The Bones She Buried

Thirteen

The Chief was still behind his desk when Josie and Gretchen barged in without knocking. One of his eyebrows kinked upward. “What the hell is this?”

Josie waved the photo in front of him before placing it in the center of his desk. “We think that flash drive was either intended for Drew Pratt or it belonged to him. How did you know him?” she asked. “I thought you were in Pittsburgh before this—that’s on the other side of the state.”

“You questioning my integrity, Quinn?” Chitwood snapped, giving the photo a cursory glance.

“I’m asking a question, sir,” Josie responded evenly. She’d gotten quite used to his outbursts by now, she hardly noticed anymore.

“We worked a drug trafficking task force together. Ages and ages ago. Probably when you were still in diapers.”

“What does the Kickbacks for Kids scandal have to do with Drew Pratt?” Gretchen asked.

Chitwood leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers under his chin. “Sit, both of you,” he instructed.

Josie looked at Gretchen who gave a barely perceptible shrug. If Chitwood was willing to talk, they were going to listen. They each took a seat.

Chitwood said, “If you remember the Drew Pratt case, then you probably remember there are about a half-dozen theories about what really happened to him.”

Josie had seen a number of specials on Drew Pratt’s disappearance over the years. “Yes, I do remember that,” she said. “Some said he committed suicide. Others believed he walked away from his life and started a new one under an assumed identity. There were a lot of theories floating around that someone he had prosecuted in the past killed him and hid his body.”

Chitwood nodded. “A few years back there was even a convict who claimed to know where his body was—said a gang had killed him and dumped his body in a remote area as revenge for putting one of their members away.”

“That turned out to be nothing,” Gretchen said. “I remember that being on the news.”

“Right,” Chitwood said. “The convict in question was trying to get his sentence reduced. There was no body and no evidence at all to support his claim.”

It hit Josie then—the Kickbacks for Kids connection. “Drew Pratt had evidence of what Judge Sanders and Wood Creek Associates were doing in 2005, the year before he disappeared. He chose not to prosecute. In 2010 when the scandal broke, people talked about him. His name was back in the press, wasn’t it?”

“It was. People thought he walked away from his life because he knew the scandal was coming, and he would be blamed for not prosecuting Judge Sanders earlier. That was a theory. No one could ever prove that he had evidence of the Kickbacks for Kids thing before he went missing. The DA’s office didn’t have a file. Nothing was ever found in his office or personal effects. This is the first I’ve heard of a flash drive with documents on it. I knew Drew Pratt. He was a solid guy, and he didn’t give two shits who he pissed off. If he had evidence that Sanders was taking money to send innocent juveniles to a hellhole, Drew would have prosecuted, no question.”

Josie felt Gretchen’s eyes on her. “Chief,” Josie said. “There was evidence. We’ve got it right out there on the computer. The stuff on that flash drive was proof of what Sanders and Wood Creek were doing.”

Gretchen added, “And his name was on it.”

Again, Josie wondered what the connection was between Pratt, Sanders, Wood Creek and Colette Fraley.

“His name was on it,” Chitwood said. “But you can’t prove he ever received it or even saw it.”

“If his prints show up on it, then we know he had it in his possession.” Gretchen pointed out.

Chitwood held up a finger. “That doesn’t prove he ever looked at the contents.”

Josie was still racking her brain for everything she could remember about the Kickbacks scandal and its connection to the missing prosecutor. “There was another Kickbacks theory,” she said. “Wasn’t there?”

Chitwood and Gretchen stared at her. She went on. “I’d have to look it up, but I’m certain there was another theory about what happened to Pratt. There was a mother whose son went to Wood Creek for something minor. He was brutalized in there, and never the same once he got out. He eventually killed himself.”

Gretchen nodded. “I remember that now. The mother killed one of the Wood Creek guys—someone on their board of directors. Her plan was to kill every person involved in it, but she got caught immediately.”

“Yes,” Josie agreed. “Then there was speculation that she had killed Pratt all those years ago because he knew what was going on and hadn’t prosecuted. There was also a guard who worked at the facility who had committed suicide, and the investigation into his death was reopened after the mother was arrested, because the police were worried that she had been killing people unchecked for years.”

“What was her name?” Gretchen asked.

Chitwood answered, “Patti Something… Patti Snyder.”

“You knew her?” Josie asked.

“No. I didn’t know her, but I had it from several sources that she was looked at hard for Drew’s disappearance, especially because in the hours before Drew went missing, he was seen on surveillance footage in a store talking with a woman who vaguely resembled Snyder.”

Josie made a mental note to find out everything she could about Drew Pratt’s case the first chance she got.

“Do you think it was her?” Gretchen asked.

Chitwood shrugged. “Don’t know. Like I said, we have no proof Drew even knew what Sanders and Wood Creek were up to. That’s all speculation. Has been for years. Besides, Patti Snyder was just plain crazy.”

“Or just grief-stricken,” Josie pointed out.

Gretchen said, “Regardless of what this Patti Snyder did or didn’t do, regardless of what happened to Drew Pratt—the real question is why did Noah’s mother have this flash drive? Why did she hide it, and is this what the killer was looking for?”

“The case already broke years ago,” Josie pointed out. “And Pratt has been missing for over a decade. It’s not like anything on that flash drive would be so shocking that it would even need to be hidden.”

“True,” Gretchen conceded. “I’ll take a closer look at every person mentioned in those documents and see what I can find out. We need to know what connection Colette had to all of this—if any.”