The Bones She Buried: A completely gripping, heart-stopping crime thriller(56)

In the late sixties, Brody Wolicki and a couple of his friends were having a few beers after their weekly target practice when they got into a friendly argument about who was the most accurate shot. The next week, they had an informal competition at the outdoor range in Bellewood, and Wolicki lost. He wanted another chance, so the next month they competed again. From these informal competitions came the idea to form a target practice club so there would be more shooters to compete with. Within a couple of years, target practice clubs had popped up in Alcott County and two of its neighboring counties. Wolicki saw an opportunity for fun and the expansion of his favorite hobby. He formed the Tri-County Target Practice League and organized tournaments where the clubs could compete for most accurate shooter. Competitions were held four times a year with a final championship meet held every fall. Wolicki collected dues from each club which he used to fund the meets and prizes for best shooter. “We started out with trophies,” Wolicki said. “Then someone got the idea for belt buckles, and people liked that better.”

For six years, shooters participated in Wolicki’s annual league tournament, the champion shooter earning the respect and admiration of his fellow league members as well as a nice bauble to wear to show off their accomplishment.

“But then people didn’t want to pay,” Wolicki says.

Membership in the Tri-County League dropped off, which Wolicki says wasn’t enough to endanger the league. “It was when members started questioning why they needed to pay membership dues. What do these guys think? All of this is free? Someone has to pay for range time, the refreshments and the prizes. It can’t all come out of my pocket.”

So this year will be the last target practice championship for the Tri-County League. “Makes me sad to disband the league,” Wolicki says. “But I don’t have much choice. You need shooters to have the tournaments. If shooters don’t pay, they don’t join the league. No league, no competitions.”

Wolicki has no plans to give up his own hobby. “I’ll keep shooting,” he says. “I love getting out there on the range, but it’s time for someone else to take up the reins if people want to compete.”





Josie read the article twice and then scoured both newspapers for more stories about the target practice league from 1965 through 1977, but she found nothing. The league had only been in existence for six years. Why was there no mention of the champions’ names?

“Because that would be too easy,” she muttered to herself.

She printed the article, scooped it out of the nearby printer, and left the library. If Brody Wolicki was still alive, maybe he would know the name of the winner of the belt buckle in 1973.





Thirty-Eight





With a sudden surge of energy from having found a clue to the belt buckle, she decided to drive right to Sutton Stone Enterprises headquarters to talk to Zachary Sutton. Mettner had done some initial research into the company before he interviewed Colette’s old co-workers, which he had shared with Josie. So that’s how Josie knew that the company headquarters were located forty-five minutes southeast of Denton in a remote, mountainous rural area. The headquarters building was a tall, modern glass edifice perched on the edge of the original Sutton family quarry which had been founded by Zachary Sutton’s great-grandfather in the late 1800s. The quarry was miles from any town, although a tiny hamlet called Mount Haven twelve miles away had claimed it as part of their postal area.

Zachary Sutton had taken over the business as a young man under his father’s tutelage in the 1960s and expanded the company to other areas of the state, buying up more land and opening more cracks in the earth. Zachary Sutton had also expanded their product line to include more than just bluestone and marble, offering aggregate, which was a coarse particulate material used in construction projects the world over, as well as soil and turf products. Josie knew that he had initially paid Laura Fraley-Hall big bucks to manage the entire company’s public relations department. Colette had often bragged to Josie about how one of the first things Laura had done as the director of PR was community outreach in the towns in which Sutton’s quarries were located, building goodwill among local citizens and buffing Sutton Stone Enterprise’s reputation to a perfect shine. She had done so well that she easily moved up the ranks until she reached her current position of vice president of the entire company.

Josie’s ears popped as she drove a winding mountain road to the quarry entrance. Tall foliage rose up on either side of the road, making her feel closed in and yet, as she crested the hill and the Sutton Stone Enterprises building gleamed and flashed in the spectacular sunlight, she felt like she was on top of the world. She parked in the visitor lot and walked toward the entrance. A glimpse of the quarry below gave her a bit of vertigo. Trucks, heavy equipment, and piles of stone were toy-sized in the bottom of the huge crater in the earth, devoid of anything but ribbons of various types of stone. She clasped a nearby railing to steady herself. Around the edges of the quarry was forest, stretching as far as the eye could see.

Inside the double doors was a reception desk, manned by a gray-haired lady in a pink blouse. Josie presented her credentials and asked to speak to Mr. Sutton. The woman tutted but picked up the phone and dialed Sutton’s extension. She seemed surprised when he told her to send Josie right up to his office, speaking loudly and clearly enough for Josie to hear through the receiver. The receptionist gave her directions and she followed a winding set of stairs up two stories to a glass balcony that overlooked the lobby. Josie saw Zachary Sutton’s large office immediately. Double glass doors enclosed it, but beyond the large desk and guest reception area in the center of the room, was a wall of windows; the daylight streaming through nearly blinding. Josie wondered if it would be steaming hot inside, the way a greenhouse was, but when Sutton met her at the doors and ushered her in, it was surprisingly cool.