Page 21 of (My Accidental) Killer Summer (Summers in Seaside)

twenty-one

. . .

Elle

I back the SUV into the garage and hit the button to close the door.

Two of the three lights are burned out, so the only illumination is a single flickering bulb that casts twitchy shadows across the walls.

It's less home improvement, more horror movie.

A perfect setting for murder. Or body disposal.

Amy and I stand behind the car while I work up the nerve to open the hatch.

I pop it. Wince.

The smell hits first—sharp, sour, earthy. Could be real, could be in my head.

Then comes the sight: Doug, curled in a plastic burrito, one shoe off, hair matted. About as peaceful as someone brained with a garden gnome can look.

“This is your fault,” I whisper to him. “You scammed me, harassed me, leered at one kid, insulted the other. Now you’re biodegradable clutter.”

“Yeah,” Amy mutters. No argument.

We get him out of the car with gravity on our side. He thuds onto the painter’s plastic we spread over the concrete floor. My back threatens to give up supporting my body all together. Amy paces, brow furrowed, like she’s solving a particularly grim crossword.

The garage is too cramped with the car still in it. While she moves it to the driveway, I duck into the house, grab two Diet Cokes—when what I really want is tequila—and rejoin her.

“Ohmigod, this is so stressful,” Amy groans, stepping through the door. “I need a Xanax. Do you have any?”

“No.”

She frowns.

“But I have pot.”

“That’ll work.”

We’re halfway through the joint when Amy says, “Okay, we need to figure this out. How are we going to get rid of him?”

“Right.” I exhale. “Let’s brainstorm.”

“Well, first we list all the ways people dispose of bodies.”

“Thank you for explaining the word ‘brainstorm,’” I deadpan.

“Fine. What would Dexter do?”

“The serial killer from the show?”

“Do we know another Dexter?”

“When it was good, or after it jumped the shark?”

“When it was good. Not the weird reboot.”

“It’s not a reboot, it’s a resuscitation. Which is ironic for a show about killing people.” I pause. “He used a boat. Took body parts out to sea after cutting them up in a plastic-lined room.”

Amy glances at Doug. “We’ve got the plastic part.”

“Step in the right direction.”

She taps her finger to her nose—her official Thinking Pose . “Clearly, no boat. But I like the idea of cutting him up. Easier to move.”

“How often do we plan to move him?”

“Maybe we do it in stages.” She pauses. “Oh! Do you have one of those electric carving knives? Like for turkey?”

I raise an eyebrow. “You want to dismember a man with a Thanksgiving turkey knife?”

“It’s electric! Less effort.”

“It's also designed for stuffing and thighs, not femurs. Plus, I don’t have one. Next.”

“Ax?”

“Should we livestream it too? Go full horror flick?”

“I didn’t hear a no.”

“We’d end up hacking at him like lunatics. He’s still full of blood and... stuff.”

“So, use a saw?”

“A hand saw?” I blink.

She starts giggling.

“What?” I ask.

“Remember that lumberjack contest? Two guys pulling a saw back and forth?”

“Oh God.”

“That’s what we need.”

I start to laugh. “Put Doug on two sawhorses, slice him in half?”

“We don’t have to stop at half. Keep going till he's in tiny parts.”

“Tiny Doug parts,” I snort. “Like his dick.”

“Ahh! Have you seen it?”

“Gross. No.”

We’re nearing the end of the joint when I have to relight it.

“We could burn him,” I say, instantly regretting it.

Amy rolls her eyes. “Where? The backyard? Sure, nothing suspicious about a corpse bonfire in the middle of the day.”

“And what if he doesn’t burn all the way?”

“Then we’re stuck with charcoal Doug. Hard pass.”

“What if we drop him in a well?”

“Do we even have a well?” she asks. “And when someone finds him later— ‘Oh hey, it’s Doug at the bottom of the well!’”

“Fine. Stage a suicide!”

Her eyes light up. “Yes! Chop off his head—he was the killer all along!”

“How’s he going to chop off his own head?”

“Someone, somewhere, probably has. We don’t know.”

“Okay, but how will police know he did it?”

“That’s for forensics to figure out.”

“They are forensics.”

“Fine, then he leaves a note: ‘ I was sad, so I chopped off my head. ’ Super convincing.”

“I honestly can’t tell which of us is more unhinged right now.”

We both sigh. I rub my temples, the stress a full-body weight now.

“Throw him off a bridge?”

“Pollute the water with Doug’s remains? Not eco-friendly.”

“Burn him alive in a tire and roll him down a hill like Face from The A-Team ?”

She cackles. “Just roll flaming Doug down Main Street.”

We collapse into laughter again. It’s either that or cry.

“Okay, okay,” she wheezes. “What about burying him in Mrs. Jenkins’ garden? Mulch-style.”

“Sure. She’ll love her daisies blooming over Doug’s decaying crotch.”

“Feed him to crocodiles or piranhas?”

“Where exactly are we finding those in Santa Luna?”

“Distribute him in dumpsters around town?”

“A scavenger hunt for the cops. Perfect.”

“Put him in a wood chipper like Fargo ?”

“Then he really would be mulch.”

We laugh again—too hard. Not even that high. Just stressed.

“Melt him with acid like Helen Mirren in Red ?” I suggest. “Or was it Red 2 ?”

“Until we spill it and melt us?”

“Donate him to science?”

“They’d return him. Unusable specimen.”

“Feed him to cannibals?”

“That at least handles the slicing part.”

“Wonder how fresh a body has to be for that?”

“I’m sure Google knows, but I don’t want it in my search history.”

“You have teenagers. Your search history is already weird.”

“True.” I sigh. “What about lye and earthworms?”

Amy tilts her head. “That might actually work... if we had lye.”

I lean against the deep freeze, defeated. “This is hopeless. Any idea we have, I’ve already solved in the past by listening to Noah talk about his cases. He’s too smart, Ames. Noah will figure it out.”

“We can’t just leave Doug here,” Amy says, voice softer now. “Can’t we just tell Noah?”

“NO!”

“We need to figure out something,” she says.

“I know.” I glance at Doug’s plastic-wrapped corpse. “But every idea sounds worse than the last.”

She sighs. “If only I were Mr. Wolf from Pulp Fiction . Then I’d know what to do.”

“I’d miss Amy if you were.”

“Aww.”

“You know there’s only one real option,” I say quietly.

“I’m afraid to ask.”

“We have to cut him up,” I tell her. “That’s the only way this is going to work.”