“I got interested in the story when we started getting these weird press releases and promotional materials about the über-spiffy new resort at the Uranium King Ranch. The stuff they sent out made the place sound like a resort designed to entertain James Bond. I mean, how about a ‘climate-controlled’ cigar room? I had to check it out for myself.”
Tom had called the reporter from The Denver Post and invited him to lunch. He was working on a story about the most prominent family in his backyard, he’d explained, and was looking for some additional background. The journalistic tradition that the big city reporter can always find a friend at a small paper is reciprocated without risk of being scooped. The Post and the Forum were obviously not competitors. And Tom knew that almost any reporter is a sucker for somebody else picking up the lunch tab.
“What did you do to your nose?” the reporter, Dan Bryant, asked.
“Oh,” Tom said, self-consciously reaching for his face, which he hadn’t realized had been so obviously bruised by Brubaker. “I walked into a door last night, in my motel room. In the dark… I was half asleep….”
Bryant nodded and continued with his story.
“So I went down to Radium and, sure enough, the UK Ranch Resort was one of the strangest places I’ve ever been,” he said. “Have you been there?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s totally bizarre, right? Did you check out that scenario house? That alone must have cost millions, with all the high-tech gadgets in there. So I started poking around and learned that there was this war inside the family. Basically, the two older brothers are totally pissed off about all the money spent on the resort. They had their lives all figured out. They were going to live quietly off their inheritance as soon as the old man died. It wasn’t a huge fortune like it used to be, but it was enough, and the family still owns a lot of land that could be developed or sold off. But their whacko younger brother had other ideas. Somehow Albert got control of the parents and they let him do this resort.
“The big blow came in Betty DeRichter’s will, leaving all her assets to Albert and naming him her executor and leaving just $1 to each of the other boys, Frank and Richard, because – and I remember this language exactly – ‘of their role in the deliberate obstruction of the UK Ranch Resort plan and the years of financial hardships and mental anguish that they caused their parents by their selfish ingratitude and dishonesty.’
“Frank and Richard responded by filing a suit contesting the will on the grounds that Albert dictated it to Betty, who by then was well in the depths of Alzheimer’s.”
“What happened?”
“It’s still going on. There’ve been a couple more suits and countersuits filed since that one. If you’ve got the time to spare, you could meet with Frank and Richard. You might find it interesting. They’ll give you more material than you can ever use for a story. They’re both listed in the phone book. And believe me, they’ve got nothing better to do than talk about their troubles.”
Frank DeRichter answered the phone on the second ring, and needed very little in the way of an introduction from Tom before inviting the editor of the Radium Forum to his place for an interview. He seemed disappointed that Tom couldn’t arrive sooner than within the hour. He agreed to call his brother, Richard, to invite him to join them.
The two brothers were waiting on the front porch of Frank’s modest Aurora bungalow when Tom pulled up.
The introductions were cursory. Nor were any questions from the journalist necessary.
“It’s really a damn tragedy that mom and dad didn’t succeed in spending it all,” Frank said even before the three of them had settled into their seats around the dining room table. He was in his mid-fifties, and bore a strong family resemblance to Albert.
Richard, who was a few years younger, nodded agreement. He sat behind several portable files bulging with documents, ready to present evidence if it was called for. Richard looked like he might have come from a different family; he was short, round, and had a full head of hair.
“When we were kids we went from beans and oats to Swiss cocoa and filet mignon,” Richard said.
“That was the easy transition,” Frank interjected. “Going back the other way was the hard part. Back to beans and oats.”
“Dad used to take us up in his plane to watch television because the signal didn’t reach Radium.”
“The point is that he and mom thought they’d struck it so rich that the money would last forever.”
“That’s right. Fur coats and diamonds. Champagne and caviar.”
“He bought the plane in the first place so that he and mom could fly to Denver for weekly rumba lessons. Then he had to build a landing strip for it.”
“Dad thought he was literally a king. King Dick DeRichter.”
“And mom thought she was his queen. Queen Betty.”
“But wouldn’t that make us princes?”
“In 1970, the estate was worth $120 million.”
“And that was when a million dollars was worth something.”
“You really have to work hard to spend that much money.”
“And they did work at it.”
“Of course, nobody knew then that one of their children was a psycho.”
“We only learned that later.”
“After it was too late.”
The two brothers jumped on each other’s lines, pathetically eager to get the story out and leave no sordid detail untold.
“Albert was always off,” Richard said.
“We thought he was just slow. Especially after he fell off his bike and hit his head.”
“He’s plenty smart. From the time he was five, he was plotting against us.”
“That’s a bit much, don’t you think?” Frank asked. “From the age of five?”
“You know, Frank, I really don’t. We always underestimated him.”
“How did he gain control?” Tom interjected.
“Through deceit.”
“And fraud.”
“He’s a sociopath.”
“He told Mom and Dad whatever they wanted to hear.”
“So you’ve sued him.”
“Only about five times!” Richard said. “I’ve got all the legal documents right here if you want to see them.” He started rummaging through the files.
“Maybe later, if there’s a story here for me.”
“Oh, there’s a story all right,” Frank said.
“Yeah, Bleak House,” Richard said. “You ever read it? Dickens novel about the lawsuit that goes on for decades and ruins everyone it touches? That’s the story of the DeRichters.”
“Why not walk away?”
“It wouldn’t be right,” Frank said.
Richard nodded his agreement, his expression sober and sad. “It’s a matter of simple justice,” he said.
“Before Mom died, Albert got her will rewritten and the two of us were completely disinherited,” Frank said. “Of course, she had Alzheimer’s, so it won’t stand up when we get before a judge.”
“Albert dictated it to mom. Now he’s got the same control over Dad.”
“Have you been to the ranch?” Frank asked Tom. “We hear it’s absolutely grotesque.”
“We can’t even visit,” Richard explained. “Can’t visit our own family home, the place where we grew up. It belongs to us as much as it does to Albert. But he’s got armed guards to keep us away. He doesn’t want us to get within ten miles of Dad.”
“I often think it’s a pity Albert hasn’t wiped us out completely.”
“Maybe he has by now.”
“Or it might have been better if dad had never discovered the Whispering Jim in the first place,” Frank said, closing the argument with the same sentiment he had started it with on Tom’s arrival.
The two brothers were done and they sat there looking at Tom expectantly, as if now that they’d presented their case to him, a case that consisted of deeply bruised feelings and several cartons of legal documents, he would assume the role of a judge and set things right.
“It’s quite a story,” Tom said.
The DeRichter brothers nodded: quite a story, indeed, a story of hopeful lives undone by greed and malice.
“I’m actually looking into the disappearance of your half-brother, Ray Walker.”
“Ray Walker?” Frank asked blankly, as if the name rang only a far distant bell.
“I haven’t seen him in years,” Richard said with a shrug of disinterest.
Frank nodded. “He was a lot younger than us,” he said.
“I’m pretty sure Dad settled with him ages ago,” Richard added. “Set him up in business and made pretty damned generous arrangements for Elizabeth, too.”
“She probably came out better than we have,” Frank said bitterly.
“Did you know Ray’s gone missing?”
“No.”
“Haven’t heard anything.”
“Not a word.”
Walker’s disappearance was of far less interest to the DeRichter boys than the epic tale of their own tragic disinheritance.
“I don’t think we can help you there,” Frank concluded. The deflation in his voice was sad.
Maybe carnotite really is fool’s gold, Tom thought, as he drove away, watching the forlorn figures of the DeRichter brothers recede in his rearview mirror as they stood on Frank’s front porch. Uranium had certainly destroyed them.