The Bones She Buried: A completely gripping, heart-stopping crime thriller(5)

Three





Noah didn’t speak on the ride back to his house, or when Josie settled him onto his couch. When she asked for his brother and sister’s phone numbers, the best he could do was hand her his phone. His older brother, Theo, answered on the third ring. The conversation was painful, but Josie knew that Noah was in no position to tell them himself and she felt the other Fraley children should know right away. Noah would need their support sooner rather than later. Theo promised to catch the next available flight. Josie hung up and then immediately called Noah’s sister, Laura. After more shock, more tears, and more questions, Laura agreed to be there within a few hours.

“Should I call your father?” she asked Noah.

Without looking at her, he said, “What for?”

“Oh, well, I know your parents are divorced, but maybe he’d want to be there for you and your brother and sister? Don’t you think he’d want to know?”

“He doesn’t deserve to know, and he hasn’t been there for us since the day he walked out of my mother’s house.”

There was a bitterness in his tone that Josie had never heard from Noah before. She knew that his dad wasn’t in the picture, but she didn’t know much more than that. Noah never talked about it—never talked about his father at all, when she came to think of it. Besides, he was probably right. If Lance Fraley was not involved in his children’s lives, then his presence would hardly be a comfort.

Josie set Noah’s phone on the coffee table and sat beside him, taking his hand in hers. She knew there was nothing she could say. She had lost both her husband and her beloved Chief suddenly and violently four years earlier. The pain was extraordinary and unavoidable, a great wave that would bowl you over and pull you under at any given moment. It wasn’t pain that could be soothed or lessened, you just had to hold on to whatever shred of sanity you had as hard as you could until the current spat you back out into calmer waters. But, she remembered with a shiver, that sea of grief never truly left you, it was always below you, ready to pull you under when you least expected it. There was nothing she could do to shield him from it, and she knew from experience that there was little comfort she could offer. What she could do for him was to try to find out who killed his mother and put that person away forever.

After a pause, she asked, “Noah, is there any reason why rosary beads would be buried in your mother’s garden?”

His head slowly turned in her direction. The redness rimming his eyes made her heart ache for him. “What?” he asked.

“I’m sorry. I know this is a terrible time to ask you questions, but the ERT found rosary beads buried in your mom’s garden. It looked as though she might have been digging them up. Mettner wanted me to ask…”

“My mom’s Catholic,” Noah said as though that explained everything.

“Is it a Catholic custom to bury them?”

“When they’re broken,” he answered. “They were blessed. Mom always says they shouldn’t be thrown away so she buries them with her flowers.”

“Can you think of any reason why she would have been digging them back up?” Josie asked.

Noah dragged both hands over his face. “Is that what you think? She was out there digging up broken old rosary beads?”

“I don’t know,” Josie said. “I don’t know what to think. Maybe she was just gardening and accidentally dug them up.”

“That’s possible, I guess.”

“Noah, I know you’ve said that your mom has had some issues with her memory lately, but exactly how bad were things getting?”

“I don’t—it wasn’t—” he stammered.

She touched his arm. “I’m sorry. It’s okay. We can talk about this later. When is the last time you spoke with her?”

“This morning,” he said. “You know that. I told you I called her to confirm dinner.”

“Do you think she was gardening because she’d forgotten?”

His eyes narrowed. “Why are you interviewing me?” he asked. “Why are you treating this like a case?”

“Because it is a case,” Josie said, keeping her tone even and gentle. “Noah, someone killed your mother.”

“We don’t know that someone killed her. She could have had a heart attack or an aneurysm and fallen into the dirt. When we found her she was—she was—”

His voice broke and he looked away from her. Fresh tears streamed down his face.

“Noah,” Josie said. “I know you’re in shock right now. I know what that feels like. But your mom didn’t get that much dirt in her airway from falling facedown into the flower bed. Someone—” she stopped. She couldn’t bring herself to say the words. It was too cruel, especially in the state that he was in.

“No one would hurt my mother,” he said. “You don’t even have the autopsy results back. You don’t know that this was murder.”

“Someone was looking for something in her house, Noah,” Josie replied. “You saw the drawers in the living room and kitchen.”

“She was looking for something, probably.”

“And she left the house in disarray and just decided to go out and start gardening?” Josie asked. “Noah, your mother’s house has always been spotless.”