“You thought she was cheating.” Makarowicz said it as a fact. “But with who?”
“I could tell something was up. I’d come home that fall and the babysitter was there with Emma, but no Lanier. She told me it was meetings at school, or drinks with a friend, or she was spending time with her mom. Her mom was having a rough time with the chemo, so I cut her some slack.”
“How did you figure it out?”
“Her phone. Lanier was always leaving her phone around, on the front seat of her car, on the kitchen counter. Suddenly, though, she’s super careful. I’d wake up in the middle of the night, and she’d be in the bathroom with the door closed, talking in whispers.”
“Did you ever confront her?”
“I wanted to wait until I had proof. I think she sensed I was suspicious, because for a little while, things were back to normal. But then, right around Christmas, she was super moody, and secretive.”
Makarowicz had one more photo left in the file folder. It was a shot he’d taken after the crime scene techs had brought up the skeletal remains and assembled them on a blue tarp at the edge of the septic tank pit. Now he placed it, faceup, on the desktop. He tapped the skull with his right forefinger.
“Someone bashed in your wife’s skull. Was that you? Tell me about the night your wife disappeared. And no more bullshit, Frank. Because the more you lie, the guiltier you look.”
46
Midnight Confessions
“Jesus!” Ragan turned the photo over and looked away. He swallowed hard, then dashed from the office. A second later, Makarowicz heard a toilet flushing nearby, then the sound of water running.
When the coach returned, he was mopping his face with a damp paper towel. He slumped down onto the chair, his breathing ragged.
“You can’t show that to Emma,” he whispered. “Please don’t show her that.”
Ragan twisted the signet ring around and around. Makarowicz realized it was his state championship ring. The symbol of the pinnacle of his professional career, which came crashing down not long after his personal life tanked.
“Okay. I did go out that night. Something woke me up, around midnight. Lanie was gone. I went downstairs, thinking maybe she was down there, finishing a load of laundry or something. But she wasn’t in the house. Right about then, I heard her car backing down the driveway.”
“Lanier’s car.”
“Yeah. I kinda went nuts. I grabbed my shoes and my car keys, and got in my car to follow her. There was a hell of a storm going on. Lightning and thunder, raining so hard my windshield wipers couldn’t keep up.”
“Did you have any idea where she was going?”
Ragan twisted the ring a quarter turn. “Not really. At first I thought maybe her mom was sick, but why wouldn’t she wake me up to tell me she was going over there? Then, I realized she was headed in the opposite direction of her mom’s house. She was on Victory Drive, headed east.”
“Going where, Frank?”
“I honestly didn’t know. I was kinda staying back, because I didn’t want her to know I was following her. She rolled through a yellow light, at the intersection at Skidaway Road, and I started to go through too, but a car coming from the opposite direction was peeling through. I hit my brakes and hydroplaned. My car did a three-sixty, and honest to God, I thought I was a dead man. My car went up over the curb and I just missed a light pole. That’s when I came to my senses. What the hell was I doing, leaving my kid home, alone? Whatever Lanier was up to, I’d settle it with her in the morning. I turned around and drove home. When I got inside, Emma was in our bedroom, crying hysterically. I finally got her calmed down and put her back to bed.”
Ragan shrugged. “That’s it. That’s what happened. As God is my witness.”
“Why didn’t you tell any of that to the police?”
“I was ashamed,” Ragan said. “And really, really pissed. At first, it never occurred to me that something bad had happened to Lanier. Then, as it got later in the morning, I started to panic. I called everyone she knew, drove around. I even backtracked to that intersection at Skidaway and Victory, thinking maybe she’d had a wreck or something. Finally, her mom started raising hell. She said if I didn’t call the cops to report Lanier missing, she would. I didn’t have a choice.”
“And yet you still didn’t tell the cops what you suspected,” Makarowicz said.
“How would that have made me look?” Ragan asked angrily. “Like I couldn’t handle my wife. Couldn’t handle our marriage. I kept telling myself, wherever she is, she’ll cool down, and she’ll come home and we’ll work it out.”