Missing: The Oregon City Girls. Rick Watson
you mind if I walked around a bit, maybe take some notes?”
Carefully, the man turns the big brass handle and pushes the door open. “Not interested. Get off this land and don’t come back,” he mutters before slipping back into the house and slamming the door loudly behind him.
Linda is positive she can feel several pairs of eyes scrutinizing her every move as she carefully makes her way off the porch. She gets back into her car and backs it up to turn around. She keeps one eye on the rearview mirror as her sedan slowly crawls along the gravel driveway. Within seconds she makes out a pair of figures. She smacks the dashboard with her right palm. “Damn!” Linda assumes they are jotting down her license number.
She has no time to contemplate this problem. She needs to get on with her investigation. When Philip helped her with the video surveillance they had found a perfect angle from the Baptist church just a few blocks away. Its rear section was dominated by acres of baseball fields. A dilapidated fence behind the backstop served as the official boundary separating church property from Fairchild’s woods. She smiles slyly before parking behind a backstop. Now she has a clear view of the ancient house. Linda pulls her binoculars from the glove compartment, scrunches down in the front seat and begins surveillance. It’s time to see what she has stirred up.
Within an hour full nightfall has arrived. Bright headlights appear from the church entrance, the focus of the beams illuminating the green car. A Chevrolet Impala pulls right behind her car. Its lone male occupant, Oliver Jamison, rarely ever ventures into the real world. Leaving the Chevy’s engine running and lights on high beam, he stumbles out, grabs his cane, hobbles over to Linda’s car and gasps. It is empty. His heart pounds and he strains to see any sign of his boss and friend. A curious rustling noise twenty feet into the thick woods captures his attention. He retrieves his flashlight and approaches the fence, shining it back and forth. He can make out a movement. He stares a bit then hears a shout.
“Who’s there? Who’s there?” Linda O’Neal emerges a moment later. She carries her folding port-a-potty, its gleaming white seat reflecting brightly from the Impala headlights. She strains for a view of the intruder and recognizes a bulky human form with a brush-like gray goatee. “Ollie, is that you?” A few more steps and his identity is confirmed. “It is you. For Pete’s sake, shut those headlights off. There’s no use letting the world know we’re here.”
Ollie obediently ambles back to the Impala and cuts the lights as Linda approaches the car, still clutching the port-a-potty. She opens the trunk and unceremoniously deposits it atop a pile of file sacks. She shakes her head and approaches Jamison, who is leaning on his cane and sweating profusely. “What are you up to? How did you find me, or more to the point, why?”
“I just got some hot info on Paul Fairchild, and I know how you are when you get your teeth into something. You haven’t confronted him yet, have you?”
She shakes her head. “Well I came out here to, but apparently he wasn’t home so I figured I’d rock their boat a little bit.”
“I hope you didn’t sink it.”
“What’s up, Ollie?”
“Paul Fairchild is a dead end. He absolutely could not have had anything to do with the Oregon City girls. I tried to get you on your cell, but…I was worried so I figured I’d better fire up my car and find you.”
Linda sighs, “Another dead end. There seems to be one after another. And I was beginning to feel I’ve undervalued psychic visions since this place is fourteen miles from the bus stop!”
“Huh?”
“Never mind.”
Oliver pulls some papers from his inside jacket pocket and shines his flashlight onto them. Linda pores over the text while Oliver reads on: “On January 9, Paul Fairchild was sitting in a jail cell in Escanaba, Michigan ten days into a thirty day misdemeanor sentence for drunk-driving. He was released January 22 and take a look here…” He shuffles to another page and points to a specific paragraph. “When he was released, he packed up his stuff and decided to come back to Oregon. Here’s a list of his debit card gas purchases. January 30, he was in Wisconsin. By February 23 he was lingering around the St. Paul area. See? Two weeks at a motel. But most importantly, on March 8, the day Miranda went missing, Fairchild was in Wyoming and most likely didn’t even arrive in Molalla until at least a few days later.”
Linda is exasperated. “Well, we’ve got to move on to the next suspect. And I mean right away, before another girl disappears.”
During the long drive home, Linda’s head pounds with frustration. She berates herself for having been duped into such a complete red herring episode, which has so deftly siphoned valuable time and energy away from her finding a real solution. She mumbles, “I’m really no closer to finding what happened to Ashley and Miranda than the hapless FBI task force.” But she resolves not to give up and keep investigating until she finds the person who has stolen the girls.
By the time Linda directs her car into the front driveway, she has calmed down and with spirits renewing, goes to her cluttered desk and begins to re-examine the piles of documents. Somewhere there is an answer. Somebody took those girls. But who? Where is the evidence? Philip brings her a sandwich and drink a few hours later while she sits, staring at her computer screen, scrolling through pages and pages of documents. The hour moves toward midnight. Philip quietly enters the room and squeezes her tired shoulders with a firm grip. “Hey Sweetie, don’t you think you ought to give it up for today? It’s bed time.”
“Okay.” Wearily she rises, but before following him, she grabs a file folder. It is stuffed with court records about Ashley’s biological father. Once in bed, while her husband is engrossed in watching that evening’s TV episode of Politically Incorrect, Linda props herself in front of several pillows and carefully studies photocopies detailing the step-by-step legal entanglements that had entwined the life of Ashley Pond’s biological father. She grimaces as she absorbs one sordid detail after another. She continues her perusal, anxious to discover exactly how so many atrocious allegations against the man could have evaporated. She is so repulsed by what she finds that she shouts a comment that startles Philip. “Hey, take it easy,” he whispers.
“What kind of ‘sexual history’ can an eleven-year-old have?” Linda exclaims.
Finally, her husband convinces her to turn out the light so they can go to sleep. A restless Linda tosses all night.
The next day Linda decides she needs a new direction since Roettger’s case seems steeped in what she believes is misplaced exoneration. Perhaps, she thinks, her intern Allison’s analytical abilities will provide fresh insights. After equipping her intern with the complete case documents, she instructs Ally to study them intensely. “In four hours we’ll meet for lunch, and I’m going to pick your brain. See if you can identify the faults in the case for me.”
At the lunch meeting, Linda says, “Allison, as you know, ninety percent of my work is for defense attorneys. Our mission is to dig up every available fact, then dissect them—turn them over seeking the inconsistencies. If we are good, we’ll get a handle on how to proceed. It’s a critical part of a detective’s job description, and it takes enormous patience because most of the time it turns out to be a dead end. So here’s what I have in mind. Right now you’re up to speed on everything anyone could know about the case. Show me what you’ve got, and I’ll try to knock it down. Let’s see how you do?”
Allison looks for enlightenment. “So District Attorney Linda O’Neal, I’m working through a cumbersome case that perhaps you may be able to give me some direction on.”
Linda polishes the spotted spoon with a napkin and replies. “Sure. How can I help you?”
“Let’s go over our leads one by one.”
For an hour they go back and forth. Finally, they discuss Ashley’s allegations against her biological father. He was allowed to plead out when it was brought up by the