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“No working vehicle here,” said Billy. “That truck hasn’t turned a wheel since the first snow. How does she get groceries?”
“No clue. Maybe her good son, Burke, brings them to her.”
Billy rolled his eyes. “Maybe she has more than one son, and Burke is the black sheep.”
“Could be.” I banged on the door and we waited a couple of minutes. Then a woman in her fifties with dark hair opened the door and peeked out at us.
“What do you want?”
I held up my badge and she stared at it.
“Sheriff Frost, ma’am. I’d like to ask you a few questions about your son, Burke.”
She opened the door a little wider. “I ain’t gonna stand here with the door open freezing to death, so you’d better come in.”
“Thanks. It is cold this morning.” Billy and I stepped inside the door and we were standing in the kitchen. A big green and cream Finlay cookstove belting out enough heat to keep the whole house warm.
She pointed to the kitchen chairs and Billy and I sat down. “When was the last time you saw Burke?”
“Oh, let me think. He dropped by a few weeks ago. Before the snow came. I think that was the last time I saw him.”
“He working someplace steady?”
“He works when he can. Burke is all growed up now and he looks after himself. He don’t have to tell his mama his business.”
“Where’s he been living?”
“I don’t know that. Sorry, Sheriff.”
“How about a girlfriend?” I asked. Running out of possibilities.
“Like I said, he could have ten girlfriends or none. I don’t know his business and I don’t mess with his life. Burke is a private person and I respect that.”
“Does Burke keep in touch with his father?”
“Doubt that very much. Bren left Montana a long time ago. Long time. Burke was only six or seven years old.”
I glanced at Billy and he shook his head. Burke’s mother was being purposely vague, and we were not getting anything out of her. I wound it up. “Thanks for taking the time to talk to us, ma’am.”
I left a card on the kitchen table figuring she’d fire it into the stove as soon as we left.
As we stepped out of the house into the biting cold, Billy sighed. “Well, that was a dead end.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “But did you see that cookstove? That thing could heat up a whole house. We should have one of those in our kitchen.”
Billy chuckled. “Always a silver lining with you, Travis.”
I grinned, but my mind was still on Burke. Something about his mother’s evasiveness set off alarm bells in my head. We needed to find out more about him and his whereabouts, and we needed to do it fast.
Billy and I trudged through the deep snow back to the squad and were happy to hop in and get out of the wind. “You get the tag in?”
“Yeah, for all the good it will do us. We’re never going to hear anything from way out here. When we get back to the office, you can look up the father. He might not be as far away as Mama Foster says he is.”
“The father is worth a shot,” said Billy. “You never know which lead is the one that will get you there.”
“Never go at a case with blinders on,” I said. “That will screw you over every fuckin time.”
“I’ll remember that, said Billy.
