Minty Fresh Death
The house smelled of peppermint candy, which caused a shudder to wash over Lorraine as she paused at the entrance to her home. Long ago, in a life now foreign to her, the smell had brought a smile to her face. As a girl, she’d bought peppermint candies five for a penny at Haskell’s. They’d signaled the freedom of summertime—the freedom to do and to dream that is the unique property of childhood. Now, in a life she was permanently tied to, a life too much her own, it was a smell that made going out to eat and getting the tray with the bill and the individually wrapped treats far less appealing. Lorraine had avoided those candies and their smell since the night Marvin tried to kill her. Marvin and his annoying peppermints.
Lorraine stepped from the porch to the foyer, and while it simply wasn’t possible her house smelled like peppermint, it was unmistakable, and she stiffened. Underneath the minty smell, there was more: stale cigars, cheap whiskey, and an aftershave afterthought. It was an odor that had gradually begun to surround Marvin once he and Lorraine were married—a smell that had oozed from him by the night of the attack.
But Marvin couldn’t be in the house. Marvin was in jail. He was in jail, and the judge had thrown away the key. Lorraine’s ex-husband, the one-time love-of-her-life, had been sentenced to spend the rest of his days behind bars for repeatedly stabbing her then leaving her to bleed to death on their kitchen floor. These facts Lorraine knew. What she didn’t know was Marvin couldn’t be in her home because he lay dead in the prison morgue.
With cautious steps, Lorraine walked into the living room on her way to the bedroom, but between where she was and where she wanted to go was the kitchen—the very kitchen she’d almost died in—and as she headed through it, there he was. There was Marvin.
Lorraine stopped where she stood, and her quick intake of breath alerted Marvin to the effect his presence had on her. He was pleased, and he leaned back slightly in order to settle his rear end against the kitchen table. As Lorraine stared at Marvin, she watched a crooked smile spread like slime across his face.
“About time, Baby.”
Lorraine said nothing.
“C’mon Baby, it’s me, Marvin. I’m home.”
It had been nearly fifteen years since the man who was standing in Lorraine’s kitchen had been hauled out of the courtroom kicking and screaming and swearing he’d break out and finish the job. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t.
“You’re supposed to be in jail, Marvin.”
“I got out, Baby, and I told you I’d be back.”
Lorraine felt panic begin to rise and swell throughout her body.
“Get out, Marvin. Get out, or I swear I’m gonna scream so the whole world hears me.”
He shifted a bit while measuring her words.
“Look Baby, I just come back to check in on you, that’s all.”
It struck Lorraine that prison had aged Marvin beyond the actual years that had passed, and it gave her the slimmest bit of confidence.
“Things are fine, but you being here ain’t so fine. When Ricky gets home, he’ll pound what little life you got left in you right on out.”
“Ricky, eh?”
Marvin shifted again, and the crooked grin vanished from his face leaving in its wake the dark, snarling visage Lorraine saw in her nightmares. It was the look he’d warn as he’d begun to stab her.
“Well, now—if your beau, Ricky, is practically walking through that there door, why is it you planned on screaming to chase me off?”
Lorraine’s mind raced for an answer she knew would never come—an answer that wouldn’t matter anyway. Marvin had seen through her lies, and that look he got when he’d won—in the moments before he celebrated breaking a person—that was the look he wore as he reached into his pocket and pulled out another candy. He twisted off the clear wrapper and popped the peppermint disk into his mouth letting it click-click-click on his teeth. It was an annoying habit he’d perfected, and as he let the candy play its tapping game, he stared her down and took a step in her direction.
A blanket of ear-piercing sound reverberated through the neighborhood as Lorraine let out the scream that had risen from deep within her.
* * *
The patrol car pulled to the curb and two officers emerged. They blended into the quite darkness of the nighttime leaving nothing in their wake but the low, hollow echoes of their shoes on the pavement.
The doorway to 739 Jessup Drive was ajar—just as Lorraine had left it. Cautiously, the officers approached the residence, announced their presence, and after getting no reply, entered. The only light on inside was coming from the kitchen, so the pair slowly made their way toward it.
The officers found a woman lying on the floor, her head surrounded by a pool of coagulating blood. From the looks of the kitchen counter’s edge, she’d taken a sudden fall into it. The investigators who responded found no signs anyone else had been in the home, and in less than an hour, Lorraine’s death had been unofficially ruled accidental.
Both of the responding officers had smelled peppermint candy when they’d entered Lorraine’s home, but neither of them noted that fact in the statements they prepared for the investigators. Each had privately dismissed the odor as imaginary.
A week would pass before the coroner confirmed Lorraine’s blood showed no traces of alcohol or other drugs and officially ruled the death accidental. During that week, a morgue assistant would make an offhanded comment to his drinking buddies regarding two bodies he’d processed: one a dead inmate and the other some unlucky gal who’d hit her head and died. He’d heard office gossip the two had been married and a domestic dispute had landed the husband in prison. He opted not to mention both bodies smelled like peppermint candy even after being embalmed. It was surely his imagination.
Author’s Note: This piece was a submission for the Writers’ Journal “Write to Win” Contest. The contest invites writers to create a story around an opening phrase. This contest’s phrase was “The house smelled of. . .”
The story was awarded Honorable Mention.
Leave your response!