The Bones She Buried

Fifty-Six

Outside of Ivan’s interrogation room, Josie told Gretchen, “We need a warrant for those boots so we can make a comparison. That could take a while, and we may be not be able to hold him that long. Call someone from the Lenore County sheriff’s office and have them come up here to talk to him. We’ll need a picture of him. Maybe they can give Earl Butler a photo lineup.”

“He lies as easily as he breathes,” Gretchen remarked, taking out her phone to make the call.

Josie walked over to the closed circuit viewing room to peek in on Zachary Sutton. His lawyer had arrived and was meeting with him so the feed had been turned off.

“He’s not gonna say a damn word,” Chitwood said, walking up behind her. “I cut Laura loose. She said she and her husband would be at Noah’s house for the night.”

Josie had dropped Noah off at his own house before coming to the station house with assurances from him that he would be fine on crutches for the day. At least now both Laura and Grady would be there with him should he need anything.

They walked back to the great room. Josie sat at her desk and called Lamay again, but he hadn’t found anything yet. She was beginning to feel like a real idiot. Then again, it had only been a guess that Colette might bury whatever she had found in something metal. “Keep looking,” Josie said. “Also, how big is the yard? I didn’t think any of the yards on that block were very big.”

“They’re not, but if it’s just me with a shovel it will take a while. I’m double and triple checking, boss,” Lamay assured her.

She hung up just as Gretchen sat down at her own desk. “Lenore County deputy is on his way. About forty-five minutes, but you know we can’t hold him even that long if he demands to leave.”

“I know. We need more.”

“We could go at him,” Gretchen suggested. “Lay everything out for him. Tell him we know what he did.”

“I don’t want to play our cards too soon,” Josie said. “He’s not just going to give us what we want. Neither is Sutton. As soon as he realizes we don’t have enough to charge him with anything, he’ll be gone. I don’t think we have enough yet to bluff our way into getting him to confess. Have you heard from Mettner and Hummel about the warrant for the Sutton Stone records pertaining to the accident?”

Gretchen looked at her phone. “As of fifteen minutes ago they were still searching through documents. What do you really expect them to find?”

Josie opened one of the case document boxes on her desk and sifted through its contents. It was the collection of personal effects that Drew Pratt had taken from his brother’s office after his death. She paged through Drew Pratt’s notebook and his notes on the mysterious C.F. With a sigh, she set that aside and picked up the document beneath it, which was Samuel Pratt’s curriculum vitae. It was an impressive array of accomplishments.

“I don’t know,” Josie answered. “I don’t know that Zachary Sutton would keep records of criminal activity in his company files anyway. I just know we need something else before we go at these two full tilt.”

Josie paged through it again, reading over the decades of publications he’d made in his field.

Rural Archaeological Pottery in Medieval Italy.

Archaeological Recovery and Forensic Analysis of Twentieth-Century Mass Graves.

Stone Tools in Ancient Rome: Classification, Function and Behavior.

Recent Archaeological Developments in Research Methods in the Balkan Region 6500 to 4200 BC.

Radiocarbon dating and forensic considerations of Mass Graves in Northern Macedonia. Reassessing the Emergence of Village Life in the Jiroft Culture of Iran.

She heard Laura’s voice in her head: She said, ‘I know where the bodies are. All the bodies.’

“Oh my God,” Josie said.

“What is it?” Gretchen said.

“I think I know what happened,” Josie said, darting out of her seat. “Let’s go back in.”