The Bones She Buried

Forty-Seven

Josie stood outside of Wolicki’s cabin, waiting for Detective Heather Loughlin. The crime scene tape fluttered from tree to tree, cordoning off the cabin, even though the scene had been processed. Trinity wandered around outside the perimeter, talking on her cell phone to various work contacts. Josie’s cell phone rang. Gretchen’s name blinked on the screen.

“What’ve you got?” Josie said when she answered.

“Ivan Ulrich,” Gretchen replied. “I think he’s our guy. His age fits and his mother, who died in 1999, lived in Denton around the time he would have been at St. Agatha’s. I found her obituary, and it actually says she worked at St. Agatha’s, so I’m pretty sure he’s our guy. He lives in Bellewood. I’m contacting Bellewood PD now to let them know Mettner will be coming down that way to interview him. I’ll go with him.”

“Does he have a criminal record?” Josie asked.

“Clean as a whistle,” Gretchen said. “I’m trying to track down some more information on him now—like whether he ever worked for Sutton Stone Enterprises. You hear from their records department?”

“No,” Josie said. “But I’ll give Sutton a call and see if he can expedite their search, and I’ll give him Ivan Ulrich’s name and date of birth. I’ll give him your email address. I think I might have another lead up here on the belt buckle, but it may take me a few hours.”

They hung up and Josie dialed Zachary Sutton who answered right away, listened to her request, and promised to get in contact with his records department immediately. She was saying goodbye when Heather Loughlin pulled up in an unmarked state police vehicle. Heather got out of the car, her face paling when she saw Trinity. “What’s she doing here?”

Josie laughed. “Relax. She’s not here as a reporter. She’s here as my sister. She doesn’t even know anything about the case. I need to get in there and see the photo albums.”

Heather gave Trinity a long look as if trying to decide something and then popped her trunk, reached in and pulled out a Tyvek suit which she handed to Josie. “She stays out here. Suit up and I’ll take you inside.”

Five minutes later, Josie and Heather were inside Brody Wolicki’s bedroom, and Josie was trying not to dry heave at the smell that still lingered in the small cabin. Being hungover at a crime scene was not the best idea Josie had ever had, but she needed to take one last shot at finding out who owned the belt buckle hidden in Colette’s sewing machine. Wolicki’s twin bed was barely visible amongst the mounds of hunting gear and taxidermy piled into the tiny room.

Josie said, “When you said a ‘bit’ of a hoarder, I think you were being conservative.”

Heather laughed and picked up a taxidermy deer head from the floor and carried it into the hallway to make room for them to work. Josie followed suit until they had removed a stuffed rabbit, a family of stuffed squirrels and an elk head which required two of them to get it out of the room.

“Why didn’t he hang any of these?” Josie groused as they struggled to get the elk head through the doorway.

“Maybe he didn’t want them over his bed staring at him at night,” Heather joked.

When they had cleared out the animals and a few boxes of cassette tapes, they reached the photo albums, piled high from floor to shoulder height. “Tell me again what we’re looking for?” Heather asked as Josie handed her an album.

As they worked, sweat poured down Josie’s back in rivulets. She was certain Heather could smell last night’s booze oozing from her pores but she didn’t say anything. “We’re looking for a photo of the 1973 Tri-County Shooting League champion.” She took out her cell phone and showed Heather a photo of the belt buckle.

Two hours later, Josie was beginning to wonder if she had been crazy to think Brody Wolicki had kept photos of his years with the shooting league. Most of the albums were of local wildlife and hunting expeditions. There were many filled with people Brody had clearly been close to—Christmas pictures of people gathered around a tree; people celebrating what looked like a retirement party at a bar; people at a local football game together. Finally, near the bottom of the pile, they hit pay dirt; an old album, its cover nearly disintegrating in Josie’s hands, but filled with what were obviously photographs of the shooting league. A thrill of excitement flooded her body when she found the 1972 champion, proudly holding his rifle while he stood next to a bullet-ridden target. A man next to him—Josie assumed this was Brody—held out a belt buckle much like the one Colette had hidden. Gingerly, Josie pulled the photo from beneath the plastic casing and turned it over. There was a name next to the words: League Champion, 1972.

She frantically flipped through the rest of the pages until she found the next photo of a man—short, burly, wearing jeans, a western-style shirt and a cowboy hat—holding a rifle beside a shredded target. Beneath a bushy moustache, his smile was wide and toothy. Next to him was Brody Wolicki with the mystery belt buckle in his hand. On the back of the photo, it said: Craig Bridges, League Champion, 1973.

“I’ve got it!” Josie said. “I found it!”