The Bones She Buried: A completely gripping, heart-stopping crime thriller(28)

“This is a lot to take in,” Josie said. “And you’ve been through a lot. We hate to have to do this, especially now that you’ve had such a shock, but we need to ask you some questions about Beth, your Uncle Drew and your dad. Would that be okay?”

He nodded. “What do you want to know?”

Mettner began, “Do you know of anyone who would have any reason to hurt Beth?”

Mason shook his head. “No. I can’t think of anyone. I mean, she was stubborn and strong-willed like Uncle Drew, but she didn’t have any enemies. Not that I know of. She worked at the college. Did you know that?”

“Yes,” Mettner said. “When Detective Palmer called her to set up today’s meeting she mentioned that. She worked in the registrar’s office, is that right?”

“Yeah. She loved her job. Loved her co-workers. I can’t imagine anyone up there having any reason to kill her. Did you talk to her girlfriend—I’m sorry—ex-girlfriend?”

“Our team is tracking her down now,” Josie said. “When’s the last time you spoke to Beth?”

“About a week ago maybe? I’ve been calling to check on her since the big break-up. She was taking it kind of hard.”

Josie pulled out a photo of Colette Fraley she had copied from the Fraley family photos and showed it to Mason. “Do you recognize this woman?”

A blank look came over his face. “No,” he said. “I’ve never seen her before. Who is she?”

Josie said, “She was murdered about a week before Beth. We’re just exploring the possibility that the deaths are connected.”

“Maybe my mom might know her?” he suggested.

Josie put the photo away. “We’ll check.” She took out her phone and brought up some of the photos she had snapped pictures of at Beth Pratt’s residence. She swiped through them for Mason’s benefit and pointed to what looked like an arrowhead in the last one. “Can you tell us what your dad is holding in these photos?”

A small smile played on Mason’s lips. “Yeah,” he said. “It was this dumb arrowhead. You know what those are, right?”

“Yes,” Mettner and Josie answered in unison.

Josie asked, “Did the one in these photos have some kind of special meaning for him?”

“Well, yeah,” Mason said. “You know my dad was an archaeologist, right?”

“No,” Josie said. “We weren’t aware.”

“Yeah, he was a professor at Denton University. Anyway, archaeology was his passion. Before I was born, he traveled all over the world on digs.”

Mettner asked, “Is that where he got the arrowhead? On a dig?”

“No. He got it here in Pennsylvania. When he was growing up he used to go out into the woods to play, and he would pretend to be some world-famous archaeologist. Well, one time he actually found this arrowhead. It wasn’t worth anything, but it meant a lot to him. When he went off on digs he would carry it with him to remind him of home. To keep him ‘grounded’ he used to say. Later, when he settled here and started teaching, he carried it around in his pocket and when he started to feel anxious or nervous he’d take it out and run his fingers over its edges.”

Josie’s heart did a little double tap as she thought of the smoothed edges of the arrowhead they’d found in Colette’s sewing machine. “How old was your dad when he died?” she asked Mason.

“Fifty-nine.”

“He had this arrowhead since he was a child?”

“Yes. Maybe since he was nine or ten.”

That was roughly fifty years of rubbing the hard edges of the arrowhead’s surface. Plenty of time to smooth it down.

“Do you know what happened to it?” Mettner asked.

“Nah,” Mason said. “I mean my mom and I assumed it was in his pocket when he went into the river, and it went down with him. He never went anywhere without it, and it wasn’t in his car.”

Josie said, “Can you tell us about the day your dad went into the river?”

Nineteen years had passed since the trauma of losing his father, and Mason’s words were matter-of-fact, almost emotionless, like it was a story he had told hundreds of times. Josie guessed he had. “I was still in high school. Back then we lived between here and Bellewood—outside of Bowersville. He went to work that morning and taught his nine o’clock class. He walked over to the cafeteria to get a coffee after that, just like he did every day. He was on camera there. Then he walked out and no one saw him for two days. My mom reported him missing that night when he didn’t come home for dinner, but the police wouldn’t start looking for him until twenty-four hours had passed. The next day the state police found his car on the bank of the Susquehanna River down in Bellewood. It was locked. His keys, phone, wallet, everything was still in the car. Except for him.”

“Had he been depressed?” Josie asked.

“My dad was always depressed. Well, I mean, he struggled his whole life. He was bipolar. So he was either on top of the world or he was ready to check out, but none of us ever thought he actually would.”

“He never expressed any suicidal ideations?” Mettner asked.

“Not in a way that made us think he would ever really hurt himself. When he was in one of his down cycles, he would just be very sad and morose, sleep a lot. Sometimes he’d say something like, ‘I’d be better off dead,’ but he never seemed like he was planning to kill himself. He had a therapist and he saw a shrink for meds. My mom was really on top of him about it because she said if he wasn’t vigilant then he could spiral out of control. Even after his body washed up, she didn’t believe he killed himself. But there was no proof that he didn’t.”