Mint Juleps and Justice

by Nancy Naigle

  With his spoils, he got back in the car and headed to his favorite landmark. He’d driven by once, but that was weeks ago and things looked different with the new growth of spring. He was beginning to think he had taken a wrong turn, when suddenly he saw the familiar street sign. Now large homes lined the once rural road. He’d been surprised to see the little cottage was still there. He’d figured they’d have torn it down after all this time. Just one more sign that this was meant to be.

  A grin spread across his face. It was like coming home. He pulled into the dirt lane to his favorite spot.

  There it was.

  He sat there breathing heavily and sweating like he’d been running for miles. Then he laughed until he sobbed. As quickly as he lost control, he regained it. Goto slowly exited the car to walk the perimeter of the house. He ran a hand along the siding, feeling the old connection. He’d scarred this place.

  Sticks cracked under his feet, and the humidity hung against him heavy like a wet blanket.

  The house looked as if it had probably been empty since the last time he was here. Plywood and boards crossed the windows and doors. He took the steps one at a time, pausing on each one and breathing in each memory.

  He wrapped his hands around the porch column. Memories flooded back. A small circle of faded yellow plastic hung from the bottom. He smiled. Police tape. Crime scene. His crime. He was the mastermind, the artist behind it all.

  He closed his eyes and laid his cheek against the column. His bony white fingers stroked the gritty pole like it was the long hair on a woman. She had been so pretty. He took in a deep breath trying to remember all the details of that day. He could almost remember how she smelled. Sweet. Fruity. Her hair was so soft. He could taste the saltiness of the tears that were on her face.

  He moved from the column to the handrail, gripping it with both hands. Squeezing as hard as he could, his arms shook.

  It had almost been a perfect day. It had almost been the perfect crime.

  The little house where he’d killed Mike’s wife was boarded up now. It had possibilities. On payday he’d had every intention of filling up his gas tank and making the drive back out here again, but the money from the console of that fancy car had made it all possible tonight. A scouting trip. Location. Location. Location. And timing is everything.

  Goto gave himself a nod for good thinking.

  The next morning Goto pulled into the parking lot for his meeting with the parole officer with two minutes to spare.

  He walked into the building and signed in, giving the receptionist a warm, polite smile. The kind of smile that girls thought meant you were a good Christian boy. It fooled them every time. Women see what they want to believe, but he saw the evil in his soul every time he looked at himself in the mirror.

  After the meeting with his parole officer he cruised back to paradise. Frank Goto felt like king for a day sitting in the beach chair in the middle of the little house he’d killed Jackie Hartman in and he reveled in the details of that night all those years ago.

  What a kick. Goto loved that all these years and he still held the power. Not many could say that. This plan was going to hit Mike Hartman where it hurt the most.

  Goto got up and took a thick marker from the windowsill. He removed the cap, and inhaled the pungent chemical compound. They said that it, like gasoline or glue, would kill your brain cells.

  On the opposite wall he’d marked off a calendar and the timeline for his plan. He marked off another day with joy. The countdown. Mike was wearing an expiration date, and he didn’t even know it.

  The thick dark ink spread across the old plaster wall, picking up cobwebs and dust from all the years this place had been shut down. He closed his eyes and the picture practically drew itself. For he didn’t know how long, he let the picture take on a life of its own as night turned into morning.

  He let out a breath and stepped back to take it all in.

  A slash of satisfaction filled him. He had a plan. A good plan.

  In celebration, Goto decided to hike to the market. No sense wasting gas, and the walk would do him good. Physical shape was as important as mental sharpness. He walked along the ditch on the side of the narrow road, then along the shoulder to the store. Work wasn’t going to fit into his plan today. He dropped coins into the pay phone outside of the store. No one was in the pizza shop yet, so he left a message that he’d be out sick today. It was easier to lie to a voicemail than to a real person anyway.

  Goto treated himself to a forty of malt liquor and bought a bag of ice to keep it cool. In the parking lot he dumped out part of the ice and slipped the forty down in the center. On the walk back he tried to find any weak spots in his plan. There wasn’t much more time.

  He spent the better part of the morning prying the boards off the back windows of the little cottage. Light poured in, casting a glow against the mural on the living room walls.

  He surveyed his surroundings. This place was home. It was where he belonged. He didn’t need Pizza Boy for a crash spot now that he had this place.

  Goto put his celebratory drink in the kitchen sink and tucked newspaper around it to help keep it cool until tonight. Then he grabbed his keys off a hook by the back door and headed for his car.

  He dragged a hefty-looking dead branch from across the path that had kept it hidden from the road. He pulled his car out from the cover of the briars and overgrown vegetation, and headed back to town. Pizza Boy would be done with his shift. He should be able to catch him at the apartment and let him know he was moving out.

  Goto sat on the couch writing in his notebook.

  Pizza Boy walked in and shut the door behind him. “You okay? You called in sick today.”

  “I’m fine. You didn’t blow my cover, did ya?”

  “No way,” said Pizza Boy. “I got your back. Blood brothers and all.” Pizza Boy pulled up his sleeve to show his tattoo—the one that Goto had etched into his skin with a mechanical pencil and a mixture of soot and shampoo. It was an exact match in placement and style to the one on Goto.

  “You’re cool, dude.” Goody Two-shoes kid would shit a brick when he realized what was on his arm. The image that would tie him to Goto and the dirty deed to top off all his life works—forever.

  Pizza Boy beamed.

  “Got bad news for you though.” Goto pulled himself up off the couch, and plunged his hands deep into his pockets.

  “What’s that?”

  “I found another place. I’m moving out. It’s a fixer-upper but it’ll give me more space to work on my art.”

  The kid had whined. Goto hated whiners.

  Goto made one last trip to put his bags of belongings in the car, along with a few changes of clothes that were Pizza Boy’s. They were the same size, after all. He took the cooler that they’d used for a coffee table and stuffed more than his share of the food into it. He’d need the cooler for ice, since he didn’t have a refrigerator at the new place.

  Part of him would miss Pizza Boy. But the kid had served his purpose. Too bad for him.

  Goto pushed the thought from his head. He whistled through his teeth and sang “Jesus Loves the Little Children” the whole drive back, popping the Jesus air freshener to keep it swinging to his beat. That felt good.

  He pulled the car off the road nearly a mile before the driveway to the house. The old logging site pallets made it easy to drive into the brush. It was the best spot to tuck away the car. He dragged the birch back across the outlet, covering his tracks in.

  He couldn’t take a chance trampling the grass at his house by using the driveway. Someone might notice he’d taken occupancy. He’d only have to keep the secret for a few weeks. When it was all said and done, he’d torch the place. That ought to make headlines.

  A place of his own. It was meant to be. It took him two trips to walk all of his new stuff to the house, but he did
n’t mind.

  Sweat dripped down the side of his face as he hauled the heavy cooler on the last trip to the house for the night.

  Suddenly he needed to spread out—no sense living like he was still isolated to a cell. After being in prison he needed to keep moving. The feeling of being in one place for any length of time sent him into a tailspin.

  He grabbed the pillow and blanket and set them up in the bedroom, then moved the beach chair next to the window in the living room and set a box next to it like an end table. He put his food in the cupboards and then slid the cooler where a refrigerator once sat.

  Hell, this was a lot better than prison. It was perfect, really. Only a few miles or so in either direction and he could get to the guy responsible for putting his ass in jail.

  That sweet little yoga girl had been his first ticket to freedom with the place to crash and extra money. Funny how, in a way, she was funding the murder of her very own best friend. Small world. Helluva small world. But then, he didn’t have this place back at the time. He loved this place. It was still the perfect location. Yeah, this was a better plan. Everything happens for a reason.

  He’d sworn if he could just make parole, he wouldn’t kill another woman. He burst into a raucous laugh. “Goto Hell.”

  He wasn’t worried about being out of practice anymore either. It was like riding a bike. He’d already proved that today. Sorry, Pizza Boy.

  He walked out the back door and around to the front porch. That door was still nailed shut to keep up appearances. He sat on the step and leaned against the post.

  She died right here. Mike’s pretty bride. She’d been a spirited one. Had she not tried to fight so hard, it wouldn’t have ended up the way it had. He might even have let her go.

  The headlines had been sweeter than he’d ever imagined. Coast to coast they’d named him the Goto Hell killer.

  Goto smacked at a mosquito. It was starting to get dark, and those little buggers were buzzing around like crazy. He walked back around the house and went into the living room. He glanced at the wall. With only the glow from the moon he could still make out the papers tacked on the wall.

  His notebook was nearly full with notes and options, and he had begun pulling some of his best ideas from the pages of notes and scripting them with care on the opposite wall of the living room. He called that wall the pathway to hell.

  He’d sprung for an eight-pack of poster paints at the dollar store. Small containers of paint and brushes lay sprawled across one of the windowsills.

  He’d come up with the idea of painting the gates of hell around the front door. Painting an arch that looked just like stone had been a labor of love. The gray stones looked so real that they almost felt cold to the touch.

  When he finally brought Brooke here, he’d open that door. Pull the plywood from the other side, and set her right in the middle, like an offering.

  GOTO HELL topped the archway in perfect lettering, red with yellow flame borders, over the arch dripping with fiery red flames that looked so real they seemed to give off heat.

  He stood under the archway and pictured his master plan. His best ideas were coming together under that arch. Inspired, that’s how that made him feel. Inspired and powerful. He was the devil. No. He could teach the devil a thing or two.

  He’d use Brooke to lure Hartman in, to torture him, to crumble every last bit of hope, before he killed him. It had been a long planning stage, but he’d use that to his advantage.

  It was too bad that he might not be able to make good on the promise to himself that if he made parole he wouldn’t kill another woman. But then the devil was known to lie.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Mike woke up to a pressing feeling in his chest. He glanced at the clock and swallowed hard. The room seemed to be closing in on him and he tried desperately to regain a sense of where he was and what was happening to him.

  His body was sweaty, and he could barely take a breath. The ceiling fan swirled above him, but it wasn’t helping. He laid there as long as he could, but the feeling wasn’t passing. In fact, it was getting worse.

  He looked at Brooke lying next to him. She was beautiful under just the soft glow of the moonlight that snuck through the curtains. He slid his arm out from under her, shook it to get the blood flowing again, and then eased his legs from between the sheets. He rolled away from her, careful not to jostle her or the bed. He didn’t know if she was a light sleeper.

  Planting both feet on the rug, he reached for his clothes on the chair next to the bed. Stitches slept, curled in a tight ball on the chair. She lifted her chin, but settled right back. Thank god.

  He hated to do it, but he had to get out of there, if even for just a minute. The overwhelming guilt and worry consumed him.

  He moved down the hall, out to the living room before he dared breathe or make a noise. He slid on his shorts, and sat on the couch, lowering his head to his hands.

  He needed to leave. How mad would she be when she realized he’d left? He went to the kitchen and put the coffee filter and coffee in the pot, and pushed the button. Maybe he just needed to relax, to shake it off. He leaned against the cool granite countertop as the coffee began to drip into the pot below, but he couldn’t relax. He grabbed his shirt, and things, and headed for the front door.

  He stood on the front porch, but after a moment, there was no going back inside. He pulled the front door closed and locked it behind him. No turning back now.

  He sprinted to his truck, half-tempted to push it to the edge of the driveway, but the master bedroom was in the back so instead he just prayed she wouldn’t hear it. He pulled out to the street, glancing behind him. No lights in the house. He rubbed his chin with his hand.

  Lights reflected in his rearview mirror. Someone else must be having a sleepless night too. The person pulled up behind him at the stoplight heading out of the neighborhood. Poor sucker. Mike drove in complete silence.

  He’d started it, for god’s sake. He’d made the first move. He’d even asked if he could stay. He had feelings for her, there was no doubt in his mind about that, but somehow, lying there in the quiet, all he could think of was what if something happened to her too.

  He drove, unsure of his destination until he got there. The truck seemed to navigate itself, passing the old farm and heading to the end of the street where he and Jackie had once lived.

  Mike slowed and turned down the overgrown driveway in front of the house where he’d lived with Jackie. He hadn’t been here since…well, years. He continued until his headlights glowed across the front porch of the boarded-up house. A cottage really. Just one bedroom, a living room, kitchen, and bath. All of just over eight hundred square feet. He could still picture it. That night. The night his whole life changed. The night hers ended. Silent tears dripped down his left cheek. They’d only been married a few months. She was so beautiful. Her long hair had shone in the moonlight. It was too late. She was already gone by the time he’d reached her.

  Mike leaned across the steering wheel.

  “It’s been so long, Jackie, but I can still feel it like it was yesterday.” His breath caught, and he looked up. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t there. I still think I’ll wake up and find out it was all just a dream, but that never happens. I miss you. You know that, right?”

  Something caught his eye. Jackie? Did something just move? He focused on the darkness that cloaked the house. He wanted so desperately for her to appear. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t protect you.”

  Mike sat in silence. His mind rolled through old memories of Jackie and new ones with Brooke. He’d fought those feelings for Brooke when they were apart, but every time he saw her there was that connection. He needed her. She made him feel happy again. But now the guilt over what had happened to Jackie that had driven him to a successful career and awards in the Marines was going to ruin any chance with Brooke. Would she forgive him for
leaving tonight? He should have told her about Jackie himself. If he had, would he be feeling this now?

  “Jackie, I met someone,” he said out loud. “Just like the day I first laid eyes on you, there was something the minute I saw her.”

  He pictured Brooke marching up to the house and coming on like she owned the farm that day. He liked that about her. Confident, borderline bossy, but in a cute way. As caring as she was feisty, her quirks like those lucky signs and her love of that little dog just made her more unforgettable. Tough on the outside, but fragile when you got close. A walking contradiction. She was definitely unique. Being near her made him feel something he hadn’t expected—love?

  “I think I could fall in love with her.”

  Saying it out loud, even if it was just to Jackie’s memory, confirmed what he’d been avoiding. “I am. I already am.” He’d been so busy trying to avoid the attraction that he hadn’t even allowed himself to consider he already had.

  Mike took in a deep breath. “Jackie. I hope you forgive me for not being able to protect you, and I hope you understand my feelings for Brooke. I’m alive again for the first time.”

  He pushed the shifter into reverse, and turned his truck around. It was time he let go of the past and allow himself to love again. With Brooke was where he needed to be.

  The gravel crunched under the weight of his tires. He glanced in the rearview mirror as he pulled back onto the pavement and left the old memories behind. He took a double-glance.

  Was someone standing at the back of the house? He pushed his foot on the brake. The red lights illuminated where he’d just been.

  He must be losing it, or maybe it was Jackie saying goodbye too. He needed to believe that. He shook the thought off, and headed for home.

  How would he ever apologize to Brooke for sneaking out on an otherwise perfect evening? He’d start with the truth.