He looked at his watch, noting it was 10:34 pm. He rolled the naked body out the back of the van, closed the rear doors, and drove slowly through the alley, stopping at the crosswalk before turning onto 5th Street. Looking to his left, he saw the two beat officers walking toward him at a leisurely pace. He smiled to himself as he thought of what awaited them if they took their usual route down the alley. He turned right on 5th Street, then right again on Folsom, driving at the speed limit, attracting no unwanted attention from the few other motorists.

He had no fear of being identified. He was just an ordinary looking guy driving an ordinary looking van. He had left no clues in the alley that could lead to him and no one had seen him. Besides, he had stopped perhaps thirty seconds, just long enough to dump the body, and the van he was driving would not be reported stolen from the Oakland airport long term parking lot for a couple of days.

He had spent the last several evenings watching the two cops walking their Mission District beat. He had mapped and timed their route, finding they were creatures of habit, stopping for dinner at the same time each night, always at one of the small restaurants along Mission Street. After resuming their foot patrol, they entered the alley between 10:30 and 10:36 p.m. each night. He saw there was little vehicle traffic during the week and few people on the street. He also knew there were no homeless people living in the alley and it was not a place the drug dealers chose to ply their trade. It was the perfect place to put the body so it could be "found" quickly, exactly as he planned.

He drove to Pacific Heights and parked the van along the curb between two of the stately homes. He walked the half block to his Lexus, taking off the latex gloves as he walked and dropping them in a sewer near his parked car. He glanced up and down the street as he unlocked the door, seeing no one and no lights on in the nearby homes. He started the car and drove leisurely out of the area, unable to stop smiling. He felt good, strong, revitalized. He was filled with a sense of accomplishment, of relief that justice had been served. He could hardly wait to start planning the next event. He turned the radio up and drove slowly home through the damp San Francisco night, singing to the oldies.