Stand By Me

22

Scott picked up Peyton and drove to Stiles' house.

Sheriff Stilinski frowned while they told him and Ezra about Matt. "So this kid's the real killer?"

Peyton nodded. "Yup."

"No," Sheriff Stilinski and Ezra said.

"Yes!" Stiles exclaimed.

"No."

Stiles threw his hands into the air. "Dad, Mr. Sawyer, come on. Everybody knows that the police look for ways to connect their victims in a murder, okay? So all he had to do is, like, look through their transcripts and figure out which class they all had in common."

"Yeah, except for the fact that the rave promoter Kara wasn't in Harris' class," the sheriff said.

"All right, okay, you're right, sorry. Then I guess they dropped the charges against him?"

The sheriff shook his head. "No, you know what? They're not dropping the charges. But that doesn't prove anything."

"H-"

Sheriff Stilinski turned his gaze to his son's friends. "Peyton, Scott, do you believe this?"

"Oh."

Scott and Peyton nodded before the latter said, "It's really hard to explain how we know this, but you gotta trust us. We know it's Matt."

Stiles said, "Yeah, he took Harris's car, okay? Look, he knew that if a cop found tire tracks at one of the murders, and that if enough of the victims were in Harris's class, that they'd arrest him."

Ezra pursed his lips. "All right, fine. We'll allow the remote possibility, but give us a motive. I mean, why would this kid want most of the 2006 swim team and its coach dead?"

Peyton frowned. "Maybe because the swim team majorly sucks?"

Stiles pointed to her and said, "They haven't won in, like, six years. Okay, we don't have a motive yet. I mean, come on, does Harris?"

Sheriff Stilinski frowned at his son. "What do you want us to do?"

"We need you to look at the evidence," Scott replied.

"Yeah, that would be in the station, where Peyton's father and I no longer work."

"Trust me, they'll let you two in," Stiles answered.

The sheriff looked at his son. "Trust you?"

"Trust -- trust Scott? Or Peyton?"

"Scott and Peyton I trust."

---

They got to the station and there was a deputy at the front desk. "It's 2:00 in the morning."

Sheriff Stilinski gave her an apologetic look. "Believe me, Ezra and I wouldn't be here if it wasn't extremely important."

"We look at hospital stuff first, okay?" Stiles told them.

Peyton frowned. "Why?"

"Because all the murders were committed by Jackson, except for one, remember?"

Scott nodded. "The pregnant girl, Jessica."

Stiles glanced to his friend. "Yeah. Since Matt had to kill her himself, somebody from the hospital could've seen him."

"Thank you. Boys. Peyton," Sheriff Stilinski called.

They browsed the security camera footage and the sheriff sighed. "I don't know, guys. I mean, look at this. There was a six car pileup that night the hospital was jammed."