
“Because, God forbid, what if something happens to Delores? Could you live with that? Shouldn’t he pay for his crimes?”
“Why get involved?”
Finally, Wanda handed the letter to Randy. The cream-colored envelope had the Clarks’ return address in the upper-left corner.
“Would you call?” she asked.
Randy made the call, standing in the alcove with the telephone cradled on his shoulder. But it didn’t work out right. “Well, is there a reward for this man?” she heard him say insistently. And then, “Well, fine. If you don’t want to know where he is, okay.” The phone banged down.
Wanda implored him, “Please call back, and just give them the address on that envelope,” she said. A reward would be nice. But a reward wasn’t really the point.
The young man made the call again. Wanda relaxed a little as she heard him read off the address and carefully spell the name of the town in Virginia.
Chapter Fifteen
On the night of May 21, the call from Denver was reasonable enough to make the initial cut. The “live” part of the program—the introduction and setups and the like—had been taped in the afternoon. When the program was broadcast across the country that night, police detectives and FBI a
gents connected with various’ fugitive cases were on the set, as usual, taking calls along with the twenty-five operators employed by the program.
The average number of calls came in. A smaller-than-average number, 250 or so, concerned the List case. But one of them, the one from Wanda’s house, actually came with an address.
A Westfield detective named Bernard Tracy was among those taking the calls in the studio that night. But the call from Denver had gone to someone else. The operator made careful note of the information before picking up on another line.
The next day, it was then sent by mail, along with more than twenty other tips, to the FBI, where the leads were sorted geographically, with each then dispatched to the appropriate field office.
The tip from Denver was the only one from that week’s batch that went to the Richmond office, which had a staff of five FBI agents, two of whom were regularly assigned to fugitive details. Like much police work, the fugitive detail is a matter of dull routine punctuated by the infrequent flash of danger and excitement. The agent doing the fugitive checks first makes a few phone calls in a refining process that further separates the totally baseless from the merely unlikely. No one says “Bingo” just because a couple of numbers come up right or because the initial checks show that such a person exists, happens to exist at such an address, and happens to fit such a description. An agent doesn’t go banging on someone’s door with that kind of information. But he does start to pay attention. Boredom gives way to the first tantalizing hint of the chase. Like a lion, he’ll probably lose interest after the first couple of short sprints don’t pay off, but he won’t give up if the scent lingers. In this case, the scent was faint, but it was there.
There was no special priority on this tip from a television show, a lead that consisted only of the fact that the man had a name and address and the reputation for being overtly religious. That would narrow the possibilities down to a couple of million American adult males, Billy Graham and the Archbishop of New York among them. But was there something here worth some attention? A lion might tilt its head and sniff the air and gaze motionlessly, seemingly disinterested and bored, at the tall grass beyond, at the faint outlines in the still blades of grass.
A few more phone calls. Motor vehicles had the age. It seemed to be in the ball park. A couple of discreet inquiries, nothing to get anyone aroused. No children. An accountant. Well dressed.
August, a law-enforcement professional, a black man who had risen to the FBI from a small-town police department in Louisiana, studied the old John List wanted flier.
After “Occupation” it said: “Accountant, bank vice president, comptroller, insurance salesman.”
After “Remarks” it said: “Reportedly a neat dresser.”
After “Caution,” it said: “List, who is charged in New Jersey with multiple murders involving members of his family, may be armed and should be considered dangerous.”
The tip had graduated from the category of totally baseless to merely unlikely. It was worth a trip.
Thursday was the day that rounds were made outside the office on what are called “generic” tips on at-large felons. There were five to be checked out that particular Friday. As usual, two agents worked together.
The stops that day were scattered all over the metropolitan area. It would mean hours of driving. For efficiency, August always put the farthest-out stop first on the agenda, followed in turn by the next-farthest and so on. This way, when you were finished, you were at the point closest to the office downtown.
The Clark address was easily the most distant; all the way down in Brandermill, a good twenty-five-mile drive into the far suburbs.
It was only the first of June, but the day was promising to be a hot one. Shortly after nine o’clock, August and his partner got into the car to begin their rounds.
It was a little before ten when they parked the car at the end of the cul de sac on Sagewood Trace and walked up the gravel path to the wood porch of the neat little ranch house. August knocked lightly on the door. Inside, a vacuum cleaner was turned off. A woman opened the door a crack and seemed alarmed to see a black man standing there.
“Robert P. Clark?” August asked, displaying his billfold with his badge and his ID.
“He’s at work,” the woman replied.
“We’re with the FBI, ma’am. Can we come in and speak with you for a few minutes?”
Delores hesitated for a minute, but then opened the door. It was apparent that her morning housework had been interrupted.
August apologized for the intrusion. He asked her if she was familiar with a television program called America’s Most Wanted.
“We’re here because of that program,” he said.
When she looked at him blankly, he showed her the FBI flier with John List’s picture. He could think of only one way to ask the question. “Could this possibly be your husband?” he said.
Delores looked terrified. The color had drained from her face. She took the flier and tried to read it, but she couldn’t. She knew the story. She looked mournfully at the photos on the flier, which had begun to tremble in her long, thin fingers.
Delores did not notice the men inspecting the living room, where a sampler on one wall had the words “Delores ’n Bob” against a blue background. She didn’t notice how August’s partner eased over to be in a position to survey the hallway leading to the bedrooms. He nodded to August, who then suggested that they all sit down. The agents took positions so that each of them had a different view of the room.
“That looks like it could be my husband,” Delores said in a quavering voice in response to the intense interest on the two agents’ faces. Yet she was Bob Clark’s wife, not this man’s, and now her loyalty and her common sense flashed instinctively through the fear that gripped her: “But that can’t be my husband,” she said quite reasonably. “He’s the nicest man in the world.”
She started crying.
The agents remained alert, but it was increasingly apparent that this was not a spouse deliberately protecting a violent criminal. They behaved with a solicitude that both men genuinely felt as it became clear that they might be about to introduce her to a tragedy that would forever change her life.
“Well, calm down,” August said with as much reassurance as he felt he could honestly offer. “Calm down, calm down. It may be just a coincidence. We do this kind of thing all the time, and they’re usually mistakes. It may not be your husband. You understand that we just have to clarify it.”
He asked her if she had any photographs of her husband. Delores brought their wedding photo over from the mantel.
August studied it with wonder. There didn’t seem to be any doubt now. “Mrs. Clark,” he said, “there seems to be an uncanny resemblance here. We need to resolve this problem.”
He handed the wedding picture back, but remained hunched forward on the couch. Now he was all business.
“Does your husband have a mastoidectomy scar behind his right ear.”
“Yes, he has that scar.”
Is he from Michigan?
Yes.
An accountant?
Yes, Bob is an accountant.
And so on. The tone of the conversation had shifted, and all of its participants knew it. The steps were being taken by the book now.
The agents obtained from Delores the address of Bob’s office at 1506 Willow Lane Drive in Richmond. August asked for permission to use her phone. In a calm and emotionless tone, August spoke to another agent at the office. They had a suspect, a fugitive avoiding prosecution for murder, an older guy. There was enough to take him.
As a precaution against her alerting her husband, but under the pretext, honestly enough felt, of providing emotional support, the partner stayed behind with Delores as August got into the car and made the drive to the accounting office. Already, two other agents from the office had sped to the location, where they waited quietly in the parking lot.
August pulled into the lot less than thirty min
utes later. He found his colleagues just outside the lobby of the three-story office building. They went in. One of the agents had already checked the directory beside the potted tree in the tiny lobby. The accounting firm was listed along with a law office, a painting company office, a psychotherapist, and a personnel office. Two of the agents took the elevator up to the second floor. The other took the stairs.
Sandra Silbermann was on the phone, but she looked up curiously when they came in. At Maddrea Joyner, walkins usually didn’t arrive in threes.
Peering beyond the reception desk, the men saw one man sitting at a desk, but he was too young to fit the suspect’s description. No one was at the other desks. The agents waited patiently for Sandra to get off the phone.
“We’re with the FBI,” August said, showing his identification. “May we see the office manager?”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Joyner isn’t in,” Sandra replied, wondering what in the world this was about.
This was not how they had hoped it would go. In this sort of a setting, it is always best to have the suspect isolated, summoned to an office where the arresting officer had control of the immediate space around him.
“Does a Robert Clark work here?” August asked.
“Yes,” Sandra said. The words “white-collar crime” leapt to her mind. Embezzlement? But Bob didn’t have access to anything to steal! All he did was sort out income taxes and fix snarled bank statements and enter items in the records.
“May we see Mr. Clark?” August said.
Sandra leaned back in her chair and turned to look for Bob. He wasn’t at his desk, but she knew he hadn’t gone out to his car yet for lunch.
She figured he was in the bathroom. “I guess he’s just stepped away from his desk,” she said.
The agents looked worried.
“He hasn’t gone out,” she told them. “Why in the world do you want Bob?”
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