Stone, who says she broke her arm when she fell off a ladder while cleaning the Belcaro home, notes that she has worked dozens of free hours getting the house ready to rent. And she and Steenrod's staff have repeatedly butted heads in the process. Stone complains that one of Steenrod's assistants purposely refers to Breeden's dog Gambo as "Gumbo," and she has questioned the lawyer's handling of phone bills and hiring of expensive carpenters to repair the doors knocked down by police. "Sure, they're little amounts," she says of the disputed charges, "but you'd stoop over to pick up sixty dollars." Stone adds that Charles Boettcher, the "Dutch farmer" who accumulated the fortune partly inherited by Breeden, would have, too.
Reached at his law office, Steenrod declines to comment on Stone's specific complaints. But he notes that all of his fees must be approved by the court before they are paid. Stone, he adds, "has every right" to scrutinize his handling of the estate.
And despite Stone's grumbling about his stewardship of the home on Belcaro Drive, Steenrod has clearly paid careful attention to at least one estate asset: Stone's rental house on Detroit Street. Steenrod recently proposed raising her rent from $625 per month to $1,200 per month to more accurately reflect market values. "It is a $1,200 house," Stone acknowledges. "But this is punitive."
The trial in the Bohland civil suit against both the estate and Schmitz has been set for July 28. And until then, the wary dance over Breeden's estate apparently will continue. Stone has asked the probate judge to appoint a new personal representative to replace Steenrod. But that appointment appears unlikely, and even if it happens, the court won't approve any financial disbursements until the claims of Bohland and other creditors have been addressed. In the meantime, Spicer Breeden's fortune will continue to dwindle. Among the claims now pending against the estate are $137,000 in legal fees sought by Stone's attorneys. Bohland's lawyers have reacted to the request with dismay; in a March 17 response filed with the probate court, attorney Lego said the fees should be disallowed because they were incurred on Stone's behalf, not the estate's.
"Of course I'm in it for the money," replies Stone, who notes that she sewed the decorative pillows that Breeden had under his head when he shot himself. So is Bohland, she says, noting that Lopez's widow has already turned down a $250,000 settlement offer from Breeden's insurance carrier. So are the Breedens. "Would I be a more noble person," she asks, "if I said, 'Oh, go ahead and take it, and Greg is gonna rise from the dead and Spicer is gonna rise from the dead?'"
Stone says she still fantasizes about saving Breeden, racing from Cherry Creek to Belcaro in time to avert his suicide. It may seem "a little bit macabre" that she saved the piece of his skull found in the basement, she admits. But she says she held on to the fragment because it's the one piece of Breeden she has left after a year of chaos. Adds Stone, "I kept it because so much of this case has been like a bizarre bad movie."
Stone, who at Breeden's memorial service was seated alone with her boys at a table for ten, says she regrets not being able to offer a proper eulogy for her friend. She bristled when Breeden was cremated and his ashes sprinkled near the Boettcher mansion on Lookout Mountain where he had lived as a boy. Her friend, she claims, wanted a burial and a grave marker, as evidenced by his reference to those items in his 1991 will.
In her fantasy, Stone says, she offers to pay the Breeden family's $2,000 catering bill from the memorial service. In return, the family gives her Spicer's ashes. Then she inters them at Fairmount Cemetery, under a marker bearing the simple inscription "A Boy and His Dog."
It is an image that gives Stone a measure of comfort, even though the "boy" was a 36-year-old man who has since been reduced to ashes, and his dog is still alive, entrusted to a longtime friend and hardly ready to be buried with his master.
Stone pauses for a moment as she reflects on the scene. "Isn't that romantic?" she asks.
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