Missing FEMA Inspector Is Found Asleep in Rental Car : Search: Robert Francis Fisher had disappeared 10 days ago. Police say there are indications he had been using cocaine in recent days.

Missing FEMA Inspector Robert Francis Fisher was found Thursday after an exhaustive search, and those looking for him--especially the Los Angeles Police Department--are none too happy about it.

Fisher, 39, who raised fears in his brother and police when he disappeared 10 days ago, was found sleeping in a rental car parked near his Sepulveda Boulevard motel before dawn. “There are indications Mr. Fisher had been using cocaine in recent days,” Los Angeles Police Lt. Gene Brummell said.

“He was down the street the whole time,” said a relieved but angry Rodney Fisher, 31, who had been going door-to-door in search of his brother.

Robert Francis Fisher, an Oakland construction inspector working on a FEMA contract checking buildings for earthquake damage, was last seen by colleagues on Tuesday evening of last week as he headed for his room at the Comfort Inn at 8647 Sepulveda Blvd. in North Hills. When he had not been seen or heard from for several days, his brother--also a FEMA contract inspector from Oakland--brought in the LAPD’s Missing Persons Unit.

Detectives ran down leads, checked the morgue, as many of the 250 or so local hospitals as they could, and even County-USC Medical Center to see if Fisher had shown up dead or injured as an unidentified John Doe. His brother, Rodney, and others combed the neighborhoods where Fisher had been working, asking residents if they had seen him.

A patrol officer found Fisher about 2:50 a.m., when the officer stopped to talk to some women standing on a street corner near Fisher’s motel.

“When he asked the girls out there on the corner, they said: ‘Yeah, he’s right over there. We know exactly who you’re talking about.’ They took him straight to him,” Rodney Fisher said.

“He either was or had been under the influence of coke,” said Detective Raynette Sincosky of the missing persons unit.

When police brought the wayward inspector back to his motel room, his brother asked Fisher what had happened.

“He had nothing to say,” Rodney Fisher said. “He just looked at me. He was ashamed.”

Rodney Fisher said he put his brother on the first plane back to Oakland on Thursday morning. But first, he took him to the FEMA contractor’s office to apologize, and drop off his FEMA-issued cellular phone and portable computer.

Reached in Oakland, Fisher acknowledged he had been missing without notifying anyone “for a few days.”

But when asked about the police report of cocaine use, he said: “I’d rather get back to you on that.” He didn’t.

Like Rodney Fisher, Sincosky said she too had spent an awful lot of time looking for Fisher, and was worried about him.

“He really didn’t have friends down here that we’re aware of, and no criminal history,” Sincosky said. “And luckily for him, he still doesn’t. He probably doesn’t have a job though.”

John Hall, Fisher’s boss at Suncoast Associates Inc. of Edmonds, Wash., which employs both Fishers, had no comment.

“I’m very disappointed, for all the problems he put me through and my friends through,” Rodney Fisher said. “I’m happy he’s safe and he’s back, but I’m disappointed in him.”