The Homewreckers(75)

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll do my best. I guess the next step for me is to talk to your dad. Do you happen to have an address for him?”

“No. We didn’t exactly end the night on friendly terms.”

“That’s okay,” Makarowicz said. “I’ll make some phone calls.”





39

A Hail Mary Pass




Mak saw an incoming call from Mickey Lloyd, one of his detective buddies from the Atlanta PD, whom he’d called earlier that morning to ask for help in locating Frank Ragan.

“Mak? Looks like your football coach is living in a mobile home community in Richmond Hill,” Lloyd said. “I’ll text you the address and the phone number. My source says he’s working at a store called Elite Feet in the mall down there.”



* * *



Frank Ragan was easy to spot. He was the oldest employee in the sporting goods store. The rest of the employees, all dressed in their black-and-white-striped pseudo-referee shirts, were high school or college kids. The former coach looked to be in good shape. His hair was still thick, if dyed an improbable shade of auburn, but his belly was flat, and his biceps bulged beneath the sleeves of the ref shirt.

Makarowicz stood in the mall, just outside the store’s entry, watching Ragan. He was obviously flirting with a customer while ringing up her tennis shoes. Ragan’s eyes followed her as she left the store, checking her out.

Mak walked up to the cashier stand and addressed the coach, who was straightening up a display of protein bars.

“Frank Ragan?”

The former coach looked up, startled. “That’s right.”

Makarowicz kept his voice low and even. “I’m Detective Makarowicz with the Tybee Island Police Department. I’ve been trying to reach you without much success. Wondering if you’d have some time to chat.”

“Sorry. I’m kind of busy at work here.”

Mak looked around the store. “Doesn’t look all that busy to me right now. Maybe I could ask your manager if you could take a coffee break?”

“Never mind. I’m the manager on duty. Just let me get someone to cover the register. I’ll meet you at the Starbucks kiosk in five minutes.”

“That’s okay,” Mak said. “I’ll just wait here.”



* * *



They took a two-top in a corner of the food court. Makarowicz had a coffee, Ragan had a green smoothie.

“Did Emma tell you where to find me?” Ragan asked.

“No. Your daughter pointed out that she had no idea of your address, or where you were working. I guess you two aren’t so close, huh?”

“Her choice. I was as good a father as she let me be. You being a cop, you probably know how bad drugs can mess with a kid’s head these days. I’m the one who about went broke paying for her rehab, you know. Bet she didn’t mention that.”

“I’m not here to judge your parenting skills,” Mak said. “But I am kind of surprised that you haven’t already asked me about your wife, or that you didn’t bother to return any of my phone calls telling you there’d been a new development in the case.”

“I follow the news,” Ragan said. “If Lanier had turned up, I’d have gotten an alert on my phone. But she hasn’t, has she?”

“No. But we have a couple of new leads I wanted to discuss with you. First, of course, I’m wondering why your wife’s billfold was found in the wall of that house on Tybee.”

“You got me,” Ragan said. “If your next question was whether Lanier was ever there, the answer is yes. When the Creedmores owned the house, they had the whole team and the coaching staff and their families there for cookouts and stuff like that. I guess we were there at least four or five times over the years.”

“Any idea whether your wife was ever there without you?”

“I don’t know. I guess she could have been.”

“I understand Lanier was tutoring a few of your players that fall? At your request?”

Ragan fixed him with a hard stare. “This shit again? Yeah, I’ve heard the rumors, that she was messing around with one of my players. I can’t disprove it, and I can’t prove it, because she’s not around, is she?”

“No. She’s not. I’d be interested in hearing your theories about what happened to your wife. Emma told me you once accused your wife of ‘whoring around.’ Is that accurate?”

“One time. I caught Emma sneaking in the house after she’d stayed out all night with her boyfriend. She was fifteen, for Christ’s sake. I was trying to scare her. Maybe I got a little overly dramatic. I’m telling you, I don’t know what happened to Lanier. We came home from a Super Bowl party. When I woke up the next morning, she was gone. That’s it. Seventeen years have passed and that’s still all I know.”

“That’s not exactly how Emma remembers things. She told me today that she woke up in the middle of the night—because it was storming, and she was afraid, and when she went to your bedroom, both you and Lanier were gone.”

“No,” Ragan said flatly. “Never happened.”

“She ran around the house, looking for both of you, terrified and crying, because she was alone. And that’s when you came into her bedroom. Wet. You told her something about hearing a tree limb fall on the house, and you told her to go back to sleep.”