Missing: The Oregon City Girls. Rick Watson
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 Molalla connection in my own investigation, but I can’t take money from you. Now, if down the line it turns out that there really is something to this connection and people ask me how I got on to it, do you want me to tell them that I first was alerted to Molalla by you and your husband? I could do that, but I can’t work for psychics, because that’s selling my credibility. And when it’s all said and done, my credibility is all I have.”
Pamela ponders then nods. “Sure, that’s fine. Our main concern is that the girls get found, before, God forbid, another one disappears. Rob is convinced that there will be more. Like I told you before, Rob has strong visions of Ashley at this location asking for help, and after Miranda was gone, he had an equally strong pull from her.7 Maybe it has more to do with the school bus stop that they both used or the fact that they were friends, but there is something going on in that creepy house in Molalla.”
Linda agrees to visit the location in question herself. “Give me your phone number and I promise I’ll call to tell you anything that I find. I promise.”
Meanwhile, the FBI task force and K-9 units continue the methodic searching of every square foot of land in and around the Newell Creek Apartments. In the rear of Ward Weaver’s place a large, disassembled hot-tub leans precariously against the house. A lanky teenaged boy clutches a garden hose8 that sprays a stream of water onto a two-foot wide slab of freshly poured concrete.9 He is so engrossed that he doesn’t even notice the various dogs and cops wandering around.
The next few days pass slowly with no information surfacing for investigators, public or private.
Linda presses her own search. Linda and Philip are parked a hundred yards from a rural Molalla residence with an overgrown yard and so many derelict vehicles it seems abandoned except for one light reflecting dimly from the kitchen window. They’ve been in surveillance for an hour, hoping to discover some human movement among the stillness. As dusk approaches, they see a rusty Ford van with Virginia license plates chugging its way into the driveway.
Philip scrambles to attach a telephoto extension to the front of his camcorder.
The van slowly pulls up and parks. Within seconds the sole occupant emerges. At the same moment Philip captures the driver’s image in his viewfinder. “I’ve got him; I’ve got him,” he whispers jubilantly to Linda sitting beside him peering through binoculars. The man being videotaped is tall, thin and angular. A patchy gray beard and bald head stand out before he turns to head for the house.
“Get me a good close-up of his license plate.”
“You got it.” For several quiet minutes Philip continues to zoom his camera onto assorted objects. Next he exits the car and begins walking toward a distant fence.
Linda rolls down the window. “Where do you think you’re going? Get back here before someone sees you.”
He laughs. “It’s almost dark, nobody’s going to see me. Look at all those woods. I’m just going to slip over that fence and wander around, see what I can tape. I’ll tell you one thing for sure, your psychic lady got it right. This house is very, very creepy.”
At 9:15 PM the pair of