The Bones She Buried

One

Smoke billowed from Josie’s oven, thick and black, spilling out around the edges of the door. Coughing, she hit the button to turn off the oven and waved a cloth to clear the smoke. From across the room, the smoke alarm shrieked.

“Shit,” Josie said.

Abandoning the oven, she raced from window to window, flinging them open, trying to wave some of the smoke outside. Over the din of the alarm, she heard Noah’s voice. “Josie? You okay—what the hell?”

She dragged one of her kitchen chairs across the room and stood on it, pulling the smoke alarm off the wall. Then, banging it against the table, she popped the batteries out to silence it. Tossing it aside, she managed a sheepish smile for Noah.

“What are you doing?” he asked, waving a hand to clear some of the smoke from his eyes.

“It’s fine,” she mumbled. “Nothing’s on fire.”

“Looks like something was,” he pointed out.

Josie returned to the oven and, putting mitts on each hand, reached into the blackness in search of the edges of the cake pan. What she pulled out made them both grimace.

“What… was that?” Noah asked.

Josie threw the entire thing into the sink. “It was supposed to be a raspberry coffee cake. Your mom likes raspberries, right?”

Noah’s face twisted into a look Josie recognized as part sympathy, part skepticism and just a little bit of him trying not to laugh. “Uh, yeah, but if you wanted to make something for dessert, brownies would have been fine. Or, like, a bundt cake or something.”

Josie pointed to the kitchen counter where three other bake pans lay in a mangled, blackened heap. “Those are the brownies. That was a bundt cake, and that last one was a chocolate Devil’s food cake from a goddamn Betty Crocker box, which I still managed to burn.”

Noah leaned against the kitchen doorway and covered his mouth with his hand. Josie pointed an oven mitt at him. “Don’t you dare laugh.”

From between his fingers, he said, “Maybe something cold? Jell-O? Something simple.”

“Are you out of your mind? I am not taking Jell-O to your mother’s house for dinner.”

“Something store-bought,” he suggested. “That’s simple.”

There wasn’t a chance in hell that Josie was bringing something simple to Colette Fraley’s house. The woman was the consummate homemaker. Everything she cooked looked delicious and tasted even better. Her garden was lush, colorful and perfectly pruned and she even found time to sew beautiful quilts that she donated to foster children. Colette was the reason Pinterest was invented. People like Josie just couldn’t compare to the Colette Fraleys of the world.

Colette barely tolerated Josie as it was, but for the first time ever, she had tasked Josie with bringing dessert to their monthly dinner. Josie saw the request for what it was—a challenge—and she was damn well going to rise to the occasion. Well, possibly. If she could pass something store-bought off as her own creation.

Josie sagged one hip against the counter. “She’s never going to like me, is she? Even if I could whip up a chocolate soufflé with my eyes shut, it wouldn’t change anything.”

Noah moved across the room in two easy strides and took her by the shoulders. “You’re overthinking this. Just be yourself. She’ll come around.”

No, she won’t, Josie thought, but she didn’t want to have the argument with Noah again. They’d been dating for a year, and in that time Josie had figured out that the most important person in Noah’s life was his mother. He was the youngest of three but his brother lived in Arizona—all the way across the country—and his sister and her husband lived two hours away. Noah’s parents had divorced when he was a teenager, and from what Josie could gather, none of the Fraley children kept in touch with their father.

Josie looked at the clock on her microwave. “I guess it has to be store-bought. We need to be there in a half hour.”

“We’ll tell her that you were busy with work,” Noah offered. “And didn’t have time to bake something.”

Josie barked a laugh and pulled her mitts off. “Somehow, I don’t think that will help.” All talking about work with Colette did was remind her that a few years earlier, Josie had shot her darling son during a particularly tense and complex missing girls case. Both Josie and Noah were high-ranking members of Denton’s police department and in the last few years they’d covered cases so shocking and high-profile, they’d made national news.

Noah started closing the windows. “Just get changed,” he told her. “It will be fine.”

Twenty minutes later, Josie sat in the passenger’s seat of Noah’s car, a box of store-bought brownies in her lap, feeling anything but fine as they weaved through the streets of Denton. The city was roughly twenty-five square miles, many of those miles spanning the untamed mountains of central Pennsylvania, with their one-lane winding roads, dense woods and rural residences spread out far and wide. The population was edging over thirty thousand, and it increased when the college was in session, providing plenty of conflict and crime to keep the Denton Police Department where they both worked pretty busy. Josie’s gut clenched slightly as they pulled into Colette’s driveway. Next time, she promised herself, she was going to make that damn raspberry coffee cake if she had to burn her damn house down.

“That’s weird,” Noah said as he put the car into park.

Josie’s eyes followed his gaze to Colette’s front door, which yawned open. She didn’t have a storm door, just a thick wooden entry door which had been painted a cheery blue and decorated with a handmade spring wreath with sprigs of faux yellow flowers.

Josie left the brownies on the passenger seat and followed Noah up the front walk. Together they ascended the three steps to the concrete landing where potted flowers bracketed the door. “Mom?” Noah called.

Josie put a hand on his arm. “Wait,” she said, her hand reaching for her shoulder holster only to find it wasn’t there because today was her day off. “Should we call this in?”

He smiled uncertainly at her. “Call what in?”

Josie motioned toward the open door. “Something’s wrong,” she whispered.

Noah laughed. “What makes you assume something’s wrong? Mom left the door open. She’s been forgetting stuff lately, remember?”

Josie did remember. Noah and his sister had had several hushed conversations recently about having her tested for Alzheimer’s or dementia even though she was only in her sixties. Still, she couldn’t shake the sense of dread gathering in the pit of her stomach as she followed him through the door into Colette’s living room, which was also decorated in blues. It was late afternoon and the waning sunlight cut across the room, making the hardwood floors gleam. The end table’s small drawer was hanging open, items from inside scattered on the floor: a pair of Colette’s reading glasses, a pack of tissues, a pen and notepad. Josie took a step toward it. There were still some things inside the drawer. Had Colette been looking for something?

“Mom?” Noah called again, moving deeper into the house.

The dining room was dark and undisturbed. Josie wondered if Colette had forgotten they were coming over. Normally, the table would be set by the time they arrived for dinner. In fact, on any other occasion, the entire house would be filled with the smell of Colette’s superb cooking.

“Noah,” she said. “I really think—”

But he was already in the kitchen, calling for his mother again. Josie moved quickly behind him. The overhead light glared down on the kitchen which was neat and clean, everything in its place except for two more drawers that hung open with their contents spread along the counter above them—dish towels, a wine opener, takeout menus, a flashlight, some candles and a lighter.

Josie clamped a hand onto Noah’s shoulder, turning him toward the back door which was also open. Beneath her palm, she could feel him move with more urgency. As they passed through the back door, Noah called out again, “Mom?”

Their feet sank into the lush grass as they stopped to scan the large backyard. A tall white fence lined with blooming flower beds marked the perimeter, and a small wooden shed sat in one corner. Josie took a step in the direction of the patio in the center of the yard that was crowded with heavy metal furniture, her eyes tracing every inch of the garden. With a gasp, she pointed to something sticking out from one of the beds in the far corner. “Oh my God. Noah, is that—”

The words died in her throat as she sprinted across the yard, Noah behind her.

Colette was on her stomach, her upper body in the flower bed, her protruding feet the only thing visible at a distance. Up close, Josie immediately noticed the gardening gloves on her hands and a small handheld shovel in the dirt a few inches away.

“Mom!” Noah cried, panic ringing in his voice. He dropped to his knees, and Josie fell to hers beside him. Together, they rolled Colette onto her back. Her eyes were closed and dirt smudged her cheeks and clothes. Cold seeped from Colette’s body into Josie’s hands as her fingers searched Colette’s neck for a pulse, but found nothing.

Noah was already leaning into her chest, one hand on top of the other, fingers laced, giving her compressions. As he counted out thirty presses, Josie angled Colette’s chin so that her mouth was open, and pinched her nostrils closed.

“Now!” Noah urged her as he stopped pumping.

Josie’s mouth closed over Colette’s and she exhaled into her, trying to inflate Colette’s lungs. Something fetid and granular stuck to Josie’s lips, and the air wasn’t moving through to Colette’s chest like it should. Coughing, she sat back up and wiped her mouth.

“What are you doing? Jesus, Josie. Keep going. We have to save her,” Noah cried.

He pushed her out of the way and sealed his lips over Colette’s, but after one breath, he also pulled away, coughing and spitting onto the ground.

“It’s soil,” Josie said. “Jesus, Noah, it’s soil.”

She nudged him aside and hooked a finger inside Colette’s mouth, scooping out a small clump of wet brown earth. She repeated the action three or four times but still, the airway wasn’t cleared. Her heart seized in her chest. Beside her, Noah had gone perfectly still, his mouth stretched open in horror. “Help me,” Josie cried. “Help me get her on her side!”

As if he was moving in slow motion, Noah reached forward, grasping his mother’s shoulder and pushing as Josie turned her onto her side, her fingers still scrabbling inside Colette’s mouth, trying to clear it of the hard-packed dirt. When she thought she had most of it out, she turned Colette onto her back again and tried to blow air into her chest. Colette’s airway was completely blocked.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, Josie knew that Colette was gone but she couldn’t bear the look of pure terror on Noah’s face, so she kept working. “Call 911,” she barked at him as she moved back to Colette’s chest and restarted the compressions. He didn’t move, his eyes locked on his mother’s face.

Sweat poured from Josie’s forehead as she pumped, dripping off the end of her nose and onto Colette’s lifeless body. “Now, Noah. Go! Call 911!”

Josie worked until her shoulders and arms ached, until her face was streaked with the remains of dirt still packed into Colette’s mouth, until her entire body was soaked with sweat, until the paramedics arrived and pulled her gently away. As if from very far away, she heard them shouting information to one another, taking over for her, and after several minutes she heard one of them call the time of death.

Then she heard a wail—low, guttural and heart-wrenching—tear from Noah’s throat.