The Bones She Buried

Fifty-Five

Josie and Gretchen left Laura in the conference room and headed upstairs to where the interrogation rooms were. They checked the closed-circuit video feed to see that Ivan hadn’t moved very much while he was waiting. His coffee cup was empty but other than that, he seemed content to sit very still until someone joined him. He was someone who was very used to being obedient, Josie thought.

“You believe her?” Gretchen asked.

Josie sighed. “I don’t know. It’s hard to believe she didn’t know that Sutton had someone in the wings to do dirty work. But I do believe that she has no idea what Colette was hiding. Your mom’s getting dementia, saying all kinds of odd things knowing the person Colette was, her saying she knew where the bodies were would seem completely outlandish if I were her daughter. I would have believed her when she said she’d been watching too many crime dramas.”

“But Colette was telling the truth,” Gretchen said. “She did know something. She definitely knew what happened to Bridges and the Pratt brothers.”

“Yeah,” Josie agreed. She took out her cell phone and called Lamay, but he hadn’t found anything besides an old wrench buried in the yard. “Keep going,” Josie urged him. “It’s important.” She hung up and pocketed her phone. “Let’s take a crack at Ivan Ulrich.”

“Wait,” Gretchen said as her phone chirped. “It’s Mettner. He got an email from the legal department at Landon’s Sporting Goods outside of Bellewood. Ivan Ulrich’s name is on the list of customers who purchased size eleven Coyote Run boots from their store in the last six months. They tracked it through his customer rewards card.”

“Perfect,” Josie said. “Let’s go.”

They read Ivan his rights and Josie waited for him to ask for an attorney, but he didn’t. Maybe he didn’t realize how much trouble he was in, Josie thought.

Gretchen started by asking where he was on dates and times of the recent spate of crimes: Colette’s murder, Beth Pratt’s murder, the fire at Beth Pratt’s house, the attack on Mason Pratt, the fire at Colette’s home, Wolicki’s murder, and the attack on Earl Butler. He had the same alibi for each date: a lady friend who could confirm that he’d been with her during each of those times. He wrote her name, address and phone number down for them, but Josie set it aside. This woman was obviously someone he had convinced to lie for him. Josie wasn’t buying any of it.

They asked him if he had known Colette, and he confirmed that they’d gone to Catholic school together and that both their mothers had worked in the rectory. He confirmed that one of the priests had been ‘doing bad things’ to him and that Colette blew the whistle, eventually leading his mother to pack up and move them away.

“When did you see Colette again?” Josie asked him.

“It was many years,” Ivan said. “We were both out of high school. My mother had just died. I was going to be evicted from our apartment. I came to Denton looking for her. I asked her for help. She got me the job at the quarry.”

“What kind of work did you do?” Gretchen asked.

He laughed. “I moved rocks from one place to another. After the rock splitters did their jobs, a bunch of us would come in to move the slabs and any debris, haul it elsewhere.”

“How long did you do that?” Josie asked.

“Maybe a year.”

“Then what happened?” Gretchen asked.

“Mr. Sutton—junior—said he had easier work for me. Security stuff.”

“What kind of security stuff?” Josie asked.

“He had an outside business come in and provide security for the sites, but he didn’t trust them. So he asked me to periodically check on things without the outside business knowing. Like a checks and balances system.”

“That’s it?” Gretchen said.

“Well, sometimes the workers would get into disputes, and I’d go down to the sites and mediate. Try and get things worked out before anything got violent.”

Josie didn’t believe this for a second, but she was certain that both Ivan and Sutton had long ago realized that one day they might be asked questions like these so they had ready answers. Innocuous answers.

“Did you ever provide any services for Mr. Sutton that required you to carry out a violent act?” Josie asked pointedly.

A smile froze on Ivan’s face. “Violent? What do you mean?”

Gretchen said, “Did Mr. Sutton ever ask you to intimidate anyone? Assault them?”

“That would be illegal,” Ivan said.

Josie noted he didn’t say no. She took out her phone and swiped to a photo of Drew Pratt. “Have you ever seen this man?”

He stared at the picture for a long moment and then said, “No, I haven’t.”

She got the same answer when she showed him photos of Samuel Pratt and Craig Bridges. Josie decided to move on for the moment. “After you became a security consultant for Mr. Sutton, how often did you see Colette?”

“Not often. I’d run into her from time to time, but I never had much reason to be up in the big office.”

“Mr. Ulrich,” Josie said. “Did you ever have a romantic or sexual relationship with Colette Fraley?”

He looked somewhat stunned but quickly gathered himself. “No,” he said.

“Did you want to?” Gretchen asked.

He looked into his empty coffee cup. “Yes. I loved Colette very much. But she was never interested in me in that way. Plus, she was married. She had a family.”

“That doesn’t necessarily stop people,” Josie pointed out.

He met her eyes, his dark irises flashing with anger. “Colette would never do something like that. She was loyal. A good person. A good wife and mother.”

“Did she ever have an affair with Zachary Sutton?” Josie pressed.

He shook his head. “No, never. It was a very professional relationship.”

“How about other lovers? Do you know if Colette had other lovers?”

“I don’t know,” Ivan admitted. “But I doubt it. I told you, she wasn’t like that. She wasn’t that kind of person.”

“Lots of people aren’t that kind of person,” Gretchen said. “Until they are.”

He slapped a palm onto the table suddenly. Both Josie and Gretchen managed to keep completely still instead of startling. “Not Colette,” he hissed.

“Okay, fair enough,” Gretchen relented. She turned her chair around and grabbed a paper evidence bag from the table along the wall. After snapping on a pair of gloves pulled from her pocket, she dumped the contents of the bag onto the table and spread them out before Ivan. The flash drive. The arrowhead. The belt buckle.

“Do you recognize these things?” Gretchen asked.

Again Josie saw the slightest flicker in his façade. “No,” he said. “I’ve never seen them.”

“What’s your shoe size?” Josie asked.

Bewildered, he met Josie’s eyes. “I’m sorry. What?”

“Your shoe size. What size shoe do you wear?”

“A size eleven. What does that have to do with anything?”

Josie asked, “Do you own a pair of Coyote Run boots?”

“I don’t know what kind. I have lots of boots,” he said.

“Did you buy a pair of boots at Landon’s Sporting Goods in the last few months?”

“What?” For the first time, his expression showed signs of frustration. “I don’t know. I guess so.”

Gretchen asked, “What if I told you I had a receipt for a pair you bought there four months ago? Size eleven Coyote Run boots in tan. Would you dispute that?”

“No,” he said. “I wouldn’t dispute it. I’ve bought many boots from there.”

He had already given his lady friend as an alibi for the night that Mason Pratt was attacked. If they wanted to prove beyond a doubt that it was his boot print, there was more work to be done. They’d have to get a warrant for his apartment so they could take his boots into evidence and then perhaps they could take soil samples from the treads. Or they could hire an expert in footprint analysis to take a footprint from Ivan and then compare it to the one found at Mason Pratt’s house, for which they’d need his consent. In the meantime, Josie didn’t want their line of questioning to send up enough red flags for him to ask for an attorney.

“Do you have a partner?” Josie asked. “Someone else you work with when you’re doing these security consultant duties for Sutton Stone Enterprises?”

“No,” Ivan answered. “I work alone.”

“Are you aware whether or not Mr. Sutton has any additional security consultants on his payroll?”

“I don’t know,” Ivan said. “You have to ask him.”

Gretchen smiled. “We will. Tell me, where were you yesterday afternoon?”

He stared at Gretchen. “I was with my lady friend. We went for a drive.”

Josie said, “I think we’re done here, but there’s one more person who would like a word. Do you mind hanging around for just a little longer?”

A muscle ticked in his jaw, but he said, “Sure.”