Hattie called Makarowicz on her way back to the island. The call went directly to his voicemail, but he called back a couple minutes later.
“Hattie? How can I help you?”
“I, um, was wondering how your investigation is going. Have you questioned Holland Creedmore?”
There was a prolonged silence at the other end of the line.
“I’m not just snooping,” she added. “Something’s come up.”
Mak coughed, clearing his throat. “This is just between us. Understand? I brought Junior in for questioning, and I talked to his parents, too. Junior admits he and Lanier were having an affair. Says she texted him that night, asking him to meet her at the beach house—and she told him she was pregnant.”
“Oh my God,” Hattie said.
“His story is that she never showed up.”
“Do you believe him?” Hattie asked.
“I believe part of what he said,” Makarowicz said. “His parents have a more unbelievable story.” He filled her in on most of the tale the Creedmores had spun.
“Wait.” Hattie gasped. “Are you telling me they found Lanier’s body, hid it, went back out to get rid of it, and it was gone?”
“Crazy, huh?”
Hattie was stopped at the light at Victory and Skidaway Roads. Her house was only a few blocks away. She wanted to go home and hug Ribsy and forget all about the ugliness Elise Hoffman had just spewed back in her office. But that damned moral compass of hers was pointing her back toward the beach.
“Hattie? You there?”
“I’m here. Unfortunately. I just had a visit from the ex-wife of an old friend whose family beach house is just two lots over from the Creedmores’ and she has an even more unbelievable story about that night.”
“Does this mystery friend have a name?”
“Davis Hoffman. He owns Heritage Jewelers, downtown, on Broughton Street. He graduated from Cardinal Mooney with my husband, and played football with Holland Creedmore, for Frank Ragan.”
“Go on.”
“His ex-wife’s name is Elise. They were high school sweethearts—just like Hank and me, but Elise went to Savannah Country Day School. I went out with Davis a couple times, before Hank and I got together. Anyway, she says that back in the day, she and Davis used to go out to his grandmother’s Tybee house to fool around. And that’s where they saw Holland and Lanier—together, uh, in the altogether.”
“Interesting,” Makarowicz said. “So these two knew Holland and Lanier were an item.”
“Yeah. And Elise says Davis had the hots for Lanier back then. That he was obsessed with her. He got off on spying on Holland and Lanier when they met out at the dock house.”
“Did this Davis ever act on his, uh, crush?”
“I don’t know, and I’m not sure Elise knows either. She’s pretty bitter. Claims he owes her for back child support and alimony and has run the family business into the ground.”
“So she’s got an axe to grind,” the detective said. “Why come to you?”
“Elise is under the mistaken impression that I’m sleeping with Davis, because she found the record of a forty-thousand-dollar loan he made me—when I pawned my engagement ring. That’s the money I used to buy the Creedmore house.”
“It always comes back to that goddamn house,” Mak said.
“Seems like it,” Hattie said. “Anyway, Elise says she and Davis were at his grandmother’s beach house Super Bowl night. They’d smoked some weed and were drinking and got in a big fight. Elise got in her car and drove back into town.”
“Without the boyfriend?”
“Yeah. Davis told her he rode his bike back to his parents’ house that night. And she said they never told anyone about Holland and Lanier because they knew they’d get in big trouble for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Did the ex say they saw Lanier that night? Or Junior?”
“No.”
Another long pause from the other end of the line. “And you think, what?”
“I don’t know what to think,” Hattie admitted. “I’ve known Davis Hoffman for more than twenty years. Or at least, I thought I knew him.”
“Interesting that those two were two houses away the night Lanier was killed,” Makarowicz said. “Still doesn’t tell us how she ended up in that septic tank. And I’m also wondering if the wife is so pissed at the ex, and has the goods on him, why tell you and not the cops?”
“He’s still her baby daddy. And she’s probably afraid of a scandal. It’s a small town, you know. She threatened me when I said I’d go to the police.”
“With what?”
“Not important,” Hattie assured him. “What’ll you do now?”
“I’m on my way to see the district attorney. I think I’ve got enough to get him to convene a grand jury and at the very least indict the parents for concealing a death and being party to a crime,” Makarowicz said. “And I’m thinking maybe I’ll go have another talk with Junior. And depending on what he tells me, I’ll have a conversation with your friend Davis Hoffman.”
“Please don’t tell Davis how you found out he was on Tybee that night,” Hattie said.
“I won’t.”