The Bones She Buried: A completely gripping, heart-stopping crime thriller(16)

“That’s a hell of a long time for such minor offenses,” Josie noted. She kept skimming over the documents until she found the name of the juvenile detention center. Wood Creek. Something sparked in the back of her mind but as quickly as it flashed to life, it faded. She kept going until she reached the last few pages of the PDF document. “These are bank statements,” she said.

Gretchen nodded. “There are two. One appears to be a business account and the other a personal account.”

Josie read the names. “Eugene Sanders is the name on the personal account. The address has been blacked out. The business account is for a Wood Creek Associates.” The spark in Josie’s mind whooshed into a full-blown inferno. “Oh sweet Jesus,” she said. “Do you know what this is?”

She turned to see the grimace on Gretchen’s face. “I didn’t. Not at first. But when I looked up Eugene Sanders and then Wood Creek Detention Facility, I figured it out. It was the Kickbacks for Kids scandal. Sanders was the judge.”

“Right,” Josie said.

“I was working in Philadelphia back then. I mean, I remember hearing about it on the news, but it didn’t really make much of an impression at the time. I had my hands full in the homicide department.”

Josie sighed, and pushed her dark brown hair away from her face as she leaned back in the chair. “The Kickbacks for Kids scandal broke just after I joined the force. It happened here in Alcott County. It had been going on for years before a journalist brought it to light in 2010.”

“Sanders took money to sentence kids to overly long stays at Wood Creek, right?”

Josie nodded as her eyes tracked down the columns of each bank statement. “Right. Wood Creek was a for-profit, privately owned and run juvenile detention center owned by Wood Creek Associates which was basically a bunch of Sanders’ cronies who got together and financed the facility. They built it and then they gave Sanders a fixed amount of money for every juvenile he sent there—the more time on their sentence the better. These kids did completely unnecessary time for minor offenses, and Wood Creek was a shit hole where most of them were abused.”

“The men behind the Wood Creek Associates went to prison as well, if I recall,” Gretchen said.

“Yeah,” Josie said. “Not for as long as Sanders did though. He was the one who handed out all the bogus sentences. He ruined a lot of lives. Here—” she pointed to Eugene Sanders’ bank statement. “This is a deposit for $5,000 dated April 20, 2005 and look at the bank statement from the Wood Creek account—same date, a transfer of some kind in the same amount.”

Gretchen leaned over Josie’s shoulder, peering at the screen. They found two more $5,000 deposits into Sanders’ account that occurred on the same dates that Wood Creek Associates transferred $5,000 out of their account. “This was evidence,” Gretchen said. “Back in 2005 someone had evidence of what was going on, but the case didn’t break for another five years.”

“So why on earth did Colette Fraley have this?” Josie wondered aloud.

“And who is Pratt?”

“Let’s find out,” Josie answered, pulling up the internet browser and navigating to the Google home page.





Eleven





“Quinn!” a male voice shouted from behind them, making them both jump.

Josie and Gretchen turned to see Bob Chitwood, their new Chief of Police, hovering over their shoulders. His normally ruddy, acne-pitted face was ashen as he stared past them at the computer monitor. He pointed to the screen. “You get anything from the flash drive you found at the Fraley scene?”

Gretchen nodded. “Yes, and it had the name Pratt written on the outside of it.”

“You figure out what it means?”

“No, not yet, sir,” Gretchen said.

“Keep looking,” he told her. “Quinn, my office. Now.”

To Gretchen, Josie said, “See what you can find.”

Gretchen nodded and turned back to the computer. Josie followed Chitwood into his office. Sitting in one of the two guest chairs in front of his large desk, Josie noticed he had finally unpacked the banker’s box full of personal items he had brought with him when he took over as Chief. Josie looked around at the walls, but he hadn’t hung anything up yet. Several frames sat on the floor propped against the wall beside his desk. Not for the first time she wondered what kind of man Bob Chitwood was beneath his bad temper.

“How’s Fraley?” Chitwood asked as he closed his office door and walked around to sit behind his desk.

“As good as can be expected,” Josie answered, stunned that Chitwood even cared to ask. “Still in shock, I think.”

Chitwood sighed. “Well, we’re going to need him. Not to work but to answer a lot of questions. You know we work from the family outward.”

Josie shifted in her chair, thinking about just how well asking Noah questions had gone for her earlier in the day. “Yeah, I know. Listen, Chief, I think we need Gretchen. She should be the lead investigator on this.”

He folded his arms across his chest. “No.”

“Sir, she’s the most experienced homicide investigator we’ve got. More experienced than me. You’re only keeping her on the desk because—”

He waggled a finger as he cut her off. “Be careful, Quinn. I’m keeping her on the desk because of the shit she pulled with the last murder we had in this town. She should never have been allowed back on the force. You think I don’t know you had a hand in that?”