Cruelest Month Read Online Free PDF Page A

very compulsive about that, keeping the place locked up. He’s afraid of getting robbed,” she scoffed. “Not that there’s much anyone would want. I had a lock put on his door with one of those keypads about a year ago. I programmed his birth year as the entrance code, something he wouldn’t forget. Before that, he kept losing his key and then the backup, which he would invariably forget to return to its hiding place in the shed. He’d go to the neighbors and call me and ask me to drive out and open the door. That gets old real fast.”
    “Why didn’t you give the neighbors a key?”
    “I did,” she said, raising her hands in the air. “He would get that key, also, and forget to return it.” She sighed and shrugged back in the chair. “So, like I said, I let myself in. By this point, I was getting scared, like what if he’d died a few days before and I’d stumble over his body. I don’t like him living alone. For years I’ve been trying to get him to move to a senior apartment, but he’s such a stubborn old coot. He insists on staying in that tumbled down shack. When my mother was alive, they had a cute little house in town. After she was gone, he moved to the cabin. It was his ‘getaway in the woods.’”
    Ray took a moment to type a few notes, letting her simmer down. “Any ideas about when he might have last been there?”
    “I don’t know. Hard to tell. Some of the food we bought on Wednesday was gone from the refrigerator. So I think he was probably around till the weekend.”
    “He doesn’t drive?”
    “Not in recent years. His driving was getting pretty scary, so I was happy when he let me sell his car before he got hurt or injured someone else. Like I said, in warm weather he uses a bike. It’s a big old black Schwinn he’s had for decades.” Barton passed her hand over her forehead. “I take him on errands at least once a week,” she said, almost whining. “And there’s a neighbor down the road, who will drive Dad to appointments and things when I’m not available.”
    Ray nodded his head, encouraging. “And his name, the neighbor?”
    “It’s Henry Seaton.”
    “Did you check with Mr. Seaton about your father?”
    “I stopped by there after I left my father’s house. No one was home.” Barton stood up suddenly. “And let me say one more thing: I looked in my father’s house, then I checked the garage, and finally I walked around the perimeter. Everything seemed normal.”
    “Sit down, Ms. Barton. How about friends, someone he might have gone away with?”
    “He used to have a lot of friends, but not so much anymore. They’d drink beer and play euchre at the Last Chance, or go to the casino when they got their Social Security checks. Most of them are gone now. There are still a few people around the village he spends time with. I’m not sure who they are, but I can’t imagine anyone who he would take off with.”
    “How about relatives?” Ray asked.
    “No, not up here. I mean, it’s just me and my sister. And she lives down in Livonia. She only makes it up occasionally, mostly in the summer. I would know if she was here because she stays with me. We don’t have any other relatives in the area.”
    Ray slid the second to the last page of the form in front of him and studied it. “Was there anything missing from his house?” he asked.
    “Not that I noticed.”
    “Did your father keep any cash there?”
    “Not any big money, if that’s what you mean. Just 50 or 60 bucks, a hundred at the most. Grocery money, beer money, something for the slots.”
    “How about the bank? Does he have substantial assets?”
    “No, he has a checking account, a small savings account, and a few CDs. I have power of attorney and look after that for him. He gets on quite well on Social Security and a small annuity. When he needs money, I get it for him.”
    “And there’s been no recent withdrawal of funds?”
    “No. I was paying a bill for him this morning. They all come to me,