The Bones She Buried

Fifty-Four

Two and a half hours later, they had Ivan Ulrich in one interrogation room and Zachary Sutton in another. Neither of them knew the other man was being questioned. In a strange twist, Sutton had given the team the most trouble about coming in and demanded they call his lawyer before he would even leave his office, while Ivan Ulrich agreed to drive to the Denton police station with Josie and Gretchen with no questions asked. In fact, the only thing he had asked them was, “Can I get my wallet?” Now, he sat peacefully at the table, sipping at the coffee Josie had offered him. He was definitely burly and well-muscled as both Colette’s neighbor and Earl Butler had described. His bald head gleamed beneath the fluorescent lights. Beneath fathomless dark eyes, his nose looked permanently smashed in. Black and gray whiskers stubbled his chin. He had a hard face and a flat affect. Josie could see why Sutton would want to use him as muscle. Although he had been pleasant and cooperative with Josie and Gretchen, she could easily see him turning intimidating and frightening.

A woman’s voice carried down the hallway. Josie recognized it at once as Laura Fraley-Hall’s before she turned the corner with Chitwood at her back. “This is some kind of joke, right?” she said indignantly. “I mean, this has to be a joke. I know you’re not suggesting that you want to question me in relation to my own mother’s murder case. What the hell kind of department are you running here?”

Chitwood shook his head. “Relax. My detective here, Palmer, just needs to ask you some questions.”

Laura rested her hands on her enormous belly. “You can’t treat me like this,” she went on. “I’m about to give birth.”

“Hey,” Chitwood snapped. “I can do whatever the h—”

Gretchen cut him off. “Hi Laura. Thanks for coming. This isn’t an interrogation. In fact, why don’t we go back downstairs? There’s a conference room down there that’s pretty comfortable. Right down the hall we’ve got some snacks. I can get you something to eat or drink or send the Chief out to get you whatever you want. Are you hungry?”

Laura bristled but seemed to calm down a bit, her posture loosening. Chitwood glared at Gretchen but kept quiet. To Gretchen, Laura said, “Thank you. Maybe some decaf tea and crackers.”

Gretchen glanced pointedly at Chitwood whose face turned beet red. Still, he spun on his heel and walked off to fulfill Laura’s request.

Laura said, “I don’t understand what’s going on here.”

Josie said, “I’m so sorry, Laura. It’s just that there have been some developments in your mom’s case. We really need your help is all.”

“Yeah,” Gretchen added. “Sorry about the Chief. He can be really abrasive sometimes.”

Laura laughed. “Oh, well, that’s the nicest word for dickhead I’ve ever heard.”

Josie couldn’t stop the bark of laughter that escaped her mouth. She sincerely hoped that when this was over, Laura would be exonerated and they could form some type of real relationship. One where Laura wasn’t trying to keep Josie from her brother. But for now they had to play Chitwood’s foils. He was bad cop; they were good cop.

In the conference room, they waited until Laura was settled in one of the comfy leather spin chairs with her tea and crackers in front of her before they started asking questions.

Gretchen began with, “You told Detective Quinn that you’d never heard of a man named Ivan, is that right?”

“Correct. Why do you ask?”

“So the name Ivan Ulrich doesn’t mean anything to you?”

Laura’s eyes were wide and blank. “No, should it? Is that the name of my mother’s childhood friend?”

Josie said, “Yes, and the name of a security consultant who has been retained by Sutton Stone Enterprises since 1983.”

Confusion crinkled Laura’s brow. “A security consultant? What do you mean? We have an outfit we contract with for site security. I can give you their information.”

“So Sutton Stone Enterprises doesn’t contract with security consultants?” Gretchen asked.

“Not that I’m aware of. I mean, it’s certainly not a practice that I know anything about. Maybe Mr. Sutton consulted with him when he was choosing the site security outfit?”

“Not that kind of consultant,” Gretchen said.

“We believe that Mr. Sutton was contracting with Mr. Ulrich for… muscle.”

Laura laughed. “Muscle? What does that mean? What, like a bodyguard? Mr. Sutton hardly needs a bodyguard. We run a number of quarries. Not dangerous stuff.”

Josie said, “Not a bodyguard. More like… an enforcer. A fixer, if you will.”

“What?” Laura said, looking from Josie to Gretchen and back as though waiting for a punchline. “What on God’s green earth would Mr. Sutton need a ‘fixer’ for?”

Ignoring her question, Gretchen asked, “So you’ve never heard of or come into contact with Ivan Ulrich in the context of your work?”

“What? No. I never heard of him until the other day when Josie said my father mentioned him.”

Gretchen asked, “Did your mother ever mention work issues to you?”

“No,” Laura said. “But she worked in Mr. Sutton’s office. I was usually traveling—at least until I took over the Bethlehem site.”

“So she never mentioned anything she might have found or stumbled onto while she worked for Sutton that would have been cause for concern?” Josie asked.

Something flickered in Laura’s eyes. She looked down at her tea. “She said something weird once, but it was during one of her… episodes. You know, when she was showing early signs of dementia. I didn’t take it seriously. It didn’t even really make sense.”

“How long ago was this? What did she say?” Gretchen asked.

Laura put her hands on the top of her belly. “It was last year. She said, ‘I know what they did. It was a big cover-up.’ So I asked her what who did and she said the Suttons. I asked if she meant Mr. Sutton, her old boss, and she said, ‘It wasn’t just him.’ Then I asked her what she was talking about and she said, ‘If I talk, they’ll kill me, and maybe you, too.’ I pressed her on it, but she was off on some other tangent. The thing is that she said a lot of strange and paranoid-sounding things when she wasn’t lucid. I really didn’t take it seriously.”

“Did you ask her about it when she was lucid?” Josie asked.

“Of course,” Laura said. “She laughed and said she’d been watching too many crime dramas on television, probably.”

“Was that the only time she ever said anything like that?” Gretchen asked.

Laura’s hands stroked her belly. Her face crumpled a little. “Well, I mean, she said something strange after that, but I honestly didn’t even bother asking her about it because I just thought it was the dementia talking.”

“What did she say?” Josie asked.

“She said, ‘I know where the bodies are, all the bodies.’”