The Bones She Buried

Two

Josie sat beside Noah on his mother’s couch, one hand on his back as he curled into himself, elbows on knees, face in his hands, intermittently sobbing and rocking back and forth. As her Evidence Response Team moved in and out of the house, Josie tried to wrap her mind around what had just happened. She had the sensation of watching herself from afar. It didn’t seem real. This had to be happening to someone else, surely. Not them.

“Boss?” Officer Finn Mettner said. She looked up to find him staring down at them. How long had he been there?

“Yes,” she said, voice shaky. Her fingers wiped at her mouth, brushing away the dirt that felt like it would never leave her skin.

Mettner gestured toward the door. “This is a crime scene. If you wouldn’t mind—”

She stood abruptly. “Of course, of course. Noah?”

He didn’t respond. Josie hooked a hand under one of his arms and gently guided him to standing, outside and into the passenger side of his vehicle. “I’ll be right back,” she told him.

Near the front door, one of the other ERT officers, Hummel, had cordoned the stoop off with yellow crime scene tape. He stood at the door with his clipboard, ready to log in each person who passed by him. In the driveway, the trunk of his cruiser stood open. Josie went to it and pulled out a Tyvek suit, slowly pulling it on, together with booties and a skull cap.

She heard footsteps behind her as Mettner appeared next to the trunk. “Hey, boss, we’re all really sorry. This is… hard to believe.” He glanced toward Noah’s car. “How’s Noah?”

Josie followed Mettner’s gaze to where Noah sat staring straight ahead with blank, red-rimmed eyes. “I think he’s in shock. Is Gretchen—I mean, Detective Palmer coming?”Gretchen Palmer was another detective on Denton’s police force. Her calm presence had a way of reassuring Josie and quieting her pounding heart during difficult times. A woman of pure integrity and one of the best investigators Josie had ever known, Gretchen had recently been placed on administrative leave following her involvement in a horrific murder that had happened on her own doorstep and brought secrets of her past into the harsh light of the present. Josie knew that after what had happened, it would take nothing short of a miracle for Gretchen to keep her job. But she also knew that Gretchen had done what she needed to do to protect the people she loved most, so Josie had used all the influence and good will she had in Denton to make sure Gretchen returned to the force in some capacity. Facing resistance from both the Chief and the Mayor of Denton on more than one occasion, Josie had used her press connections to garner support from the public, putting enough pressure on the Chief that he had agreed to bring Gretchen back for a probationary period which had started a week ago.

Mettner frowned. “She’s still on the desk.”

“Even now? Does the Chief know what’s going on?”

Mettner nodded. “Yeah, he knows.”

Josie threw her hands in the air. “Well, I need her here. She’s the most experienced investigator we have, and this is clearly a homicide.”

Mettner grimaced, and immediately Josie felt guilty. The Chief had been grooming him over the last six months to take the step up to detective, especially now, since Gretchen was out of action. He had been on the force for seven years, was meticulous, efficient and eager to learn. Although Josie and Chief Chitwood rarely agreed on anything, she knew Mettner deserved the chance at promotion. She sighed. “Mett, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—it’s just that this is Noah’s mom, you know? Gretchen worked homicide in Philadelphia for fifteen years.”

Mettner waved a hand in the air. “I know,” he said. “It’s okay. I know she’s the most qualified, boss, I get it. But the Chief isn’t budging on this one, so you’ll have to settle for me. I can handle this, you know?”

“I know you can,” Josie replied. “Let’s do a walk-through. I don’t think Noah or I touched or moved anything. We sat on the couch in the living room, but everything else is as it was when we got here. Except the backyard, obviously. We tried to revive her, but she—” Josie broke off and her fingers swiped over her lips one last time. “Her mouth was packed with dirt.”

“Hummel got here first. He said you found her face down in the garden,” Mettner said as he suited himself up.

“Yes, but even if she had a heart attack or a stroke or something and fell, it wouldn’t account for how much dirt was in her mouth. It was packed so deep that it blocked her airway. Mett, this was not an accident. Someone killed her.”

Colette had been kind, gentle and decent. Josie’s heart flipped in her chest at the thought of someone suffocating her. She must have been terrified.

Mettner gently touched Josie’s shoulder, bringing her back to the scene. “We’ll handle this, okay? Do a quick walk-through, then take Fraley home. The rest of us will work this with everything we’ve got.”

Josie nodded, swallowing the lump in her throat. She went back to Noah’s vehicle to let him know she would only be a few minutes, but he was still lost somewhere deep where no one could reach him.

Hummel signed the two of them in at the front door and they started in the living room. “We need to know what you touched or moved before you found Mrs. Fraley,” Mettner said.

They moved slowly and carefully through the house as Josie retraced her and Noah’s movements from the time they’d arrived, to them finding Colette dead in the backyard. Mercifully, the team had already photographed Colette’s body, and someone had covered her with a sheet. They would wait until Noah had gone before transporting her to the morgue. Josie talked him through everything that had happened while Mettner used his thumbs to text furiously into a note-taking app on his cell phone. When she finished he gave her a sheepish smile. “I text faster than I write. Plus, I can email myself these notes and they’re already typed.”

Josie smiled. “Whatever works for you, Mett. Great idea.”

Back to business, he asked, “When was the last time either of you spoke to Mrs. Fraley?”

“I haven’t talked to her since last month. I think Noah spoke with her this morning. I can ask him,” Josie replied.

“Mrs. Fraley lived alone?” Mettner asked.

Josie nodded. “I can get in touch with Noah’s older brother and sister and find out when they last spoke with her. If you could, maybe someone should interview Colette’s friends, neighbors…”

Mettner looked up from his phone. “Yes, I’ve already got someone canvassing.”

“Great,” Josie said.

Another member of their ERT knelt beside Colette’s body. She was a new hire who had come to Denton with a few years of experience working on an Evidence Response Team in a city only slightly larger than Denton. “Officer Chan,” Josie greeted her. “What’ve you got?”

Chan looked up and gave Josie and Mettner a nod, her gloved hands sifting through the dirt that Colette had turned up moments before her death. With her thumb and index finger she lifted a long, beaded object from the soil. Josie squatted down to peer at it. She pointed to the dirt-crusted crucifix that hung from the end. “Is that a rosary?”

Chan fingered a frayed end where the long chain of beads had broken. “Part of one, yes, I think so.”

Mettner bent closer, squinting as Chan held up the rosary for him to inspect. “Looks old.”

“It’s pretty caked with dirt. Might have been here a long time,” Chan agreed.

Mettner turned to Josie. “Maybe she was trying to dig it up? I know the timing isn’t great, but could you ask Noah about this too?”

“Of course,” Josie said, watching as Chan bagged it up for evidence.

Mettner cleared his throat, and Josie tore her eyes away from the upturned garden to meet his.

“We can take it from here,” he said. “I’ll be in touch when we know more. Why don’t you get Noah home? Notify his siblings?”

“Right,” Josie said, still feeling shell-shocked. “Of course.”