The Bones She Buried: A completely gripping, heart-stopping crime thriller(62)

“Maybe Ivan can shed some light on the situation.”

“If we can find him.”

Mettner pulled into the municipal lot behind the police station. “How many German surnames can there be in the state that begin with a U? We’ll find him. Don’t worry about that.”

As soon as they sat down at their desks to brief Gretchen, Chitwood’s door flew open and his voice rolled loudly across the room. “Mettner! Palmer! Quinn! Briefing in my office, now!”

Josie and Gretchen sighed heavily in unison and trudged into Chitwood’s office with Mettner in tow. The Chief sat behind his desk and waited for them to take their seats. Josie and Gretchen sat while Mettner remained standing between their chairs. Then Chitwood pointed at Mettner and said, “Go.”

He scrolled through the notes on his phone as he filled him in on everything they had discovered in the last couple of days as well as the leads they had yet to follow. Chitwood listened intently, chewing the inside of his cheek as Mettner spoke. When he was finished, he said, “So Palmer and I are gonna look for this Ivan guy, and Quinn’s gonna run up to Sullivan County to see this Wolicki guy.”

They nodded. Chitwood leaned forward, elbows on his desk. “So far we’ve managed to keep the press out of this, although I had a couple of people from the TV station calling about the Pratt fire. I’m gonna have to tell them something soon, so get your asses in gear and get me some real answers. Also, we got some stuff back from the Pratt scene.”

“Beth or Mason?” Josie asked.

“Mason.”

“What is it?” Mettner asked.

“A shoe print. Size eleven. It was in the dirt in Mason’s backyard. Scuff marks and mud on the fence. We think the attacker jumped the fence there. Hummel casted it, measured it. Treads didn’t match Mason or any of our staff. The tread looks like it came from a boot manufactured by a company called Coyote Run. They make different kinds of boots. They distribute all over the country, though mostly at hunting and sporting goods retailers.”

Mettner started scrolling through his notes, but Josie was ahead of him. “Are you sure? The shoe size found at Colette’s murder scene was a size ten.”

Mettner stopped scrolling and pointed to his phone screen. “Right. Size ten.”

Chitwood stared at Josie with a raised brow. “It’s your team that processed the scene. You think they got one of these shoe print measurements wrong?”

Josie bristled. She knew damn well her Evidence Response Team wouldn’t screw something like that up. She had thought perhaps Chitwood had misunderstood either the ERT officer or their report, but she didn’t say that. “So we may be talking about two suspects.”

“Shit,” Gretchen said. “This changes everything.”

“No,” Josie said firmly. “Not really. We still work the leads. This started with Colette Fraley so we stay on her—find this Ivan person, try to find the owner of the belt buckle. We work the same leads. Just now we know we’re looking for two different people. What each one of them did specifically is something we can figure out once we’ve caught them. We should have someone visit hunting and sporting goods retailers in the county and see if they can get a list of customers who bought this type of boot in the last year or so and work from there. Most of those places have rewards cards that get scanned every time the customer makes a purchase, so even if our guy paid cash, the retailers might be able to track the purchase by his reward card.”

Mettner said, “I’ll write up a warrant.”

Gretchen added, “And I’ll try to find Ivan.”





Forty-Two





After work, Josie went to visit Noah. He was asleep and Laura sat guard by his bed. She didn’t acknowledge Josie even though Josie sat on the other side of Noah’s bed for three hours, until the staff kicked them both out, citing the end of visiting hours. Josie drove around aimlessly for an hour, passing the liquor store near her house twice, wanting desperately to go in and get a bottle of Wild Turkey. Instead, she turned back to the hospital and used her police credentials to get back onto the floor where Noah’s room was located. The lights were off in his room, but the television played on low. She felt a wave of relief to finally be alone with him. She walked over to the bed and stroked his thick hair. His eyes fluttered open. “Hey,” he said. “What time is it?”

“It’s late,” Josie said. “I was here earlier, but you were sleeping. How do you feel?”

“Lots of pain,” he answered. He looked past her. “Is Laura still here?”

Josie tried not to show the hurt on her face. “No, she had to leave. Noah, I—”

“I’m going home with her tomorrow.”

“I know. I just wanted to… I just… things between us have been…”

“Josie, I meant what I said this morning. With everything that’s going on, I can’t even think straight. I really do need a break.”

“Stay here,” Josie said suddenly. “I’ll take a leave of absence. You can stay with me. I won’t work. Chitwood let Gretchen off the desk on a limited basis. Between her and Mettner, they’re both perfectly capable of handling the case. I’ll take care of you.”

He shook his head. “No, I need to get out of here. Away from here. I need to be with my family right now.”