The Homewreckers(40)

“Just call me Mak. Yeah. Lanier Ragan. Did you know her?”

“Not personally. I’ve only been at the paper twelve years.”

“Only,” he said pointedly.

“In Savannah, that makes me a newcomer,” she said. “You know how it is, if you’re not a native Savannahian,” she said, making quote marks with her fingers, “you’re an outsider. But I’ve had an obsession with that story ever since I got here. So don’t keep me in suspense. What’s the news?”

“We found Lanier Ragan’s wallet this week.”

She leaned across the table, her eyes wide with excitement. “Where?”

“In an old house that’s being renovated, out on Tybee. The contractors found it behind the old plaster walls, stuck in between the wall studs.”

“Any idea how it got there?”

He shook his head. “They said there was an old razor blade slot in the wall, the kind people used to dispose of used blades, and they think somebody shoved it in there.”

“Oh. My. God.” She was scribbling in a steno pad she’d whipped out of her purse. “Who’re the people who found the wallet?”

“The woman’s name is Hattie Kavanaugh. She just bought the house last week, and they’re filming some kind of do-it-yourself television show there. One of her crew members found it. This girl, well, she’s probably in her early thirties, so not really a girl. This woman, she graduated from St. Mary’s Academy. She actually had Lanier Ragan for an English class.”

“Interesting,” Molly Fowlkes said. “Tell me about this television show. They’re filming out at Tybee? That’s kind of weird in itself.”

“I don’t know that much about it,” Mak admitted. “They said it’s called Homewreckers. My wife used to watch all those shows.” He smiled slightly. “And she never missed your column.”

“Past tense?” Molly asked.

“Yeah.”

“Oh. Sorry. So. Homewreckers. What’s that about?”

He shrugged, and his whole body went into the effort. “Fixing up an old house. Here’s another coincidence for you. The family that used to own the house, for like, the last sixty years? The son played football at Cardinal Mooney for Lanier Ragan’s husband.”

“Frank Ragan,” Molly said promptly. “What a douche. He was so heartbroken by his wife’s disappearance he started shacking up with one of his neighbors less than a year later.”

“Really? How do you come to know something like that?”

She twirled the beer can on the tabletop. “Told you I was obsessed. What else do you want to know? Last I heard, Frank was selling real estate in Orlando. He and the neighbor lady broke up awhile ago.”

“And the daughter?”

“Emma. Now that’s a sad story. She dropped out of high school, went to rehab. Last time I checked, she was working in a local tattoo parlor.”

“She didn’t move to Florida with her dad? What’s up with that?”

“Don’t know. She won’t talk. I’ve reached out a couple times, but no luck.”

“Do you have the name of the tattoo place?” Now it was Makarowicz’s turn to pull out a steno pad.

“Inkstains,” Molly said. “Want me to text you the number?”

“Yeah, that’d be good. What else do you know?”

She gave him a look. “That’s not how this works. You’re supposed to tell me stuff so I can write a great column. Maybe win a Pulitzer, or at least get a raise.”

“Honest to God. There’s nothing else to tell. The wallet was found. Eventually it’ll be sent to the state crime lab, but after sitting in a moldy wall for all these years, you can imagine how much help that’ll be.”

Her pen was poised above her notepad. “What’s the name of the son who played football for Frank Ragan?”

He considered holding it back, but relented. “Holland Creedmore. I think he does something in sales.”

“Creedmore. That sounds familiar.” She typed the name into the search bar on her phone. “Oh yeah. This town is crawling with Creedmores.” She held the phone so he could read the search engine results.

“Holland Creedmore Senior was president of the Rotary Club, on the Savannah Board of Aldermen.…”

She raised an eyebrow. “President of the Cardinal Mooney Alumni Association.” She laughed. “And Mavis Creedmore. That’s how I knew the name. A real crank. She writes indignant letters to the editor about unleashed dogs pooping in the city squares. Typewritten, in all caps. Like on a monthly basis. Once got arrested for chasing down a tourist whose chihuahua shit in front of the cathedral. Assaulted the poor guy with her cane.”

“Sounds like quite a distinguished family,” Mak said. “I think I need to talk to Holland Junior. Maybe Senior, too.”

“What’s your theory about Lanier? Usually it’s the husband who did it, am I right?”

“It’s too early for me to have a theory,” Mak said. He looked down at his notes and what he’d copied from the incident reports in the old police file.

Frank Ragan states he was reluctant to contact police when he initially discovered his wife missing because he thought she might have left “because she was pissed at him for drinking too much at a Super Bowl party the night before.” Ragan said he asked a neighbor to watch their young daughter, who was still asleep, while he drove around looking for his wife’s car, a white 2001 Nissan Altima. After he returned home, he called his wife’s closest friends, as well as her mother to ask if they’d seen Lanier. His mother-in-law then urged him to call the police, as it was unlike her daughter to go off and leave like that.