“This,” he’d said, holding up a strip of wrinkled seventies-era paper with a design of neon orange sunbursts superimposed over eye-popping purple stripes, “is a crime against humanity. Someday, I hope the designer of this atrocity will be jailed for this visual abuse.”
“Keep it up, Trae,” Leetha had encouraged. “Viewers love this outrageous shit.”
Hattie couldn’t decide if she’d just gotten immune to Trae Bartholomew’s abrasive personality or if he had, somehow, actually started to grow on her.
As she approached the house, Hattie was startled to see half a dozen vehicles parked on the shoulder of the road at the entrance to the driveway. There were two Tybee police cruisers and television vans from all three local network affiliates with roof-mounted satellite antennas.
Hattie steered the truck down the driveway, which had gotten even more rutted from all the trucks and machinery coming in and out of the construction site. It would have to be repaved, and soon. More money.
Her cell phone rang and she saw that the caller was Cass.
“Where are you?” Cass demanded.
“Just pulling up to the house. What’s going on?”
“Obviously you didn’t see the paper this morning,” Cass said. “There’s a big story splashed across the front page, about us finding Lanier Ragan’s wallet. That Tybee cop we talked to—Makarowicz, has reopened the investigation.”
Hattie was a couple hundred feet from the house when she spotted the small knot of people standing at the edge of the porch. “I’m here now. Where are you?” she asked.
“Walking toward you.” She spotted Cass, cell phone in hand, approaching the truck.
She put the truck in park and hopped out. Cass trotted over.
“Welcome to crazy town,” she greeted Hattie and gestured toward the gathering near the porch. “Mo is actually giving a press conference. We’ve been waiting for you to get here.”
“Me?”
“You’re the star of Homewreckers. All these reporters want to hear from you.”
Hattie took a step backward. “Come on. I didn’t even find the wallet. I don’t want to be on TV. I just want to do my job and fix up this old house.”
“News flash, Hattie. You are on TV. That’s why they want to talk to you. The sooner you talk to them, the sooner they’ll go away and let us get back to work.”
* * *
“What do you think happened to Lanier Ragan? Could she be here? In this house?”
Hattie recognized the reporter from WTOC, the local CBS network affiliate. He was tall and slender, with dark, slicked-back hair, and he had a television camera aimed directly at her. Aaron something.
“I don’t know…” Hattie started to say.
“Is this house haunted?” another reporter called out.
“What? No,” she shot back. “There’s nothing sinister going on here. It’s an old house, and we’re trying to restore it. Families lived here once, people laughed and danced and watched the sunset and blew out the candles on birthday cakes. Babies took their first steps on the beach back there, and couples fell in love and got engaged. For almost a hundred years.”
“But what about Lanier Ragan?” Aaron something persisted. “Could something bad have happened to her here? Why else would her wallet be here, hidden in that wall all these years?”
“I can’t answer that,” Hattie said, shaking her head. “But I hope the police find some answers. I’m sure her family wants that too.”
“Did you know Lanier Ragan?” This time the question came from a petite Black woman with cascading braids whom Hattie recognized as Nya Davies, from WSAV, the local NBC affiliate.
Hattie felt herself flush. “Yes, Mrs. Ragan was my favorite teacher at St. Mary’s Academy. She was amazing. All the girls loved her.”
Mo clapped his hands and elbowed his way through the crowd of reporters. “Okay, folks, we need to wrap this up. The police are investigating, and we, of course, are giving them our full cooperation. We want this mystery solved, too, but in the meantime, we’ve got a very short deadline to finish work on this house. Homewreckers will debut this fall, on HPTV.”
He put a hand on the small of Hattie’s back and steered her firmly, and quickly, away from the reporters who were still calling out questions for her. He unlocked the front door of the house and they stepped inside.
“Thanks,” she said, her voice shaking. “That was … intense.”