skaters. We want to help you with your reputation. Sure, you do!”
“Yeah, how about that time you beat the crap out of those guys down at Suicide Stairwell for no reason? Were you helping us then?”
Everyone laughed. Paul Auster stuffed some gum in his mouth. “Frickin’ cops.”
That night I went home and found my aunt Sally in my kitchen. “Your mother went to stay with your grand-mother tonight,” she said. “She’s upset and isn’t feeling well.”
I didn’t see why we needed Aunt Sally around. It wasn’t like we were totally helpless. At least she made brownies. That’s what my aunt Sally always did when she got stressed.
Henry was sprawled in the living room, watching the big TV. I went upstairs to watch the news. I always watched the local news now, the long one at five thirty that had the most stuff on it.
I closed the door in the upstairs TV room. I turned on the TV and turned down the sound. The big story of the day was the new Trail Blazers coach. He was in trouble. He’d helped his players cheat in college and lied about some business deals. Now they were firing him. They showed him at a press conference lying about his lies.
Then the murder came up. They had a new graphic for it. Instead of the train tracks they’d been using, the little picture beside the woman’s head now was a skateboard. Underneath, it said “Paranoid Park Murder.” I crawled closer to the TV screen and turned up the volume slightly.
“... Area police continue to focus on an unauthorized skatepark underneath the Eastside Bridge, known by locals as ‘Paranoid Park.’ The unsanctioned skatepark is about a quarter of a mile from where the body was found. Police say a community of homeless youth have been known to loiter in the area....”
They had video footage from Paranoid. A guy with his shirt off did a front-side grind for the camera.
“Meanwhile, police continue to interview people here at the park, as well as local teenagers....”
There was a short bit of video of a college girl who had obviously never been on a skateboard in her life. She had a tie-dyed shirt and a nose ring; she probably went to Reed. “Eastside Skatepark is part of this community,” she said. “It’s organic to its site, and we have to value that....”
The newswoman added that the police still considered the incident a possible homicide.
The weather came on. I turned off the TV and went to my room. I had homework to do. I hadn’t studied for anything in weeks. I couldn’t let my grades completely nose-dive; it might arouse suspicion.
But I couldn’t do homework. I opened the book, stared at it, but my brain wouldn’t focus. So I lay on my bed and got out the card that Detective Brady gave each of us.
DETECTIVE MATTHEW BRADY
PORTLAND POLICE DEPARTMENT
HOMICIDE DIVISION
Along the bottom was a phone number and a Web site and an anonymous phone line to call in tips. I wondered if Jared would turn me in if he knew. I wondered if Scratch would turn me in. Maybe there was a reward. Would someone like Scratch turn me in for a couple hundred bucks? Probably. It didn’t matter. They would catch me in the end. Or maybe they wouldn’t. The world was so random. One of the things I’d seen on the Internet was that only a third of murder cases were ever solved. And this wasn’t even necessarily a murder. It might still only be an accident.
Detective Brady returned to our school a couple days later. An announcement from Mrs. Adams called Jared Fitch to the principal’s office. I knew immediately it was Brady. From my science class I could see part of the faculty parking lot. I couldn’t see a police car. He probably didn’t have one anyway; he probably had an unmarked. I still knew it was him.
I sat in my class. I could feel the pressure of Detective Brady on the school grounds. Would he call us in one at a time? Probably. Adults loved the one-at-a-time approach. Maybe he just wanted information. It made sense. Who would
“Yeah, how about that time you beat the crap out of those guys down at Suicide Stairwell for no reason? Were you helping us then?”
Everyone laughed. Paul Auster stuffed some gum in his mouth. “Frickin’ cops.”
That night I went home and found my aunt Sally in my kitchen. “Your mother went to stay with your grand-mother tonight,” she said. “She’s upset and isn’t feeling well.”
I didn’t see why we needed Aunt Sally around. It wasn’t like we were totally helpless. At least she made brownies. That’s what my aunt Sally always did when she got stressed.
Henry was sprawled in the living room, watching the big TV. I went upstairs to watch the news. I always watched the local news now, the long one at five thirty that had the most stuff on it.
I closed the door in the upstairs TV room. I turned on the TV and turned down the sound. The big story of the day was the new Trail Blazers coach. He was in trouble. He’d helped his players cheat in college and lied about some business deals. Now they were firing him. They showed him at a press conference lying about his lies.
Then the murder came up. They had a new graphic for it. Instead of the train tracks they’d been using, the little picture beside the woman’s head now was a skateboard. Underneath, it said “Paranoid Park Murder.” I crawled closer to the TV screen and turned up the volume slightly.
“... Area police continue to focus on an unauthorized skatepark underneath the Eastside Bridge, known by locals as ‘Paranoid Park.’ The unsanctioned skatepark is about a quarter of a mile from where the body was found. Police say a community of homeless youth have been known to loiter in the area....”
They had video footage from Paranoid. A guy with his shirt off did a front-side grind for the camera.
“Meanwhile, police continue to interview people here at the park, as well as local teenagers....”
There was a short bit of video of a college girl who had obviously never been on a skateboard in her life. She had a tie-dyed shirt and a nose ring; she probably went to Reed. “Eastside Skatepark is part of this community,” she said. “It’s organic to its site, and we have to value that....”
The newswoman added that the police still considered the incident a possible homicide.
The weather came on. I turned off the TV and went to my room. I had homework to do. I hadn’t studied for anything in weeks. I couldn’t let my grades completely nose-dive; it might arouse suspicion.
But I couldn’t do homework. I opened the book, stared at it, but my brain wouldn’t focus. So I lay on my bed and got out the card that Detective Brady gave each of us.
DETECTIVE MATTHEW BRADY
PORTLAND POLICE DEPARTMENT
HOMICIDE DIVISION
Along the bottom was a phone number and a Web site and an anonymous phone line to call in tips. I wondered if Jared would turn me in if he knew. I wondered if Scratch would turn me in. Maybe there was a reward. Would someone like Scratch turn me in for a couple hundred bucks? Probably. It didn’t matter. They would catch me in the end. Or maybe they wouldn’t. The world was so random. One of the things I’d seen on the Internet was that only a third of murder cases were ever solved. And this wasn’t even necessarily a murder. It might still only be an accident.
Detective Brady returned to our school a couple days later. An announcement from Mrs. Adams called Jared Fitch to the principal’s office. I knew immediately it was Brady. From my science class I could see part of the faculty parking lot. I couldn’t see a police car. He probably didn’t have one anyway; he probably had an unmarked. I still knew it was him.
I sat in my class. I could feel the pressure of Detective Brady on the school grounds. Would he call us in one at a time? Probably. Adults loved the one-at-a-time approach. Maybe he just wanted information. It made sense. Who would
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