The Bones She Buried

Thirty-Seven

The Denton Library was a two-floor stone building designed by a local architect in the early 1900s in neoclassical style, complete with a grand staircase and large Doric columns. Josie had spent many hours as a teenager tucked away among the shelves, studying in the reverent hush that presided over the massive collection of books. In the intervening years, much of the building had been modernized, upgrading from tables to computer stations and expanding into conference and activity rooms. But even the beloved building failed to cheer her up as she trudged inside. Fatigue burned through every cell in her body. She felt as though she was weighed down by an invisible cloak. She couldn’t shake her sadness over the disconnect between her and Noah. That’s what it was, Josie had realized on her way from the hospital to the library: a disconnect. They’d been side by side almost every day for the last four years, moving through their personal and professional lives together with a natural ease. They had fallen in love and after many false starts, begun their romantic relationship. Josie thought they’d been tested in the past by some of their more shocking and difficult cases, but it was only now, only with this particular case, that she felt herself unmoored from Noah in a way she didn’t like at all.

As Josie approached the information desk, she wondered if there was something fundamentally wrong with her that she couldn’t be there for the significant other in her life. But that wasn’t true. She’d seen Ray through many things before he’d died, and there had been a serious relationship—an engagement—to a state trooper named Luke Creighton after Ray. She had faithfully cared for him for over a year after he was shot and lost his spleen. So why was she getting it so wrong in her attempts to be there for Noah?

“Miss? Can I help you? Miss?”

Josie blinked and gave her head a quick shake, trying to focus on the task at hand. She explained to the librarian what she was looking for, and the woman led her to a computer station on the second floor. Josie was already familiar with the electronic database, but she was too tired to stop the woman from giving her a spiel. She didn’t listen to much of it, only the part where the woman suggested that the items Josie was searching for were most likely in either the Denton Tribune or the Bellewood Record, but since the Record was a smaller paper, something like the results of shooting club competitions would have been more likely to be printed in it.

Josie thanked the woman for her assistance and started with the Bellewood Record, searching back to the early seventies for shooting clubs, shooting competitions and gun clubs. There were listings of the dates, times and locations of several competitions in the back of the Bellewood Record between 1970 and 1975 in the same area where the local churches listed their food drives, Easter egg hunts, potluck dinners and other services. She checked the papers in the days after each competition, but no results were listed. She expanded her search parameters to include the 1980s but still found nothing. She switched over to the Denton Tribune where she found a small article from 1976 in the bottom corner of the “Local” section titled: “Tri-County Shooting League Disbanded”.

In the late sixties, Brody Wolicki and a couple of his friends were having a few beers after their weekly target practice when they got into a friendly argument about who was the most accurate shot. The next week, they had an informal competition at the outdoor range in Bellewood, and Wolicki lost. He wanted another chance, so the next month they competed again. From these informal competitions came the idea to form a target practice club so there would be more shooters to compete with. Within a couple of years, target practice clubs had popped up in Alcott County and two of its neighboring counties. Wolicki saw an opportunity for fun and the expansion of his favorite hobby. He formed the Tri-County Target Practice League and organized tournaments where the clubs could compete for most accurate shooter. Competitions were held four times a year with a final championship meet held every fall. Wolicki collected dues from each club which he used to fund the meets and prizes for best shooter. “We started out with trophies,” Wolicki said. “Then someone got the idea for belt buckles, and people liked that better.”

For six years, shooters participated in Wolicki’s annual league tournament, the champion shooter earning the respect and admiration of his fellow league members as well as a nice bauble to wear to show off their accomplishment.

“But then people didn’t want to pay,” Wolicki says.

Membership in the Tri-County League dropped off, which Wolicki says wasn’t enough to endanger the league. “It was when members started questioning why they needed to pay membership dues. What do these guys think? All of this is free? Someone has to pay for range time, the refreshments and the prizes. It can’t all come out of my pocket.”

So this year will be the last target practice championship for the Tri-County League. “Makes me sad to disband the league,” Wolicki says. “But I don’t have much choice. You need shooters to have the tournaments. If shooters don’t pay, they don’t join the league. No league, no competitions.”

Wolicki has no plans to give up his own hobby. “I’ll keep shooting,” he says. “I love getting out there on the range, but it’s time for someone else to take up the reins if people want to compete.”

Josie read the article twice and then scoured both newspapers for more stories about the target practice league from 1965 through 1977, but she found nothing. The league had only been in existence for six years. Why was there no mention of the champions’ names?

“Because that would be too easy,” she muttered to herself.

She printed the article, scooped it out of the nearby printer, and left the library. If Brody Wolicki was still alive, maybe he would know the name of the winner of the belt buckle in 1973.