CHAPTER 2
Carol’s number was programmed into Ruth’s phone, so she tried calling back several times, but the line just rang and rang. The answering machine didn’t pick up, either. Ruth knew something was wrong, but she felt helpless, being so far away. Still, she had to do something, try to reach someone, to find out what had happened.
Ruth called Steve DeMocker’s condo and left a message on his answering machine, asking him to check on Carol. Charlotte heard the phone ring and looked at the caller ID, but she and her boyfriend were too busy playing video games to pick up, so she let it go to voice mail.
After getting no answer on Steve’s landline, Ruth tried his cell phone. When the call went straight to voice mail, she left a message as her anxiety escalated.
“Steve, this is Ruth Kennedy in Nashville. I was on the phone with Carol and she screamed and said, ‘Oh, no,’ and I can’t get her to answer me back. I—I wonder if you could see what . . . you can find out, and let me know something.”
Ruth had chatted briefly by phone with Carol’s tenant, Jim Knapp, and thought she would try to reach him next, but directory assistance had no listing for him. She didn’t know that Jim shared Carol’s landline.
By this point Ruth didn’t know what else to do but call the police for help. However, because Carol’s house was outside the jurisdiction of the Prescott Police Department (PPD), the dispatcher said Ruth needed to call the Yavapai County Sheriff ’s Office (YCSO) and gave her the number.
“How can I help you?” the dispatcher said when Ruth called on the recorded emergency line at 8:14 P.M.
Explaining that she was calling from Nashville, Ruth recounted what had happened during her aborted call with Carol. “Is there anything you can do? Can you go check?” she asked. “I’m just at my wit’s end.”
“Now, did you call her, or did she call you and this occurred?” the dispatcher asked.
“She called me tonight and we—she calls me every night because I’m eighty-three and she worries about me.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I haven’t been able to get her to answer the phone back. So I’m, you know, afraid that something bad’s happened.”
“Who does your daughter live with?”
“She’s recently divorced. She’s alone.”
“Do you believe that there’s any reason that she would be concerned if her husband—ex-husband—came back?”
“Oh, I don’t think so,” Ruth said. “I don’t think it’s that kind of a thing.”
“All right, we will send somebody out to check on her. And we’ll have them give you a call.”
Clearly anxious, Ruth encouraged the dispatcher to send someone out right away. “If you happen to get a hold of her and she is okay, could you call us back and let us know?”
“I sure will.”
Ruth then called Carol’s brother, John, who lived seven miles away in the town of Old Hickory, Tennessee. Although he and Carol weren’t close after high school, they’d been writing letters to each other and talking more often lately, every six weeks or so, in the past five years.
Figuring they could get further if they both made calls, John and Ruth each kept trying Carol and Steve, leaving messages to call them as soon as possible. They tried the sheriff ’s office again as well.
“The deputy in charge is not here” was the standard reply.
They heard nothing that evening from Carol, and nothing from the sheriff ’s office as they sat, waiting and worrying. Why wasn’t she answering her phone?
Something really bad has happened. I don’t know what, and I can’t do anything about it, Ruth thought. I’m trying to do what I can, but it’s not enough.