Arthur Pondo, 74, pulls it open with a grunt. Inside are not case files or police reports, but hundreds of index cards. Each one bears a single, handwritten entry. A date. A place. A name. And a single, quiet observation.
The “Index of Sinister” began as a grief project. In 2003, Pondo’s daughter, a grad student in Flagstaff, was killed in a crosswalk by a hit-and-run driver. The driver was never found. But a week before her death, Pondo found a note his daughter had scribbled in a journal: “The crossing guard wasn’t there today. Felt wrong.” index of sinister
“We all have a sixth sense,” he says. “We just file it under ‘nothing.’ I decided to file it under ‘something.’” Arthur Pondo, 74, pulls it open with a grunt
He closes the drawer. “That’s the sinister part,” he says. “Not the death. The return .” A date
“Don’t worry,” he says. “Probably nothing.”
But one drawer is locked. Behind it: the “Red File.” Pondo will not show a reporter its contents. He will only read one entry aloud, his voice dry as dust: