Lynch smacked the table again.
Crowell flinched.“Wait a minute.Wait a minute.Um, Sunday… Sunday, I was working most of the day.Yeah, that’s where I was.”A look of relief came over his face as he realized he had an alibi.
“Working where?”
“The Auto Zone in the Caldwell Shopping Center.I was there from ten in the morning ’til five.”
Leaning on his hands, Lynch scowled at the suspect.“What about the rest of the day and late Saturday night between eleven and one thirty?”
“Before and after work, I was home.My mom can vouch for me.She saw me.And Saturday… um… where was I?”Crowell tapped the table with his fingers in frustration before his face lit up.“Oh yeah!”
His relieved expression immediately fell.“Uh-oh.”
“Uh-oh?”Lynch raised his eyebrows.“What the fuck does uh-oh mean?”
“If I tell you, I’m screwed.”
The detective raised his voice again.“And if you don’t tell us, you’re screwed.Now where the fuck were you?”
“Shit, man, this is so messed up,” the suspect mumbled, his eyes downcast.“I was… I was over in Wanchese with a buddy of mine.”
“And?”
The reason for Crowell’s reluctance to talk suddenly became clear to Sean.“And you were burglarizing someone’s house, weren’t you?”
Crowell nodded reluctantly.Because the suspect had just admitted to committing a crime, the interview became an official interrogation, and Lynch read him his Miranda rights.“Do you understand these rights?”
The suspect rolled his eyes.“Yeah.I’ve fucking heard them before.”
“Are you willing to speak to us without your lawyer?”
“Whatever.If I don’t, you’ll pin the murder on me.”
Sliding a Miranda waiver across the table for Crowell to sign, Brad tossed a pen on top of it and waited until the signature was in its proper place.“What’s the address of the house you hit?”
The thief glanced up at him with a defeated look on his face.“I don’t remember the number, but it was on Pond Road.White with red trim.”
Lynch left the pen on the table and replaced the waiver with a yellow legal pad.“Write down everything you took.If it matches the police report of what the homeowner said was taken and when the burglary occurred, we can probably clear you of the homicide.”
“But now I’m on the hook for the burglary, right?”
“Five to seven is better than twenty-five to life.”
Crowell sighed and picked up the pen again.
At ten after five, Sheriff Griffin and the task force members sat in the conference room with frustrated looks on their faces.After bringing Stuart Crowell back to the booking cell, Sean and Lynch went out to substantiate his alibi.His boss verified Stuart had been there from ten to five on Sunday, and his mother said he was home before and after work.Two of his neighbors also confirmed they saw Crowell’s car in his driveway when he was supposedly home, and they didn’t see him leave in another car or on foot.
Lynch pulled the burglary report from 31 Pond Road, and the stolen inventory matched Crowell’s list of what he and his buddy had taken from the residence.The only issue they still had was Crowell refused to say who his partner in crime had been.But all the evidence cleared him for Daphne Jones’s homicide, so Sean didn’t care if the guy wanted to take full responsibility for the burglary.The case had been transferred to the property crimes detectives—it was their problem now.
Brian and Rafe reported they’d had little success with their interviews.While several of the nightclub’s employees remembered seeing Daphne in her tight, red dress, no one recalled seeing her with anyone in particular, and they didn’t see her leave the bar.
Lynch stated he had no luck with the surveillance tape from the club.While Daphne was spotted several times, he couldn’t get a clear picture of anyone she was talking to or dancing with.“The vic must have left through the back door of the place because I didn’t see her on the front door video.Unfortunately, the video for the back is worse than the rest of them.It was too fucking distorted to distinguish anyone, and since it was in black and white, I couldn’t even look for a red dress.”
“Did our UNSUB know the video equipment sucked, tamper with it himself, or did he just get lucky?”Sean wondered aloud as he leaned back in his chair.
Brad rubbed his tired, dry eyes.“Lucky would be my guess.For a popular place, they have a shit surveillance setup.It looks like the lenses are dirty from smoke and grime.Probably haven’t been cleaned since they were installed.There’s no sign of tampering with the cameras or digital system.So we’re back at square one—no suspects and no leads.”
“And no idea who his next victim is,” Brian added wryly.
