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“Dad has dementia and sometimes he wanders off and doesn’t know where he is.”
That makes a little more sense.
“I have bad news about your father, Mrs. Chappell.”
“Oh, no. What happened?”
“Your father is deceased, I’m sorry to tell you.”
“How? Can you tell me what happened to him?”
“He was found frozen in a snowbank down on Milk Run road, not far from the bridge.”
She covered her face with her hands and cried. “That is so terrible. Who found him?”
“Milly Perkins.”
Mrs. Chappell straightened up and stared at me. “That makes no sense at all.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Dad moved in with Milly over a year ago. Two single seniors and they got along well. Milly had always liked Dad and he was doing much better when he wasn’t living alone.”
“I’ll be speaking to Milly again tomorrow and I’ll dig deeper into what happened.”
“Where is Dad now? I mean… his body.”
“He’s at the morgue in Cut Bank. You can call Doctor Olson if you’re inquiring about a timeline for arrangements.”
“Yes, I was wondering about that. Thank you for coming in person, Sheriff Frost.”
“I’m sorry for your loss, Mrs. Chappell.”
“That got confusing,” said Billy. “If the old man lived with the woman who called it in, wouldn’t she know more about where he was?”
“Unless he had one of the bad spells and took off without her knowledge. We need clarification for sure.”
Anderson Residence. Coyote Creek.
Art Anderson lived with his father in a small white bungalow on the south side of town. When we arrived, he had just gotten home from work and he was not happy to see us. Especially me—the guy who had rearranged his face and broken his nose at least twice.
“I don’t talk to cops,” he snarled and looked daggers at his father for letting us into the house.
“Just a couple of quick questions about Burke Foster.”
“Don’t know nothing about him.”
“But you used to hang out with him.”
“So what? Used to don’t mean I do now.”
“You haven’t seen or heard from him since he robbed the feed store and killed Tim Morrison?”
“That’s right. I haven’t and I got nothing more to say to you.” His hand went to his face and I almost smiled.
As we moved towards the door, I handed a card to his father.
The old man looked at the card in his hand and then back up at me. “What’s this for?” he asked, his voice shaking a little.
