Chapter 3, Suspects Summary and Analysis

Jeff Miller, a member of Ada's underclass of high school dropouts and drug addicts, went to the police with a story. Miller said a friend had told him that on April 28, 1984, Tommy Ward and Karl Fontenot attended a party. During the party, Ward and Fontenot left to get more beer. When Ward and Fontenot returned several hours later, they claimed to have kidnapped and killed a convenience store clerk. Based on this story, police decided to contact Jeannette Roberts, the woman whose truck Ward and Fontenot supposedly used the night of Haraway's disappearance. Roberts, a felon who had been trying to go straight, told police she had let Ward and Fontenot use her truck on occasion, but was sure she had not let them borrow it on April 28. Roberts then told police that Ward and Fontenot had lived with...