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Tyler scratched his bald head. “I guess. I never thought about Cheri Jo and the first chick, but it fits. The second girl was totally a Black Dahlia rip-off though.”
“What about Tobias Campbell? You know about him?” Ella asked.
“Hell yeah. Campbell is a beast. I was just talking about him on cam before you rudely interrupted.”
Ella had to calm herself down. She was getting real John Wayne Gacy vibes from this piece of work. Bragging about his crimes while simultaneously maintaining innocence. She could feel the tension in her partner’s body reaching critical mass too.
“What about him?” Ripley asked. “Is he some kind of hero to you?”
The tension was brewing. One wrong word and Ella knew Ripley wouldn’t hold back. Tyler would be going to jail with more than just a broken nose.
“Total freak. Killed anyone and everyone. Last week he gutted some sucker in an apartment in D.C. Left him for the guy’s girlfriend to find. Now that’s pretty awesome, right?”
Ella coughed. “That man was an FBI agent. My partner here trained him for ten years. He was also my ex-boyfriend. Oh, and it was my apartment.”
Tyler shrunk in his chair, his eyes darting between the two agents. For the first time since they’d met him, his lips pursed.
“I suggest you start putting some respect on these victims’ names. You keep talking like this and I’ll ruin your face quicker than I ruined your reputation. Do you understand?”
Tyler nodded. The smirk was gone. “I’m sorry. But I didn’t do this. I didn’t murder anyone. I just report the facts.”
“You don’t report anything,” Ripley said. “You just make shit up.”
“I don’t. I research!” Tyler said.
“No, you type something into a search engine and read the first result,” Ella said. “If you want to research, you have to get your hands dirty. FBI agents don’t sit around stroking their Baphomet statues reading Wikipedia. They get out there and make a change.”
She couldn’t lie, it felt good to put this little twerp in his place.
“Okay, whatever, but I’m no murderer. I can prove it.”
“You can?” Ella asked.
“When was the Black Dahlia girl murdered? Two nights ago?”
“Yes. Sometime between 9pm and 6am.”
Tyler clapped his hands. “I was streaming all night. Well, from 8pm to like 3am. We do marathons every Saturday night.”
Ella felt the air rapidly leave her lungs. She deflated, like a kid who’d just been told that Christmas was canceled.
“You got video proof?” Ella asked, praying the answer was no.
“Yeah. All of it.”
She kept the disappointment to herself for now. There were still other possibilities. Tyler could have had an accomplice, perhaps. Ella turned to Ripley, who looked unfazed by this recent development.
“What about last night? Where were you?”
“Why? Was there another murder last night?”
“Answer the question.”
“Oh man,” Tyler said. “I can’t wait to tell the guys there was another one.”
The table suddenly jolted. Tyler hunched over the desk, his mouth open and his hands gripping his stomach.
“What the…?” he shouted. “This bitch kicked me!”
