The Dreams of Ada (28 page)

BRECHEEM:
Well, it looks most like them. It looks like a photograph taken of them.

KERNER:
You’re talking about the composite drawings?

BRECHEEM:
Yes.

KERNER:
Looks close enough…

BRECHEEM:
Of Rogers and Sparcino, that it could have been someone taking a picture of them.

The conversation went on a bit longer. At the conclusion, Shirley Brecheem said, “I would of bet a hundred dollars that it was the two. I was that convinced, and I still am. It looks just like them.”

Brecheem had said she had never been interviewed by the police about her identifications. Kerner had it all on tape now. He got copies from Ms. Brecheem of all the background information the loan company had on Rogers and Sparcino. He hurried to his next stop, the Ada Finance Company on North Constant. He interviewed the manager there, Janice Manuel. She told, with a tape recorder running in front of her, a story similar to Shirley Brecheem’s. She didn’t know Robert Sparcino, she said, but she felt at the time that one of the drawings looked just like Randy Rogers; she had called the police to tell them that; the police had never contacted her further.

Kerner moved on, to the Ada TV Rental on Main Street. Again getting permission to use the recorder, he interviewed the manager, Kendall Holland. Kerner showed Holland the composite drawings. The manager said one of them was a very good likeness of Randy Rogers. He said Rogers had worked for him some time prior to the disappearance of Denice Haraway; he said he had fired Rogers after about three days for poor work performance. He said he had never personally called the police about the resemblance, but that he’d had discussions about it with Jan Manuel at Ada Finance, and that when she called the police she’d most likely mentioned his identification as well. Like the other three, the description Holland gave of Randy Rogers fit the one under the composite drawing on the police flyer. He added that Rogers had “a wild crowd of friends.”

The investigator returned to his car. His report on this first phase of the investigation was not due till the end of the month, but this was information he felt couldn’t wait. As he drove out Arlington toward Don Wyatt’s office, he could hardly believe what he had. The first four people he had talked to, all in one day, had all named the same person as the man in the composite drawing. They were all upstanding, responsible citizens, with no reason to be biased in the case. And they all said it wasn’t Tommy Ward, it was Randy Rogers. The investigator was shocked, dumbfounded, that the Ada police or the OSBI had not talked to any of these people.

Kerner met with Don Wyatt behind the closed door of the lawyer’s office; he told him what he had. Wyatt, often unperturbable, grew excited as Kerner continued with his narration. He did not play the three tapes for Wyatt, but told what was on them.

What about Mary Lavielle at the trailer park, Wyatt wanted to know. You didn’t tape her? Kerner said he had not. Well, get on back there, Don Wyatt said; get her on tape as well.

Kerner returned to the trailer park. Mary Lavielle voluntarily repeated on tape what she had told him earlier. Now he had all four.

As he drove home to Yukon that evening, the investigator was exhilarated. His first real day in the field, and he believed he might have cracked the case.

For the next week the investigator spent much of his available time on the case. On May 24 and 25 he had long telephone conversations, from his office, with Mildred Gandy at her new residence in Choctaw. He summarized the conversations on paper for his written report to Don Wyatt:

After lengthy discussion, Gandy said it was about five weeks before the disappearance that she saw Donna Haraway standing in the doorway of a trailer on lot #95 at Brook Trailer Park. She seemed reasonably sure it was Haraway, and recalled the incident when Haraway’s picture was observed on television and in the paper. On the day Gandy [had] seen Haraway, an older model Chevrolet pickup truck, dull gray in color, with large tires on the rear end, was departing this trailer at lot #95. She recalled that a sandy-blond-headed man lived in this trailer and drove the truck. The hair length was to the earlobe. Gandy said a lot of parties went on at this trailer with a younger crowd. She observed the truck pulling a small trailer with saw horses in it and was told by the park office that the occupants of this trailer were in the construction business. She did not know if the blond-haired person lived at the trailer or not. She believed the people in the trailer on lot #95 moved shortly after Haraway disappeared. Gandy recalled that during this period in March and April 1984 a Cherokee Paving Company owned some land near the trailer park and was dumping a lot of loose dirt on this land from the construction site of McDonald’s in Ada. Gandy wondered about the missing girl being buried under this dirt, making a connection with her at the trailer…Gandy seemed sure the girl at the doorway of the trailer was indeed Haraway, but was shaky on the dates. At first she agreed it was after the disappearance, on either May 2 or 3, 1984, but later said she figured out the date to be in March 1984. This investigator has a feeling that Gandy believes that if she says she saw Haraway before the disappearance she will not get involved in a court appearance. It seems somewhat unlikely that Gandy would see Haraway weeks prior to the disappearance and then make a connection from a news photograph.

Kerner called Mary Lavielle and got the names of the people who had rented the trailer on lot #95 from August 1983 to August 1984; they indeed had been in the construction business; the names were unfamiliar to the case. His first attempts to track them down were unsuccessful.

On May 29 Kerner once again went to Ada. With his tape recorder ready to go in his pocket, he pulled off the highway in front of J.P.’s Pak-to-Go. He was hoping to interview Karen Wise about her positive identification of Tommy Ward as being in her store the night of the disappearance. But inside the store was another clerk. Karen Wise was not on duty; she had recently moved, and had no telephone. Kerner reached Wise’s mother at Kerr Lab, where she worked; the mother agreed to help Kerner get in touch with Karen; she said she expected a call from Karen later in the day. Kerner called the mother back three times; he was told that Karen had not yet phoned.

Stymied there, Kerner went to interview Vicki Jenkins. She was the woman who had come to Tricia’s house to tell her that Karen Wise had not been sure about her identification of Tommy. Vicki denied this to the investigator; she said Karen Wise had never said anything to her about being unsure of the identifications she had given to the police.

Kerner tried to reach Karen again, but couldn’t; he left a message at J.P.’s for her to call him collect; he tried to reach Jack Paschall, the other witness at J.P.’s that night, but couldn’t. He went to another place where Randy Rogers had worked for a time, got the names of people that Rogers used to run with. One of the names mentioned was Marty Ashley. A friend of both told Kerner the composite drawing favored Randy Rogers and did not look like Tommy Ward at all.

Continuing on his rounds that day, the investigator went to interview Jay Dicus; he learned that Dicus had moved to Denver, Colorado, just a few weeks earlier. The person he spoke with connected Dicus and Marty Ashley with Randy Rogers and Bob Sparcino, through a mutual friendship with a woman named Jackie Mantzke. The interview was being conducted at Dicus Cycle, a bike shop. In the midst of it, Jay Dicus’s father returned to the shop; he gave Kerner his son’s telephone number in Denver; he said Jay had left town merely because he was tired of Ada.

As the investigator left the shop, phone number in hand, a third generation of Dicuses approached him: Frank Dicus, Jay’s grandfather. Frank Dicus told Kerner that someone he didn’t want to name had said there were two burned-out houses west of town, and that the police had searched the wrong one, that Denice Haraway’s body was probably in the other one. The grandfather didn’t say who it was that had told him this; Kerner suspected it had been Jay. Frank said he just had to tell someone about this, that he could take the investigator to the building. Kerner told him he might return later to go inspect this second burned building.

For now, Kerner went to the courthouse to check the Pontotoc County records on all the names that were turning up. He discovered that an arrest warrant for burglary had been issued for Randy Rogers on July 27, 1983—and that he had apparently left town about that time. To the investigator, this did not necessarily mean that Rogers had not been involved; the highways that led out of Ada also led back. He also learned that Marty Ashley had been arrested four times in 1979 and 1980.

Kerner went to the law office, finished reading the 110-page statement that Tommy Ward had written for Don Wyatt shortly after his arrest; he jotted down other names mentioned by Ward as part of his running crowd. Then he called Jay Dicus in Denver. Dicus denied any knowledge of the pickup truck involved; he said he did not know Rogers or Sparcino; he admitted knowing Jackie Mantzke; he said it was his belief that Odell Titsworth had killed Denice Haraway and had moved the body since doing so, and had threatened Ward and Fontenot with death if they told on him.

The conversation went on for a long time. Kerner felt it produced little of value, since Odell Titsworth seemed to have been effectively eliminated by the police as a possible suspect; Dicus seemed to be only guessing.

The month of May was drawing to a close. Back in his office in Yukon, the trees in full bloom outside the one-way glass wall, Kerner compiled a written report for Don Wyatt on all that he had obtained; he summarized possible areas for further investigation; he attached an itemized bill for the work he had done to date; and he waited for further instructions.

On Memorial Day weekend, Melvin Ward was discharged from the Navy in Virginia. He returned home to Ada. He gave Tricia a homecoming gift of two hundred dollars. Tricia used most of the money to buy new shoes for all of the children, and for herself; Bud bought himself a used three-piece suit at the Salvation Army for $15, and a new tie for $4.95.

On Sunday, Melvin went to visit Tommy; he was the closest in age to Tommy of all the boys in the family; they had been the closest friends, hanging out together, one time—a chagrined memory—jumping up and down on the roof of a car until it caved in. He hadn’t seen Tommy in more than a year, since long before the trouble began.

Rhonda went with Melvin to the jail. They entered the visiting room before Tommy was visible through the window. Melvin sat on the low stool, Rhonda sat on Melvin’s lap; when Tommy entered, all he could see at first was Rhonda. He asked how she was doing; she said she was doing fine. Tommy leaned over to spit some tobacco; as his head was turned, Rhonda jumped off Melvin’s lap; when Tommy faced the window again, there was Melvin, unexpectedly, a big gleaming grin on his face.

On opposite sides of the glass, the appearance of the brothers contrasted sharply—Tommy extremely thin from his seven months in the jail, darkness under his eyes from worry, his hands shaking, his hair darker than normal for lack of sunlight; Melvin fresh from the service in lean good shape, biceps bristling, belly firm, hair bright yellow, face tanned. They exchanged greetings, jokes, pleasantries. Then Melvin asked Tommy about the case.

“Why did you make that tape?” Melvin said.

“They question you for five hours,” Tommy said. “They keep telling you you did it, you did it. After five, six hours you don’t know what you’re saying anymore. After five, six hours you’ll say anything.”

It crossed Melvin’s mind to ask Tommy if he was holding something back; if he knew who did it, and was protecting someone else. But Melvin didn’t ask the question; he didn’t want Tommy to think he didn’t have faith in him.

The next court hearing in the Ward-Fontenot case was scheduled for June 11. Winifred Harrell helped Don Wyatt prepare the motions, already argued once, before Judge Jones, that now would be argued again, before Judge Powers.

In recent weeks there had been changes at the law firm of Wyatt & Addicott. Don Wyatt had added to the firm a third partner, a tall, youngish former judge in the area, Leo Austin. New business cards were printed up: “Wyatt, Addicott & Austin.” Judy Wood, the receptionist at the front desk, had to get used to this new, longer way of answering the phone in her smooth, pleasant voice. In less than a month, however, the firm’s name changed again. Mike Addicott, who had helped with the Ward case, moved to Florida, where his wife’s family lived; new cards had to be printed up, a new sign posted on the lawn: “Wyatt & Austin.” Leo Austin began the tedious task of getting acquainted with the firm’s many pending cases; most important, he had to read and absorb the five volumes of the preliminary hearing in the Tommy Ward case; when it went to trial, he would be at Don Wyatt’s side.

Soon after, Wyatt hired another young lawyer, Bill Cathey, to help primarily with the industrial cases. Once more the cards, the signs, were changed, this time to “Wyatt, Austin & Associates.”

Tommy Ward’s family did not yet know about Richard Kerner’s findings. Wyatt, visiting Tommy, told him that things were looking up, but did not elaborate.

In private, Wyatt was feeling good about the case for the first time. Over and over he read the investigator’s report, to explore its details, its various implications: Rogers, Sparcino, named by all those witnesses; the police not contacting them; possible connections with Ashley. The leads would have to be followed up. He was beginning to see, for the first time, how he might be able to raise in the minds of a jury the critical seedling of reasonable doubt.

There was also the mention of the second burned-out house. Perhaps that was only gossip, perhaps not. It could be where the remains of Denice Haraway could really be found. Wyatt did not know if he wanted the investigator to check that out. His job was to defend Tommy Ward, not convict him; there was no telling what a second burned house might reveal.