On the eleventh floor at Southwestern Bell, the normal high pressure of closing the books for November stumbled into chaos. Sue was not there to lead the effort with her usual competence. The reason for her absence placed a layer of distress on top of the heavy workload. At moments, it seemed the center would not hold.
With the help of Sue’s supervisor, Gary Long, the staff soldiered through the process, seeking emotional numbness in the intellectual preoccupation with numbers. Throughout the week, they clung firmly to their denial—they clutched the frail belief that any moment, Sue would walk through the door. Maybe she had amnesia and was wandering around lost. Maybe there was an urgent, plausible reason for her to leave without telling anyone. They did not allow themselves to consider that all would not be well in the end.
Somehow, they made the reporting deadline. Then their focus shifted to Sue’s disappearance. Many hours of work time were consumed by employees’ volunteer efforts. They walked through Sue’s neighborhood putting up fliers on telephone poles, shop windows, anything that did not move.
Management worked with the Heidi Search Center to coordinate groups of staff to augment search teams. After three weeks, even those in the deepest abyss of denial rose to the surface and accepted that there would not be a happy ending.
Gary Long’s holidays jarred in his head like a symphony orchestra with all the instruments tuned to a different key. One day he was searching a basin for Sue’s body or evidence of foul play. The next he was in his car with his family singing Christmas carols as he careened down the road to visit relatives in Colorado and Utah. The celebrations wound around him and he did his best to join in the spirit of the festivities. But all the while, Sue sat perched on the edge of his smile. Out of state, he could not turn to the news for an update. He grew anxious not knowing if there were new developments—if Sue of the sunny smile and boisterous laugh had been found.
Austin Hardeman was a close friend of William. His mother, Karen, was the same age as Sue and also had blonde hair and similar mannerisms. This resemblance gave William a high level of comfort in the Hardeman home. Sometimes, he called her “Mom” and he often spent the night there.
One morning after his mother’s disappearance, he found Karen outside weeding around a rose bush. “I gave my mom some rose bushes once and she really liked them,” he said.
“I like roses, too.”
“You’re just so much like my mom, if something happens, will you adopt me?”
“Oh, William. Don’t worry. We’ll find your mother. Everything will be all right.”
Realtor Deborah Meyers received another call from the same number. This time she answered the phone. It was Rick McFarland and he wanted to know what time and what day the two of them had talked.
“I’ve been asked not to discuss it with anyone,” she told him.
“Why not?” he asked.
“I have been advised not to discuss any details with anyone,” she repeated.
“That is ridiculous,” he sputtered.
Clemmer called Rick back mid-day on December 4. Rick had yet another spin on the key situation. In this scenario, Rick arrived on the Saturday before Thanksgiving and there were two sets of keys on the chain when he took the Suburban for a test drive. At that time, with the knowledge of the person working that day, he took one set to give to his wife. “So,” he concluded, “you’re right. You didn’t give me the key.”
“Okay. Okay,” Clemmer said.
“I noticed the other key already in the car and that’s the one I gave to my wife.”
“Okay. Okay. Well, that makes sense.” Then Clemmer told Rick that Sergeant Wedding wanted to talk to him about some new evidence they found. “He said something about, ‘It’s more than a missing person case now.’ ”
“It’s more of a what?” Rick asked.
“More than a missing person case. I don’t know what that meant.”
“Well, you know, the husband’s always the guilty one until they find another person. So, I mean, you know, I don’t know. I just don’t know anymore.”
“Yeah?”
“Really,” Rick said.
“I bet you’re freaking out.”
“Oh, yeah,” Rick affirmed.
Clemmer once again addressed his discomfort in lying about the key to law enforcement. “I would be just as guilty as if I participated in the crime.”
“So, don’t say anything about the key,” Rick said. “I don’t want—I mean, I’m not asking you to cooperate with me. I just wanted to, you know, touch base, like you would. It’s just to make sure what details you might recall.”
Poor phone reception cut their call short, and they agreed to meet in ten or fifteen minutes—but not at the Texaco station. Rick was worried the station was watched and set the rendezvous for the Big Lots store up the street.
All that day, officers from the Texas Department of Public Safety attempted to maintain mobile surveillance of Rick. They hoped he would lead them to Susan McFarland.
But Rick was either aware of the presence or just flat-out paranoid. He made sudden turns. He never took the shortest route to any destination. He meandered all over town.
If officers were going to ensure that they could track him despite his evasive moves, they needed help. Sergeant Palmer applied to the courts for permission to install a tracking device on Rick’s van.
Steven Rogers, owner of Alamo Mini Storage, had met Rick three years ago through their sons’ participation in the Fox Tribe of the YMCA Indian Guides. On December 5, he got a page from Rick. He returned the call and said, “Rick, I read in the paper that the police searched your house.”
“That was a courtesy search. Now there is going to be an actual search warrant. I want to store some financial records and computer stuff. It has nothing to do with the investigation, but I don’t want police to see it.”
Steven agreed to meet Rick at Alamo storage later that afternoon. After the call, Steven had second thoughts. He really did not want Rick storing anything at his facility.
He called back. “You know, Rick, storing items at a storage facility will not prevent police from eventually having access.”
Rick said he’d changed his mind and hung up.
That day, Rick paid a visit to Dr. Gregory Jackson in Alamo Heights. His chief complaint was anxiety and depression. Rick said he was having an increased inability to pay attention—not unusual in someone under stress who was also diagnosed with adult ADD.
Rick reported difficulty in staying awake and in taking care of the three boys. He wanted a medicine that would give him more energy. Rick did not mention his wife during the interview, but did refer to the stress caused by police interviews and by angry family members and friends. He admitted that in response to his difficulty in coping, he self-medicated with ephedrine.
Dr. Jackson advised that he stop taking that drug at once. He urged him to limit his responsibilities and not take on any additional ones at this time. He should limit his interviews and social interactions to what was absolutely necessary and to get as much rest as possible.
The doctor recommended that Rick focus on activities that he was uniquely qualified to accomplish, like comforting his sons and managing basic finances. He encouraged him to get as much logistical support as possible to help him care for the children. He told Rick to get a follow-up visit with a psychologist or psychiatrist.
Dr. Jackson also examined the little finger on Rick’s right hand where the tip of the digit was missing. He cleaned and dressed the wound. Dr. Jackson found Rick to be disturbed, tangential and struggling to stay awake. But, the doctor thought, this mental state was a typical one for Rick.
Sue’s brother Pete was now in San Antonio and joined the search team as they covered an area by Austin Highway and Vandiver Road and a vacant lot off Stillwell Avenue. Pete, a retired homicide detective was at every search from this point on.
Many thought that Pete, with his experience as a homicide investigator, and intimate understanding of the law enforcement process, would be better equipped to handle the situation than the typical family member of a victim. Like anyone in his position, he bore the frustration of his sister remaining missing for an extended period of time—but Pete also carried an added burden that others could not know.
After years of investigating murder, he had an automatic checklist in his head that kept ticking off tasks that needed to be done. But law enforcement was not free to answer his probing questions while the case was still in progress. And Pete could not tell them what to do. It was not his case. He was not in control. It was an uncomfortable position for a veteran detective. He felt like a spectator stuck on the wrong side of the fence in the middle of the most important investigation of his life.