Nothing.
"The area where he was believed to have been hiking had difficult and dangerous terrain," wrote Consul General Betsy Anderson in an August 30 letter to Allard. "The paths are narrow and not well marked. There are high cliffs and deep gorges, and goats contribute to the fallen rocks. It is quite possible that a person could fall and not be found in these conditions. Further, the weather during the week of Mr. Michals' disappearance was extremely hot, with temperatures reaching 115 Fahrenheit. It is hard to imagine how anyone could survive long without a water source under such conditions."
John Johnston
Mother's daze: Constance Rolon with pictures of her only child, Paul Michals.
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Foul play seemed unlikely.
"Considering every angle is a wise course," Anderson continued. "However, at no time has there been any indication that Mr. Michals has been kidnapped. There have been no reported kidnappings in Greece in many years, and there is no indication from Mr. Michals' background that he would be a likely candidate for a politically, personally or financially motivated kidnapping."
Then, on September 5, acting on a tip from another one of Paul's friends, authorities launched another search. This time they canvassed the Samaria Gorge, ten kilometers northeast of the Sougia. Authorities checked travel agencies to see if Paul had booked a tour, but since tourists can also visit by public transportation, they dispatched more police and mountaineers to the eighteen-kilometer-long Samarian ravine.
Still nothing.
"The police are continuing to follow every possible lead," Anderson wrote Allard on September 13. "However, in the absence of specific information about where Paul disappeared, and in view of the extreme difficulty of the terrain, it is not possible for police officers to actively search indefinitely."
Constance was livid: "One woman in Washington told me, 'Well, this has happened before. We assume he's dead.' I told her, 'Don't assume anything.' To me, that's an easy way of saying they're not doing anything else. This is my son. I want answers."
Nearly a year has passed since Constance last saw her son, and she's still waiting for those answers. She hasn't heard from the embassy or the State Department in the past nine months. She's requested Paul's file numerous times but has been denied.
Webb's office helped Constance retrieve Paul's belongings, introduced her to an estate attorney and sent over a police detective who reviewed her son's papers. Bob Kessler, an attorney, engineer and travel consultant who'd read that Paul was missing in a newspaper story, poked around on his own while visiting Crete last fall. Paul's friends continued to make inquiries.
Nothing.
With no new information, speculation has been rampant. Perhaps Paul fell to his death while hiking the treacherous terrain, hampered by his leg and shoulder injuries. Perhaps he was abducted by the criminals who'd burglarized his room. Perhaps he became distraught over his injuries and his lack of a love life and committed suicide. Perhaps he orchestrated his disappearance in order to start a new life. Perhaps he's alive and well somewhere, but suffering from amnesia.
"That's the thing," Constance says. "You just don't know."
Federal officials have assured Constance that Paul's case remains open. But she's skeptical.
"The Greek people did what they could, but the American Embassy did absolutely nothing," Constance says. "They have all these officials and all these secretaries, and what do they do with your letters? Throw them out? Like they have no meaning? Like a human being has no meaning? Why don't they answer? They don't care. I'm not proud to be an American citizen anymore."
Constance has always considered herself to be an independent and resourceful woman. After retiring, she earned a bachelor's degree in political science and studied for a master's degree in communications. Then, in her mid-sixties, she spent four years with the Peace Corps in Africa and the Caribbean. At age 78, she even mows her own lawn. But Paul's disappearance has shattered her. She lights votive candles on her coffee table. She plops an overstuffed white monkey on the couch where he used to sit. She sleeps with T-shirts that hold his smell. She shuffles through his papers again and again.
"We were very close, my son and I," she says. "I never did anything without telling him, and he never did anything without telling me. Now I get angry at people. Little things make me mad. I haven't given up hope, but the hardest thing is not knowing what happened. Not having closure. It took eight days before they searched for him. And they didn't find a thing. Not his binoculars. Not his camera. Nothing. But a person just doesn't leave the planet. Somebody has to know something. There has to be someone out there who can help me. There just has to be."
