The Bones She Buried: A completely gripping, heart-stopping crime thriller(74)

Chitwood raised a brow. “You’re a smart man, Mett.”

Josie said, “I just don’t think that physically Colette Fraley would have been able to overcome either one of the Pratt brothers. I think it’s more likely that Ivan Ulrich knew she had met with them, and he killed them and then, as a warning he gave her a personal effect from each one. He wanted her to understand what would happen if she kept trying to expose Sutton’s secret—people would die. Innocent people. He gave her those things so she would never forget.”

“You think she was having affairs with these men?” Chitwood asked, looking to Gretchen.

“It makes the most sense,” Gretchen said. “Except for Bridges who wasn’t living around here when he disappeared. But Detective Quinn disagrees.”

Chitwood raised a brow in Josie’s direction. “Quinn. Just because Colette was Noah’s mother doesn’t make her a saint.”

Josie shifted in her seat. “Yeah, I know that. That’s not why I think Colette was innocent in all of this. Colette kind of was a saint, sir. The way she lived her life flies completely against the notion that she would have had multiple extra-marital affairs. Or that morally she would have been capable of something like what we’re talking about—which is allowing Ivan to kill these men and never saying a word about it.”

“People have secrets, Quinn. Big, disgusting, appalling secrets.”

“With all due respect, sir, I know that better than anyone,” Josie said dryly.

She waited for his retaliation, for some mean-spirited comment delivered in a shout or for him to threaten her job, but all he did was laugh. It was, Josie realized, possibly the first time she’d ever heard the sound come from him. He laughed for a good thirty seconds as he pulled his desk chair out and plopped into it. Finally, he said, “Yeah, both of you know that better than any criminal I’ve ever met, huh?”

“Sir,” Josie said, sitting up straight, ready to defend herself and Gretchen, but Chitwood waved her off.

“Forget it, Quinn,” he said. “I’m just saying you’re right. What do you think is going on here?”

“Colette was the assistant to the owner and head of the company—first for Sutton, senior and then for Sutton, junior. She would have seen things almost no one else in the company would have seen.”

“Like what?” Chitwood asked.

Josie shrugged. “I’m not sure. Everything. She would have been privy to the content of phone calls, meetings, internal memos, records. I think she found something—the same something that Craig Bridges knew about that got him killed.”

“But what?” Chitwood asked.

“That’s what we don’t know yet, sir,” Gretchen said.

“So you don’t think she was having an affair with either of the Pratt brothers?” Chitwood said.

“No, I don’t.”

“All right, let’s say you’re right. Colette is the head secretary. She comes across something the company doesn’t want the public to know about. She talks to Bridges because he was there.”

Josie nodded. “So Sutton has Ivan make Bridges disappear.”

“I can see her going to Drew Pratt because he was a prosecutor,” Chitwood said. “But why Samuel Pratt? He was a college professor.”

Mettner chimed in, “Maybe because he was Drew Pratt’s brother?”

Josie said, “But Drew Pratt never even figured out who C.F. was so that doesn’t make sense. Unless Ivan killed Samuel Pratt before he could put Colette in touch with his brother.”

“Why not just approach Drew Pratt directly?” Chitwood argued. “I knew Drew. He was approachable.”

“We’re still missing something,” Josie insisted.

“Well, if there’s something in the internal Sutton records, no way is Sutton going to just give that up. I mean, we can get a warrant, but if you had something so damning you’d be willing to kill over it in your records, why would you keep it around?” Gretchen said.

“And why didn’t Sutton ever have Colette killed if he knew she knew something big that could jeopardize the company?” Chitwood said.

Josie said, “I don’t know. I don’t have it all put together yet, but I think we should pick up Ivan. We can hold him until Lenore County expedites him. Earl Butler will be able to make a positive ID. We bring in Laura Fraley-Hall and Zachary Sutton. We get a warrant for the Sutton Stone Enterprise records in connection with the crane accident. While we’ve got Sutton and Laura here, we execute it.”

“Who’s the second person?” Chitwood asked. “The second shoe print?”

“We don’t know yet,” Josie said.

Mettner added, “I served warrants on all the hunting and sporting retailers in the county, but that information will take a day or two for them to produce.”

Josie said, “This is what we’ve got to work with. I say we run with it. We’ll turn the second person up eventually, either through the list we get from the retailers or through the course of the investigation.”

Chitwood clapped his hands together. “Get some people together then and get on it. We’ve got the press breathing down our necks. I want this shit solved yesterday.”