alert for white female juvenile, five-feet-five inches, one-hundred-three pounds, brown eyes, long brown hair, date of birth 3/1/89, last seen wearing blue jeans and white sneakers.2
Garcia enters a costume jewelry store and soon begins fingering some garish earrings attached to a central display case. The bespectacled female clerk bids adieu to a departing customer and turns her attention to Garcia. “Sell many of these?” the lady cop asks, holding up a particularly outrageous pair.
The clerk laughs. “Not to anyone over the age of twelve. What can I do for you, officer?”
Garcia hands the clerk a copy of the flyer. “Have you seen this girl? We received a credible tip that she is hanging out in the mall somewhere.”
The clerk stares for a moment at the portrait of a smiling Ashley that dominates the flyer before shaking her head.
Resuming her surveillance of the main walkway, Garcia next stops a young man sporting a Mohawk and a black goatee. She hands him a flyer. “There’s a missing girl and we think she was around the mall today. Please take a look at this picture. Have you seen her?”
“Nope,” he says disinterestedly as he turns and walks away, scuffing the tiled floor with the hobnailed heels of his work boots.
Later, while at a table in the food court, Garcia is munching French fries next to her stack of flyers. She notices a skinny teenager walking near the second floor railing. Her heart pounds as she examines the photo of Ashley on the flyer. She takes a longer look at the girl near the railing who suddenly notices the attention and darts into a passing crowd of teenagers exiting from a nearby movie theatre. Garcia rushes into the group and scans, her head turning quickly from side to side. But it is too late. Whoever the girl was, she is gone. The detective resumes her random interviews, hoping one will ultimately lead to a meaningful clue about the disappearance of Ashley Pond.
Garcia next contacts Ward Weaver at his job site, only a short drive from the mall. Her goal is to unravel more information about the supposed sighting of Ashley by Paul Myers. Ward Weaver cheerfully admits that Paul Myers is indeed his close buddy and further explains that Myers had told him that he had seen Ashley at the mall after her disappearance. Garcia gets Myers’s phone number from Weaver.
Watching him, Garcia finds Weaver’s attitude strangely unaffected by the disappearance of his daughter’s friend. She reports, “While I was there talking with Ward Weaver, he seemed very distracted and his behavior was inappropriate, considering the topic of discussion. I was discussing the fact that Ashley Pond was still missing and rather than seeming concerned or upset, Weaver instead was laughing and being flirtatious as he talked with me. This seemed very incongruous with the fact that Mr. Weaver said he cared for Ashley like his own daughter.”
Once Garcia has Myers on the phone, she describes the efforts surrounding the tip that had supposedly originated from him.
“There must be some misunderstanding, ma’am,” he says. “I told them I had seen the girl at the mall all right, but when I seen her it was before she went missing, not after. Somebody got it all wrong. I talked to my friend Ward just this morning and evidently our conversation was incorrectly communicated to his daughter Mallori, who then must have told the Gardiner Middle School folks. Like a damned rumor getting spread, things get turned around. I hope this puts you straight on the matter.”
Linda O’Neal is in her kitchen cooking pasta. The television news on in the background is focusing on Ashley’s disappearance. While several graphics rotate, the news anchor’s voice reports, “Oregon City Police were called to the apartment Ashley Pond shares with her mother and two sisters six times last year. In two of the cases, anonymous callers asked police to check on the welfare of a child who had been locked out of the apartment. In two other instances, the state’s child protective services asked police to check on the welfare of the children.” Linda begins to mull over Ashley’s possible state of mind at the time the girl disappeared, asking herself where the teenager might be.
Watching the newscast, Linda realizes her step-granddaughter’s disappearance is not going to be easily solved. Linda begins to formulate a “To-Do” list and she decides to call her stepdaughter to organize a meeting of interested parties. The goal is to stimulate a proactive approach in the search. She dials Maria’s number. It rings four times before a young voice answers. “Hello?”
“Hi, is your mom home? This is Linda O’Neal.”
“No, she and Tony are at Bingo.”
“Is this Suzie?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Suzie, maybe you can help me. As you probably heard, I’m trying to help find your cousin, Ashley. Your mom told me she spent last weekend with you guys.”1
“Yeah, she did.”
“Well, did she seem upset or tell you something was wrong?”
“About what?”
“Anything that explains why she might run away from home.”
“Well, Ashley talked about certain things that bothered her. I just don’t have a good memory, I mean, I don’t remember exactly, but I know she did tell me things about her mom and the babysitting. She had to watch the kids all the time. She had to take care of her younger sisters. When you’re only twelve, it’s hard. I used to have to do that with my sister and brother when both Mom and Dad had jobs. I’d watch them for hours and hours, so I kind of know how it feels. But Ashley was doing it and trying to take care of her mom at the same time.”
Linda responds thoughtfully, “That’s difficult, but in divorced situations, even so-called normal kids sometimes have to assume too many responsibilities.”
Linda, surprised by Suzie’s words, suddenly finds herself immersed in memories of her own mother’s emotional problems resulting in mood swings that kept her family walking on eggshells. The more she heard about Ashley’s life, the greater a sense of kinship she felt. She had been that girl wanting to leave, wanting something better. In that moment it becomes clear to her that she will do everything in her power to find the girl.
Linda’s attention is jerked back as Suzie continues, “Like, Ashley’d say her mom gets out of control some times, and she’d always be watching the kids. Like, taking care of them while her mom was passed out in the bedroom or something. I think Ashley came over to our house so much mainly to get away from everything and stuff. She always wanted to spend time with me and I feel bad now, because I never really did much. I mean, like, everybody knows she can really be obnoxious. That’s just Ashley. You know? She told me stuff about when her mom was drinking and stuff.”
Linda looks down for a moment, thinking, and then says, “Lori’s going to have her fourth baby in a few months. So maybe Ashley meant that she was taking special care of her mom to help with the pregnancy.”
“Linda, Lori needs help and everybody knows it. That’s more than kids should have to deal with.”
“Well, I’m sure that is very hard for Ashley. What do you remember most about her?”
“She’s lots of fun, but she has an attitude. Everybody
