The Bones She Buried: A completely gripping, heart-stopping crime thriller(48)

Josie said, “You know, we found rosaries buried in her backyard.”

Again, he laughed and his expression held a sort of nostalgia. “Oh yes, she kept her Catholic customs. In the house we raised our kids, there’s probably two dozen rosaries buried in that backyard as well. Colette was big on saying the rosary.”

“Did she ever tell you why she switched to Episcopalian but continued to observe her Catholic rites?” Josie asked.

Another shrug. “When we got married, her mom wanted her to get married in the Catholic church. You know, her mom worked for the priests in the rectory almost her whole life. She cooked and cleaned for them. I mean she had another job, too, but the work at the rectory kept them afloat after Colette’s dad died. Anyway, Colette absolutely refused and said she’d never set foot in that church again. Then her mom said she could pick a different Catholic church. It didn’t have to be the one she grew up attending. There was a nice one in Bellewood that would have allowed us to wed there, but Colette was adamant. She said as far as she was concerned, there was no Catholic church any longer. She and her mother fought over it. It was the only time I ever saw her scream at her mother, and one of the few times I ever saw her upset enough to cry.”

Gretchen said, “Is there a possibility she was… abused there?”

Lance thought about it for a second, his lips bunching up as he mulled it over. “No, I don’t think so. I mean I asked her about it when the whole wedding controversy was going on because I had never seen her so upset about anything before. It was creating so much tension between her and her mom, too. I asked her point blank if one of the priests had ever done anything to her, and she said no. She said that she would not talk about it but all I needed to know was that she had witnessed things that were not very Christian. So she switched to the Episcopal church, and she was happy there.”

Josie wondered if Colette’s anger toward her old church and Ivan were connected in any way. There was no way to know without tracking down this Ivan person, and she wasn’t sure Colette’s switch from Catholic to Episcopalian was really relevant to the issue at hand, which was finding Colette and Beth Pratt’s killer. On the other hand, it couldn’t hurt to talk to Ivan. Colette had been seen talking to him when Noah was around thirteen years old which would have been the same year that Samuel Pratt died. It was too coincidental.

“Did she or her mother ever tell you Ivan’s last name?” Josie asked.

“No,” Lance said. “He never even came up again after that.”

“What about anyone named Pratt?” Gretchen asked. “Did she know anyone by that last name? That you’re aware of?”

He shook his head. “No, doesn’t sound familiar.”

“How about her work schedule?” Gretchen asked. “She worked for Sutton Stone Enterprises for a long time, didn’t she?”

“Yeah, she got that job when she was about twenty-two and it was a godsend at the time because I was unemployed. They were good to her there. She seemed to love it, and it was easy work—typing letters and answering phones, making appointments. She was in their secretarial pool at first and then got promoted eventually to assistant to the big guy.”

“So she basically worked nine to five every day?” Gretchen probed.

Josie knew she was trying to establish how flexible Colette’s work schedule had been; would she have had time to slip away during the day and carry on an affair with Samuel Pratt?

“Yeah, for years and years,” Lance answered. “Decades, really. Like I said, they were good to her there. She got bonuses each year and a good pension. Back when pensions were a thing.”

They asked him a few more questions before leaving, and Josie was struck by the fact that as perfect and lovely as his new home life seemed, he hadn’t once expressed concern about his other kids now that Colette was dead. She wondered if he even knew that he was about to be a grandfather.

As they left Lance Fraley’s home in the rearview mirror, Josie couldn’t help but feel even more sad for Noah than she had before. She texted him to see how he was doing, but he didn’t respond.





Thirty-Three





It was dark by the time they made it back to the station house. Gretchen booted up her computer to start looking for the mysterious Ivan while Josie tracked Mettner down to update him and see if he had gotten anywhere showing photos of the belt buckle to the residents at Rockview. Josie found him in the break room, seated at one of the tables eating a greasy slice of pizza. “Hey,” he said around a mouthful of food. “The old-timers at Rockview were pretty helpful.”

Josie raised a brow. “They’re residents, Mett. Not old-timers.”

He bobbed his head and swallowed. “Sorry, boss. Residents.”

She sat across from him. He motioned to the box of pizza between them, but she shook her head. “What’d you get?”

He wiped his fingers on a napkin and took out his phone, scrolling and tapping until he found what he was looking for. “A couple of the guys there said that back in the seventies there used to be shooting clubs around here. All around the state, actually.”

“Shooting clubs?”

“Yeah, like target shooting. They had competitions. There were at least a half dozen, they said. The guys in them would compete with rifles and pistols for speed and accuracy. Mostly outdoor ranges.”