The Bones She Buried

Ten

Lunch was painfully awkward with no one speaking or eating much. Grady tried desperately to engage each of them in conversation—asking Laura if the baby was moving much; asking Theo about the weather in Arizona; and asking Josie and Noah what was new at work. Each time, Laura shut him down in an exasperated tone. “Grady, no one cares about the weather and you know damn well what’s new with Noah and Josie at work—our mother was just killed.”

Grady’s face colored, and he looked down at his uneaten turkey sandwich. Josie said, “Well, I don’t think it’s true that no one cares about the weather.” She turned to Theo. “Is it true that you have massive dust storms in Arizona? What are they called?”

“Really?” Laura snapped. “We’re going to talk about the weather right now?”

Grady said, “Laura, please.”

Josie opened her mouth to reply but Noah spoke instead. “It was your idea to come to lunch. We’re in public. We can make an effort to be civil to one another. Mom would want it that way.”

Theo cleared his throat and gave Josie a pained smile, but she could see the lines around his hazel eyes loosen with relief. “They’re called haboobs,” he said.

Ignoring Laura’s icy glare Josie engaged him, “I’ve only seen videos of them on the news. They look terrifying. Do you get many where you live?”

She was aware in her periphery of the clink of silverware against plates and of Noah picking up his coffee to sip it.

Theo said, “The first time I saw one, I thought I was in real trouble.” He laughed. “Not something a Pennsylvania boy is prepared for.”

They made small talk during the rest of lunch with only Grady joining in. Still, when the check came, most of the food they’d ordered remained on their plates. When the waitress asked if they would like takeout boxes, they all refused. Grady paid for the meal and they left in silence.

Back at Noah’s house after lunch, Josie was tasked with going back to Colette’s to bring over any photo albums she could find there. The job of putting together family photographs for a slide show for the funeral services was the only small thing that seemed to lift the Fraley children out of their grief—if only temporarily—particularly after Theo found a bottle of wine in Noah’s pantry. Josie was heartened to see Noah smile at many of the memories from their shared childhood. Josie ordered pizza for dinner and afterward, Noah even kissed her when she left to return to her own home for a change of clothes. Josie’s overnight bag was packed by the time Gretchen called her.

“I’m really sorry about Mrs. Fraley,” Gretchen said. “Please give Noah my condolences.”

“Thanks, I will,” Josie said. “Any chance you’re calling me because Chitwood let you off the desk?”

Gretchen gave a short dry laugh. “No chance. But I’ve been helping Mettner out with everything I can. As long as my ass doesn’t leave this chair, Chitwood’s fine with it. I know Noah needs you right now, and I wouldn’t normally ask, but at the moment you’re our unofficial family liaison.”

“What’ve you got?” Josie asked, relieved that Mettner was delegating what he could to Gretchen.

“Some things I’d like you to have a look at, see if you can make sense of them and then maybe ask the family about. You have time to come by the station?” Gretchen asked.

“You accessed the flash drive?” Josie asked.

“Yes, we got the warrant. But I can’t tell what the hell any of this is—it looks like a lot of old court documents, even a bank statement, and I don’t see the name Pratt in any of these records. Did Colette work in the court system or for a bank?”

“No,” Josie replied. “She worked at a quarry. She was in the office—a secretary, I believe. She retired a few years ago. How far back do the documents go?”

“At least fifteen years,” Gretchen said. “It’s easier if I show you.”

Josie glanced at her bedside clock. She was certain the Fraleys would be reminiscing and picking through their family photos well into the night. She could spare some time to meet with Gretchen.

“I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

Denton’s police headquarters was housed in an old, historic three-story building that almost looked like a castle. It was huge and gray, with ornate molding over its many double-casement arched windows and an old bell tower at one corner. It used to be the town hall but had been converted to the police station sixty-five years ago. Josie parked in the municipal lot and made her way through the back door where the holding area was on the ground floor and up to the second floor where the great room was located. It was a large open area cluttered with desks. Josie’s, Noah’s and Gretchen’s desks formed a T in the center of the room. Gretchen already had the PDF files pulled up on her desktop computer. Josie pulled her chair over beside Gretchen’s and began scrolling.

“These are sealed court documents,” Josie noted. “They’re criminal complaints against juveniles.”

“Right,” Gretchen said. “From what I can see, these documents pertain to three different kids—two boys and a girl—between the ages of fourteen and sixteen.”

Josie’s eyes skimmed the complaints. “Trespassing, shoplifting, vandalism. None of these are serious offenses. They’d get slaps on the wrists, if that. I’d be surprised if any of these even made it to court. Even a public defender could plead these down to fines or get them off for first-time offenses. These complaints are from 2005. That was thirteen years ago. Did you look these kids up?”

“Yeah, I didn’t get much beyond current addresses, but if you keep scrolling you’ll see each of them was sentenced to anywhere between six to twenty-four months in a juvenile detention center on the other side of Alcott County,” Gretchen said.

“That’s a hell of a long time for such minor offenses,” Josie noted. She kept skimming over the documents until she found the name of the juvenile detention center. Wood Creek. Something sparked in the back of her mind but as quickly as it flashed to life, it faded. She kept going until she reached the last few pages of the PDF document. “These are bank statements,” she said.

Gretchen nodded. “There are two. One appears to be a business account and the other a personal account.”

Josie read the names. “Eugene Sanders is the name on the personal account. The address has been blacked out. The business account is for a Wood Creek Associates.” The spark in Josie’s mind whooshed into a full-blown inferno. “Oh sweet Jesus,” she said. “Do you know what this is?”

She turned to see the grimace on Gretchen’s face. “I didn’t. Not at first. But when I looked up Eugene Sanders and then Wood Creek Detention Facility, I figured it out. It was the Kickbacks for Kids scandal. Sanders was the judge.”

“Right,” Josie said.

“I was working in Philadelphia back then. I mean, I remember hearing about it on the news, but it didn’t really make much of an impression at the time. I had my hands full in the homicide department.”

Josie sighed, and pushed her dark brown hair away from her face as she leaned back in the chair. “The Kickbacks for Kids scandal broke just after I joined the force. It happened here in Alcott County. It had been going on for years before a journalist brought it to light in 2010.”

“Sanders took money to sentence kids to overly long stays at Wood Creek, right?”

Josie nodded as her eyes tracked down the columns of each bank statement. “Right. Wood Creek was a for-profit, privately owned and run juvenile detention center owned by Wood Creek Associates which was basically a bunch of Sanders’ cronies who got together and financed the facility. They built it and then they gave Sanders a fixed amount of money for every juvenile he sent there—the more time on their sentence the better. These kids did completely unnecessary time for minor offenses, and Wood Creek was a shit hole where most of them were abused.”

“The men behind the Wood Creek Associates went to prison as well, if I recall,” Gretchen said.

“Yeah,” Josie said. “Not for as long as Sanders did though. He was the one who handed out all the bogus sentences. He ruined a lot of lives. Here—” she pointed to Eugene Sanders’ bank statement. “This is a deposit for $5,000 dated April 20, 2005 and look at the bank statement from the Wood Creek account—same date, a transfer of some kind in the same amount.”

Gretchen leaned over Josie’s shoulder, peering at the screen. They found two more $5,000 deposits into Sanders’ account that occurred on the same dates that Wood Creek Associates transferred $5,000 out of their account. “This was evidence,” Gretchen said. “Back in 2005 someone had evidence of what was going on, but the case didn’t break for another five years.”

“So why on earth did Colette Fraley have this?” Josie wondered aloud.

“And who is Pratt?”

“Let’s find out,” Josie answered, pulling up the internet browser and navigating to the Google home page.