The Bones She Buried

Seven

Mettner and Josie took separate cars to Colette’s house. The crime scene tape had already been taken down. Someone on the team must have removed it for Noah’s sake, knowing he would have to come back. Parking their cars, they walked up the front drive together. “Did you get anything from the neighbors?” Josie asked.

“Nothing,” Mettner said, pulling a key from his pocket as they reached the front door. Unlocking it, he let them in. There was a strange stillness inside that made Josie’s skin crawl. “Nothing unusual at all. Colette’s car was in the driveway all day yesterday. No one noticed any visitors or strangers in the area. The only call Colette made or took was one to Noah in the morning. It lasted about five minutes. From her cell phone. There’s no landline.”

“Did you check her call log going back a few weeks?” Josie asked.

“Of course. Gretchen handled that. We went back a month. There were calls to and from her children; a call to her family physician’s office; calls to three church friends and one call to a Thai takeout place.”

“No red flags.”

“Not one,” Mettner agreed.

The house had been left as Josie had found it. She knew her team had photographed and printed the place, but they had not cleaned up. That wasn’t their job. That would be up to the Fraley children when they were strong enough to face it. Josie followed Mettner out to the backyard where he pointed out an impression in a patch of dirt. It looked like something round had been pressed hard into the soil. Colette’s skull, Josie realized. “Someone held her down,” she said to Mettner.

He nodded. “I think so. And here, the grass makes it harder to see, but there are two indents in the ground.” Both he and Josie squatted down, and Josie saw where two smaller, rounded indentations tamped down the grass. If Josie were to lay down on her back, she’d be able to fit her skull into the larger indentation and the other two would fall roughly on either side of her hips.

“Someone straddled her,” Josie remarked.

“Right. Whoever the killer was, he straddled her, pressed her head into the dirt and stuffed her mouth with soil. I’m thinking it was a man because of the strength that would have taken. Mrs. Fraley was in her sixties, but I understand she was physically healthy. Against a smaller opponent, I would expect to see more evidence of a struggle. More bruising and lacerations on her body, more of the dirt and grass disturbed out here. I’m thinking this guy was big enough to overpower her completely and hold her here until he was finished.”

“Then he turned her over onto her face,” Josie said.

“Boss,” Mettner said.

“Just Josie, now, remember?”

Mettner corrected himself shyly. “Josie. I think this was personal.”

Josie nodded. “It doesn’t get much more intimate, does it? Looking down into someone’s eyes while you suffocate them? Then turning them over so you don’t have to see what you’ve done? You should alibi the family.”

“I thought the family lived far away from here,” Mettner said.

“Well Noah’s oldest brother has a pretty airtight alibi since he lives in Arizona, but you should still make some calls—find out where he was at the time of Colette’s death and who can corroborate his whereabouts. It’s just good practice. Laura and her husband, Grady, live only a couple of hours away, and I think Colette’s ex-husband lives in the state. They’re closer. Even more reason to alibi them. Rule out those closest to Colette right off the bat.”

“You think any of them are capable of this?” Mettner asked.

Josie shrugged. The grief she had seen at Noah’s house was genuine. “Probably not, but the first thing we’d do if this was a case that didn’t involve one of our own would be to make sure everyone close to the victim had an alibi.”

“Right,” Mettner conceded. “I thought Mrs. Fraley divorced Noah’s dad years ago.”

“She did,” Josie said. “But we really have no idea what kind of relationship they had then, or if they maintained one afterward. It’s worth looking into.”

“You got it. By the way, come upstairs with me. There are some drawers disturbed up there as well.”

The upstairs rooms were in a similar state of disarray to the downstairs. Just like the living room and kitchen, the upstairs rooms looked as though Colette had simply been looking for something. The drawers in her night stands and the top dresser drawers stood half-open, some of their contents scattered onto the floor. The closet doors had been pushed open and the lids from various shoeboxes sat crooked, as though hastily replaced. A large, standing jewelry box in the corner of the room had also been disturbed. A quick glance told Josie that whoever had raided the room had left behind several—if not all—valuable pieces of jewelry. They would be better able to tell what might be missing after Noah did a walk-through.

“Someone was looking for something, like I said,” Josie told Mettner.

“Yes,” Mettner agreed. “Looks that way. Come, see the rest.”

In the bathroom, the medicine cabinet stood open, a bottle of Advil and a tube of toothpaste discarded in the sink beneath it. Cleaning supplies spilled from the cabinet beneath the sink. The heavy top of the toilet tank was askew.

“What the hell?” Josie said. “What did this guy think she had?”

“That’s what we’ve got to find out,” Mettner said. “Did Noah or his sister tell you anything at all?”

“There’s nothing for them to tell,” Josie said. “They say she wasn’t having problems with anyone, didn’t have many valuables in the home and that no one would hurt her.”

“Then what secrets was she keeping?” Mettner asked. “Even from her children?”

Josie said, “That’s what we have to figure out.”

Colette’s spare bedroom, which Josie knew her other children slept in when they visited, was undisturbed except for the closet where several of Colette’s old handbags had been pulled out and left on the floor. The other bedroom had long ago been converted to a sewing room. Its dozens of plastic drawers against the far wall had all been pulled open. The large sewing machine that sat in the middle of the long, narrow sewing table in the center of the room had been knocked onto its side. Other than that, the room appeared to be in order. The shelves of fabric and spools of thread lining the opposite wall were undisturbed as were the baskets of yarn. In the corner of the room stood a waist-high wooden quilt rack draped with Colette’s latest masterpiece.

“If she could sew like that, she definitely didn’t have Parkinson’s,” Josie remarked as she stepped into the room.

“We’ve already photographed it and printed what we could,” Mettner said. “So you can take a look around.”

Josie walked reverently around the room, thinking of the hours Colette must have spent at her beloved sewing table. Had she made the newest quilt for her forthcoming grandchild, Josie wondered? The thought caused a small ache in her chest, and she tried to turn her mind back to the facts of the case, the clues. Surely the killer had been the one searching the house, not Colette in a state of dementia? She wondered if he had found what he was searching for and made off with it. Was that why the place was not more thoroughly ransacked? Or had he been trying to make it look like it was just Colette searching for something? She ran her fingers over the quilt hanging on the rack, the beautiful, perfect work causing the ache in her chest to bloom once more; Colette would never sew again.

Mettner watched from the doorway, arms crossed. “Do you want to try to clean things up before Noah does the walk-through? We could start in here where there’s not too much of a mess.”

Josie knew that restoring Colette’s home to its usual neatness might make Noah feel better so she turned to the wall and started pushing all the small drawers back into place. Then she moved to the table and righted the sewing machine. Back up the right way, it still wobbled unevenly on the table. “This is heavy,” she muttered.

Mettner came over and grabbed each side of it, shifting it to try to make it sit level.

“Careful,” Josie admonished, although she wasn’t sure why. Colette would never use the machine again, and Josie was fairly certain that none of her children were going to take up sewing.

Mettner tilted the sewing machine and turned his head to get a look at the bottom of it. “The base is loose,” he said.

Josie moved around to his side of the table, bending to see. “Oh no,” she said. “I see a crack on one side. That’s why the bottom is loose. Still, it should sit upright. Try again.”

Mettner spent several seconds trying to make it stand straight before they heard another crack.

“Oh no,” he said. “Damn. I’m sorry.”

“Shit,” Josie said. “Just lay it back on its side. I don’t want to do any more damage. We’ll leave it like that. I can try to fix it later, before her children do a walk-through. It’s just plastic, a spot of glue should do the trick.”

Mettner’s large hands cupped either side of the machine, but he hesitated to move it again and cause more damage. “Mett,” Josie said. “Seriously. We’ll get some crazy glue and fill those cracks right in.”

He didn’t look convinced, but he slowly lowered the machine onto its side. “It didn’t just crack,” he said. “Dammit. Look at this.”

The plastic panel at the bottom was hanging almost completely loose.

“Oh geez,” Josie said. “Okay, just leave it like that.”

Gently, she tried to fit the base back on, but it wouldn’t click into place. Mettner stood by silently, arms crossed tightly over his chest, as though he was watching an operation. Josie shook her head, and was about to turn and usher them both out of the room when something caught her eye. She drew closer, peering at the machine. Poking out from amongst the inner workings of the sewing machine was the edge of a clear sandwich bag with a sliding clasp.

“What’s this?” Josie asked.

Mettner stepped forward and peered over Josie’s shoulder while she gently tugged on the corner of the plastic bag. The baggie fell out, making a small clunk on the wooden table. Josie and Mettner stared at it. Josie said, “Do you have gloves?”

“You think it’s important?” Mettner asked.

“Well, I don’t know, but if it is, I’d like to be wearing gloves.”

Mettner reached inside his jacket and pulled out a pair of protective gloves which he handed to Josie. She snapped them on and picked up the bag, holding it up to the light so they could get a better look at what was inside.

Josie shifted the bag in her hands, inspecting what appeared to be three items inside of it.

“Should I call the ERT?” Mettner asked. “Establish a chain of custody?”

Josie nodded. “I don’t know what these things are, but it sure is strange that Colette would hide them in the base of her sewing machine.”

Mettner took out his phone. “I know when my grandmother got older and started getting confused, she was always putting things in strange places. Once I found her car keys in the freezer.”

Josie shook her head. “No. I think she hid this on purpose. This wasn’t an easily accessible hiding spot. And look how wrinkled and rumpled the bag is—it’s been in there for some time. Call the ERT.”