The Homewreckers(137)

“What are we doing here?” Hattie asked.

“I thought we might pay a visit to Mavis Creedmore,” Makarowicz said. “I just want to clear up a couple last details that have been bothering me.”

“What makes you think the nasty old bat will talk to you?” Hattie asked.

Makarowicz pointed to the badge clipped to his belt. “Her generation generally has at least a begrudging respect for law enforcement.”



* * *



The detective rang the doorbell and waited. “Who’s that?” The old woman’s voice was muffled by the thick wooden door.

“Tybee police, Miss Creedmore.”

The door opened a crack and Mavis peered out, eyes as hard and black as coffee beans behind thick-lensed glasses. “I don’t live on Tybee and I didn’t call no police.”

“No, ma’am, but this is in regard to the property you formerly owned there.”

“What about it?” Mavis opened the door wider, but glared when she saw her other visitor.

She pointed a bony finger at Hattie. “That one stole my family’s beach house out from under us. She’s got no business standing right here on my porch. I’ll talk to you, but not her.”

“I’ve got as much right to be here as you did when you snuck onto my private property,” Hattie shot back. “You’re lucky I didn’t call the cops on you that night.”

Mavis Creedmore scowled, but she opened the door and stepped out onto the concrete porch. Her sparse white hair had been teased into a pouf that revealed patches of pink scalp. She wore a white short-sleeved blouse, navy-blue slacks, and lace-up black walking shoes.

“What is it you want, then?” she asked Makarowicz. “Be quick about it. I don’t want my neighbors thinking I’m some kind of a criminal like those low-life cousins of mine.”

“It’s about Lanier Ragan’s wallet,” Makarowicz said.

“Never met the woman.”

“But you did find her wallet at your beach house, isn’t that right, Miss Mavis?”

“Not saying I did, not saying I didn’t.”

Makarowicz shook his head. “Miss Mavis, this is serious police business, concerning a homicide that occurred on property owned by your family. Now, would you like to answer my questions here, or would you prefer that I handcuff you and put you in the back of my cruiser, in front of all your neighbors, and take you out to Tybee for questioning at the police station?”

Mavis took a step backward. “You can’t do that. Can you?”

He tapped the handcuffs snapped to his belt. “Would you like to find out?”

“Fine,” the old woman snapped. “Yes. I found that billfold. Might have been a year or so after that girl went missing.”

“And you didn’t think to report it to the authorities?”

“No.”

“And why was that?”

“I found it in the boat shed when I was looking for a crab trap. Holland and them always did leave things in a mess after they’d been out there. My grandfather would have had a conniption if he’d seen the condition they left that house in. How’d I know how it got there? I had no idea what it meant. I took it in the house to look at it, and right then, here comes Big Holl and that useless woman he married. Dorcas. Wasn’t even their weekend to be out there. Didn’t want them to see what I’d found, so I stuck it in that old razor slot in the bathroom wall. And I didn’t think no more about it.”

Makarowicz stared at her in disbelief. “You didn’t think any more about it after her body was discovered? You didn’t wonder how that body got there and who put it there, or how someone would know about that long-disused septic tank?”

Mavis looked down at her shoes, which suddenly seemed more fascinating than the disapproving stare of the police detective.

Hattie couldn’t restrain herself. “Seventeen years, Mavis! For seventeen years Lanier Ragan’s daughter has agonized over what happened to her mother. And for most of that time, you knew. You’re a horrible person, you know that? And you’re just as bad as those low-life cousins of yours. How do you even look at yourself in the mirror every morning?”

“Get off my porch,” the old woman said with a snarl.

With the toe of her shoe Hattie tipped over the plaster Virgin Mary. It broke into four or five large chunks.

“Oops.”



* * *



She was sitting in the front seat of the cruiser, still fuming, when Makarowicz returned a few minutes later.

“You should have hauled her bony ass off to jail like the rest of her miserable family,” Hattie said, as Mak started the car and turned the air-conditioning to the max.

“I’ll admit, it would have felt good, but the truth is, no judge or jury in this town is going to convict an octogenarian white lady for being a spiteful old hag. Sometimes, just knowing the truth has to be enough.”

“How do you do it?” Hattie asked, glancing over at the detective’s calm demeanor.

“You mean dealing with people like her?”

“Yeah. All of it. People stealing, lying, raping, killing. How do you stay sane?”

“It’s not all bad stuff. Some days I get to return a kid’s stolen bike, or lock up a dirtbag who’s been abusing his wife. Crimefighting 101.”