They were followed by the techs and a police photographer.

Evidence was collected, pictures were taken, and fingerprints were lifted. The good news was that the fingerprints secured at the crime scene matched two low-life petty criminals named Geraldo Perry and Travis Martel. Both teens had priors, although up to now, they had managed to eschew violence. Detectives Rip Garrett and Tito Diaz pointed out a trend of escalating crime in the boys’ rap sheets and felt that they had finally crossed that line.

The teens were brought in and grilled in separate interview rooms. Both boys recited the same story and used the same defense. At around ten in the evening, the boys had wandered into Jonas Park—a known drug spot—looking to score weed. Instead they had found the lone Mercedes in an empty parking lot near the park. Both freely admitted to stealing the car, but neither confessed to killing Ekerling. They claimed they took the car joyriding: cruising Santa Monica Boulevard, then racing down Sunset at three in the morning, eventually abandoning the car in the Hollywood hills after the engine started to smoke.

Both were adamant about their innocence. They claimed they had no idea that Ekerling had been stuffed inside the trunk and was moldering in his own private coffin.

“Where’d you go after you abandoned the car?” Rip Garrett asked Travis Martel.

“We was hungry, man. We needed eats, nomasayin’? We went to Mel’s, had some waffles. They was good. Then we called up some buds and axed them to pick us up.”

“And why would your buds pick you up, forty miles away from your house?”

“’Cause we told them we boosted a Benz and would give them the navigation system and the stereo for twenty bucks and a ride home. They said okay.”

“So then what happened?”

“They come to Mel’s and order some waffles, too. I was still hungry, so I ordered a club with extra bacon. Then when we all was finished we went by the Benz and drove it into the hills where it was real quiet. We left the nav, but we boosted the stereo. It had took about five minutes.”

“When did you leave Hollywood?”

“Like four o’clock. Me and Gerry was tired.”

Rip and Tito didn’t believe the jokers. They theorized that the bad boys were attempting to jack the Mercedes when Ekerling confronted them. Shots were fired, Primo was murdered. The kids stuffed the dead man into the trunk, drove the car forty miles away from the crime scene, and left the Mercedes in the Hollywood hills.