Four minutes after a bicyclist was fatally struck by a driver in an early-morning hit-and-run collision last month in St. Paul, Abbey Hegner reportedly told her boss at Keenan’s Bar that she had a family emergency and needed to leave.

The next day, the 47-year-old bartender divulged to her manager that her son’s girlfriend had been suicidal and was in the hospital. She gave police a different reason for her abrupt exit from work when she was arrested along with her son — Dustin Hegner-Royce, 28, of St. Paul — in connection with the deadly hit-and-run, according to an application for a search warrant filed in Ramsey County District Court this week.

Both were later released without charges.

While in custody, Abbey Hegner, of South St. Paul, said she left work early to help her granddaughter. She also told police that she recently sold her car to an “unknown Mexican or Somali male” whom she had been unable to understand, court documents say.

Police have been looking for the vehicle ever since evidence collected at the crash scene pointed to the involvement of a 2008-10 platinum sage metallic Hyundai Sante Fe and an anonymous tipster reported that one matching that description was often seen at Keenan’s Bar.

The tipster provided a license plate, which police traced to Abbey Hegner, legal documents say.

Keenan’s, at West Seventh Street and Western Avenue, is about a half-mile west of the crash site. The hit-and-run vehicle was westbound on Seventh Street, police have said.

On Nov. 26, Jose Hernandez Solano, 52, was biking home from his job as a dishwasher at Brasa Rotisserie on Grand Avenue — with helmet and front and rear bicycle lights — when he entered the intersection of Grand and West Seventh, court documents say. That’s when an SUV ran a red light and struck him at 12:10 a.m.

Solano died of his injuries on Dec. 7 at Regions Hospital.

A patron at Keenan’s Bar that night told the bar manager that he witnessed Dustin Hegner-Royce drive up to the establishment at 12:14 a.m. while his mother was outside smoking a cigarette, according to details outlined in the search warrant application.

The two reportedly talked briefly before Abbey Hegner left with him.

Her boss told police she seemed “upset like he has never seen before,” the search warrant application said.

Searches conducted on Abbey Hegner’s phone showed multiple outgoing and incoming calls Nov. 26 starting at 12:23 a.m. It also showed the phone traveling throughout Mendota Heights, St. Paul and South St. Paul during that time period, legal documents say.

One of the phone numbers that repeatedly contacted Abbey Hegner is registered as one of her old numbers, which was being used at the time by her son, the search warrant application said.

Another was registered to the mother of Hegner-Royce’s girlfriend.

Video captured around the time of the crash at a nearby Holiday gas station reportedly shows the suspect vehicle as well as someone matching Hegner-Royce’s description.

The mother and son were arrested Dec. 15 and 16, respectively, and brought in for questioning before being released days later.

Neither has been charged with a crime.

In a recorded jailhouse phone conversation, Abbey Hegner reportedly told someone the police didn’t have any evidence, legal documents say.

Hegner-Royce told officers he had no memory of being at a Holiday gas station the night of the collision or of picking up his mother from work, the search warrant application said.

When police showed up at his home Dec. 18, his girlfriend said “she knew why they were there,” but that she hadn’t seen the vehicle in question for months and that it had been sold after Abbey Hegner’s ex had slashed its tires, legal documents say.

The search warrant application sought judicial approval to search the cellphone belonging to Hegner-Royce’s girlfriend.

Sgt. Mike Ernster, a St. Paul police spokesman, said Wednesday that the investigation continues and police encourage anyone with information to call them at 651-266-5727.

Neither Abbey Hegner nor Dustin Hegner-Royce could be reached for comment.

Mara H. Gottfried contributed to this report.