The Death of an Heir

by Philip Jett

  Altogether, more than 150 men surveyed the snow-patched fields, woods, gullies, and riverbanks, climbed over boulders, cut through thick vines and brush, and crossed over ditches and ravines. They entered old mines and caves, carrying flashlights and torches, careful not to become lost or injured themselves. Others shone lights or were lowered into old wells. And still others entered vacant cabins and vacation homes and stopped at grocery stores to find out if anyone had purchased camping supplies. A sense of urgency pervaded the seasoned men as they searched. The sheriff’s office had not been contacted by the Colorado State Patrol until 12:45, when almost five hours had already passed.

  “Hey, Harold!” Dale Ryder called from the bridge. “Come look at these scratches. See this here.” He pointed. “There’s another mark on top and over on the upstream side.” Ryder raised his large camera and snapped a photo. He walked to his left and snapped another from a different angle.

  “Looks like there was a scuffle, all right,” said Captain Harold Bray. The chief investigator was a tall, husky, capable man with thinning hair, who’d served during World War II and joined Naval Intelligence after the war. “That would explain the cap and hat in the creek. The two likely banged against the rail during a fight, and the cap and hat went flying into the creek. I know Ad, and he’d never back away; he’d fight for his life.”

  Bray stepped down the rocky creek bank and scanned the eight-foot-wide, one-foot-deep stream. He then ordered Verne Soucie, an investigator for the sheriff’s office, to go back to the office and bring the diving gear. “You can use it to get on your hands and knees or lie down to see if there’s anything under the water.”

  When the young Soucie returned around four o’clock, one of the deputies had discovered that the creek’s flow could be diverted to an irrigation ditch farther upstream. Soucie assisted in shutting the floodgate, and after a few minutes, the flow of water beneath the bridge slowed to a trickle. Without the continuous rustle of shallow flowing water, the area grew quiet except for the sound of the gusting wind and distant voices of officers. Soucie and others scoured the banks and the creek, wearing rubber boots and carrying rakes or sticks. Pools of water dotted the creek bed lined with stones and boulders, fallen tree trunks, tree branches, clumps of mud and grass, old scraps of clothing, part of a garden hose, bottles, and rusted buckets and cans long tossed into the creek, now stuck to its bottom. The men forged along, slowly walking four-abreast, bending down and moving objects with their rakes and sticks, some kneeling and swatting the ice-cold water from pools to peer beneath the surface. The sun glaring down on the creek sludge soon began to produce a pungent odor. After a few hundred feet, they were back at the bridge. They’d found nothing on the upstream side.

  Soucie walked about halfway on the bridge to rest a moment before he began searching downstream. He lit a cigarette, leaned against the railing, and glanced down. There, on a portion of a water-soaked scrap of cardboard, lay a pair of eyeglasses, just sitting on top as if someone had placed them there. They were about three feet from the bridge and only a few feet upstream from where Ad’s cap and the unidentified fedora had washed against the creek bank.

  “Dale! Come here and see this!” yelled Soucie.

  Ryder joined Soucie, carrying his large camera strapped on one shoulder, and saw the eyeglasses below. He snapped a photograph from the bridge before the two men walked down and traversed the rugged creek bank. Beneath the bridge, Ryder stepped over the glasses and snapped another photo.

  “Look,” said Soucie, picking up the glasses and holding them toward the sky. “The left lens is cracked, right in the middle, straight up and down. Could’ve been a punch in the face that broke ’em. But the frames don’t seem bent or nothing.”

  Ryder took the eyeglasses, placed them in a plastic bag, and showed them to Captain Bray. Bray saw Bill Coors standing near the Travelall, watching the men search for clues. Bray asked Ryder to come along as he approached Bill to speak with him.

  “Excuse me, Bill,” said Bray. Bray actually had been a friend of Ad’s since childhood. “One of our officers located these on the creek bed directly below the bridge near where the hats were found. Are they Ad’s?”

  Bill took the bag and looked at them through the cellophane. “They do look like Ad’s. Same color and shape. I can’t be a hundred percent certain, though.”

  “His wife would recognize them, wouldn’t she?” Ryder interjected.

  “I wouldn’t bother her now unless you absolutely have to.”

  Four days later, Bray contacted the optometrist. The store’s name was on the inside of one of the temple pieces.

  “Yes, I made those for Ad Coors,” said Dr. O. E. Maring, a Denver optometrist. “I made an identical pair with the same prescription only with colored lenses. Those are Ad Coors’s eyeglasses. No question about it.”

  * * *

  “Why hasn’t someone called? Shouldn’t we have heard something by now?” Mary removed her hand from the drapes and turned away from the window toward Joe. “Maybe you should go back over there.”

  “They’ll let us know when they find him,” said Joe. “Bill will, for sure. Rest and take the other pill like the doctor said. He said to take two.”

  Mary sat in her chair and folded her hands in her lap. “I want to have my wits about me. I don’t want to fall asleep.”

  “You should. All you’re doing now is worrying.”

  Mary stood and walked to the window again, pulling back the same drapes. She stared in the direction of Turkey Creek Bridge that lay just beyond the ridge north of her house, though she couldn’t see it. How can this be happening? Everything was fine this morning. Why couldn’t today be like every other day and Ad be at work? She left the window and walked down the hallway toward her bedroom.

  “That’s good. Go lay down. I’ll let you know if I hear anything.”

  Mary didn’t wish to lie down. She viewed the photos on her bureau instead. A photo of the family from one of last summer’s vacations. A wedding picture. She opened Ad’s closet and lifted one of his jackets from the hanger bar. It smelled like Ad. Mary began to cry. She fell across the bed and touched Ad’s side. She lay there, motionless, tears in her eyes. Please let him be all right.

  Mary exaggeratedly inhaled and exhaled trying to calm herself. The attractive forty-four-year-old was no helpless wallflower. Her family had settled in Colorado when it was only a territory, and they had helped the drive for statehood. She was the granddaughter of Colorado’s third governor, James B. Grant, who was born affluent and then made a fortune in mining. Her grandmother was often referred to as “a pioneer in [Denver’s] cultural and social life.” Mary’s father, James Grant Jr., a prominent Denver attorney, had been educated at Yale and Harvard Law School, and her brother, James Grant III, who attended the same schools, was an attorney in New York City. Her uncle was a physician, and her cousins were prosperous and powerful members of not only their communities but of the state of Colorado. Her family had given to the community, and in return, community leaders named streets, parks, and schools after them.

  Like them, Mary was intelligent and independent thinking and was naturally sociable, believing it to be her civic duty as a Grant and a Coors to join clubs, support charities, and volunteer when and where needed. She also enjoyed a good cocktail, an occasional smoke, and golf—something Ad’s father, who believed women were born to obey their husbands and rear children, didn’t appreciate. She’d graduated from the Kent School for Girls and the exclusive Vassar College in New York. She spent a winter in London after college and continued to travel abroad as a young woman. She’d learned fashion and etiquette, and knew how to be a lady, even if she had taken a back seat to her husband and lived on a ranch.

  Yet she didn’t mind so much, because she was married to Ad. She loved him, and he loved her. “I know I don’t say this as often as I should, but you know I couldn’t be happier. We’ve got each other, the kids are doing great. I’m a lucky man,” Ad told Mary often o
ver the course of their twenty-year marriage.

  On that dark, cold Tuesday afternoon, Mary thought of Ad’s words as she lay on the bed, holding back the tears, terribly afraid for herself and her children of the possibility of bad news. Oh, Ad, my darling. Where are you?

  * * *

  By late afternoon, newsmen began arriving at Turkey Creek Bridge. Word quickly spread of the possible kidnapping of Adolph Coors III, chairman of the Adolph Coors Company and firstborn grandson of its founder. Local newspaper reporters wearing suits and ties with pads in hand crowded about, mingling with radio announcers tethered by long microphone cords, as crews set up cameras and lights powered by loud generators while slick-haired television newscasters jockeyed for the best viewpoint around the bridge. Reporters were free to walk around, even to ask deputies questions and speak to Bill Coors. They captured images of the bridge, the investigators stirring about, and those on horseback trotting by. The images and headlines would be splashed across Colorado newspapers and picked up by newspapers and television channels all across the country and even internationally.

  Others from the press tried to access Mary at home, but were prevented by deputies guarding the residence. Still others tried to gain access to a Coors at the brewery, but were stopped by plant security. In contrast, those assigned to the Jefferson County jail were welcomed into the sheriff’s office and invited to set up lights for their cameras. Wermuth removed his eyeglasses, combed his hair, slipped on his jacket, and posed as newspapermen’s cameras snapped and TV cameras hummed.

  “I’m afraid he’s been kidnapped,” Wermuth said. “No, the family hasn’t received any calls or ransom notes yet.… Because the evidence points in that direction. I can’t say more.… Yes, we’ll start the search again in the morning about six.… Some of the mounted posse and jeep patrol are still out there.… The Civil Air Patrol will send a helicopter and maybe a plane tomorrow to scan the area from the air.”

  A secretary informed him that someone from the FBI was on the telephone. Scott Werner, special agent in charge of the FBI’s field office in Denver, introduced himself. Although Wermuth was pleased to receive assistance from the FBI, Werner couldn’t assign any field agents to assist in the investigation for twenty-four hours, under the Lindbergh Act. If Ad Coors didn’t show up by morning, the FBI could legally presume he was transported across state lines.

  Still, Special Agent Werner wanted to send over a group of agents in an unofficial capacity to act as liaisons, so the FBI would be fully prepared if Ad Coors was still missing in the morning. Wermuth filled him in on what they had found so far, including the blood on the ground and on a bridge rail.

  “The blood should be analyzed as soon as possible,” said Werner, who also asked that samples of the blood and the railing be flown to the FBI Laboratory in Washington.

  The sheriff and FBI agent coordinated further, anticipating the worst the following day.

  Around 4:30, Captain Charles Morris, a large, heavyset man, arrived at Turkey Creek Bridge. He approached Captain Bray with a disturbing report. “Hey, Harold. Found more blood on Kipling Street south of the Bear Creek School. One of the kids said he saw it there about 8:30 this morning.”

  “Why would blood be on the bridge here and on a street way over in Morrison without a body at either place? Doesn’t make sense.” Nevertheless, Bray assigned Dale Ryder to go with Morris to Kiplinger Street in his 1959 Ford Edsel patrol car and secure some photos and samples of the blood there.

  A cold northwesterly wind was gusting, and darkness was settling in. The headlights of Art Schoech’s tow truck shone on investigators and deputies looking about, reporting their findings to Captain Bray, who relayed them to Sheriff Wermuth.

  Bill Coors, having refused to leave, stood with a cup of hot coffee provided by the sheriff’s office and watched his brother’s Travelall hitched to the tow truck and the railing with scratches and blood spatter placed in the back. As it pulled slowly across the bridge, the tow truck’s yellow fog lights and orange roof lights eerily revealed boulders, barren trees, and searchers in the darkness with each passing flash.

  “Okay, wrap it up, boys!” Bill heard Captain Bray yell to the other investigators. “The sheriff’s called us in till morning.”

  Bill walked to where Captain Bray was coordinating the search. A large generator and portable light were placed at the bridge, now lined with flaming smudge pots puffing black smoke into the cold night air. Men had built campfires on the ground and in barrels with twigs and scraps of wood to provide a little warmth on the cold evening.

  “You calling off the search?” asked Bill.

  “No, sir,” said Bray, looking up at the six-foot-two Bill Coors. “The search is continuing. I’m calling only the investigators off till morning. Hard to spot clues with just flashlights. We’ve gathered about all the evidence we can anyway.”

  “I told my men to keep their long johns on. Nobody from the state patrol is goin’ home tonight,” said Chief Carrel.

  “Plus,” continued Bray, “we have about twenty jeeps that’ll keep up the search tonight, and a bunch of the mounted posse is gung-ho to stay on. There’s still a few on foot.”

  “That’s fine, thank you. My family appreciates all you men are doing,” said Bill.

  A Denver Post reporter spotted the tall, lanky Bill talking with the two lawmen.

  “Excuse me, Mr. Coors. Can I have a comment about your brother’s disappearance for The Post, sir?”

  “This is all so incredible, but it’s obvious that someone waylaid him,” Bill calmly told the reporter.

  “Do you know who might have done this?”

  “I don’t think he had an enemy in the world. And he carried very little money. The family is baffled. All we want is Ad’s return, and we will appreciate anything that anyone can do to bring this about. That’s all.”

  CHAPTER 7

  Mary had been dreading this moment. Joe’s wife, Holly, and Coors security guards picked up the children from school, and they were on their way home. All they’d been told was their father was in some kind of trouble and their mother needed to speak with them. Mary walked into the living room and sat down.

  The living room of the ranch home was her favorite room. It was paneled on three sides by European chestnut wood, and the fourth wall was entirely formed of windows facing west toward the Colorado Diamondback with the Front Range and Pike National Forest in the distance. The floor was made of wide French mahogany planks, and a fireplace flanked by chestnut bookcases provided a comfortable yet elegant touch. The house was nothing like the two-story brick Georgian-style home she’d left in Denver. The rustic exterior of the four-thousand-square-foot ranch home was painted brown with a red-shingle roofline broken by a lone brown brick chimney and French gutters. The interior was decorated Victorian-style, with antiques, candlesticks, high-backed chairs, mahogany tables, and lavish rugs.

  But today, none of that mattered. The living room of her beautiful home was simply a place that made her feel secure.

  Mary heard the youngsters coming into the house. Their entry was much quieter than usual. She met them as they entered. They placed their books and satchels on the counter, but didn’t sit. Mary could see from their faces they were expecting bad news.

  Mary did not want to tell them. Her heart was breaking, and she hadn’t spoken a word yet. It would be much easier to take another pill or pour another drink and crawl into bed to let someone else tell them, but she knew they needed to hear it from her. She drew a deep breath.

  “I have something to tell you. Now, it’ll be okay—everything will be okay. It’s something we have to go through for a few days, and then everything will be back to normal.”

  “What is it, Mama?” asked Brooke.

  “Your father is missing.”

  “Missing? What do you mean, Mama? How can Daddy be lost?”

  “Your father’s car was discovered on a bridge near here. The sheriff and his men are trying to find him.… I have to tel
l you, though, they think he may have been kidnapped.” Mary’s voice began to crack.

  “Kidnapped!”

  For some, the seriousness sank in immediately. For others, it seemed too remote, like it was on television, not really happening.

  The girls hugged their mother and tried not to cry, but couldn’t help it. Sadness overcame the boys, who drew closer to their mother and older sisters.

  “Okay, now stop this. Your father is a strong man. He’ll be okay. If he’s been kidnapped, the kidnappers will get their money and let your father go.”

  Holly waited in the den, out of sight. Her heart was breaking as she overheard Mary and the children. Joe stepped outside.

  “Aunt Holly is going to take you to her house and then to your grandparents’ for a few days when they get back from Hawaii. I’ve packed some clothes for you. Brookie, you and Ces may want to take along some other things. Spike and Jim, if there are some toys or games you want to take, set them out.”

  Holly was good to Mary’s children. She was an attractive, sandy-haired, educated Philadelphia debutante who was fun and gregarious and a good mother who knew how to make her nieces and nephews feel loved and comforted.

  “When are we going?” asked Brooke.

  “You need to go in a few minutes. The kidnappers could be watching the house. There’ll be policemen. It’s better if you’re not here.”

  “How long do we have to stay at Grandpa’s?”

  “Until your father comes home. Maybe tomorrow, maybe this weekend. I don’t know for sure, but it won’t be long, I hope. I’ll call you every day and visit when I can.”