Succulent Prey

Night slipped into the unmarked Chevy Cavalier and wrapped itself around Detective Montgomery. His eyes peered like lasers out of the shadows as he stared intently at Professor Locke’s modest home. Something was going on.

The professor had seemed more than annoyed when Montgomery and his partner had approached him earlier. He had seemed scared, guilty, and he’d been lying. At almost every question the detective had asked, Locke’s eyes had slipped up and to the left, accessing the creative side of his brain in search of a response, in search of a lie.

Montgomery had followed him as he rushed across the campus to visit his friend and fellow suspect Professor Martin Douglas. He’d watched them argue while seated on a bench facing the professor’s office window. Then he’d watched as they appeared to reconcile and shake hands over some secret pact.

It was nearly an hour later when the two of them stalked across campus to the medical building. They smiled and backslapped with the head of the psychiatry department and left with what appeared to be a prescription. They then continued on to a nearby pharmacy and then to Locke’s home in Protrero Hill.

Now he could see their silhouettes behind drawn shades, filling a bag with supplies as if preparing for a hunting trip. Montgomery was pretty sure that was exactly what they were doing, going to hunt a predator named Joseph Miles. Hours after being confronted by the two detectives, Professors Locke and Douglas crept out to a waiting car carrying two suitcases and a duffel bag filled with handcuffs, duct tape, chloroform, a .45-caliber Taurus semiautomatic loaded with Glaser Safety Slugs, and several packs of powerful serotonin suppressors.

‘It feels like we’re carrying a murder kit.’

Locke smiled at his colleague in bemusement. ‘What do you know about murder kits?’

‘I’ve listened to your lectures before. Murder kits are the tools that serial killers carry with them to their kills. Duct tape, handcuffs, add a ski mask and leather gloves and it would be almost identical to the stuff they found in the trunk of Bundy’s car the first time he was arrested. I mean, what are we doing here?’

‘Going to stop a killer. And to cure a young man with a possibly treatable impulse-control disorder that is ruining his life and the lives of everyone he comes in contact with. That’s what we’re doing, Douglas.’

‘Serotonin inhibitors. Could it really be that simple?’

‘It might be. It just might be.’

‘And if it isn’t and he keeps killing?’

‘Then we turn him over to the police. Either way we’re both heroes.’

They dropped their luggage into the trunk and enjoyed one last look around the safe, sane neighborhood before stepping into the car to begin their journey into madness. Professor Locke slipped behind the wheel of his six-year old BMW and pulled away from the curb. The vehicle crept to the end of the block, crawling slowly as if hesitating. At the end of the corner it seemed to recommit itself, turning the corner and accelerating toward the freeway.

Detective Montgomery took off in silent pursuit, following nearly a block behind them as the professor’s BMW climbed the freeway on-ramp, headed toward Washington.

‘What the hell are you two up to?’ he grumbled as he watched their headlights charge off into the night. He then picked up his radio and called in to the station to let his captain know that he would be out of state for a few days in pursuit of a suspect.