The Kitchen Readings

by Michael Cleverly

  In Colorado, medical facilities are legally required to report stabbings, gunshot wounds, and dog bites to law enforcement agencies. When I arrived at the emergency room, two deputies were already there. Scott Thompson, patrol director, and Joey DiSalvo, my director of investigations, briefed me and led me to Deborah Fuller, one of my personal heroines. She had been working for Hunter for close to twenty years. Deb was lying on a gurney, and when she saw me she said, “Bobby, how’s Hunter?” I told her that he’d called asking me to come to Owl Farm but that her condition was more important right now. She showed me a half-dozen wounds, some with visible birdshot pellets just below the skin. The initial examination and X-rays showed “flesh wounds” with no deep penetration. Deborah’s mood was stoic; she was smiling and still had her ironic sense of humor. “Hunter has threatened to shoot me dozens of times, and now the son-of-a-bitch has!” She was laughing.

  Deborah asked me to stay when the doctor explained his suggested treatment. Basically, he told Deb that surgical removal of the number six lead pellets would be intrusive and posed a risk of infection and a host of other risks, as with any procedure of that nature. He described the risk of lead poisoning as minimal. Without much hesitation, Deb decided against the scalpel—and, again, asked me how Hunter was handling this event.

  Hunter was an aficionado of firearms. From handguns to shotguns and rifles (both sporting and assault), many targets have been hit, missed, or blown up at the Woody Creek Rod and Gun Club, also know as Owl Farm. The “club” was incorporated in the early seventies, shortly after Hunter was informed of George Stranahan’s plan to open the Aspen Community School next door. The Doc didn’t miss many tricks and was aware that certain activities, including the discharge of firearms, were legally verboten anywhere near a school. His lawyers advised him that his “club’ would enjoy grandfather status relative to the planned school and would be permitted to coexist with his new neighbor. Over the years, and hundred of thousands of discharged cartridges later, Hunter’s safety record was sterling. Until now.

  Satisfied with Deb’s medical stability, my deputy sheriffs took their notes from an interview with her and left victim/ witness forms to be completed at her convenience. We left the hospital and drove to the “crime scene.” All assaults were considered criminal until they were investigated and underwent prosecutorial review. The three of us arrived at Owl Farm and were greeted by Hunter. Joey requested a consent-to-search, in writing, from Hunter. After inquiring about Deb’s condition, Hunter told us that he felt the need to run past one of his many lawyers our request to search the premises. We explained that he had that right, but if he decided to refuse his consent, we would have to swear out an affidavit and application for a search warrant issued by a judge.

  Hunter called the office of Abe Hutt, one of Denver’s best and brightest in the arena of criminal defense. When Abe’s secretary said that Abe was in court, Hunter acquiesced and signed the consent. (Weeks later, Abe, a friend of mine, confided to me that if he had been contacted by Hunter, his advice would have been to require us to get a warrant.) Scott gathered evidence, photographed the scene, took measurements, and documented the forensic elements. Joey and I, after delivering the required Miranda advisement, asked Hunter what had happened.

  Deborah lived in a two-bedroom cabin about thirty yards from Hunter’s house. The area had been experiencing a multi-year drought and some late-season frosts, both of which had greatly reduced the natural food supply of the black bear, a regular and long-term resident of Woody Creek. Adapting to changes in their environment, the bears found almost unlimited alternative sources of sustenance, primarily in trash cans and Dumpsters laden with leftovers awaiting removal by garbage trucks. Hunter’s domestic trash was in a Dumpster midway between his house and Deborah’s cabin. He recounted that on this morning, in the murky light of dawn, he peered out a window and saw a large beast loitering just outside of Deborah’s door. He phoned to warn her and got the answering machine. Assuming that she was still sound asleep, he decided to do what he had done in many previous encounters with trespassing wildlife. He loaded a small-gauge shotgun with two shells filled with number-six birdshot. Each piece of shot was somewhere between the size of a BB and a poppy seed. With no desire to wound the animal, Hunter aimed at the gravel on the driveway several feet short of the bear. Generally the noise and the resulting launch of gravel toward the target spooked ursine intruders into a rapid exit.

  Hunter labeled this technique the “bounce shot” and expressed pride in his accuracy with it. “Tell that to Deborah,” suggested DiSalvo. That morning, according to Hunter, just as he pulled the trigger, Deborah opened her screen door and ended up directly behind the bear.

  Scott, Joey, and I left Owl Farm with cartridges, the shotgun, some pellets dug out of Deborah’s door, and photographs. Interview notes to be entered into official reports, ranges and vectors to be diagrammed and analyzed, and the provision of a witness statement were the job of Scott and Joe.

  The media were salivating, and we wrote a preliminary press release that emphasized that the case was open and under investigation. I had been criticized for years by a small minority of citizens for continuing my friendship with a self-proclaimed dope fiend and random brat. My agency had, in the past, investigated certain allegations of Hunter’s reckless behavior, dangerous or criminal. In a few of these cases I had called in outside agencies to assume investigative responsibilities. At one point, in frustration, I told Hunter I could be his friend or his sheriff but not always both at the same time. He understood. He always asserted his innocence and never apologized or explained, but he did offer that he didn’t do crazy shit unless he could write about it and get paid. This day’s incident was an exception. I accepted the risk of the situation and still feel that I was fair to my duties and fair to my friend.

  While those deputies qualified to put together the evidence and statements were doing their work, the wire services and print media, as well as the TV news hounds, were already beating their drums. “Thompson shoots long-time assistant” was the headline in America and many foreign countries. I needed advice from the district attorney.

  Over the years, Hunter had been investigated by the current DA, Mac Myers, and by Mac’s predecessor. Mac had worked for the previous DA, Milt Blakey, who loathed Hunter. At one point, Mac had decided to enter private practice as a defense attorney and resigned as deputy DA. As a career prosecutor, he wanted to look at his life’s profession from the other side of the street. Eventually he made the decision to represent the people of the State of Colorado and challenged his former boss in the 1996 election. Mac, a Democrat, defeated Blakey in a largely right-wing Republican district.

  At noon on the day of the Fuller shooting, I called Mac, who had not heard anything of the morning’s events. “Mac, Braudis here. Got a minute?” “Sure, what’s up?” “Let me run a hypothetical by you.” “Sure, go ahead.” “Okay, a guy looks out of his house and sees a black bear hanging around just outside of the door of his guest house. He attempts to warn the guest but gets the answering machine. He assumes that the guest is still asleep and, concerned for her safety, decides to use a technique to run off the bear that has been successful in the past.” I described the elements of the “bounce shot.” “Just as he fired the shotgun,” I continued, “the guest opens the door and is hit by some of the birdshot. Her injuries are minor. She has unequivocally asserted her desire not to prosecute or even sue for negligent behavior. We have conducted a complete investigation including statements, a signed consent-to-search, and all the physical evidence. Mac, crime or no crime?” I asked.

  “Well, it could be marginal, and I emphasize marginal, criminal endangerment. But given what you have told me, and assuming that it is true, I call it an accident. Sort of like falling off the roof.”

  “Okay Mac, here’s the kicker,” I said. “The bounce shot defender of guests is Hunter.”

  “Oh, shit,” Mac responded. “Can you get down to my office with all
the reports, photos, diagrams, evidence, and Joey later today?”

  Joey and I met with Mac that afternoon and we exchanged expressions of exasperation mixed with humor and relief that a very good friend had escaped serious injury. Mac agreed to review the case and touch base with Deborah as soon as possible. He said that he would issue a press release when he had reached a decision. At noon the following day, the office of the Ninth Judicial District Attorney issued a press release that exonerated the Doc from any criminal charges. The tabloids and sensational journalists got a few more days’ play. Hunter got a lecture from me, ranging from condemning cavalier reliance upon firearms to suggesting alternatives to “bounce-shooting” in the interest of bear mitigation. Cables and locking snaps were added to the Dumpster. Hunter remained my friend, and I remained his sheriff. I gained even more respect for Deborah, for her class and loyalty, which formed part of the currency in the constant potential for nightmare in her relationship with HST.

  I remained his sheriff.

  P.S. CLEVERLY

  Of course all of this was big news in Woody Creek, the talk of the Tavern. I don’t think it was a coincidence that Hunter stayed away for several days. I doubt that he would ever have admitted it, but I suspect he was embarrassed. We all loved Deborah, and even Hunter wasn’t immune to the Tavern sense of humor.

  A couple nights after the “incident,” I heard a commotion in my backyard. I opened the door to find a small black bear; I hollered and shooed him off. I called Owl Farm. I didn’t know how the legal situation was evolving with the Sheriff’s Department, or even Fish and Game. Since my cabin is less than a mile from Hunter’s I wanted to be able to back his play regarding the actual existence of a marauding bear. Hunter answered, and I told him all of this. “Where’s the bear now?” he asked. “Gone” I said, “and no one got hurt.” Hunter was pissed at me for a while.

  Cleverly Faces Fans Gone Wild

  The call came in the middle of a sunny summer afternoon. “Michael, you have to get over here. There’s been a security breach!” This is the sort of message I’d usually get on my answering machine at three in the morning. At 3:15, when the message ended, I’d pull my fingers out of my ears, roll over, and go back to sleep. It was different this time. Perhaps there was something to it. I asked Hunter what was going on. “Just get over here right now. This is important.” I could tell that he meant it. “Here I come.” I eyeballed the sawed-off shotgun on the wall. Nah. Far too pretty a day for that kind of solution, no matter how bad the situation.

  There’s a long history of fans coming to Woody Creek in search of Hunter. One day I was called to the Tavern to check out a guy who claimed to be a filmmaker needing directions to Owl Farm. It took about a minute to size him up and decide that the term would-be should precede anything he claimed to be. He was alone, no crew, and his camera was about the size of a cell phone—maybe it was a cell phone. It looked pretty silly sitting on top of this large, professional-type tripod. I told him Hunter was sleeping, which might have been true, and that if he didn’t have an invitation, which I knew he didn’t, there was no way he was going to get into Owl Farm. He complained that he had been on his way to the “Burning Man” festival and that he had driven a thousand miles out of his way to meet Hunter. I told him that was his problem and to go away. He asked if he could interview me. I said no and split. When I got home I left a message of warning on Hunter’s machine. The guy ended up finding his way to Owl Farm anyway and stole a liquor delivery and some dry cleaning that had been left on Hunter’s porch. A loving gesture by a devoted fan.

  On another occasion a young fella got a job as a busboy at the Tavern. This may or may not have been a gambit to get close to Hunter. He was a nice clean-cut kid who wanted to be a writer, and if it was a ploy, it wasn’t a bad one. Hunter was always as decent to Tavern employees as his mood allowed, and in some way they were instantly part of the family. The kid was bright and drove an old beater motorcycle, so if he’d been patient and bided his time I suspect he and Hunter could have hooked up cordially. Unfortunately it wasn’t to be. He got himself completely shitfaced one night and made his way up to Owl Farm. Hunter had no idea who he was, and there was no way it could have ended well anyway. In this particular case, it was a warm summer night and the Shark was parked in the driveway with the top down; puking in it was no way to get on Hunter’s good side. The kid’s tenure at the Tavern didn’t last long.

  To my way of thinking there were three distinct types of people who would come to visit Hunter uninvited, all of them fans, of course.

  There were those who actually understood that it was a bit odd to travel a great distance to impose themselves on someone they’d never met. This category of fan was a little embarrassed and maybe a little puzzled by their own behavior. I found these people to be generally benign and I always tried to treat them gently and with a measure of courtesy.

  Then there were those whose judgment was impaired; you know, whacked, loaded, a bit fucked up. These folks would probably be fine the next day, but at the time, they weren’t very pleasant company. They usually were sure they were right and were often belligerent. One tried to reason with them, to make them go away. It wasn’t an easy project. Those situations would often end up with people with badges getting involved.

  Then there were the true nutcases. Sober or straight, they would wake up one morning and decide that it was a perfectly reasonable idea to drive (or hitchhike or teleport) themselves thousands of miles and drop in on someone they’d never laid eyes on. These types were convinced that because they’d traveled all that way, Hunter owed them something—despite the fact that no one had asked them to come or wanted them there. If they couldn’t find Hunter, then Hunter’s friends, employees, or family owed them something. Those were my favorites. They didn’t sober up the next day. They rarely took no for an answer.

  So, on this particular sunny afternoon, guess what sort of person had driven himself off the road across from Hunter’s driveway.

  I had noticed a pair of black tire marks heading toward the pasture across from Doc’s the day before. The pasture was home to alpacas, llamas, guinea fowl, turkeys, and God knows what else. The black tire marks suggested to me that someone had come to a screeching halt inches before crashing through the fence that kept the critters where they belonged. I got a feeling that I was about to meet the author of those tire marks.

  When I got there, Deborah was leaning into the passenger-side window of a car that seemed to have stopped just short of rolling over. The fact that it was deep in a ditch and almost on its side actually made Deborah’s position quite comfortable. I pulled my Jeep across the entrance to Hunter’s driveway, effectively blocking anyone from pulling in or out. As I stepped out of the Jeep, Deborah pulled her head out of the car window. Michael, I’d like you to meet so and so. So and so, meet Michael. Michael’s a good friend of Hunter’s. Deborah’s tone was casual and gracious, as if she were introducing people at a cocktail party. This wasn’t her first crazy person. I took up Deborah’s head-in-window position and said hello.

  The inside of the guy’s car looked like what I presumed the inside of his head must have looked like. It was a goddamn mess. There was shit everywhere. Not just the usual slob debris. There were strange devices; perhaps he used them to talk to the “voices.” I motioned for Deborah to back up and suggested that she go inside and tell Hunter that I was here. I wanted her out of the line of fire, should there be a line of fire. He was a good-size lad. I realized that this wasn’t our first meeting. He’d been at the Tavern the day before. A great big kid sitting at the end of the bar, brooding and asking about Hunter. Well, there we were.

  I proceeded with some small talk. He wasn’t making much sense, but I didn’t get the feeling that he was loaded. We continued to chat; it all seemed affable enough. I thought that things were going well; then I noticed a beater pickup truck heading toward us at a high rate of speed. Tex. Evidently, Hunter had called Tex and me at the same time. I lived a l
ittle closer and got there first. The vehicle approached and Tex slammed on the brakes, skidding sideways in our direction. Tex was out of the truck almost before it stopped moving. He had a lever-action carbine in his hand. Clearly he had come to a different conclusion than I had when he eyeballed his arsenal on the way out of the house.

  He ran full speed to the car and stuck the rifle in the kid’s face. I was pretty sure that this was running counter to my chilling-the-kid-out strategy. I told Tex that I thought I had things covered and that maybe he should go establish a perimeter. Reluctantly he withdrew the weapon. Tex melted into the scenery. I went back to trying to re-chill the kid.

  A few minutes later, Doug Brinkley walked down the driveway and stopped in the middle of the road. Doug was a dear friend of Doc’s. He had been very helpful to him on a number of projects and happened to be visiting that afternoon. Doug is a presidential historian and a Jimmy Carter and Rosa Parks biographer. Doug is on TV a lot for CBS News. I could think of any number of accurate phrases to describe Doug but “up from the streets” wouldn’t be one of them. “Camera ready” would be more like it. Doug had an affinity for starched white shirts.

  I pulled my head out of the car window and met up with Doug in the middle of the road. Just as I got there, a guy on a bicycle came down the road. He stopped and told us that on his way up the road this guy had forced him off the road and into a ditch. Hmmm, just the kind of thing that Hunter would have seriously considered doing. Maybe the kid was all right. The bicyclist told us that he had called the cops. Damn cell phones. No one’s safe from the decent citizenry. I told Doug that everything was fine and suggested he go inside. The bike guy pedaled off, and Doug went back up the driveway, relieved, I suspect. I stuck my head back inside the car and told the kid that he might have misbehaved and that the authorities had been summoned.