PALO ALTO, Calif. —

On a quiet side street here two weeks ago, children walked home from school in the warm air. It was, in most respects, a typical spring day. But parked in front of Dave Conde’s small home was a maroon Volkswagen Touareg with Oregon plates.

It’s the car Conde’s mother, Sandy Meyer, was last seen driving before she disappeared more than a month ago. It was found abandoned March 10 in an Old Mill parking lot. In the weeks since, Bend police have called the 72-year-old’s disappearance the result of an apparent murder.

Sandy’s husband, 71-year-old John Meyer, committed suicide a week after reporting her missing. Since then, police have revealed gruesome details in the case: a substantial amount of Sandy’s blood found in heating ducts between the kitchen and the dining nook at the Meyers’ home, the orange purse that John said she was carrying when she left home hidden underneath the house.

But while police believe her husband murdered Sandy, her body is still missing, as is the answer to a question gnawing at Conde and other family and her friends: Why?

“We’re waiting for the bomb to drop. What secret is there that somehow fueled something so inexplicable?” Dave Conde said. “None of this makes sense.”

‘We couldn’t want for a better mom’

By all accounts, Sandy was a kind, sweet person who worked hard to give her sons, Dave and Chris, a good life. Born in Williamsport, Pa., and raised on the East Coast, she became a flight attendant as a young woman. Her parents moved to California, and she joined them there around the time her first son, Chris Pries, now 47, was born. She was briefly married to her son Dave Conde’s father. Conde, now 42, said they divorced when he was still an infant.

From then on, Conde said, Sandy devoted herself to her boys, often working two jobs to support the family.

“She did a great job, and we couldn’t want for a better mom,” he said.

“I’m not sure I could count even a few boyfriends while we were growing up. She was an incredibly dedicated mother.”

The family lived for years in a one-story house on Amarillo Street in Palo Alto. Her friends remember Sandy as a dedicated mother who cultivated the boys’ interests: paying for flying lessons for Chris, even taking the classes with him for a time. They also said she often set up dates with the boys so she could have one-on-one time with them.

“Even when they were teenagers, they were close, and that’s hard,” said Julia Scalia, a friend and former co-worker at defunct pharmaceutical company Syntex. “I always thought, ‘God, I want to be a mother like Sandy.’ ”

In the late 1970s, Audrey Erbes hired Sandy to work as an executive assistant at Syntex. Erbes said Sandy had previously worked at a veterans hospital. After working as Erbes’ assistant for a while, Sandy asked her for help finding a better-paying job. Erbes loaned her money to pay for some new clothes, then helped her get an administrative assistant position with the senior executive vice president for human resources. Erbes said Meyer methodically repaid the loan for the wardrobe.

Sue Larraway started at Syntex in 1979 in the human resources department. She never worked in Sandy’s department, but they met through a mutual friend. When the pair met, Sandy was working two jobs. They were fast friends.

“I just think because we were single and we had so many similar interests, books and cooking and gardening and movies,” Larraway said. “If I said, ‘Let’s do this,’ she’d just light up.”

That meant walking a half-marathon for the March of Dimes or going to see Disney movies. “None of my other friends would have done that,” Larraway said.

At the office, Sandy was conscientious and focused. She always looked sharp, say Scalia and Sandy Mallory, another executive assistant.

“She wore very little makeup. She didn’t need it, she was so pretty,” Scalia said. “She was quiet. She never did anything to bring attention to herself. But everyone liked her. She was a classy gal.”

“I always think of her when I’m thinking of professional behavior,” Mallory said. “She had those qualities that I always admired.”

In the 1990s, Syntex was taken over by Roche, another pharmaceutical company. The women all knew they’d lose their jobs, Larraway said, but Sandy got fired up rather than feeling sorry for herself.

“I’m going to have to look for another job, so now’s not the time to let my chin drop,” she told Larraway.

After Syntex, her friends said, Sandy moved on to a biotech company. Erbes said she did well for herself there, earning stock options.

‘The perfect family’

While Sandy raised her boys in Palo Alto, John Meyer was living just 16 miles away in Saratoga, Calif.

Gloria Ascher lived next door to John and his first wife, Marge, for more than 20 years. Ascher’s daughter Amy and Meyer’s daughter Pam were 8 years old when she moved to Glen Brae Road in Saratoga. The two girls grew up together.

“They were like the perfect family,” Ascher said. “They had three wonderful girls, and I’ve gone to all their weddings.”

Ascher said John, who had a Ph.D. in engineering, worked as an engineer in Silicon Valley. A Rutgers University registrar verified he went to school there, and Meyer’s dissertation from 1972 is still housed in the university’s library.

“He was very highly thought of in his field,” Ascher said.

Over the years, Alex Goldberger worked with John at two companies.

He said John started his career at National Semiconductor, then worked with Goldberger at Signetics, a division of Phillips that eventually changed its name to NXP Semiconductor. There, Goldberger said, he served as vice president of the microprocessor division. After Signetics, they worked together at Fujitsu’s microelectronics division, where Goldberger said John was the vice president of engineering. Ascher believed he also worked at Hitachi for a time.

Goldberger traveled for work and socialized with John and Marge Meyer.

“He was very outgoing and friendly,” Golberger said. “He was very good to his friends.”

Ascher said John and Marge moved to California from New Jersey. John had three daughters: Jill, now 47; Wendy, now 46; and Pam, now 41. Through Conde, Meyer’s three daughters declined interview requests.

Meyer’s marriage with Marge was a good one, Ascher said. They skied, owned a condominium in Lake Tahoe and always had a dog. There were backyard barbecues, daughters who played tennis and went on to top universities. The man Ascher describes was highly intelligent, with a happiness about him. She said those he worked with liked him, and Meyer often took employees with him when he moved to a new company.

“He did everything a next-door neighbor would do,” she said. “They were a bright, great family.”

Marge died of cancer in 1995.

John and Sandy met through his daughter Wendy and Chris Pries’ first wife, who were friends.

“John had lost Marge a year or so before, and the girls worried about him. They thought he was best when he was with somebody,” Dave Conde said.

In May 1997, after about two years of dating, the pair were married at the Thomas Fogarty Vineyard in Woodside, Calif.

“John and Mom seemed to have a beautiful relationship,” Conde said. “He was a nice enough guy with great daughters who have great families of their own.”

But some of Sandy’s friends weren’t thrilled with the match. Looking back, Erbes and Larraway remember thinking the marriage was an odd match.

“I remember being surprised,” Larraway said of the engagement.

When they went to the Meyer house for the wedding shower, the women were surprised to see photos of John’s first wife still scattered around the house.

At the end of the shower, a group gathered out in the street and expressed concern about the impending nuptials.

“You don’t want to be a part of a collection, living in a museum to his wife,” Erbes remembers telling Meyer.

But Larraway said if Sandy was unhappy, she was unlikely to say anything.

“I don’t remember her ever acting unhappy about anything. Feisty? Yes,” she said. “But she never felt sorry for herself. She put a positive spin on things.”

The women never met John until the couple’s wedding day, and as time went by they didn’t see much of their friend.

Life in Oregon

The couple sold the house in Saratoga in January 2001 and bought their home in Mountain High the following month.

Ascher was their Realtor, selling the home in California. Several years ago she went to visit the couple in Bend, where they went whitewater rafting.

“They had a lovely life,” she said. “I never heard them argue.”

After the Meyers moved to Bend, Larraway still saw Sandy when Sandy visited Conde. They’d get lunch, and Sue said they’d just go on and on.

“She was a good one for putting on a happy face,” Larraway said. “She never said to me, ‘Oh, I married such a wonderful man.’ She never mentioned what it was like to be married. She never talked about him. It just didn’t come up.”

Erbes and her husband, Jay, visited Sandy and John in Bend in 2004 as they passed through on the way to Canada.

At that time, Erbes said, Sandy told her she was furious that John had been day-trading.

“She told me he’d even traded her (biotech) stock away,” she said. “She was very upset.”

Conde didn’t describe his stepfather as a day-trader. He said, rather, that John was active in his investments, but didn’t know whether he was rapidly trading high volumes of stocks.

Bend Police Capt. Jim Porter said there were indications that he was heavily invested — and struggling — in the stock market.

The 2004 visit was a short one, but Jay Erbes said he tried to engage John about their shared interest in the railroad. He didn’t have much luck. That was the last time the couple saw Sandy. They invited her to their beach house, but timing never worked out.

Conde said the marriage seemed happy until March 9, when Sandy didn’t show up for her book club meeting at Velvet. On March 10, John called police to report his wife missing, claiming that she’d left home to go to a book club meeting and never returned. That morning, the police found her car in the parking lot at The Old Mill, and in the days following launched a search in the Deschutes River and surrounding areas.

On March 16, Porter said, police questioned John.

“We hit this case really hard and we worked lots of overtime and got on it really quickly, and we started uncovering facts and putting them together,” he said. “We conducted an interview with him, and the context and direction of the interview would have left no one with doubt that something extremely suspicious had happened.”

On March 17, John’s body was discovered by Chris Pries in the storage space under the Mountain High house. John had died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He had bought the gun — the only one he owned — in January.

John left two letters, giving reasons for taking his own life but not giving any indication that he’d been involved in his wife’s disappearance. He had canceled his wife’s membership at a local athletic club the day he reported her missing. He’d also canceled a newspaper subscription.

A substantial amount of Sandy’s blood was found in the kitchen and dining area heating ducts at the Meyers’ house, and her orange purse was found hidden beneath the couple’s house.

‘There weren’t any signs’

For family, it’s baffling.

“There weren’t any signs,” Conde said. “We’re trying to resolve how this could be, if it’s what it seems it might be.”

But Conde said the family, including John’s daughters, continue to work together.

“It hasn’t changed anything,” he said. “First and foremost we’re focused on trying to find mom. After that, we’re wanting to understand what happened.”

Conde said he and his brother are concerned about Meyer’s daughters and what they’re going through. But at this point, the police are struggling to locate further leads that will help the family find closure.

“We’re at a standstill to a degree,” Porter said. “We’re still analyzing computers, and we’re still analyzing some paperwork we found.”

Porter declined to specify what type of paperwork that might be and said the police don’t have a motive for the murder-suicide.

But Conde did say the Meyers’ finances had deteriorated.

“The finances look to have gotten worse over the years,” he said. “But how do you consider ending your life or another’s (over that)?”

That’s a sticking point for many who knew both Sandy and John.

“It’s just tragic,” Ascher said. “I just can’t believe that John did it. I don’t think he was capable of doing it.”

In the weeks since Sandy’s disappearance and John’s suicide, Ascher said she’s spoken with several of John’s friends, and they were equally shocked.

She has e-mails from people who worked with him: “They all are saying this is not the John we knew,” she said. “You will never get anybody to say, ‘Oh, there’s a side of John, yeah, maybe, he was pretty weird.’ You won’t ever get anyone to say that.”

Meanwhile, Sandy’s friends are also trying to make sense of the tragedy.

Larraway said when she heard Meyer was missing, she immediately feared the worst.

“I knew she didn’t just drive off,” she said. “She would not have done that, she would not put her boys through that worry, and she wouldn’t leave Sam (her dog).”

Recently, Ascher and her family went over to Pam Meyer’s house for dinner. She told Ascher her father’s suicide note said explicitly that he had nothing to do with her disappearance.

“They’re just devastated. I don’t think she ever got over the loss of her mother, and now this thing,” Ascher said. “It’s just tragic.”

On Friday, Conde drove his mom’s SUV to Oregon, her dog Sam in the back. He said there have been no new leads on his mother’s disappearance, but that won’t stop his family. The group plans to continue searching this week, although police are not actively searching for Sandy.

“A search for her body has not been mounted because we don’t have even close to a location to search,” Porter said. The police have tried to use cellphone information to narrow down areas to search but have not had much luck. “Quite often in these cases what we find is as time passes, with fishing season and mushroom hunters, we’re hoping someone will come across her remains. We’re not in a proactive search mode because we really, truly have no place to start.”

So Conde and his family will continue to wait and search.

“This is definitely a nightmare of limbo, of not knowing but having enough clues to fear the worst,” he said. “And there’s part of you that mourns Mom’s loss but you can’t get beyond that because you don’t know.

“We can’t rest. We can’t begin to heal.”