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.”