Motive （n.） – Jameson
MOTIVE (N.):
THE UNDERLYING REASON, CAUSE, OR PURPOSE THAT DRIVES A PERSON TO ACT OR COMMIT A CRIME.
JAMESON
Twenty-Eight Years Ago
Tom Raider was the neighborhood candyman.
With his long, wild hair and tendency to wear bright shirts and pajama pants, most people outside Graham Lane would never guess that he was the CFO at a major company.
As an executive at Planet Sweets, he always brought home tubs full of snacks and set them out on his porch for the neighborhood kids to grab as we pleased.
Since his house was right next door to ours, I always got first dibs on the newest things.
Well, minus the ice cream samples.
I wrote him a letter every week, trying to convince him to put his deep freezer outside so I wouldn’t have to wait for him to be home, but he hadn’t been convinced.
Yet.
On one random Sunday morning, I spotted my least favorite neighbor—Cindy Kline—knocking on his door.
“Mr. Raider!” she called out. “Do you have those Pluto Ice Creams you promised?”
“They’re in the basement!” he called back. “You can climb down if you like.”
Since I was currently grounded for stealing from a bookstore, I could only watch from my window and wait for her to emerge with whatever “Pluto Ice Cream” was.
Then again…
I pushed up my window as she climbed into the basement.
I figured I could talk her into giving me one in exchange for not snitching on her.
She’s supposed to be grounded, too.
I waited five minutes, but she never came back out.
Five more passed, and all I could think about was how many ice creams she was devouring without me.
Too impatient to wait, I rushed across the yard and climbed through the basement window, too.
She wasn’t there, though.
Neither was Mr. Raider.
Where the hell is his freezer?
It wasn’t in its usual place anymore.
I walked up the basement stairs that led into his house, hoping to find Cindy and Mr. Raider in the kitchen.
Nothing.
The only things in there were half-opened boxes of chocolates I’d already tasted.
I want that Space Bar.
I was about to call out for Cindy, but the sound of whimpering stopped me.
Right across from me, through the crack of his bedroom door, I saw Mr. Raider pressing the ice cream bar against Cindy’s lips.
“Next time, you’ll lick it softer for me, okay?” he said. “You’re getting better, but I like it gentle, okay?”
“Okay.” She looked down.
“Don’t cry. It’s not your fault.” He kissed her forehead. “This is just our little secret.”
Tears rolled down her cheeks as she nodded.
“Now, let’s fill an entire box with ice cream and candy for your family,” he said. “You can take as much as you like.”
She nodded once more, and he wiped away her final tears with his fingertips.
I slipped into his bathroom before he could see me, hiding there while he led her into the kitchen.
With my heart racing a mile a minute, I tried to convince myself that whatever I had just witnessed wasn’t real.
I waited until he walked her out before returning to the basement.
Then I rushed across the yard and back to my room, immediately shutting the blinds.
It had to be something else I saw.
It’s not THAT.
Three days later, I watched from my window as my ex-best friend Kyle requested a box of ice cream.
Mr. Raider gave it to him within seconds.
Didn’t try to invite him inside.
I watched several other kids do the same, and I was almost ready to erase the incident with Cindy from my mind forever.
Then my neighbor Hannah disappeared into his basement.
She stayed down there even longer than Cindy had.
When she finally emerged, she looked far sadder than when she went in, and I vowed to never take another piece of candy from that man again.
It took me eight weeks to realize that Mr. Raider had a pattern.
Girl, girl, boy, girl, girl…
He always played his wicked game on the last Friday and Sunday of the month, the days his wife worked double shifts at the hospital.
He never invited the same kid inside twice.
And the ones he’d already crossed the line with?
He went out of his way to personally deliver treats to their houses and do nice things for their parents. It was as if he got a thrill out of making them question what was really happening, making them second-guess telling on him and ruining his pristine reputation.
There was also a very special word for him in some of the crime books I read: pedophile.
He was the worst of the worst by criminal standards—even murderers would be appalled. And according to every story I read, he would never be able to stop himself.
There would always be more victims.
It wasn’t until the autumn of that year that I realized staying away from him would only protect me, and no one else.
Cindy Kline left a “So sorry, I can’t handle this pain anymore, I love you Mom and Dad” note in her locker, hours before police found her hanging in her aunt’s closet.
While Tom Raider provided snacks for her funeral, everyone in town whispered and wondered what “pain” she could’ve possibly been talking about. What could she have possibly been going through at such a young age?
I knew then and there that there was only one way to make his victim count zero.
And it wasn’t by snitching.
He’d just donated fifty thousand dollars to the law enforcement fund and committed to keeping their snack pantry full for five years.
Well, or so he thought.
“Mr. Raider?” I knocked on his door on a Sunday, right in time for the “boy” part of his pattern. “Are you in there?”
“Who is it?” he called out.
“It’s James from right next door!” I said. “Do you have any new ice cream today?”
“Always, always!”
“Can I climb through the basement?”
“Of course you can! Come up and meet me in the kitchen, okay?”
Okay. Perfect.
I climbed through the window in a pair of oversized boots, then walked to the corner where I’d hidden one of my father’s old handguns and tucked it into my pants.
Letting out a breath, I braced myself.
I knew he wasn’t in the kitchen.
I knew he was going to lure me to the bedroom, and today was going to end in one of two ways: the police would show up and find him in bed, the victim of an apparent suicide.
Or, they would discover it was me, and I would say he tried to touch me and get all the neighborhood kids to finally fucking say something.
“Are you here, James?” he called from his bedroom as I ascended the steps.
“Yes,” I said. “I’m here.”
“Come check out something in here for a second.”
“Gladly.” I moved closer.
He was standing in front of a mirror, wearing nothing but a pair of ugly fish-print briefs.
“You’re growing up to be so tall and strong.” He smiled at me. “You’re destined to be at least six feet tall.”
And you’ll be at least six feet under.
“I hope so,” I said. “If writing doesn’t work out for me, I can keep playing basketball.”
“It’s usually the other way around for the other boys around here.”
“Yeah, well…” I stalled as he pressed a hand against my cheek.
“I have something else you can taste before the ice cream,” he said. “After you lick it a few times, you can take as many bars home as you like, okay?”
“Okay. What is it?”
“Not so fast, James. We’ll get there slowly, alright?”
“Alright.” I tried not to flinch as he pressed his thumb against my bottom lip.
“It’s something that you can’t tell anyone else about, okay?” His smile was the stuff of nightmares. “Promise me that first.”
“I promise.”
“Good boy.” He sat on the edge of his bed. “Before I let you see it, let me see you first.”
“Huh?” I hadn’t prepared for this part.
“Take off your pants and let me see you.” He was damn near salivating. “Then place your boxers in that middle drawer over there for me, okay?”
I looked toward the middle drawer and spotted something I’d missed while watching him all this time.
It was only cracked open a bit, but I could see what looked like other underwear inside.
What the…
“Go on.” He slid a hand into his boxers. “Get undressed and let me see you.”
“Wipe my fingerprints off the metal, ditch the clothes, wipe my fingerprints off the metal,” I muttered.
“Don’t be nervous,” he said, leaning back. “I can shut my eyes until you tell me you’re ready for me to look.”
I waited until he shut his eyes and counted down from five.
Then I walked over to him and took out the gun, positioning it like I had so many times before.
“Okay, Mr. Raider,” I said, pressing the barrel against his head. “You can look at me now.”
“What the hell are you—” His eyes fluttered open, and I pulled the trigger.
He dropped to the floor within seconds, and the world was instantly a safer place.
I wiped my fingerprints off the trigger and placed the gun next to him.
Then I walked to the drawer he’d mentioned and pulled it open.
Dozens of girls’ panties and young boys’ boxers stared back at me. Some had name tags in his handwriting.
Others had dates.
I made sure to leave the drawer hanging wide open so the officers could see his depravity, so they could see that he deserved to die.
But someone must’ve shut it.
And those same someones connected my father’s old gun, his old, worn boots that left bloody prints down to the basement, and the overalls I’d stuffed into the corner to him instead of me.
And my life—and my relationship with justice—has been fucked ever since.