When Michael Klopfman's mother failed to pick him up at the Pacific Grove golf links at two-thirty that afternoon to drive him to a Pony League game, he paged his older brother Doug, who was just about to head for the beach with some friends to catch the high tide.
Grumbling, Doug agreed to chauffeur his brother to Jack's Field in Monterey, then meet his friends at Asilomar. On his way back from Monterey he stopped by his house to pick up his board and wet suit. His mother's car was still in the driveway; her purse was on the table by the front door.
Alarmed, he checked her bedroom to see if she were ill, then called his father at work. Sam, who knew about the jogging date, called Irene. When she failed to answer either her private or business lines, he left an urgent message on her machine, then called the Pacific Grove police.
Upon learning that Barbara Klopfman had been out jogging with Dr. Cogan of recent notoriety, and that both women were missing, the PG police immediately contacted the sheriff's department and the FBI. An updated BOLO was issued within minutes, and by four o'clock the hunt for the fugitive had been upgraded to a potential kidnapping/hostage situation.
Two hours later, Motorcycle Officer Fred Otto of the California Highway Patrol was cruising north on Highway 1 when he sighted what appeared to be a body wrapped like a mummy lying on its back in the dirt at the entrance to one of the fire trails leading into the Lucia Mountains.
As he pulled over to investigate, Officer Otto was surprised to see the mummy raise its knees, dig its heels into the dirt, and shove itself another foot or so closer to the highway. He called in his location and requested an ambulance, then hurried over.
“Hang on,” he said, kneeling by the side of the mummy, which was wrapped in a cocoon of filthy gauze bandages and adhesive tape from head to foot, legs together, arms inside, with only a fleshy nose protruding from the front and a shock of dark hair sticking out from the top. “Just hang on there, you're gonna be okay now.”
He used his jackknife to cut through the layer of adhesive tape securing the top of the gauze, then, cradling the head in his left arm, he began to unwind the bandages. A pair of dark brown eyes opened, blinked shut against the light, then opened again warily.
“I made it,” she said, when he'd freed her mouth-it was as much a question as a statement.
“Do you have any injuries under there?”
“I don't think so. I'm just sore all over-I've been crawling for hours.”
“What happened?”
“I was kidnapped by the man who escaped from jail in Salinas. He has my friend Irene.”
Otto had received the latest BOLO over the radio. “Are they still in the green Volvo?”
“They were when they left.”
“Let me call it in, then we'll get you loose. There's an ambulance on the way.”
“Have them call my husband.”
“Of course.”
And so the BOLO was updated again: a blond man in a pink jogging suit and a blond woman in white running shorts and tank top, heading south in a green Volvo station wagon.
Unfortunately, the corrected BOLO was already inaccurate on almost every count.