Chapter 5 - THE HOUSE WAS ALREADY SOLD

Shawn read the property notice again.

Sale price: $460,000.

Buyer: Pine Ridge Holdings LLC.

Closing date: December 27.

His father had owned the house free and clear for nineteen years.

“You were selling their home?” Shawn asked.

Brenda looked at the floor.

“They can’t maintain it anymore.”

“They didn’t agree to sell.”

“They agreed through the power of attorney.”

Don shouted from the table. “I did not!”

Brenda snapped back. “You forget conversations!”

Shawn stepped between them.

“Enough.”

Deputy Collins asked Brenda for a copy of the trust paperwork.

She claimed her attorney had it.

“What attorney?”

“Peter Vale.”

The name meant nothing to Shawn.

It meant something to Collins.

His expression changed.

“Vale handled the Miller Grocery foreclosure petition?”

Don stared at him. “Foreclosure?”

Brenda turned pale.

Collins looked from one face to another.

“Your store has a lien against it.”

Maria gripped the table.

“No. We never borrowed against the store.”

The ambulance took Don and Maria to Pinewood Regional Hospital.

Shawn followed.

Before leaving, he told Collins he wanted the house preserved as a possible crime scene.

Brenda stood on the porch under the Christmas lights.

“Shawn.”

He stopped.

She looked smaller than she had an hour earlier.

“I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

“What part?”

Her eyes filled.

“The basement.”

He stared at her.

“That’s not the answer I asked for.”

At the hospital, doctors found that Don had missed several doses of blood-pressure medication. Maria was malnourished and severely dehydrated.

Neither showed clear signs of dementia.

A physician performed a quick cognitive screening.

Don scored twenty-eight out of thirty.

Maria scored twenty-nine.

The doctor looked at Shawn.

“These results don’t support the level of incapacity described in the paperwork you showed me.”

Then a nurse entered with a chart.

“Mr. Miller, your father’s medical file says he was diagnosed with advanced dementia six months ago.”

Don stared at her.

“By who?”

She read the name.

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“Dr. Alan Mercer.”

Maria whispered, “We’ve never met him.”