BELLEFONTE, Pa. -- Two weeks after the police search commenced, Ray Gricar's day off has lost any remaining pretense.

His ex-wife, daughter, nephew and girlfriend sat, in that order, facing reporters from across a table yesterday and took questions about the missing DA's health, habits, worldview and wardrobe. The chief of police assigned to find Gricar held out hope about a reported sighting in Wilkes-Barre which, if true, would mean that a 59-year-old man, eight months from retirement, abandoned his 2004 Cooper Mini but continued on his journey east with nothing but a laptop computer and a spare suit.

"The family is holding out the possibility that he is still alive," said Barbara Gray, Gricar's ex-wife and mother to his 27-year-old daughter, Lara.

The assorted media and police attending yesterday's press conference wanted to believe this, too. Police chief Duane Dixon said two people in Wilkes-Barre insist they met a man matching Gricar's description on April 18 -- three days after he told Patty Fornicola, the girlfriend with whom he lived, that he was taking the day off for a drive.

By 11:30 that night, Fornicola knew something was wrong. She called police. A day later they found Gricar's boutique car in an antiques mall parking lot in Lewisburg, 50 miles away. The Susquehanna River flows nearby. No amount of searching the banks, poking through the reeds and scanning the forest floor from the air has produced a hint of Ray Gricar.

Fornicola told police he had been exhausted lately, taking naps during work, but said yesterday Gricar had not been depressed, certainly not troubled the way his brother had been nine years ago when he drowned himself in the Great Miami River in Ohio.

"This is the second time I've been through this," said Tony Gricar, the DA's nephew.

So the sighting in Wilkes-Barre, as improbable as it seemed so many days after the disappearance, gave some hope.

"Right now we're taking it as a credible report," Dixon said. "It gives more hope than we had in the past."

Dixon wouldn't say precisely where Gricar was seen, but word came down after the press conference that the witness is a bartender, that Gricar was drinking Heineken, and talking with enthusiasm about the Cleveland Indians.

Gricar was raised in Cleveland and loved all things Cleveland.

A bartender who remembers what a man was drinking likely saw his face clearly enough to make a clear identification. But the bartender told police Gricar was wearing a suit. The DA left home in casual clothing and there has been no bank or credit activity to suggest he bought new clothes.

Missing people are often described in retrospect. Gricar's family went down the line, describing his attributes, sometimes in the present tense, sometimes in the past, all the time hoping to add the future tense to the great conjugation of his life.

He was, said Lara, a loving father. His ex-wife added the same. Patty Fornicola, who works in the same office Gricar runs, was perplexed that, inside the locked Cooper, police found cigarette ash on the floor.

"He is probably the most meticulous, responsible person you would ever want to meet," she said. Cigarette ash in the car is not Ray Gricar. "He loved to drive a nice car."

Yesterday's press conference was strange in a few respects. The family asked that questions be sent to them in advance, but then took fresh ones until reporters finally ran out. They left in a group, met with Dixon and his investigators, and Centre County, where mysteries have usually focused on the Penn State front line.

This is not to say Gricar did not enjoy the occasional puzzler along with the Grey Goose martini he invariably ordered while awaiting his table at the bar of the Gamble Mill Inn.

"Every Friday, he and Patty would sit right over there," said Barb -- she wouldn't give a last name -- the bartender. "They would play Trivial Pursuit cards."

A deck of the cards sits at the bar for the amusement of customers waiting to be seated in the dining room. She described Gricar as "very good" at trivia questions.

But almost all the bar conversation yesterday was about a district attorney who exited his car 50 miles away and kept on going beyond the reach of human curiosity.