“So you weren’t with her Tuesday evening?” Bree confirmed.
“No,” Rhys said. “But she’d called me earlier that day. She knew I was planning to be home alone, so she said no one would be able to prove I wasn’t with her.” He shook his head and blew air out through his nostrils. “I don’t want to lie to the sheriff for her. That’s illegal, right?”
Matt nodded. “It’s obstruction of justice.”
Rhys’s frown deepened.
“We appreciate your honesty, Mr. Blake,” Bree said. “I’ll need you to sign a formal statement.”
“Really?” He rubbed the back of his neck, his face tight. “So, she’ll know.”
“Yes,” Bree said.
Matt leaned forward and gripped his coffee cup between his palms. “Is there a reason you don’t want her to know? Did you promise you would corroborate her story?”
“I was vague and noncommittal,” Rhys said. “But I’m sure she heard my answer as an agreement. She assumes I’ll do whatever she wants.”
She sounded selfish, but Bree kept her opinion to herself and went with a less judgmental response. “Sometimes people see what they want to see.”
“I totally get that,” Matt sympathized in the man-to-man tone Bree had often heard him adopt when he was trying to establish a connection with a witness or suspect.
Bree pulled out a business card. “If she harasses you, call me.”
“If she harasses me, I’ll block her. I’m done with her.” Rhys looked at the card as if it were a hairy spider. But after a few seconds, he put it in his pocket. “I really don’t want to get involved with a murder investigation.”
Bree didn’t state the obvious. He was already involved.
“We understand,” Matt commiserated. “But this is on her. It was unfair of her to ask you to lie—to commit a crime—for her. You’re doing the right thing.”
Rhys’s nod wasn’t reassuring, and Bree hoped she’d get that signed statement out of him. She’d need it to obtain a search warrant for Farah’s phone records. Cell phones could potentially be tracked, and Bree really wanted to know where Farah had been on Tuesday evening. She’d get Rhys’s records as well, to back up his statement.
Maybe Farah’s could be tracked to Spencer’s house when he was being killed.
Bree asked one last question. “Did Farah ever talk about Spencer?”
Rhys hesitated, then reluctantly answered, “She did.”
“In what way?” Bree pressed.
Rhys picked at his napkin. “She was mad at him for the way he ended things. To be fair, dumping someone in a text is an asshole move. Sorry to speak badly of the dead and all, but the guy was a jerk.”
Bree collected his address and arranged for him to come to the station the next morning to sign his statement. “I’ll have it ready. Ask for Marge at the counter.”
“I’ll be there.” Rhys nodded curtly. On the way out, he threw his empty teacup in the trash with unnecessary force.
Matt and Bree left the restaurant, carrying their coffees outside. They returned to the SUV and climbed in.
“Now what?” Matt fastened his seat belt.
Bree checked the time on the dashboard. “We go back to the station and see which reports are in and if we have any additional evidence to support Farah as our prime suspect.”
“Lying and fake alibis usually put suspects at the top of my list.”
“Stalking too,” Bree added. “While we’re doing that, I’ll send a deputy to bring Farah to the station for a more formal interview. Maybe a ride in a patrol car and the knowledge that she’s being recorded will make her more honest.”
Bree’s phone buzzed. She answered the call. “Sheriff Taggert.”
A female voice said, “This is Officer Kaminski over at the juvenile detention center. Ricky Sanderling has requested to speak with you.”
“We’ll be there shortly.” Bree ended the call and relayed the request to Matt.
“Ricky wants to talk to you?” Matt asked.
“Apparently.” Bree changed direction, heading for juvie. “I can think of only one reason he wants to talk to me. He knows something he thinks will give him leverage against the charges.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The juvenile detention center was an ugly concrete box built in the ’70s, when all municipal buildings were designed to look like bunkers. Bree parked in the lot. Interest and dread warred inside her. She hated juvie. Hated seeing all the broken kids.
She sometimes wondered how her life could have turned out differently. If the old sheriff of Randolph County hadn’t been the one to pull the traumatized Taggert siblings out from under the porch—if he hadn’t been the first adult in her life to make her feel safe. He was the reason she’d turned to the law instead of against it. What if that chapter of her life had ended differently? She could have easily ended up here or worse.
They met Ricky in a small interview room. A metal table and four stools were bolted to the floor. Bree took the seat across from Ricky. Matt sat next to her. Clearly twitchy, Ricky picked at a track mark on the inside of his elbow. His posture was all self-pity and resentment.
“You remember Investigator Flynn,” Bree said.
Fear flickered in Ricky’s eyes as he glanced at Matt. “Yeah.”
Matt pulled his phone out of his pocket. “Excuse me. I have to take this call.” He got up and left the room.
Bree refocused on Ricky. She could have been harsh—the kid had shot at her, but with her own miserable childhood in the forefront of her mind, she chose compassion. “How are you?”
He stopped picking at the scab and squinted at her, as if trying to assess whether she was full of shit. “How do you think? Sucks in here.”
Bree thought he’d probably spent the night in worse places, but she could see the pain behind his belligerence. He was lashing out. Unfortunately, the only person he was hurting was himself. “I’m sure it does.”
His fingers found the scab again. This time he drew blood. “I’m supposed to go to rehab later. That’ll suck worse.”
Bree nodded. “I’m glad they found a spot for you.”
He scoffed. “Won’t matter. I’m gonna be in juvie for a long time. I don’t have anywhere else to go anyway.” His eyes were moist with tears he struggled to hold back. “I really fucked up this time.”
“You did.” She saw nothing but misery in his expression. The truth was that the court had flexibility in sentencing a juvenile offender, and Bree had some leeway with the prosecutor and the charges. She would rather Ricky receive substance abuse treatment than punitive sentencing. “Why did you want to talk?”
“I heard people talking about the murder of Jasper’s brother.” Ricky’s eyes turned shrewd. “Do you think he did it?”
“We’ve just begun the investigation,” Bree said.
“What if I know something about Jasper?”
“Then you’d better tell me.”
His gaze dropped to his arm, and he ripped off another scab. “I want something in exchange: immunity.”