The Dreams of Ada by Robert Mayer

Author:Robert Mayer [Mayer, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: General, Murder, True Crime, Oklahoma, Law, Trials (Murder), Legal history, Organized Crime, Trials (Murder) - Oklahoma - Ada, Fontenot; Karl - Trials; Litigation; Etc, Ward; Tommy - Trials; Litigation; Etc, Ada
ISBN: 0767926897
Publisher: Broadway
Published: 1987-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

The grass on the campus of East Central University was still a bright green, not yet burned out by the summer heat. Students taking summer classes sprawled in the shade of the trees that dotted the lawns, studying, eating sandwiches. Richard Kerner strode up the central walkway, then bore half-right down another path, toward the education building. He had an appointment there with Jack Paschall, who’d been at J.P.’s with Karen Wise the night of the disappearance, who’d testified he was sure that Tommy Ward had been in the store that night.

Paschall told Kerner the same story he had told to the police, the same story he had told under oath at the preliminary hearing: how he had come to J.P.’s that night, how Karen Wise had told him she was nervous, that it was two guys shooting pool who were upsetting her; how the men had left soon after, in an old pickup truck, with either gray primer or red primer on it, with something unusual about the tailgate. Paschall said he did not know Tommy Ward, but he was sure he’d been one of the two in the store that night. He said again, as he had said before, that he did not recognize Karl Fontenot.

The same afternoon, July 11, Kerner drove thirty miles to Paul’s Valley. There he placed a home at 307 East Bradley under surveillance; it was the home of Marty Ashley’s mother. Kerner had been watching the house for less than an hour when a short, slight, blondish young man came out of the front door and walked toward several cars in the yard that seemed to be under repair. Kerner approached the young man and addressed him as Marty Ashley; Ashley said that’s who he was.

Ashley agreed to answer the investigator’s questions. They sat in Kerner’s car and talked. Ashley said he had been questioned long ago by Ada detectives Dennis Smith and James Fox about Ward’s story that he, Ashley, had run off with Denice Haraway; he said he had given the detectives a recorded statement saying that Ward’s story was totally false. He said he had never in his life been in any kind of vehicle with Tommy Ward; he mentioned he had seen Ward riding in old pickups from time to time, and gave Kerner the names of several young men they might have belonged to. He denied knowing Randy Rogers or Bob Sparcino. Ashley told the investigator he was pretty much of a loner, that he had not run around very much with Jay Dicus or Tommy Ward or anyone else in Ada.

About Denice Haraway, Ashley said he had seen her working at McAnally’s, but had not known her name till she disappeared. He said, smiling, that he wished she had run away with him, because she was a very attractive lady.

Kerner’s gut feeling was that Ashley was telling the truth.

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