The Bones She Buried: A completely gripping, heart-stopping crime thriller(73)

Gretchen and Mettner stood in the corner of the room with cups of coffee in hand, watching Chitwood pace. When Josie caught Gretchen’s eye, she sauntered past her desk where she casually picked up a piece of paper, then walked over to the door and entered the stairwell. They closed the door, muffling the sounds of Chitwood’s rage.

Gretchen handed Josie the printout of an article from the Bellewood Record from May of 1974. Quickly, Josie scanned it. It confirmed what Earl Butler had told her about there being an accident at the quarry that killed four people. Except it hadn’t happened on any work site. There had been an encampment, the article said, where Sutton Stone Enterprises had set up temporary living quarters for their workers. It was basically a number of trailers. It was still under construction when one of the cranes had fallen onto a trailer and crushed it, killing all four workers inside. The company had taken full responsibility and compensated the families generously. End of story.

As Josie finished the article, she said, “So why did they pay off Craig Bridges? This obviously wasn’t a secret, and the company handled it.”

Gretchen said, “Exactly what Mett and I were thinking.”

“There’s more to this,” Josie said. “There has to be.”

“I agree,” Gretchen said. “We can look into it, but right now, Ivan Ulrich is home. I just got a call from Bellewood PD. Maybe you and Mettner should go talk to him?”

“No,” Josie said. “Not yet. I think we need more information.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. I still think we’re missing something. Did you hear back from Sutton’s records department?”

“We went down there. Talked to the girl.” Gretchen handed Josie her coffee mug and took a pair of reading glasses out of one pocket and her phone out of the other. She positioned the glasses on her nose and started scrolling on her phone. “I might already have an email. Yes, here it is.” Josie waited a long moment while Gretchen read over an email. Then Gretchen gave a low whistle. “Well, this is interesting. Ivan Ulrich has been an independent contractor for Sutton Stone Enterprises since 1983.”

“An independent contractor? What do you mean?”

“He was hired as a full-time laborer back in 1981,” Gretchen said.

“Which is what Zachary Sutton told me.”

“Then in 1983, he was taken off the payroll but retained as a ‘security consultant.’ He was paid per job after that, it looks like.”

“A security consultant?”

They looked at one another. They both knew exactly what that meant. Gretchen said, “He’s Sutton’s muscle.”





Fifty-One





Bob Chitwood stood behind his desk, arms crossed over his thin chest, regarding Josie, Mettner and Gretchen with guarded optimism. Finally, his voice had lowered to a normal volume. He lifted one hand and pointed an index finger at them. “You’re telling me that this Ivan Ulrich person worked as Zachary Sutton’s ‘security consultant’ for over thirty years, and Sutton lied about it.”

“Yes,” Josie said. “I mean, he said his memory wasn’t that great anymore, but I don’t buy that. Also, Ivan would have been acting as his muscle when Craig Bridges disappeared, when Samuel Pratt died, and when Drew Pratt went missing.”

“Which means that Ivan—who was close to Colette—could have been responsible for whatever happened to Bridges and the Pratt brothers,” Mettner added.

“So, what? You think he collected these items and gave them to Colette?” Chitwood asked. “And doesn’t Laura Fraley-Hall work for Sutton? Isn’t she a big shot there? You said she’d never heard of this Ivan.”

“She’s the vice president and heads up the quarry in Bethlehem. It’s possible she’s never met Ivan or had reason to meet him. He’s an independent contractor,” Josie said. “Which means he doesn’t report to the quarry or any of the offices. He only works when Sutton tells him to—at least based on the personnel records we got.”

“We should still bring her in,” Chitwood said.

Josie could imagine how well that was going to go over. She had been wondering herself just how much Laura knew and didn’t know and how much of her divisive behavior toward Josie and Noah had to do with her hiding something. Josie couldn’t see Laura murdering her own mother, much less while eight months pregnant. Besides that, she had a solid alibi. But it wouldn’t surprise Josie if Laura knew something critical and was hiding it to protect herself.

“Yes, we’ll need to bring her in,” Josie said. “I think it’s possible that Ivan got the belt buckle, arrowhead, and flash drive and gave them to Colette, although we believe that Colette may have been with both Pratt brothers on the last days they were seen by anyone so she could have gotten the arrowhead and the flash drive herself.”

“You think Colette Fraley killed the Pratt brothers?” Chitwood asked.

“Possibly,” Gretchen said.

“No,” Josie said.

Chitwood looked from one of them to the other, his eyes alight with interest. Then he turned to Mettner. “You want to weigh in?”

Mettner shook his head. “I’d like to hear what these two fine detectives have to say first.”