Which leaves me with Tayler. I need to get to her before the arraignment. I press on the gas to get to the station quicker.
“Thanks for agreeing to talk to me, Tayler.”
The captain saw me the minute I stepped into the station and did the unexpected—he asked me to see if Tayler would talk to me since she and I knew each other. Now we’re in one of the interrogation rooms, like the ones you see on television with the two-way glass. Captain Billings and Dan Trumbull are on the other side, watching from what we call “the booth.”
“I need to get out of here, Gage.” Tayler looks tired, pale, and honestly, shaken. I don’t blame her.
I decide to just go for broke. “An eyewitness places you at Kara Becker’s door just after ten the night of the murder.”
Tayler sits back in the hard chair, places her hands in her lap, and slumps her shoulders. “I went there to tell her to stay away from Quinn.”
“Tell me what happened. Start at the beginning.”
She leans forward slightly. “Robbi sent me a text telling me she’d spotted Kara at Cy’s.”
I nod, already knowing about that.
“I knew Quinn was coming back soon, so I wanted to be sure Kara knew to stay away from her.” She sighs. “So I found her address online and decided to pay her a visit.”
“Was the night of the murder the first time you’d been to her apartment?”
“No.” She shakes her head. “I’d tried two other times, but she was never there.”
“Until that night?”
“Yeah. That night, I knocked, and she opened the door right away.”
Tayler stops speaking, so I urge her on. “What happened next?”
“She said, ‘Hey, Tayler.’” She blinks. “Which was weird and sort of overly familiar because she doesn’t, or, I mean, she didn’t really know me.”
There’s a long pause. I attempt to stay quiet, but she’s taking too long between thoughts. “What did you say to that?”
“I said “hey” back.” Tayler chuckles softly.
The room is silent again. Before I can nudge her to continue, Tayler does it on her own. “Then she shocked the crap out of me by inviting me into her place.”
That is surprising.
“What did you do?”
Shrugging, she says, “I went in, and she shut the door.”
Now, I need to know where she went in the apartment. If she touched anything. “Did you go into the living area? The kitchen? Her bedroom?” Hopefully fingerprints will come back later today, and we can either verify her claim or not.
“No.” She shakes her head. “I didn’t go any farther than her little hallway, right by the kitchen.” I nod. Now Tayler’s got her elbows on the table, and she’s leaning closer. “She was cooking something.”
The pasta that was burned dry in the pan. “Okay. What happened next?”
“I told her I’d heard she was back in town.” Tayler leans back again. “And that she needed to go back home and leave Quinn alone.”
“How did she respond to that?”
“Like a bitch.” Tayler shakes her head. “I shouldn’t say that. The poor girl is dead.”
Once again, I keep my mouth shut. She’s talking, and the more she does, the more we learn.
Tayler’s eyes are glassy, like tears are close to the edge. When she looks up at me and blinks, one lone droplet hits her cheek. “She wasn’t a nice person. I didn’t like her, but I didn’t kill her. She was very much alive when I left.”
“You didn’t tell me what she said to you after you asked her to leave Ames.”
Wiping her cheek, she sighs. “She told me to worry about my own fucking problems, that it was none of my business and that Quinn was fat and pathetic.”
I wince at the last quote. “Did she say anything else?”
“Sh-She said I was lucky someone like Luke Green would give me the time of day because she’d heard I was, erm, a cold fish.”
A cold fish? I’ve heard the expression before, but it’s strange hearing it from a twenty-one-year-old. “So she knew about your relationship with Luke?”
“I guess.” She shrugs.
That’s interesting. Kara had been gone for a while. “How do you think she found out about the two of you?”
“She may have seen us together. I don’t know.”
“What do you think she meant by ‘cold fish’?”
“I took it to mean in, um, bed.”
“Sexually?” I ask without thinking. “Why would she say something like that?”
“I have no idea.” Tayler’s head moves from side to side. “Seriously. No idea.”
“What else was said? By either of you?”
“Not much. It was awkward. I could tell she wanted me to leave. She just stood there glaring at me with her hands on her hips, so I just shrugged, opened the door, and left.”
“What time did you leave the victim’s apartment?”
“I don’t know, but I couldn’t have been there more than ten minutes or so. I mean, it was pointless. I knew the girl wasn’t going to listen to me.”
Then why go there? “Where did you go next?”
“Home. I got into my pajamas and did some homework.”
“What time was that?”
“I think I opened my books at around ten thirty or eleven. I sent Luke a text at about the same time, so I can check that and let you know.”
I’m sure we’ve already requested her text messages and phone records. That’s one of the first things they would have done yesterday along with the warrant to search her apartment.
“Okay, well, thanks, Tayler. You were really helpful.”
“Can I go now?” Her voice breaks a little at the question.
“You’ll need to wait until the arraignment to see what the judge says.”
“Oh shit.” The tears start to fall in
