Was Missing Woman Victim of Foul Play? : Mystery: One disappearance is solved by a phone call but police still must solve a second.

Denise A. Huber, 23, had just dropped her boyfriend off at his home Sunday and had reached the Corona del Mar Freeway, when her tire nearly disintegrated.

According to evidence at the scene, she stopped without any problems on the shoulder of the freeway just south of the Bear Street off-ramp, Costa Mesa Police Capt. Tom Lazar said. That was the last anyone has seen of her.

After the discovery of the car on Monday, police canines followed her scent for several yards beyond her abandoned car. The scent suddenly disappeared, indicating that she got into another car, Lazar said Wednesday.

“The longer it (the disappearance) goes, the more it indicates that something happened to her,” Lazar said. “That concerns us greatly.”

Huber was the second woman to vanish in the area that same day. Deborah Brittingham O’Leary, 34, had dropped her two daughters off with her estranged husband and vanished. Although police in Costa Mesa and Newport Beach did not believe that the two disappearances were related, they jointly issued all-points bulletins for the two women.

Late Wednesday night, however, O’Leary called her parents and said that she was all right and that she had left of her own volition.

But Huber, a waitress at a Newport Beach restaurant and a cashier at a Fashion Island chain store, was described as happy, with no reason to run away.

“It’s possible, but we don’t see any despondency,” said Costa Mesa Police Detective Ron Smith, who is investigating Huber’s disappearance. “She seemed to be, by all accounts, a fairly reliable young woman, steady in her employment.”

Huber and her boyfriend had gone to a rock concert at the Great Western Forum in Inglewood, and she had dropped him off at his Huntington Beach home late Sunday night.

She reached the Corona del Mar Freeway on her way to her Vista Grande home when the tire on her blue 1984 Honda Accord blew, Lazar said.

And despite published reports about her, police have heard nothing as of Wednesday night.

O’Leary’s disappearance was solved when she telephoned her parents at 9 p.m. from Riverside “and said she was OK,” Newport Police Sgt. Ken Cowell said. “She left on her own volition and she’s fine.” O’Leary’s mother, Betty Brittingham, said, “She just called, and my husband went to pick her up. I know nothing beyond that but she’s safe and sound and OK.” her voice broke. “She said, Mom, ‘I’m OK.’ ”

On Tuesday, Kenneth Brittingham had discovered his daughter’s 1990 Plymouth Voyager in a small shopping mall in the 400 block of West Coast Highway, Newport Beach Police Sgt. Andy Gonis said. Nothing in the car suggested foul play, police said.