FVZA: Investigation


	Home \| About The FVZA \| Dr. Hugo Pecos, Director Famous Cases \| Historical Tales \| Vampires \| Zombies

Investigation

Reed Hadley as
McCullough, FVZA

FVZA investigators, or "gumshoes," served as the interface between the public and the Agency in the days before the FVZA went undercover. In most states, the Agency would have one large regional office, usually in a city, with several smaller satellite branches in surrounding towns. Regional offices in major population centers like New York or Los Angeles had as many as 50 investigators handling cases at any one time. The Emergency Relief Act of 1936 closed FVZA offices to the public; henceforth, FVZA Investigators communicated only with law enforcement officials.

While the popular Fifties TV show McCullough, FVZA, depicted the job of an FVZA investigator as one filled with terrifying encounters and comely femme fatales, the real job could be a lot more tedious. Junior investigators, fresh out of the Academy, would do the "grunt work" of fielding phone calls and taking reports from walk-ins. They also analyzed missing persons reports for patterns that might indicate vampire and zombie activity. While this work was hardly exciting, it was a crucial part of the job and made things easier for the senior investigators.

FVZA office, 1879, St. Louis.
Senior investigators were agents who had chosen to stay in investigation after their initial two-year enlistment was up. Over time, investigators would develop an uncanny instinct for separating credible reports from time wasters. Senior investigators spent much of their day out of the office, tracking leads. They interviewed bite victims at hospitals and walked neighborhoods, trying to think like a vampire or zombie. Nighttime stakeouts were often necessary to pinpoint exact hideout locations.

Ultimately, the job of the investigator was to develop leads on vampire and zombie hideouts and pass them on to the advance team. While their job was considerably safer than extermination, they had to stand by and watch someone else get the glory of actually destroying the undead. For this reason, many investigators poked their noses into places they didn't belong and wound up getting bitten, or worse.