The Homewreckers(138)

He looked over at Hattie. “Do you have time for one more stop? It’s not far.”

“Sure.”



* * *



They picked up iced coffee at the counter at Foxy Loxy, then walked out to the courtyard. The young woman was sitting at a table under an umbrella, reading a book. She was a tiny, blond sprite, with tattoos.

“Detective Mak,” she exclaimed, standing up and giving him a hug.

Makarowicz blushed, and gestured to Hattie. “Emma Ragan, this is Hattie Kavanaugh.”

Hattie felt suddenly shy. “Hi, Emma,” she said. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”

“No, it’s nice to meet you,” Emma said. “I hear you knew my mom.”

“She was my favorite teacher,” Hattie said, sitting down at the table. She cocked her head. “You look like her, you know.”

“I get that a lot.”

Makarowicz handed Emma a manila envelope. The girl opened it and pulled out some photos. She spread them out on the tabletop. One was obviously a school picture of a little girl dressed in a frilly blue dress, another was a family photo, a handsome young couple and their daughter.

“That’s me. Wearing my favorite dress,” Emma said, tapping the picture. She shuffled the pictures. “Me on the swing in our backyard.” Another photo showed Lanier Ragan cradling an infant in a baby blanket. “I’ve never seen this one,” she said.

“They’re copies, and not very good ones,” Makarowicz said apologetically. “I can’t give you the actual pictures from her billfold until all the court stuff is done.”

Emma nodded. “My mom’s wedding ring?” she said hopefully.

“It shouldn’t be long now. Davis Hoffman’s lawyer wants to spare his family the spectacle of a long, drawn-out trial.”

“But they’ll all go to prison for what they did to my mom, right?” Emma asked. “Even the Creedmores?”

“The district attorney assures me that he’s going to ask for the max for all of them, but then it’s up to the judge. You’re willing to give a victim impact statement, right?”

Emma lifted her chin. “Absolutely. My dad will give one too.”

She turned to Hattie. “Now that it’s all over, I’m going to have a service for her. He wants to come. Do you think I should let him?”

Hattie thought of her fractured relationship with her own father, how it had grown colder and more distant with the passing years. Would things have been different if he’d reached out to her earlier? If he’d expressed remorse? She’d probably never know. Her last visit with him had reinforced the wideness of the gulf. It was too late.

“I don’t know, Emma,” she said, answering the girl’s question. “He’s the only family you’ve got, right?”

“Yeah.”

“I can’t tell you what’s right or wrong. But, if he wants to see you, and you think he can change, or if you can find a way to forgive him, maybe give him another chance.”

Emma slid the photographs back into the envelope. “That’s what my therapist said too.”

She looked over at Makarowicz. “Thank you for these. I don’t have many photos of her. Or of us together as a family.”

The cop coughed, clearing his throat. “You know, just because you’ve lost someone you loved, that doesn’t mean you have to stop living yourself.”

“I get that now,” Emma said softly. She stood up to leave, tucking her book and the envelope into her backpack.

“You take care of yourself, you hear?” Mak said. “And keep in touch.”

Hattie felt a pang of guilt as she watched Lanier’s daughter walk away.

“Emma?”

The girl came back to the table, waiting.

Hattie brought her change purse out of her bag, unzipped it, and removed the green scapular.

“This was in your mom’s wallet, along with the photos. I knew it was wrong but for some reason, instead of turning it over to the cops, I kept it.”

She held it out. “Here. This is yours.”

Emma took the scapular and pressed it into Hattie’s hand, gently folding Hattie’s fingers over the square.

“You keep it. You gave me back my mom. I think that’s a fair trade.”





74

Icebreakers




Two weeks passed. Hattie was back at her desk at Kavanaugh & Son, trying to find a new old house to rehab. Cass rolled her desk chair up next to Hattie’s. “Can we talk?”

“Yeah. What about?”

“A couple things. First, I went over to the district attorney’s office today and gave a victim impact statement. About Holland Creedmore, and, you know, what he did to me.”

“That’s great, Cass,” Hattie said. She glanced over at Zenobia, who was on the phone, and lowered her voice. “How did it go?”

“Don’t worry about Mom. I finally told her everything last night. She fussed at me a little, for keeping it bottled up all these years, but then she pointed out that I was just a kid, and kids do dumb things. We both cried.”

“I’m glad you finally told her.”

“It was my therapist’s idea. Anyway, today I met with a woman at the DA’s office who prosecutes sex crimes. She’s pretty cool. About our age, not at all judgy. The bad news is, the statute of limitations has already run out, because I didn’t report it within seven years of the time of the sexual assault. So Junior can’t be prosecuted for what he did to me.”