where are you from?”
“Chicago.”
“Well I don’t know about Chicago, but in Oregon it’s not unusual to go camping in March.”
The second agent asks, “You went camping on March 8. Does that mean that you left for your camping trip on March 7 and spent that night so you were at the Hot Springs on the morning of March 8, or…”
The young man interrupts testily. “No, I spent the night of March 7 here. I went camping about noon on Friday and stayed camping through Saturday night and came home on Sunday.”
“Were you with anybody who can verify this?”
“No, I was alone. I go camping to be alone. How many different guys do I have to say this to?”
The interview comes to an end with nothing accomplished.
At this point, the Newell Creek complex is crawling with federal and county officers and their search dogs. They approach one apartment after another, but the procedures yield no information. Another young girl has vanished into thin air.
Meanwhile, Linda O’Neal is conducting her own investigation. Oliver Jamison is one of the people Linda O’Neal employs for technological work. They rarely interact face to face. Linda pays out hundreds a month in subscription fees to this disembodied voice for access to all of the top-notch criminal and civil databases available. She purchases the technical capacity to find out any fact that is recorded somewhere and can measure that fact against others retrieved similarly. Unfortunately, Linda’s personal computer skills are limited. Thank God for experts! Linda often pats herself on the back for the stroke of great luck that brought techno genius Ollie into her life by random chance. During their many years of working on cases together, she has always marveled at his uncanny knack to write the most astute queries. Not only does he know which database to search, but he can create a query that gets the information wanted and only the information wanted. Linda hates to admit it, but Oliver has evolved to a crucial level of importance in her professional life, because 80 percent of her investigations involve computer searches.
Ollie is a fifty-something, burly, retired army sergeant who is supporting a daughter born in Italy and saving what little money he has left over to afford a shabby inner city studio apartment. The dark walls are covered by bookshelves and file cabinets. Next to a scraggly futon are scattered piles of un-filed documents atop three folding card tables. Beside the tiny kitchen, Oliver has fashioned an elaborate workstation complete with gray cubicle dividers corralling his several computers and assorted accessories. The back wall of the cubicle is formed by an ancient big-screen television ingeniously rigged to display any of the various computer data. Linda’s only visit reminded her of the control room of a space ship.
While the FBI task force continues to scrutinize Newell Creek and the surrounding area, “Commander Ollie,” wearing a telephone headset with a lit cigarette dangling from his mouth, is ensconced in his pilot’s chair tapping madly on one of his four keyboards. A shrill siren noise pulsates. It’s his personally designed phone ringer. He presses a switch and becomes connected. “Oliver Jamison.”
Linda is on the other end of the line and seems impatient. “Ollie, my good man. First of all, congrats on that great info you dug up on Espinoza. I just heard their whole case collapsed. He pled out to much reduced charges. They think I’m wonderful, but we both know who’s really wonderful.”
Oliver smiles and smashes his cigarette into an overloaded ashtray. “Thanks, Linda. But I have a feeling you’re calling because there’s something else going on today.”
“Very perceptive! I really need some of your genius. Will you check the records and see if there are any registered sex offenders living in the Newell Creek Apartments or in that general vicinity? Also, I need you to run a full background check on Ashley’s birth father, Wesley Roettger. I don’t have his date of birth, but he recently pled guilty to some sex offense in Clackamas County.”
Jamison laughs. “Sex offense? I could have sworn you once told me you’d never ever troll that low for business. Are you sure? Sex stuff can be so slimy the pages will slip from your hands. And sex criminals? The lowest rung of the low-life ladder, to be sure.”
“Roettger is Ashley Pond’s biological father. I found out that he recently was convicted of some sort of molestation of Ashley.6 The family waited a long time to tell us even this much, but we need to find out if Roettger might have something to do with her disappearance.”
“No kidding! Are the cops looking at him as well?”
“Who knows? But listen, I also want you to check out another fellow, a nearby neighbor, Ward Weaver. I don’t know his date of birth either, but he lives on Beavercreek Road in Oregon City across the street from the school bus stop where both Ashley and Miranda were headed when they vanished. Philip’s daughter Maria told me Ashley had a beef with him last summer, but she’s vague about exactly what went down.”
“Okay Linda. Keep your fax on and as soon as I have something I’ll send it.”
An hour later, Linda is still sitting in her cluttered office pouring over a stack of case files, occasionally jotting notations in the margins. She can hear Philip from his side of the house deeply involved in a video editing scheme, the clicks and warped sound track chirping as he runs the tape forward and backward repeatedly. Then, silence, followed by Philip entering. “You have a visitor,” he announces. “A lady. She is very anxious to talk to you.”
Linda is intrigued and quickly examines her day planner. “I don’t have a single appointment today. Did she say what she wants?”
“Something to do with Ashley.”
“Really?”
Linda adjusts her hair and smoothes her skirt, then makes the short journey into the video studio’s reception area where she encounters a striking redhead in her early thirties. She offers Linda a hearty grin and a firm handshake. “I’m Pamela. Remember I called about Rob, my husband, who is a psychic?” she says. “And I’m sorry to barge in on you like this, but you haven’t returned any of my messages for several weeks now and you’d left me with the impression you believed me.”
Linda waves a finger for the woman to follow her out the video entrance, around to the front door of the house and on through to her office where, after clearing a stack of files from a chair, she motions for the visitor to sit.
“I’m sorry, but I’ve been occupied for several weeks. Family emergency. I’m a bit behind on that stuff.”
“Now that this second girl has disappeared, are you ready to do some investigating?”
Linda bristles. “Let me tell you something, young lady. I have been investigating. Ashley Pond is a member of my husband’s family. I’ve been looking for her since the day she went missing.”
Pamela’s mouth drops open. “I had no idea! How weird this is- me picking your name from the private investigators’ listings in the yellow pages. I’m telling you, there is something going on at this house in Molalla. Rob and I have been over there many times. It’s positively spooky.”
“Fair enough,” Linda says pensively. “I believe you may have something here with this Molalla connection. But we need to get a few ground rules straight. I am willing to look at this
