Expert: Jack Toomey - 4/14/2009

Question
There is evidence that she was abducted.  She left the office on an overcast day at an odd hour for a bide ride on the trail that runs along the river.  Because of the weather and the hour, she rode several miles and didn't see another person.  She never came back to the office.  Her clothes, purse, etc. are found in a locker in the locker room at the gym that is for all tenants of the building.  Her bike is found several hours later thrown into bushes off the trail.  Her car is still parked at the garage.  No problems in the marriage.  She is held for several weeks in a small, windowless apartment in someone's basement and then released.  The people who kept her wanted to ruin her and her family...as she says in the prologue of the book, "if you don't know who or why everyone is a suspect".  So, can you help me try to make the actions of the police credible?  There aren't many clues until she is found and she tells the police about the space and it's contents.  Thanks again!

Answer
I wish that you had not opened a new question because now I cannot read what you wrote before.  

I think what you want to know is what the police would do after finding evidence that the woman had been abducted.  

How do you know all of this?  How do you know that no one saw her?  I think that you are jumping ahead of yourself and putting yourself into the body of the woman who was abducted.  Who found her bike?  The police?

There would first be a foot search of the park and surrounding area by officers on foot, possibly on horseback, and eventually even a helicopter.  Since dead bodies have shown up months and even years in areas that have been searched by the police and volunteers the recruit class from the police academy might be called into service to help.  If all of that fails and does not turn up any evidence then the case would be turned over to the detectives.

Her background would be investigated thoroughly because a missing woman, apparently abducted, would most likely be the victim of a sex offender or possibly someone that she knows.  It would be no different than a murder case except there is no body.  If there is no hint of the people who wanted to ruin her family, etc, then the police couldn't possibly investigate that angle because frankly it is not a known motive for kidnapping and does not happen in real life.  So the police would not be looking at that possiblity.

What they would be looking at is that she had been carried away by some man who is a sex offender and that she has been killed and that her body has been discaded somewhere in the area.