Idea for a Short Story

"He's not a good man. Definitely not someone you'd want living next door to you."

The officer laughed and broke eye contact. His statement was huge in his own mind, given the history of the man he was speaking about. The murders. The mutilations. The girls that would disappear suddenly, without a trace. Someone's girlfriend. Someone's wife or mother. Someone's daughter. Raised by people who loved her more than they loved themself.

The smile disappeared and his eyes found the camera again.

"No. I take that back. You would want him as a neighbor. His neighbors were safe. They say he was a nice guy. They say they can't believe he's guilty, actually. There's one old woman who told me he spent an hour and a half helping her look for her lost cat. She invited him in and gave him her own food when they couldn't find it even.

"Yeah. I asked him about it and he told me he found her cat. Said he stomped that cat's head flat and picked up shattered pieces of its brain to eat."

Very serious now. The officer's eyes didn't waver.

"He never touched that old woman, though. Treated her like a princess. She couldn't say enough about him, how wonderful he was.

"Yeah, he was a good neighbor. I guess. Sure."

"But you didn't want to cross him. No, sir. Crossing him was a really bad thing."

- I think I jotted down some of this while trying to figure out a short story to submit to Writer's Digest. It may have been an early "fleshing out" of a triple-angle piece I wrote called "Lover".