Critical Conditions

Twenty-two

“Hello, I’m Sunny Hasan. This is Deputy Larsen, Craig Larsen. You must be the consultant from Boulder. Come in and have a seat. Would you like a drink? Some coffee? The snacks are nothing special, but,” she pointed at bowls of nuts and chips on the plank coffee table, “it’s all that was in the kitchen. Please, everybody help themselves.”

A fire was smoldering in a red granite-faced fireplace that was flanked by two leather sofas of an almost identical hue. A fresh piece of green oak had just been thrown on the grate, and the sap in the wood was escaping in gaseous little bursts that were snapping like a string of tiny firecrackers.

I said hello with a weak wave, and moved to a corner of the huge room, where I settled at a game table. I grabbed a magazine from a stand that was fashioned from the racks of a pair of good-sized bucks, the whole time trying to appear both superfluous and inconspicuous. The magazine I chose was the latest edition of MotorHome.

I was absolutely certain that it was the first time I’d had an opportunity to read MotorHome magazine.

Sam introduced himself to the deputy and to Sunny without revealing his affiliation to law enforcement. Maybe I knew him too well, but I thought he wore his status like a neon-lit COP sign attached to his forehead. Sunny Hasan might be fooled by Sam’s act, but I guessed that Deputy Larsen had been cajoled by Lucy to play along.

Sunny had a wedding ring on the appropriate finger of her left hand, the stone a size considerably smaller than a man of her father’s station might have offered to adorn the finger of his new bride. She wore an outfit that looked every bit as fashionable and new as Lucy’s. I guessed it was another Donna Karan outlet special. Wisely, I thought I would keep my compliments to myself this time.

Sunny was a surprising woman. Dead Ed, her father, had been a defiantly rotund guy with a thick neck and wiry hair in few of the desirable places and many of the undesirable ones. Sunny was a total contrast: small, blond, and cute. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail, and the curve of her hairline had an intriguing asymmetry. Her brand-new Donna Karan special was a short khaki skirt, a white v-neck T-shirt, and a black blazer. I was guessing that Sunny was in her late twenties.

Sam had removed a notepad from one of his pockets and was poised for work. In a soft, seductive voice I’d never heard him use before, he asked, “Now what exactly happened that caused you so much concern?”

Sunny smiled at Deputy Larsen and said, “Shall I begin or do you want to?”

I couldn’t figure out Larsen’s agenda. Was he hitting on Sunny or was he just bored enough with the alternatives in his life that this seemed like a reasonable way to spend an evening? He nodded politely to Sunny and said, “You go right ahead. Go on.”

She perched herself on the arm of one of the sofas before she started. “I’ve been in Denver with Mom since…everything happened. You know, the things with my father. George-he’s my husband-and I live in Grand Junction. After Dad’s funeral, George had to go right back home for work. I didn’t need to be back so quickly, and I decided to take a few days here at the ranch to, I don’t know, consider things, reflect. Grieve, whatever. So I said good-bye to Mom this morning, took George to the airport in Denver, and drove up here.

“I got to the ranch, I would guess, about two. Is that when I phoned you, Craig?”

“It was closer to three when you called us. But later on, when we talked, you said it took you awhile to realize what was wrong.”

“That’s true.” The fire was roaring and spitting and Sunny moved off the arm of the sofa to a seat farther from the heat. “None of you knew my father, did you?” We all shook our heads. “He was an, um, orderly man. He liked things his way. You did things the way Dad wanted or you did them behind his back and hoped he either didn’t notice or didn’t catch you. Those were your choices with my father. I’ve known all that my whole life. Okay?”

The psychologist in me was hearing Sunny rearranging the cards in her hand so she could find a palatable way to play the grief card for a father for whom she’d had a lot of negative feelings. Everyone nodded but Craig Larsen. I imagined he’d covered this territory already. Or maybe he was as taciturn as he looked.

“One of Dad’s things was that no one ever came to the ranch without him. That was a rule. This was Dad’s personal retreat. Even Fred and I-Frederick’s my little brother-needed an invitation to come here. Mom has still never been here without my father. That’s one of his things. Got it?”

Sam said, “Sure, gotcha.”

“The second thing is that every time I’ve ever been here to visit, the place has been immaculate, clean, neat. That’s another one of Dad’s peculiarities. Order. Cleanliness. At home, in Boulder, Mom gets housekeeping help now. She didn’t used to, even in that big house. But not up here. Dad expected her to keep this place clean all by herself. He once told me that she doesn’t fish, she doesn’t ski, she doesn’t hunt, she doesn’t ride horses, what else does she have to do? That’s my dad.”

She sighed. Her efforts were transparent as she struggled to balance her sorrow and anger with some more enduring feelings about her father, feelings that caused discomfort but not pain, like ill-fitting shoes. “When I arrived here this afternoon, the place was not…tidy. There were crumbs on the kitchen counter, and some spilled liquid that had dried on the floor. There were dirty dishes in the dishwasher. And the trash hadn’t been taken out. I checked his bedroom, upstairs. The bed was made, but it wasn’t made well. Not like my mom makes it. Like Dad insisted Mom make it.

“It all seemed…suspicious to me. Like I said, you would have to know him.” Again, she sighed. “I phoned my mother and told her I’d arrived safely and asked her when she and Dad had last been here. She said they hadn’t been here for weeks. ‘Your father has been traveling,’ is what she said. Then, in as much of a joking voice as I could-I didn’t want to alarm her, she’s been through an awful lot-I asked her if he still made her leave the place looking like a show home when they left. She said he did.”

Sunny was done. She folded her hands in her lap and crossed her legs at the ankles.

Craig Larsen said, “When she called us she reported a possible break-in. I responded, listened to her concerns. When I heard about who her father was and what had happened to him in Boulder, I thought I should call you guys in, let you have a look. That’s where we are.”

Sam said, “Thanks for putting the pieces together so quickly and bringing us on board,” before he rotated in his chair and faced Sunny. “And now, what you suspect, what you feel, is that someone else has been here?”

“Yes.”

“Without your father’s permission?”

“He wouldn’t give it. His permission.”

“If your father came up here alone and just didn’t tell your mother, would he have cleaned up after himself?”

A laugh caught in her throat. Sunny found the thought amusing. “No, my father did not clean. He messed.”

“So, it’s possible he came to the ranch and just didn’t inform your mother? The, uh, lack of order you see is because he had no one to clean up after him?”

“I suppose it’s possible. But if he did, it would have been the first time in ten years he didn’t bring someone along to clean up after him.”

“Is there any sign of anyone breaking into the house? Any broken windows, forced locks?”

Deputy Larsen said, “No. No evidence of forced entry.”

“Anything missing?”

Sunny shrugged. “I don’t know the cabin well enough to inventory it. But I think the electronics are all here. I suppose a burglar would have taken those first. Wouldn’t he take those first?”

Sam said, “Frequently, yes, that’s what’s taken first. Are you thinking that if it wasn’t your father who was visiting the ranch without your mother, that it would have been what, squatters, then? Is that it?”

“I don’t know. I suppose that’s a possibility. I thought this was your specialty.”

At that moment, Lucy turned in my direction, away from the conversation. She was trying to stifle a grin.

Sam was on his game. He said, “It is. It is. But sometimes vics, uh, victims, have a wonderful intuitive sense about these things. I always like to hear their point of view before I speculate.”

Lucy covered her mouth to keep from laughing. I kept my nose buried in an article about the advantages of the new breed of diesel generators for class A motorhomes. The author thought it might be wise for me to upgrade now.

Sam said, “Deputy?”

“Craig.”

“Craig. You looked around? What did you find? What do you think?”

“As I said, no evidence of forced entry. House was locked up from outside when Ms. Hasan arrived. Whoever has been here has a key. Disturbances in the routine she described are limited to the kitchen, the playroom-it’s where Mr. Robilio kept his home theater, a pinball machine, a Foosball table, some other stuff-the master bedroom, and the master bath.”

Sunny said, “Oh, I forgot about that. There are used towels hanging in the master bath. No way Dad would permit that. A fresh towel every time for him. ‘If it’s good enough for Hilton, it’s good enough for me,’ is what he used to say. And even if he allowed someone else to use the cabin, there is not a chance in the world that he would permit them to use his bedroom or bathroom. No. Not a chance.”

“Food? Anything atypical in the refrigerator?”

Sunny responded, “There’s no beer.”

“No beer?”

“Dad always kept local beer up here to impress people. Ten kinds sometimes. There’s nothing, not one bottle, not even in the bar refrigerator.”

“Maybe he ran out?”

“Not Dad, he didn’t drink the microbrewery stuff. He’s an old friend of Peter Coors and that’s all Dad drank, Coors Light. Dad’s loyal to those who are loyal to him. Hershey’s friends don’t run out of chocolate. Dad didn’t run out of Coors Light. The other stuff was for guests, for show.”

“Is there a caretaker? Anybody see any traffic up here that didn’t belong?”

The deputy answered. “There’s one old boy who lives on the ranch. Name’s Horace Poster. He takes care of the horses, gets a free cabin. The horses are kept down by the river, near Poster’s cabin. I interviewed him. He can’t see this house from there. Says he didn’t notice anything unusual the past few days. But then, Horace doesn’t strike me as the type who would notice a pimple on his own nose.”

“Tire marks outside?”

“It’s been dry for a while. There are plenty. Now that you’re here, I’d bet that there are even more.”

Sam was scribbling notes. Lucy was examining titles in a tall bookcase. Sunny was trying to mask her disappointment with how things were going with the consultant from the city. And Craig Larsen was acting like every bored cop I’d ever seen.

Without glancing up, Sam asked, “You get many squatter situations in these vacation homes, Deputy?”

“We get a few each year. It’s not a big problem. It’s usually the truly isolated places, the smaller cabins off by themselves in the woods. Somebody camps out a few days. Eats some food, takes a shower. That sort of thing.”

I wrote out a note to Sam and handed it to Lucy. “Please give this to him.”

She read it first, of course.

Sam took the note from his partner, glanced at it, and glared at me with narrow eyes before he nodded slightly and turned toward Dead Ed’s daughter.

“Sunny? I understand your father has a motor home that he keeps up here at the ranch?”

She swallowed a smile and shook her head. “Half the people I meet who know my father know about that darn thing. Mom tell you about it?”

Sam said, “It just came up in interviews,” as he glanced sideways at me.

He was daring me to say something. I knew better.

“The big red barn you passed on the other side of the woods when you were coming up the hill? Remember seeing it? That’s where Haldeman lives.”

“Haldeman?”

“The motor home, actually Dad preferred the term ‘motor coach,’ is a Holiday Rambler. Initials are H. R. Dad named it Haldeman. Get it? H. R. Haldeman-the Watergate guy. It was way before my time, but Dad’s Republican friends all think the name is pretty funny.”

“Anyone checked it since you came up this afternoon? The barn?”

Sunny said, “No, I didn’t think about it. I suppose we should. I really don’t even know where the keys are. I’ll have to call my mother and see where Dad kept those things. You want me to do that?”

Sam said, “Please. Do you mind?”

Sunny walked into another part of the house to make the call, and Sam’s voice returned to its normal timbre. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me about this damn motor home before now?”

“I didn’t think it meant anything. Mitchell Crest mentioned the thing to me-said that Dr. Robilio brought it up here after the homeowners association refused to let him keep it on his property in Boulder.”

“Lucy, did you know about it?”

“I knew he had an RV, Sam. I didn’t think there was anything special about it. And I didn’t know he stored it up here. Honest.”

“Anything else I don’t know before I continue with this interview? Huh? Either of you?”

Larsen’s boredom had been interrupted. He was grinning.

I was trying to figure some ethical way to get Trent’s custody evaluation of Robilio’s relatives into Sam’s consciousness. I said, “Dr. Robilio may have had some family in the metro area. Maybe he gave them permission to use the ranch. Did anyone explore that?”

Sam checked with his partner. I could feel his irritation at needing to rely on others for basic information. “Lucy? Any family?”

She thought for a moment and said, “A sister-or sister-in-law maybe-I’m not sure which, in Denver.”

I was also going to tell Sam what Diane had told me, that the motor home was apparently not a pedestrian Winnebago. But Sunny returned before Lucy or I could elaborate. Sam’s voice once again became sweetness and light as he asked her, “Did your mother know where to find the keys?”

Sunny held up a jumble of metal and plastic and nodded. “My father liked things organized. But it was my mother who did the organizing.”

Sam said, “To get back to visitors for a second, you have family close by? An aunt or an uncle or something? Do I have that right?”

Sunny raised her sandy eyebrows in a manner that everyone but Sam found comical. “Nice try, but dead end. Daddy loved his children but we didn’t get to use the cabin by ourselves. He didn’t even like Mom’s sister or her husband. There is no way that the Porters would have been granted a stay at this ranch. Sorry.”

“Your father and his sister-in-law didn’t get along?”

“You could say that. Abby, my aunt, drinks. It’s a problem. Daddy found her weak. Her husband, my Uncle Andrew, loved to tease Daddy. My father didn’t have much of a sense of humor, so Andrew’s act never went over well. Anyway, my aunt and uncle are in the middle of a divorce. It’s messy, a custody thing, you know?”

Craig Larsen stepped forward, his boot heels causing loud smacks on the wood floor. “Sunny, you said something about your father hunting a little while ago, didn’t you? Did your father keep guns up here?”

“I suppose he did. He has some he used for hunting. He didn’t keep any rifles down in Boulder. So he must have kept them here or in Aspen.”

Sam turned to me and mouthed, “Aspen?”

I shrugged my shoulders.

Nonchalantly, Craig asked, “Where would you think they would be? The playroom?”

Sunny giggled and said, “Game room. Game room. I suppose that’s where he would keep them. It’s down this way if you’d like to look.”

We followed her through the kitchen to a room similar in size to the living room. It was filled with Dead Ed’s toys and games. A corner bar had stools for six serious drinkers. I was looking around for an ostentatious gun rack, while Sam, Lucy, and Craig Larsen spotted the locked gun cabinet immediately.

Deputy Larsen tried keys off the ring that Sunny had produced, hoping to find one that fit the hefty lock on the cabinet.

Offhandedly, Sam asked, “Sunny, your folks own a place in Aspen, too? Like this one?”

“No, it’s a condominium, in town. My mom likes Aspen, the shops and things. It’s not country like this, though, and it’s much smaller.”

“Anyone been up there since your father died?”

“Not that I know of. There’s a management company there that looks after things. I’m sure we could have someone check it out with a phone call.”

Larsen finally found a key that opened the cabinet door. He rooted around inside before facing Sunny. He said, “The cabinet is empty. There’s room for half a dozen rifles or shotguns in here, and drawers for three handguns at least.” He stepped back so we could see the empty case. “See, no weapons.”

Sam asked, “Any ammunition?”

Larsen shook his head. “Sunny, you have any way of knowing what weapons should be in this cabinet?”

She shook her head. “Mom would know. But I’d rather not upset her.”

Lucy said, “Well, it appears we may have a crime now. I don’t especially like it when weapons are missing. How about we all start being a little more careful with what we touch.”

Larsen used the telephone to request some backup and some forensic help. When he was done, we took two cars, mine and the deputy’s, down the hill to the barn to check on the RV. On the way, I asked Sam what he thought was going on.

“It looks like Sunny might be right. Someone may indeed have been staying in the house without permission. It’s not a typical B and E. They don’t appear to have taken anything except the weapons, assuming the weapons were actually there in the first place. They didn’t do any damage. At this point, I don’t see that it’s much more than a security concern. I imagine the locals can handle it just fine.”

If I allowed myself the luxury of believing him, his opinion would be good news. Indulging myself, I smiled as I was driving. I had a fleeting image of lowering my head to my pillow in Boulder as the bedside clock signaled midnight.

But I didn’t believe what Sam was telling me. He was being uncharacteristically optimistic.

“Would you be saying the same thing, Sam, if you weren’t sure of Merritt’s whereabouts for the last few days?”

“What do you mean?”

“What if our suspicions are right and her friend Madison is hooked up in this thing with Merritt somehow? What if it was Madison and her boyfriend, the frat kid, who have been camping out in Dead Ed’s cabin?”

He waved me off as though he’d already run the idea through the mill and rejected it. “The place is too neat for a couple of teenagers on the run. That’s what I think. If it were a couple of teenagers camping out, they would have trashed the place. You know kids.”

“Maybe that’s the point. Maybe they tried to make it look like they weren’t there.”

“Couple of kids, Alan. They’d be sloppy.”

“They were sloppy. Sunny picked it up in a second.”

“Still, too neat for kids.”

“Don’t underestimate them, Sam. Merritt’s a kid, too. So far, it hasn’t proved to be much of a defense for her.”

With that, we arrived at the barn.

I admit that I’d barely paid any attention to the structure on the original drive up the hill. After all, the Not So Lazy Seven was a ranch, and the building was designed to look like a barn. But examining it more closely the second time, it was apparent that the barn had been built not to service the ranch or to shelter animals but, instead, for the primary or exclusive purpose of garaging the motor home that Edward Robilio had named Haldeman.

The entry doors to the barn were huge, at least fifteen feet tall, and the double doors to the ersatz hayloft were, on closer examination, an obvious facade. On one side of the building a lower section was attached to the main structure under a long shed roof.

Sunny stood next to a steel door on the shed side and said, “This is where you go in.” She waited. “Craig, I think you still have the keys.”

The cops were hesitating. Sam whispered something to Craig Larsen and Craig nodded twice while he whispered a reply. Lucy walked around to the side of the structure and peered through a dusty window. Sam said, “Alan, why don’t you take Sunny back to your car for a few minutes while we look around. We would like to be certain that none of those missing guns ended up down here.”

I was opening my mouth to reply when I saw an automatic in Sam’s right hand. I had no idea where it had come from. Lucy was almost next to him, and she was pulling a weapon from her purse. Beside her, Craig Larsen was unsnapping his holster.

All in all, it seemed like a good time to be cooperative. I said, “Of course. We’ll be in the car.”