any idea where she could have gone, Suzie, any idea at all?”
Suzie sighs, “No, not really. My mom called every one of her friends and they haven’t seen her either.”
“I know. She’s doing a great job, your mom. How are you holding up through all of this?”
“I just wish I would’ve spent more time with Ashley. That’s what bugs me the most.”
“It’s a very natural reaction when someone special drops out of our lives. We all feel that way, Suzie, and we’re going to find her. I promise. Thanks for sharing with me, Sweetheart. Could you have your mom give me a call when she gets back, okay?”
“Okay, Linda. I will. Bye.”
Two days later Linda has organized a get-together with Philip, his daughter Maria, her husband Tony, and their daughter Suzie. Linda’s new intern, twenty-one-year-old Allison, is with her.
She is not making good time, caught in late afternoon freeway congestion. Linda is at the wheel of her green sedan, switching frantically from lane to lane and fearing she may be late for her own meeting. Intern Allison sits quietly in the passenger seat listening to the radio speakers blasting a Doobie Brothers tune that entices Linda to join in. Her cell phone intrudes on the moment. After muting the Doobies, she picks up.
“Linda O’Neal Investigations…speaking.”
“This is Bob Raymond. I represent Jack Jordan in a post conviction relief and I’m wondering, do you still have the case files?”
Linda slowly merges into the right lane. “It was 1995, wasn’t it?”
“Wow! I’m surprised you remember that. Do you still have your investigative notes on that case?”
“Yeah, hold on.” Linda swerves her car into the emergency lane and brakes. Getting out while ignoring the whizzing traffic, she and Allison open the trunk and rearrange several paper grocery sacks, each stuffed with thick manila file folders. “There it is.” Linda spies one sack labeled “1995” and roots through the contents. Allison stares in bewilderment watching the private detective extract the documents before returning her attention to the cell phone caller. “Yeah, I’ve got my hands on them this moment. Do you need this stuff right now? Or can it wait until the end of the day? I’m on my way to an important appointment.”
“No, the end of the day is fine. You’ve got my fax number.”
Linda hangs up her cell phone and offers a comment to her intern. “There you go Ally, the most significant issue in the investigation process: good records, easily accessible.”
Soon they are back on the road and arrive at her stepdaughter’s house. Maria lives with her husband Tony in a sprawling one-story ranch nestled in a Portland suburb. Their daughter Suzie stands in the front yard waiting for Linda. After hiking a block from the closest parking spot, Linda approaches carrying a large briefcase with Allison a few steps behind. The teenage girl grabs the handle. “Let me help you with that, Linda.”
“Why thank you, Suzie. Is your mom in the house?”
“I think so. And if you’re looking for my grandpa, he’s in the house too.” She giggles.
Linda follows the girl through the front door. Philip stands near the grey stone fireplace holding court with Tony and Maria. “Yeah, your mother and I used to run the gut in Salem in my old Plymouth. Everybody saw us coming. Remember that old car, Maria? You were just a baby when I finally got rid of it. It just wore out, I guess. But I sure loved it. It had a pull down shade over the back window, a big floor shift and a windshield that cranked out with a tiny knob.” He chuckles.
Linda approaches and hugs Maria before touching her intern’s arm. “I want you all to meet my newest sleuth-in-training. She just started interning with me this week. This is Allison. She just graduated from the College of Legal Arts. She was my best student last term. And she’s real interested in helping us find Ashley, whatever it might take.”
Tony says, “We’re all ready to follow your lead, Linda. But Lori and her mother and the rest of that side of the family aren’t too high on us doing our own investigation. The cops told them to let them handle it. They don’t want anybody else sticking their nose in it and all, I guess.”
Linda takes her briefcase from Suzie. “I can understand that. But let’s have our meeting and then we can figure out what, if anything, we can do to help the situation, not hurt it.”
Allison asks, “How do her mother and grandmother fit in the picture?”
Linda expounds. “Philip was married to Lori’s mother and they had two kids, Maria and Jon. They got divorced and Lori’s mother got married again and had two more kids. One of them, Lori, had a child—well several children—one of whom is Ashley Pond, the girl who’s missing. I don’t really know a lot of these people well, but my husband is involved in all their lives.”
Within minutes, most are assembled around the fireplace. Linda stands in front of smoldering coals and her voice is strong and firm. “I’m here to create an effective investigative structure. With everyone’s cooperation, we can inject more energy into the challenges ahead. Maria feels the police don’t seem to be looking for Ashley. I have agreed to donate some of my time to the case, but remember, I’m a private investigator; all of my work will be done in addition to what the cops may or may not be doing. So, Lori and her mother have nothing to fear from that standpoint. My trails may cross the paths the police are following. They may not. But I can promise all of you, we will sooner or later find Ashley.”
From her briefcase, Linda retrieves her unofficial copy of the police report. “The police are treating the disappearance as a ‘suspicious circumstances incident, no crime scene, no witnesses, probable runaway.’ Now this was partly due to the fact that the Pond family had domestic disturbances causing police visits over the past year.”2
Maria scowls. “That’s not fair,” she says. “Most of those police visits didn’t even involve Lori or the kids.”
“Fair or not, you’ve got to understand how the police view situations. And the fact is, in their experience, regardless of who was actually making the disturbances, they had been dispatched several times to quell situations.” For emphasis Linda holds up a folder and thumps the side with her hand. “It’s all here, every call and when you read through it, if you’re a cop, you’re going to get the idea that Ashley was much more likely to be a runaway than a kidnap victim.”
Maria shakes her head. “Well, I still think it isn’t fair.”
“It may not be, but I found out that the detective charged with handling this case just entered Lori’s 9-1-1 call into evidence. And they wouldn’t have done that unless there were some inconsistencies.”
Maria shakes her head. “I want you to talk to Ward Weaver.”
Linda is puzzled. “You’ve never mentioned him before. Who’s Ward Weaver?”
“Ward Weaver is the father of one of Ashley’s friends. And Ashley told me that he tried to have sex with her. I talked to one of Ashley’s school friends and she was really freaked out about it.”
“Who?”
“Miranda
