Page 98 of (My Accidental) Killer Summer
“Anything else?” he asks.
“Traffic cam at Cypress and Third,” I say. “If anyone asks, their archive had a maintenance ticket today.”
He whistles. “You’re stacking IOUs.”
“I’m paying cash,” I say.
“Cash buys silence,” Santos says, shrugging. “IOUs buy memory.” He slides the twenties into the register. “You didn’t hear that from me.”
I leave before we can become friends.
Back in the car, I scrub my face with my hands until my skin burns. Then I drive to the impound like I’m headed for confession.
Second stop: steel, planting the evidence in Doug’s car.
The night shift gate guard is a bored kid named Kline who still thinks the badge will get him laid. He leans into the window and peers like I’m a fish he could throw back or keep.
“Working late, Detective?” he asks.
“Murders don’t punch out,” I say, and show the warrant for access that I pulled on Finch’s truck hours ago before I knew I’d need it like this. The paper has weight. Paper always does. “Second pass. Inventory discrepancies,” I add, because everyone understands inefficiency.
He waves me through with a yawn and a finger-gun. I hate him for being young and because he reminds me of me.
Finch’s truck is a sulking shape under a wash of light; bright yellow color turned into a grey smudge without the sun. The lot smells like rubber and ozone. Chain-link and sodium luminaires buzz like a hive.
I glove up. Latex. Powdered. The snap sounds too loud.
The cab is taped; doors locked with bright evidence seals. I peel the driver side with the care of a man who has practiced peeling off his own skin and pretending it’s a molting. The tape gives. I open. The smell is sweat, fryer grease, and Doug’s loneliness.
I sit where he sat. The seat is a saddle worn by one body, habits pressed into foam and fabric: wallet rut in the back pocket spot, heel dig under the brake. The glove box is empty except for manuals and a half-eaten roll of mints.
I take the rag from the door pocket—oil, salt, the ghost of a lime from somebody’s shift drink, Doug’s prints ground intocotton. I rub it between my fingers, let the grit tell me what it knows. Then I go to work.
The burner is a cheap brick wrapped in a rubber case with a skull that would have been funny when we were fifteen. I click it on. The text thread I queued earlier boots up like a fuse.
where’s my $500.
u shorted me yesterday.
u think i wont find u?
tonight 9 behind the 7. come alone.
i know where u park the banana.
It’s not art. It doesn’t have to be. I scroll, drop the phone to the floor mat, pick it up with the rag like I’m him. I thumb a reply with the rag on my hand—clumsy—but I only need a smear of Doug, not a novel.
relax. u get ur cut.
I let the phone slip down the side of the driver’s seat into that abyss where coins and sins go. Later, when I “find” it on a second pass, it’ll read like it always lived there.
Glove box next. I slide a crumpled gas station receipt under the owner’s manual. The date/timestamp nudges the window just enough that “Elle at seven-twelve” starts to sound like a red herring if you say it with confidence.
I take out a folded half-page—pay/owe scribbles, Doug’s name at the top, two first names underlined, six hash marks by one of them. I worked too many narcotics cases to pretend this isn’t what it is. It’s theater and it’s familiar. I rub the edges with the rag, breathe on it like I’m cold, and slide it under the seat where a man’s mess would spit it back if he braked too hard.
Center console: a receipt book from a big-box store. I tear a page cleanly, write a delivery number and “vinyl tarp 10x12” with the generic pen we all buy in bulk. I date it last week. I don’t leave it where it could be a gift; I jam it between the console and seat where lint lives.
I sit a second with my hands on the wheel and let my pulse flatten to match the truck’s dead heartbeat.
