Page 18 of Devil's Hour
Call Me Skip raked his gaze slowly over Royce from the top of his head to his combat boots. “Thank you, Sergeant. I wanted to add cameras once Lyn was elected mayor, but she didn’t want to ruin the aesthetic of the home. I bet she’s sorry now.” He sighed and shook his head. “I appreciate your concern for our well-being.”
Unnerved by the odd turn, Royce nodded and returned to Sawyer. “I think that guy just hit on me,” he whispered as they stepped onto the porch.
“You think?” Sawyer quipped, shutting the door behind them.
“His handshake was a little aggressive in the beginning, but I thought he was trying to establish the tone. He was totally checking you out. And that bit about recognizing you,” Royce said, grinning from ear to ear. “I thought we were going to have another fight in the car about a past hookup or something.” Royce lowered his voice to a huskier tone and said, “‘I feel like I know you from somewhere.’”
Sawyer scowled at him. “He didn’t sound like that, and he wasn’t flirting with me.” He paused. “Much.”
Royce laughed as he headed down the steps. “I’m not sure what to think about their marriage. He could be bi like me and just flirty, or…”
“Mayor Goodwin is his beard.”
“Yep. I know I’m no expert, but their marriage feels peculiar to me. His decision to keep the letter but not the paper and his unwillingness to support his wife stand out to me.”
“No two marriages are the same, but you’d expect a spouse to show more care. Do you think he’s indifferent or involved somehow?”
“I don’t have enough information to form a guess. What’s your take?”
“I think there’s something off here, but I’m not sure he’s the one who sent the threatening letter to his wife. What’s his motive? The method doesn’t seem to match someone of his intelligence.”
“You’ve only heard my description of the letter, so you can’t fully appreciate the tidiness of it. I’m almost certain the method of communication is a smokescreen.” Royce stopped on the sidewalk and waited for Sawyer to catch up. “Accountants have an exacting personality, right? Things need to be perfect?”
“If they don’t want their clients fined or sent to jail,” Sawyer said.
“Did you see the way Call Me Skip cut his chicken into those even bites and notice how precise the diced tomatoes and vegetables were?”
“Call Me Skip?” Sawyer asked. “You really don’t like the guy, huh?”
“Nope. I don’t have anything more solid than a hunch right now. The only potential clue might be the color of the plastic bag the paper was supposedly in.”
“That’s actually a big clue,” Sawyer said. “TheSavannah Tribunesends their weekly publication in blue plastic bags, and they’re delivered each Wednesday.”
Royce knew that because it was a free publication delivered to his house and thousands of others each week. The tidbit didn’t factor as significant until Sawyer pointed it out. “The Purists probably cut out the letters out of last week’sTribuneto make the message, bought a copy ofSavannah Morning Newsfrom a convenience store or gas station this morning, then repurposed the blue bag for a quick swap.”
Sawyer nodded. “That would be my guess too. Let’s canvass the neighborhood and see if we can catch a break.”
Most of the neighbors were either not at home or hadn’t seen anything, not that Royce expected a different outcome. As they approached the end of the street, a tall, skinny white guy slinked out from between two houses. Everything about his demeanor from his tense alertness to furtive glances at his surroundings screamed his guilt or shame. The guy glanced in their direction, froze, then bolted down the sidewalk.
“All right. We got ourselves a live one. Now’s your chance, baby,” Sawyer said excitedly. “I’ll get the car and try to head him off.”
Royce could tease Sawyer about his slip later, but right now, all he could think about was catching the guy who was putting significant distance between them in a hurry.
“Police! Stop!” Royce yelled as he pursued the runner.
Instead of stopping, the guy turned on his jets, darting between two houses before he reached the end of the block, heading toward Howard Street, which ran parallel to Whitaker. Behind him, he heard Sawyer start the Charger and flip on the sirens. Instead of driving toward him, Sawyer headed in the opposite direction to go around the block. Royce followed the same path as the runner, cutting through side yards and back yards, leaping over children’s toys, ducking beneath clotheslines, then bracing his right hand at the top of a chain-link fence and using his momentum to catapult himself over it. The jarring thud when he landed on the other side sent bolts of pain to his left shoulder, but he gritted his teeth and continued his pursuit.
Catching sight of his runner after dodging a bedsheet blowing in the wind, Royce kicked it into a higher gear, noticing that the weeks of lounging had taken their toll on his stamina. His dogged determination must’ve counted for something because he started to close the gap as the man cleared the house on Howard. Rather than cut and run down the sidewalk, the guy ran straight into the street and right into the path of a black Honda Civic. The driver slammed on the brakes hard, but it wasn’t enough to avoid a collision. Screeching tires were followed by a solid thump when the bumper hit the runner. The momentum of the impact was enough to roll him up onto the hood and off the other side. He was lucky he hadn’t gone fully airborne.
Royce rounded the hood of the car and knelt beside the man, who was writhing in pain but thankfully not seriously wounded. Traffic stopped all around them, and people started to gather around to see what happened, guaranteeing a video of the incident would show up on the internet. The driver, a young Asian woman not more than twenty years old, got out of the car sobbing.
“Oh my God,” she said. “I tried to stop, but the guy came out of nowhere. I’m so sorry.”
“You’re sorry?” the skinny white guy said, clutching his leg with a compound fracture. “You broke my fucking leg.”
Royce glanced up at the young woman and said, “None of this is your fault.” Then he glared at the jackass on the ground. “You broke your leg when you decided to run out in the street like a stupid idiot instead of stopping when I identified myself as a police officer. You could’ve at least turned and ran down the sidewalk.” Royce looked up when he heard Sawyer arrive. He had to stop several car lengths back thanks to the traffic jam. “Bring the first aid kit,” he shouted when Sawyer jumped out of the Charger. Royce whipped out his phone and called dispatch for an ambulance and a patrol unit to process the accident.
Sawyer dropped down beside the writhing man and applied a tourniquet above where his bone protruded through the skin. Royce grimaced when the guy cried out in pain. Sawyer then started patting down the prone man looking for weapons, drugs, or a clue why he’d bolted. The search came up empty except for his cell phone and a wallet with an ID and bank card. Sawyer showed them to Royce. Their runner was Ray Johnson, who was nineteen and lived a few streets over.