Succulent Prey (26 page)

Joseph Miles somewhere or that he

knew where the man was? In fact, he did know where Joseph was, or at least

suspected. He was somewhere in

Tacoma, Washington, preparing to

break into a state mental hospital and

murder a patient. He stil wasn't sure that he wanted to tel the detectives, though. They had been right about one thing. He had fucked up. He should have known

how disturbed Joseph was. He should

have known how dangerous he was.

Joseph had come to him looking for help and he had failed him. He owed it to the boy to try to find a cure. He owed it to himself and his reputation as a criminal psychologist to stop him.

The lesson ended and Professor Locke

turned his back on the class and began

erasing the blackboard as they filed out of the room. He heard twin pairs of

footsteps heading down the aisle and

approaching him. There was no doubt in

his mind who the footsteps belonged to.

"Professor?"

"Detectives. What can I do for you today?" Professor Locke kept his back turned as he continued erasing the

words of Bertrand Russel from the

board. He paused for a second to

examine the last quote before scrubbing it away.

Science can teach us, and I think our

own hearts can teach us, no longer to

look around for imaginary supports, no

longer to invent al ies in the sky, but rather to look to our own efforts here

below to make this world a fit place to live ...

"Do you believe al that stuff, Doc?" Detective Volario asked. He was

wearing the same suit he had on his last visit and it didn't look like he'd cleaned or pressed it.

"Al what stuff?" The professor wiped the quote away and final y turned to the two detectives.

"Al that stuff you said in your lecture about religion retarding progress and

science rising up to replace it."

"If I didn't believe it, I'd be a theologist instead of a criminal psychologist. I

minored in philosophy as wel . To me it's just another way to study the human

condition. When you ask what motivates

a man to kil or rape or steal or, more importantly, what would keep a man from doing these things, it isn't very far from asking what it al means. What's the true meaning of life? What sense can be

found in al this chaos? You look into the minds of serial sexual predators day in and day out and you have to wonder."

"Why not hard science? Philosophy

always struck me as a halfway point

between science and mysticism for

those who couldn't make up their minds

whether to believe or not to believe," Detective Montgomery chimed in.

Something about the large black

detective's expression instantly put the professor on guard. The man was

absolutely intimidating.

"Al the sciences began as philosophy. Once a philosophical theory is proven it becomes the property of science. But

without philosophical speculation,

astronomy, psychology, biology, physics, and even quantum theory would never

exist. Someday the search for the

meaning of life wil leave the realm of philosophy as wel and become a

science and when it does I'l go with it. Now I know you two didn't come al this way to discuss my atheism."

"I entered al the information I had on Joseph Miles and his unique kil ing

signature into the national VICAP

computer and I got a hit today. A young man from right here in the Bay Area was found in a park in Oregon, roasted on a spit and partial y cannibalized. We went to his apartment on a hunch that he

might somehow be connected with Miles

and we found links on his computer to a cannibal-sex message board. We found

the same link on the computer shared by Joseph Miles and his roommate. It's a

pretty safe bet that Miles is the one who ate him. Your boy is out of control. Why do you think he'd be going to Oregon?" Because it's on the way to Washington,

where the man he believes passed this

curse on to him lives. "I have no idea," Locke said.

"Wel , we have an idea. You'l have to tel me if you think this one is apodictic." Detective Volario stepped closer to the professor as if he were about to grab

him and shake him. The professor took

an involuntary step back. "We think he's going home. He grew up in Seattle. We

think he's headed back there. What we

don't know is why. He no longer has any family there. His parents moved to the

Bay Area when he was twelve. They live

right over in Hayward. I doubt he'd stil have any friends there. That was almost ten years ago and none of his phone

records indicate that he's kept in touch with anyone from that state. So why do

you think he'd run there, Doc? "

Professor Locke thought hard before

answering. They'd come for his

professional opinion both as a forensic psychiatrist and criminal psychologist

and as someone familiar with the

suspect. If he feigned ignorance they'd immediately suspect him of covering

something up. If he told them everything, then Joseph would be arrested and put

to death, his reputation as a

criminologist would be forever tarnished and he'd never get a chance to test his cure.

The professor had his own reasons for

wanting to cure Joseph. If he were able to treat the young man's murderous

addiction with serotonin inhibitors it

would be a major breakthrough in the

treatment of sexual predators, a

breakthrough that could inject new life into his career. The rule of the

blackboard jungle was publish or perish and he hadn't published anything

groundbreaking in years. A paper on the treatment of serial kil ers with

medication would put him on top of the

heap, and if he could both prove that the serial kil er phenomenon was caused by

viral transmission and document a cure

for it, he'd be almost assured a Nobel

Prize. Too many possibilities to put it al in the hands of two ignorant cops. But he had to think of a suitable lie.

He's going to kil that man in order to break the curse, Professor Locke

thought.

They were obviously offtrack. They hadn't yet discovered the connection between

Miles and Damon Trent, the serial child kil er. So they wouldn't be looking for Joseph in Tacoma, where Trent was

locked up. They natural y assumed he

was on his way back to the city he was

born in. Al the professor had to do was reinforce that belief to keep them on the wrong track.

"There are many reasons why he might be headed back to Seattle. There's the

possibility that his delusions are actual y centered around a particular childhood

fantasy, a person that he was attracted to who he perhaps fantasized about eating. During puberty he could have easily

gotten his sexual urges confused with his hunger response. Perhaps it was a

babysitter who wore a particular

fragrance that reminded him of food and triggered a Pavlovian response. Maybe

a waitress at a restaurant his family

frequented. It could even have been the cashier at the local donut shop."

"Then he would be going back there ..."

"To live out that fantasy, yes. He would be going back to eat her."

"Okay, that's one theory. Why else might he be going back?" Montgomery asked.

"He may also have suffered a

schizophrenic break and could be

regressing back toward childhood. He

might be fleeing back to a time when

things were safer and simpler. Back to a place where he felt safe. This behavior isn't unusual for signature kil ers. If I were you I'd warn whoever now lives in the

house he grew up in. If he gets there and doesn't find his mommy and daddy like

he's expecting, things may turn violent."

"We've already contacted the family and we have the house under surveil ance," Detective Volario responded.

"Wel , I'm afraid that's probably al you can do."

"What about his virus theory? Could he be going to Seattle to search for a cure?

Maybe there's a clinic or something

there he'd go to?" asked Detective Montgomery. His eyes were narrowed,

as if he suspected the professor of

hiding something.

"If he real y did cook and eat that guy in Oregon, then it's probably safe to

assume that he's no longer interested in a cure."

Professor Locke hoped that this wasn't

the case, but that response seemed to

satisfy the two detectives.

"Okay Doc, if you think of anything else we'l be around."

"Around here?"

"Yeah, just in case he shows back up."

"But you just said he was in

Washington?"

"No, you said he was probably going to Washington. Al we have is the very

strong suspicion that he was recently in Oregon kil ing a man he may or may not

have kidnapped from the Bay Area. They

may have just gone on a camping trip

and he came right home once he was

ful . We've alerted the Washington and

Oregon police departments, and if they

catch him then we'l drive up there to

claim him. Until then we're staying right here."

The detectives didn't smile when they

shook the professor's hand. They

whispered to each other and repeatedly

glanced back at him over their shoulders as they walked up the aisle and out the back door. Professor Locke suspected

that there would be a car in his rearview mirror when he drove home tonight and

perhaps a milk truck fil ed with

surveil ance equipment and bored

undercover cops parked across the

street from his house. He hoped that

Joseph wouldn't cal him again until he could figure out how to shake the

suspicion off of him.

Professor Locke left the lecture hal and dashed out into the misty steel gray

morning. The damp early morning fog

crept beneath his clothing and chil ed his skin as he made his way toward the

Sociology Building where Professor

Douglas was just finishing classes.

"Douglas."

"What's up, John?"

"Those detectives were back in my

classroom toay.

"What did they want?"

"It looks like Joseph has kil ed again. They found a body in Oregon roasted on

a spit. It was a guy from the Bay Area. That black detective said the guy had

frequented the same website that

Joseph did and that they had more than

likely met each other there. It was a

cannibal website."

"Jesus! Roasted alive?"

"Apparently so."

"And do they have anything positively linking Joseph to the crime? Any DNA or forensic evidence?"

"Not that they indicated, but who knows?

They probably wouldn't have told me

anyway."

"Did you tel them about your theory?

That you think he's going to Tacoma to

confront Damon Trent?"

"No. And I'd like to ask you not to mention it either. "

Professor Douglas's eyebrows rose in

surprise. "Oh, and why not?"

"Because I think I can cure him. I've been doing more research on serotonin

reuptake inhibitors and I think this wil work."

"Yeah, that's if he real y does have an impulse control disorder. If he's just a sick fucker and it isn't some addictive disease then it won't do a damned thing and you'l be guilty of harboring a

fugitive, and possibly aiding and

abetting. You might even find yourself an accessory to murder if he kil s again

while in your care. And have you thought of the possibility that you might be

putting yourself in real physical danger by confronting him? The kid is huge.

How do you think you'd stop him if he

decided to add you to his menu?"

"I don't think that wil happen, and just in case, I'l be armed."

"This is starting to sound real sketchy, John. You're going to go out armed with a gun to confront a murder suspect

whom you've already aided by

deliberately misleading the police? I

want no part of this."

"Before you say that, think of what would happen if we were right. What happens

if the inhibitors work and we cure him?

Think about offers of tenure from Ivy

League universities. Think about making history. Thousands of dol ars on the

lecture circuit. Magazine articles. Think about the Nobel Prize."

"The Nobel Prize? Real y?"

"It's that big. We would go down in history if we could find a cure for the pathology of serial murder. And think of how many lives we'd save. They

estimate that more than three hundred

people a year are kil ed by serial

murderers. That's nothing compared to

the thousands that are kil ed every year in this country by drug gangs and street violence, but consider that that's more than the murder rate for the entire

country of Great Britain. Consider al

those families who have to live with the image of their loved one spending their last minutes on earth being tortured and mutilated by some lunatic stricken with a mental disease that we could have

cured. Think about Joseph Miles out

there adding to the body count when we

may have the power to stop him."

"Okay, John. I'l keep my mouth shut."

"I need more from you than that,

Douglas. I need your help in capturing

Joseph. I can't do it by myself. You've got some vacation time coming up, don't

you? Let's go to Washington."

"You're crazy. There's no way I'm going to actively participate in this."

"I need you, Douglas. When was the last time you took a risk and did something

daring? No guts, no glory. You lecture

about the hero's journey in mythology