Page 92 of Left Behind

“If we have further questions, we’ll be in touch,” Davis said.

Roly stood in silent shock as they drove away, then went back into the house and shut the door. He stared at the fish and fried potatoes as the silence of the house settled back around him. His wife had cheated on him. His cousin had lied to him. He thought he didn’t want to be alone, but now he wasn’t so sure. At least he trusted himself. He glanced at the clock. He had a tour to take out in a couple of hours, and it would be late before he got home.

He didn’t like cold fish. Might as well eat it while it was hot.

***

As soon as Detective Davis got back to Miami PD, he called Detective Gardner at the Bowling Green PD. While he was waiting for the call to be answered, he bent over to pick grass seed from the leg of his pants. He’d noticed the yard around the Pryor property was in dire need of mowing, and now he’d brought some of it back with him. He was still picking at the sticktights when his call was finally answered.

“Homicide. Detective Gardner speaking.”

“Detective, this is Detective Davis, Miami PD. Wanted to let you know that we picked up Lonny Joe Pryor today. We have him in custody.”

“That’s the best news I’ve had in days,” Gardner said. “Was he where we thought he might be?”

“Yes, sir, and it was the craziest thing. Pryor opened the door to greet us, identified himself, and said he supposed we’d come to pick him up. He cleared the relative he’d been staying with of any guilt, and I believe him. The cousin was stunned. They hadn’t seen each other in twenty-some-odd years, and he thought Lonny had just come to visit. Lonny admitted he’d lied to him just to have a place to hide.”

“Okay then,” Gardner said. “We’ll get the paperwork rolling to extradite. The U.S. Marshals Service will transport, so you can tell your people we’re coming to get him. Thanks a lot.”

Davis chuckled. “For once, I can truly say, it was not a problem. I wish all the perps we go to serve warrants on were as compliant.”

“That bodes well for us. There’s more involved here than what meets the eye, and we need him to talk.”

As soon as they disconnected, Gardner called Sheriff Woodley to let him know they’d picked up their suspect. There wasn’t anything Woodley could do toward aiding their case, but if Pryor copped to killing Eggers, then that would mean he’d also come after Carey Eggers, and that would clear Woodley’s case as well.

But what Gardner did not do was spread the word about Pryor’s arrest around the station. He’d long suspected that Carl Henley had someone on the inside there, and he didn’t want Carl or Junior to know that Lonny Pryor was in custody. He needed to interrogate Pryor to get his story of the missing Beretta and Junior’s truck.

***

Woodley notified Chief Sonny Warren that they’d served an arrest warrant on Lonny Pryor, so the mystery of who shot Carey Eggers might soon be solved.

“That’s good news,” Sonny said. “I’ll let my men know. At one time or another, a good number of them stood guard duty while she was in the hospital. They said she was a real sweet woman. Thanks for calling.”

He walked down to the break room to get some snacks from one of the vending machines, and saw Lilah Perry pulling a cold can of soda from a machine.

“Afternoon, Lilah. Like minds, here. It’s snack-thirty, isn’t it?”

Lilah grinned. She admired the chief and appreciated that he was congenial to everyone, regardless of their rank.

“It was for me. I’d looked at dates and numbers and logs all day until everything was running together. Thought I’d take a quick break and get a snack while I was at it.”

“I’ll likely add to your work in a day or so when I finalize an open report on that woman who was shot a few weeks back.”

“Oh. The one from Pope Mountain, right?” Lilah said.

“Yes, it appears the person who shot her had killed her brother the same day. She was a witness he chased down. But the DNA they pulled off the brother’s body matched to a man named Lonny Joe Pryor. When they went to arrest him, they found out he’d done a runner. They finally found him in Florida. We’ll extradite him back and hope he coughs up a confession.”

“Oh my God,” Lilah mumbled as the room began spinning around her.

Sonny saw her eyes rolling back in her head and bolted. He caught her before her head hit the floor and was about to call for help when Bob Yancy walked in.

“Chief! What happened?” Yancy asked.

“I have no idea. We were just talking, and she fainted. Help me get her up on the sofa.”

She was already regaining consciousness by the time they laid her on the sofa, but the moment she woke up, she began struggling to sit up, then grabbed Sonny’s wrist.

“Chief! I know Lonny Pryor. We dated briefly when I still lived in Bowling Green. And the night of that rainstorm—the one when the girl was shot—Lonny called me out of the blue. He said he needed help. That he’d had a flat during the storm and hurt himself as he was changing it. Said his knee was bleeding. I told him to go to the ER. He said he didn’t have the money, and I believed that. He just wanted help with some bandages and then he’d drive home and deal with it there.”

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