disappearance, though the McAnallys had increased their reward offer to $5,000, and the OSBI had offered another $5,000, and a private donor had put up $100.
One night about ten o’clock, when Smith was at home with Sandi and the boys, he got a phone call from Mike Baskin. A member of the Haraway family had contacted a psychic in northern Oklahoma in an attempt to discover where Denice was. The psychic had visualized a scene; the information had just been relayed by the family to Baskin. According to the psychic, Denice’s body could be found about eight miles east of Ada, near a government installation; there would be a water tower, a creek, a bridge; old stoves and refrigerators would dot the creek; the number 7 would somehow be hanging symbolically over the scene.
Baskin wanted to go out and look right away, in the dark.
Dennis Smith did not believe in psychics. He preferred hard-nosed logic, tough police work. But he had read of cases where bodies had been found by psychics; he felt he could not disregard the information; if he saw it work for himself, he felt, he would even become a believer. He told Sandi what Baskin had said. “Let’s all go look,” Sandi suggested.
Smith felt it was bizarre, taking the whole family out to look for a body. But they went, he and Sandi and the boys, carrying flashlights. They picked up Baskin and drove out Highway One, heading east, past McAnally’s, past Deer Creek Estates, past the village of Homer, past the turnoff to a cemetery and to a village called Happyland. Just when they had gone about eight miles, they saw a water tower; Smith realized it was for Rural Water District Number 7. It was on the Kalli-homa Indian Reservation—a government installation. They came to a bridge over a creek, pulled off the road, got out, looked around; down in the creek they could see, in the yellow circles of their flashlights, a bunch of junk—old stoves, refrigerators.
As they moved down, flashlights illuminating the grass and sand at their feet, they smelled something foul, the smell of death. Holding their breaths against the smell, and perhaps in anticipation, they poked around in the debris—and found the rotting carcass of a calf.
In the days and weeks after the disappearance, McAnally’s became something of an Ada shrine. People would stop by and look around, and ask the clerks about the Haraway case. The constant questions took their toll on some. James Watts, who worked the morning shift, who had been relieved by Denice at 2:30 on April 28, quit in early May. On May 19 the manager, Monroe Atkeson, quit. It was one year to the day since Denice Haraway, then Denice Lyon, had started work there.
A new manager was hired, and a new clerk. The McAnallys looked around their now notorious store. Their eyes fell with displeasure on the magazine rack, with its large selection of naked girls on the covers. The store did between $80 and $90 a day business in these adult magazines; the McAnallys decided the pictures might be inciting young men to crimes of sex. They decided to ask their distributor to stop bringing in such trash.
With only a few weeks remaining to the end of the semester, Steve Haraway did not return to classes at East Central. He arranged to get I’s—Incompletes—in all his courses; to take the final exams, to qualify for graduation, later on. When he was not out searching the countryside with friends, he sat in the lonely apartment, morose, waiting. Formerly gregarious, he was now quiet; he did not talk about what had happened, he simply waited.
For two weeks, he, Monty Moyer, Gary May, Brad Goss, and a few other friends distributed flyers. They drove in every direction within a 150-mile radius of Ada, stopping at gas stations, grocery stores, small-town police departments. Several of his friends owned four-wheel-drive vehicles; they went searching for Denice’s body in otherwise inaccessible places. The police would get calls that someone
One night about ten o’clock, when Smith was at home with Sandi and the boys, he got a phone call from Mike Baskin. A member of the Haraway family had contacted a psychic in northern Oklahoma in an attempt to discover where Denice was. The psychic had visualized a scene; the information had just been relayed by the family to Baskin. According to the psychic, Denice’s body could be found about eight miles east of Ada, near a government installation; there would be a water tower, a creek, a bridge; old stoves and refrigerators would dot the creek; the number 7 would somehow be hanging symbolically over the scene.
Baskin wanted to go out and look right away, in the dark.
Dennis Smith did not believe in psychics. He preferred hard-nosed logic, tough police work. But he had read of cases where bodies had been found by psychics; he felt he could not disregard the information; if he saw it work for himself, he felt, he would even become a believer. He told Sandi what Baskin had said. “Let’s all go look,” Sandi suggested.
Smith felt it was bizarre, taking the whole family out to look for a body. But they went, he and Sandi and the boys, carrying flashlights. They picked up Baskin and drove out Highway One, heading east, past McAnally’s, past Deer Creek Estates, past the village of Homer, past the turnoff to a cemetery and to a village called Happyland. Just when they had gone about eight miles, they saw a water tower; Smith realized it was for Rural Water District Number 7. It was on the Kalli-homa Indian Reservation—a government installation. They came to a bridge over a creek, pulled off the road, got out, looked around; down in the creek they could see, in the yellow circles of their flashlights, a bunch of junk—old stoves, refrigerators.
As they moved down, flashlights illuminating the grass and sand at their feet, they smelled something foul, the smell of death. Holding their breaths against the smell, and perhaps in anticipation, they poked around in the debris—and found the rotting carcass of a calf.
In the days and weeks after the disappearance, McAnally’s became something of an Ada shrine. People would stop by and look around, and ask the clerks about the Haraway case. The constant questions took their toll on some. James Watts, who worked the morning shift, who had been relieved by Denice at 2:30 on April 28, quit in early May. On May 19 the manager, Monroe Atkeson, quit. It was one year to the day since Denice Haraway, then Denice Lyon, had started work there.
A new manager was hired, and a new clerk. The McAnallys looked around their now notorious store. Their eyes fell with displeasure on the magazine rack, with its large selection of naked girls on the covers. The store did between $80 and $90 a day business in these adult magazines; the McAnallys decided the pictures might be inciting young men to crimes of sex. They decided to ask their distributor to stop bringing in such trash.
With only a few weeks remaining to the end of the semester, Steve Haraway did not return to classes at East Central. He arranged to get I’s—Incompletes—in all his courses; to take the final exams, to qualify for graduation, later on. When he was not out searching the countryside with friends, he sat in the lonely apartment, morose, waiting. Formerly gregarious, he was now quiet; he did not talk about what had happened, he simply waited.
For two weeks, he, Monty Moyer, Gary May, Brad Goss, and a few other friends distributed flyers. They drove in every direction within a 150-mile radius of Ada, stopping at gas stations, grocery stores, small-town police departments. Several of his friends owned four-wheel-drive vehicles; they went searching for Denice’s body in otherwise inaccessible places. The police would get calls that someone
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