Halloween

 

Halloween

Every year of my youth, on Halloween, I dressed up as Satan and knocked on all the doors of my Christian neighbors, demanding treats and threatening tricks.  I always got treats because there’s nothing scarier than a 10-year-old with horns, hooves, and a dozen eggs. My parents would watch from the street behind me to make sure I didn’t get poisoned or molested, especially at old lady Hatchet’s house. 

Crazy old Mrs. Hatchet lived in a peeling Victorian down by the cemetery.  She only came out at night to feed the rats and trim the poison oak.  I saw her gardening in her moonlit yard with a pick and shovel once.  She was digging a hole six feet long and six feet deep, a bit too deep for flowers.  Maybe potatoes, I thought.      

At age 12, I was almost too old for trick-or-treating, but I could still fit in my Satan outfit, and I still craved candy, so out I went on the hallowed eve in my horns and hooves.  My parents warned me to stay away from old lady Hatchet’s.

After tricking and treating door-to-door all night, I approached the last house, crazy old Mrs. Hatchett’s.  The gate was locked, so I hopped the fence.  The doors and windows were boarded up, so I yelled “Trick or Treat!  Open up!” which got no response.  I tried yelling “Pizza delivery,”  which didn’t work either.  I tried yelling “I have a warrant!”  Nothing doing. 

Maybe Mrs. Hatchett was hurt in there.  Maybe she fell down the stairs and was still breathing on the foyer floor.  I could try CPR on her, if her mouth wasn’t too gross.  Or maybe she was dead on the kitchen floor and her cats were eating her corpse.  I should break in and call the police so they could notify her next of kin.  It wouldn’t be breaking and entering, it would be search and rescue.  I’d be a hero. 

So I shimmied up the downspout to an upstairs window, broke the glass, reached in and turned the latch, raised the sash, and climbed inside.  The room looked familiar.  I sneaked down the hall and checked the bedrooms one by one.  Mrs. Hatchet was nowhere to be found. 

The wallpaper had a familiar pattern, and the furniture reminded me of something long ago.  Maybe I had been here before.   

I found Mrs. Hatchet at the bottom of the stairs.  She looked familiar, like I’d seen her face before.  I gave her CPR until her brittle old ribs cracked under my hands.  That was the end of Mrs. Hatchet.   So I ran home.  Dad called the police and Mom scolded me for going to the old lady’s house.

At my murder trial, the prosecutor told the jury that the state had demonstrated the main three elements required to convict.  1. Opportunity: I admitted I was at the scene.  2. Means: my hands, which matched the imprint on Mrs. Hatchet’s ribcage.  But what about 3. Motive?  How could he prove motive?  I had no motive.  Surely this was the weakness in his case. A fair jury couldn’t possibly convict me without motive.

But the jury turned on me when the prosecutor asked one last question:

He asked me, “Mr. Hatchet, when you killed your grandmother, did you know that you were the sole heir to her fortune?”  So that’s why she seemed so familiar.