know what he did for a living?"
Sam said, "If I recall, he was a weatherman."
"He worked at NOAA. He has a Ph.D. in meteorology and his specialty was severe storms. Severe storms. And you know as well as I do that he didn't just forecast them. He created them."
Sam put both hands on the island counter and leaned toward me. "I'm working on this. For me, for Boulder, it's only a couple of hours old. I've been talking to my captain, I've been trying to open some lines of communication with the sheriff. Lauren's been talking to the DA. I know the guy's a bad actor. You know he's a bad actor. But most of the people in the department don't remember him. My captain doesn't know him. The new chief doesn't know him. The current sheriff wasn't around when everything came down with McClelland. That all happened . . . years ago. And keep in mind that it ended in Pitkin County. It never even went through the courts here."
Pitkin County was Aspen. It was an Aspen judge who ulti
mately bought the argument that McClelland's mental illness was so pronounced that he couldn't stand trial. The judge had sent McClelland to the state hospital.
I could tell Sam wanted me to acknowledge something. I said, "So?"
"An open-ended 24/7 security detail to protect a prosecutor and her family for an old crime when there hasn't been a single threat? Even if the sheriff thought it was warranted—which he doesn't—in this budget environment he doesn't even know where to begin to find those kinds of resources."
Budget environment? That didn't sound like Sam. "I don't give a shit about the county's budget problems. He's a dangerous, vindictive . . ."
Sam opened the refrigerator and grabbed two more beers. He handed me one. He either hadn't noticed, or didn't care, that I'd barely touched my first. I watched him unsuccessfully try to twist off the cap before I handed him a bottle opener.
"Yeah," he said. "I remember him too." He sniffed the air. "He almost killed a cop in Aspen. I don't forget that kind of shit. So what are we having tonight besides that skinny pizza?"
"Roast chicken. Red potatoes. Cole slaw."
"At your house? Normal food? Never thought I'd see the day."
I spotted headlights driving up the lane. One pair a hundred yards or so in front of another pair. The second pair would be the sheriff's deputy.
I felt a chill. It had come to this. "When? What time did he get away?"
"This afternoon. Just after lunch."
"In Pueblo?" I asked.
Pueblo is a town about the size of Boulder on the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains 110 or so miles south of Denver along Interstate 25. A legendary mill town, Pueblo had been hit hard by the collapse of the domestic steel industry and for as long as I'd been in Colorado it had had been trying to reinvent itself. Pueblo—many locals pronounced it "Pee-eblo" for some reason that has always escaped me—is also home to the antiquated, sprawling Colorado State Mental Hospital, which is where Michael McClelland had been living since he recovered from the wounds suffered during his arrest and after the judge declared him mentally incompetent to proceed to trial for his numerous felonies in Pitkin County.
My opinion of Pueblo? If I-25 were an artery between major organs—like say Denver and Albuquerque—Pueblo would be an aneurysm, a little bulge. That's all. I knew people who might be less forgiving and describe it as a lesion, or a tumor. I also knew some people—fewer—who had family or business there and said nice things about the community and its residents and their determination to revitalize their town. But most people knew Pueblo as a place with a little highway congestion that they drove through, or past, on the way to somewhere else, Usually Denver to the north, Albuquerque or Sante Fe to the south.
Drivers stopped briefly in Pueblo if they needed gasoline,
Sam said, "If I recall, he was a weatherman."
"He worked at NOAA. He has a Ph.D. in meteorology and his specialty was severe storms. Severe storms. And you know as well as I do that he didn't just forecast them. He created them."
Sam put both hands on the island counter and leaned toward me. "I'm working on this. For me, for Boulder, it's only a couple of hours old. I've been talking to my captain, I've been trying to open some lines of communication with the sheriff. Lauren's been talking to the DA. I know the guy's a bad actor. You know he's a bad actor. But most of the people in the department don't remember him. My captain doesn't know him. The new chief doesn't know him. The current sheriff wasn't around when everything came down with McClelland. That all happened . . . years ago. And keep in mind that it ended in Pitkin County. It never even went through the courts here."
Pitkin County was Aspen. It was an Aspen judge who ulti
mately bought the argument that McClelland's mental illness was so pronounced that he couldn't stand trial. The judge had sent McClelland to the state hospital.
I could tell Sam wanted me to acknowledge something. I said, "So?"
"An open-ended 24/7 security detail to protect a prosecutor and her family for an old crime when there hasn't been a single threat? Even if the sheriff thought it was warranted—which he doesn't—in this budget environment he doesn't even know where to begin to find those kinds of resources."
Budget environment? That didn't sound like Sam. "I don't give a shit about the county's budget problems. He's a dangerous, vindictive . . ."
Sam opened the refrigerator and grabbed two more beers. He handed me one. He either hadn't noticed, or didn't care, that I'd barely touched my first. I watched him unsuccessfully try to twist off the cap before I handed him a bottle opener.
"Yeah," he said. "I remember him too." He sniffed the air. "He almost killed a cop in Aspen. I don't forget that kind of shit. So what are we having tonight besides that skinny pizza?"
"Roast chicken. Red potatoes. Cole slaw."
"At your house? Normal food? Never thought I'd see the day."
I spotted headlights driving up the lane. One pair a hundred yards or so in front of another pair. The second pair would be the sheriff's deputy.
I felt a chill. It had come to this. "When? What time did he get away?"
"This afternoon. Just after lunch."
"In Pueblo?" I asked.
Pueblo is a town about the size of Boulder on the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains 110 or so miles south of Denver along Interstate 25. A legendary mill town, Pueblo had been hit hard by the collapse of the domestic steel industry and for as long as I'd been in Colorado it had had been trying to reinvent itself. Pueblo—many locals pronounced it "Pee-eblo" for some reason that has always escaped me—is also home to the antiquated, sprawling Colorado State Mental Hospital, which is where Michael McClelland had been living since he recovered from the wounds suffered during his arrest and after the judge declared him mentally incompetent to proceed to trial for his numerous felonies in Pitkin County.
My opinion of Pueblo? If I-25 were an artery between major organs—like say Denver and Albuquerque—Pueblo would be an aneurysm, a little bulge. That's all. I knew people who might be less forgiving and describe it as a lesion, or a tumor. I also knew some people—fewer—who had family or business there and said nice things about the community and its residents and their determination to revitalize their town. But most people knew Pueblo as a place with a little highway congestion that they drove through, or past, on the way to somewhere else, Usually Denver to the north, Albuquerque or Sante Fe to the south.
Drivers stopped briefly in Pueblo if they needed gasoline,
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