“I didn’t kill her,” he said.
Monroe pulled out a chair across from him and sat down at the table. “That’s not what we’re here about today.”
From the case file, I laid out page after page of police reports documenting each break-in. “I know you were involved in the break-ins around town before your arrest. Tyler Cress and Owen Hayden have kept up with them in your absence, and truthfully, it’s pissing me off. I want those jackasses off the street,” I said. Specifically, Tyler, but I didn’t want to tip my hand just yet. The last thing I needed was for Ryan to find a way to tip Tyler off. “Talk to us, Ryan.”
He took a minute, scanning the documents laid out in front of him without saying a word. When his eyes met mine, I could see the resignation, the need to talk warring within him.
“I’m no saint. I never claimed to be. I’ve fucked up. Made some bad choices. But I was going to turn it all around.” His fingers pushed at the edges of the pages, his downcast eyes deep in thought. “Alana was so fucking good, man. You don’t even understand. How a girl like her could fall for a fuckup like me, but she did. I loved Alana, and she loved me. I told Tyler that I was done. I wanted to be the man she deserved, you know?” He glanced up, his eyes holding a grave sadness as he blinked back the pools of tears that were welling up. “I was done being reckless and stupid, done being high all the time. And then everything went to shit. Alana died. I got locked up for her murder.”
“Tyler knew you wanted to clean up your act? He knew that Alana was the reason?” I asked.
“Yeah. It wasn’t a secret—well, it was because of our ages—but Tyler and Owen knew. He fucked with me all the time because of it. I wasn’t into running around with them causinghavoc anymore.”
“Who was calling the shots, Ryan?” Monroe asked. “It wasn’t you. They didn’t even slow down once you were out of commission. Who’s in charge?”
“Owen Hayden is a fucking patsy. He doesn’t have the brains or the balls to pull off anything. Tyler’s the one with the plans,” he said.
I went through everything Ryan had told us in my head. I kept coming back to the same theory. My gut was telling me there was more to this. It wasn’t just the break-ins around town, or harassing Scarlett and making vague threats, or the assault on Daisy. It was all of it.
“You drive,” I said to Matt as we made our way back to the parking lot. “I have to make a call.”
I pulled up the Massachusetts State Forensic Lab’s contact info and made the call. After getting bounced around and being put on hold, I finally got the forensic scientist on the line who had submitted the results for the burglary case.
“Good afternoon, this is Officer Luke Wilder at the Calla Bay Police Department. I have an urgent request that I was hoping you could move up to the top of your priority list. It should only take a minute.” I explained to them what I was looking for: a second analysis of the cigarette found by Alana’s body, but this time matched against the sample from Tyler Cress’s arrest.
I put the call on speaker, listening to the clickety-clack of her keyboard through the phone. “Officer Wilder, can you confirm your badge number, along with the case identification number?”
I gave her the information and was put back on hold.
“Sir, I cannot provide the results over the phone due tosecurity measures, but the preliminary report has been sent over to the email address on file. A detailed report will follow shortly.” I opened my mouth to thank her for her quick response, but before I could get a word out, she continued. “I suggest you check it out right away.”
Adrenaline pumped through my veins. My eyes locked with Matt’s. He threw the flashing lights on and hit the gas. I pulled out the department-issued laptop and logged in with my credentials. The report was sitting at the top of my email. Preliminary results indicated a 99.998% match between Tyler Cress and the cigarette used on Alana’s body and left at the scene of the crime.
“Fuck. We’ve got him, Monroe. It wasn’t Redmond. It was Cress who killed Alana Karrigan. You get us to his house, I’ll work on the arrest warrant,” I told him.
I called Chief Williams to ask him to call in a favor, the call going straight to voicemail. I left a message for him and disconnected. This wasn’t something we could sit on though. Now that I knew that a murderer was still out there, walking the streets of my usually sleepy town, I felt too wired to wait it out. I dialed Captain Langston next. He didn’t hold the same pull as the chief, but he had his own connections. We just needed one judge to issue a warrant. We had the guy dead to rights on both the burglary case and the murder case. Pick one, it didn’t matter to me, as long as we got him locked up and off the streets.
“Captain, I’ve got good news, but I’m going to need a favor,” I told him when he answered the call. I filled him in on the breakthrough evidence, the connection between Tyler and Alana, the results of the preliminary report. “We need an arrest warrant, ASAP, Captain. Can you pull some stringsand make that happen?”
“That is quite the breakthrough.” His voice was strained, and I wondered if I’d caught him at a bad time. “Good job, Detectives. Leave it with me. I’ll ring you back as soon as it’s all set.”
“Thanks, Captain.”
Even without an arrest warrant, we had enough to bring him in for questioning. Matt pulled up in front of Owen Hayden’s place, where Tyler was last known to be staying.
We didn’t even have to knock on the door when it opened in front of us, Owen standing in the doorway.
“The fuck is this?” he asked, his bloodshot eyes barely open, the potent smell of marijuana heavy as a cloud around him.
“Owen, is Tyler inside?” I asked.
“No.”
Monroe shot me a disbelieving look. “Can we come in and check?”
“Fuck no. What’s this about?”
“We just have some questions for the two of you,” I said, trying to keep the situation calm until we could determine if Cress was here or not.
