Page 50 of (My Accidental) Killer Summer (Summers in Seaside)

Hudson Street is ghost-town quiet after eleven. The lot is a rectangle of scraped earth and optimism, stakes with bright ribbons outlining future kitchen islands and bedrooms for people who haven’t torn each other apart yet. A pattern of tire tracks scars the far corner.

I park two blocks over and walk in through the gap a bored teenager would choose. My boots are not the boots I wore earlier. These are older, different tread. I step where other prints already have, make myself light in the places that matter, heavy where I want to blur the story.

Near the southeast pit, I crouch and lay down three threads—cheap blue poly filament I cut from a tarp in my trunk. I catch them on the rebar stub and the edge of a broken form board, random and not random. Almost staging the fake scene I described to the girls earlier as a warning.

I scuff a second set of footfalls that drag out at odd angles, then stop short, like someone panicked and spun. I back a pickup truck pattern out of the access path with a rubber track I bolted to a two-by-six—old trick, enough to suggest a make similar to Finch’s if anyone is squinting at tread.

I tell myself I’m only amplifying what was already here. That the mud and mess made it inconclusive. That I’m just giving inconclusive a microphone.

On my way out, I fish a crumpled flyer from my pocket— Churro King Pop-Up!

Doug’s “rival” two neighborhoods over—grease-stained, folded like it lived in a glove box.

I stick it under a rock by the chain link, just inside where the grounds crew will find trash on their sweep and throw it away or photograph it, depending on how bored they are.

Maybe it will never show up in a report.

Maybe it will sit in a detective’s brain like a burr and make him think.

At the corner, I stop under a dead streetlamp and pull out the beater phone I keep for things that don’t belong near my name. I dial CrimeStoppers . The recorded voice thanks me for caring about my community.

When the tone hits, I make my voice flat, lower than mine.

“Saw two guys arguing by the food truck earlier this week,” I say.

“Banana truck and a churro guy. At the Seven on Maple. Banana guy said somebody was stealing his spot. Later I saw the banana truck near the construction lot off Hudson late last night. Might be nothing.”

I hang up before I can hear the polite promises. Anonymous tips are rarely anonymous if you work at it. I’m counting on the laziness that keeps them faceless. Chain-of-custody for rumors is its own wild animal.

I stand there long enough to hear my bones cool. Then I go do the hardest part.

Fourth stop: reports.

The station is a mausoleum on nights like this—vending machines humming like they’re praying, the copier asleep with one green eye open. I sit at my desk, feel the chair remember me, and open a new entry. The screen is bright enough to make my teeth ache.

Case: Finch, Douglas. Supplemental.

Time: 23:44.

Det. Grant.

I type what is true and what is useful, and I massage the rest into language a prosecutor won’t kick.

“Video capture from Third/Cypress appears partially corrupted due to glare/reflection—recommend no further enhancement at this time; insufficient ROI.”

It’s not a lie if you believe in budgets.

“Secondary inventory pass located cell device wedged adjacent to driver seat bracket—submitted to Property for expedited forensics.”

That one bites. I taste copper and keep typing.

“Item includes text exchanges suggestive of debt/territorial dispute with unidentified party (“churro vendor,” per context).”

It’s barely fiction. People fight over dumb things like street corners and sky.

Under “Construction Site Lead,” I write:

“Site inspected 23:05; soil disruption consistent with vehicular ingress/egress; environmental contamination and prior foot traffic limit evidentiary value. Scene integrity compromised by utility marking activity (per city schedule).”

I could keep going. I don’t. I save. I print. Paper is heavier at midnight. I sign the bottom and feel my name burn under the cheap ballpoint.

On my way out, I stop by Property. The night clerk is a woman named Lena with a crossword and a look that says she’s raising three kids and the rest of us on her own. “Got a few late adds,” I say, sliding the bagged evidence through the slot.

She takes it, nostrils flaring at the whiff of fryer and Doug. “From the truck?” she asks.

“Secondary pass,” I say.

She stamps the ticket. “Lucky finds.”

“Sometimes the gods of bad inventory smile,” I say.

She snorts. “They never smile on me.”

I leave before she can ask me why my hands are shaking.

Outside, the night is colder. The wind skates down Maple and finds the sweat at the base of my neck. I should go home. Instead, I drive toward the coast and park. My phone buzzes on the seat. A text from an unknown number:

Tip rec’d re churro vendor dispute Flagging for follow-up tomorrow.

There’s a winky face, which means Santos, which means I owe a favor I can’t afford.

I toss the phone back like it burned me and stare at the water until everything I see is a blur and my chest becomes a drum I can’t slow.

I could go home. Tell Elle what I did. Ask her what she did. We could lay the whole filthy thing out on the kitchen table, right next to the pile of mail she pretends is organized.

I don’t.

Instead, I open my notes app and type two lines that look like a grocery list:

— call CementCo about patio estimate

— find contractor who can pull permit fast

Make the lie true before anyone can call it a lie.

Build something pretty and permanent on top of the thing that will ruin us.

Patio, outdoor kitchen, something to hide the scar and give the neighbors something to compliment.

Make Amy a fringe benefit so she stops asking dangerous questions with that cartoon voice she uses when she’s scared.

The screen lights my hands like they belong to a stranger. I put the phone facedown and sit in the dark, a man-shaped bruise with a badge.

In the morning, I’ll tell myself I did what I had to. That I protected an innocent woman from a system that eats the complicated ones first. That the man in the truck wasn’t worth tearing her apart for.

But tonight, parked under a dead streetlamp with exactly enough light to see my own reflection in the glass, I can’t tell the story clean.

Maybe I saved her.

Maybe I just enabled her.

Maybe I’m building a patio over a grave and calling it love.

I wait to see how I feel. Then I wait longer. Then I drive, slow and quiet, back home.