See Dick Run

Chapter One

Dick Jones didn’t need any help to kill himself. He could end his misery all by himself and was about to prove it.

He slid down the rear of his son’s headstone and landed on the warm summer ground in the Lewisburg cemetery. Tears blurred his vision as he glanced up at the cloud covered night sky. He curled his index finger around the trigger of the handgun he had wrestled from a street punk, hours earlier after the kid attempted to steal his car.

Without further hesitation or thought, Dick rammed the gun barrel between his front teeth, clamped down hard, and squeezed his eyelids shut.

A drum roll came from an owl hooting nearby. More like screamed against his eardrums when the thunder broke next to him.

Dick’s eyelids twitched, flickered, then flipped open. His watery eyes crossed as they focused downward to his mouth still gripping the gun between his teeth. He heard a car door shut and eased his stiff finger off the trigger.

He tilted his head in the direction of the sound, and the gun barrel slid from his mouth. The right tip stuck fast to a corner of his dry upper lip, and he gave a slight yank to set it free. He winced from the pull on his lip, then spotted a woman moving next to the car that had thundered past him less than a minute ago.

Damn, he cussed under his breath. How dare she interrupt his suicide mission─prolong his misery?

She hurried around to the back of the sleek automobile. It looked like a Cadillac. Maybe a Mercedes, but difficult for Dick to make a positive identification from this distance, which he judged twenty or thirty feet─and it was dark, even with some moonlight.

The woman’s head jerked to the left, then to the right. Dick suspected the survey sweep was to make sure she was alone with the dead.

She shifted in his direction, but Dick felt confident he hit the deck before she saw him.

He waited a few seconds and raised his head, quietly spitting grass and dirt. As he refocused on her, he couldn’t help but think of another woman. His soon to be ex would be calling him a dickhead again if she saw the way he was acting now. When in fact, he was acting like a cop.

A damn good one, he thought, as did others since he was promoted to a criminal investigator with the Pennsylvania State Police. At least that was his rank and file up until last week before his sergeant suspended him.

If he was the lunatic, Susan, his almost ex had been laying claim to lately, he’d be marching up to the woman, who had pulled a shovel from the trunk of her car and stood at a fresh grave. He’d rant and rave in her face for interrupting his decision to end his suffering once and for all.

But no, dickhead was crawling on his belly like a scaly reptile so he could get a closer look at what she was up to.

Chapter Two

Alexis Black hadn’t done manual labor in years. But she couldn’t risk paying or bribing an underling to dig up the grave of the late Harry Henderson laid to rest that very morning. So she went to work, starting with the careful removal of the thick layer of fresh cut flowers arranged over the grave.

Before she had tossed the first powerfully scented bouquet aside, her allergies kicked in and she began to sneeze. It was bad enough she had gone off and forgot her gloves and would need another manicure, but then to forget her allergy medication was just plain irresponsible.

And burying your brother-in-law on top of the former county Democratic Party Chairman is responsible? she mumbled to herself.

The more thought she gave it though, the more responsible it became. Without a body, what could be proved? As far as anyone had to know, Professor Thomas Little skipped town.

Perfect! she blurted, quickly realized her error, and glanced around to make sure she was still alone with the dead.

Seeing the coast was clear, she went back to work, a smug grin settling on her face. She knew what she’d leak to the press about the sudden disappearance of the distinguished professor.

Her sister finally wised up and planned to slap her husband with a divorce settlement that would take him to the cleaners─big time. Throw in hefty child support and alimony payments and the greedy professor hit the road running.

Professor Thomas Little was about to acquire the new title of deadbeat dad. It was that simple. Or at least it would be by the time Alexis finished.

The only problem she saw was convincing the man’s intellectual, but blind sighted colleagues who had witnessed a loving and caring husband and father over the years.

Alexis would convince them. As a seasoned politician, she had years of experience in the manipulation game. It was her experience that had recently reaped her a dinner invitation from the President of the United States. The highlight of the evening was the campaign strategy he had offered that she hadn’t thought of, but planned to use to unseat the two-term Republican Senator.

Memories of that private after dinner conversation had her smiling as she scooped up the first shovelful of loose ground.

***

And they call me a lunatic, crossed Dick’s mind as he watched the woman suddenly going to town with the shovel.

Dick put her in her early forties. Then again, she did look like the pampered type. So he knew he could be off by a few years. But he figured he was right on target about what she was up to by now. Losing his young son the way he had, made it possible to draw a clear conclusion. The woman lost a loved one, went off the deep end, and was digging the poor soul back up for her own demented reason.

As much as Dick resented the woman for intruding on his suicide mission, the gentleman in him was making it difficult to stay put, when he felt he should relieve her of the shovel and finish up the laborious task.

He was on the verge of doing just that when the frantic digging and flying dirt suddenly stopped.

From where he had taken cover less than ten feet away and behind an oversized headstone, he watched her stab the tip of the shovel into the heaping pile of dirt. She unexpectedly turned in his direction. He wasn’t as confident he had ducked fast enough this time.

As soon as his breathing normalized from the unwelcome rush of adrenaline, he peeked around the corner of the glossy gray piece of granite.

He did a double take.

The woman was hoisting something long and bulky from the trunk of her car. At least she was trying to.

Dick’s mouth and throat went dry. He didn’t have to play any guessing games here. He knew what was tightly wrapped in the quilt.

All thoughts of becoming an accomplice to this woman’s madness went by the wayside. It was one thing to help a bereaved woman in her time of sorrow, even if it meant digging up a corpse. But burying one was a whole different ball game.

The cop in Dick rose to the occasion again. It had come time to make his presence known. But as the woman physically struggled with the body, Dick began another kind of struggle.

He knew as a cop he had a duty to take action. But the deeply depressed man he’d become held him firmly in place. This side of Dick made it easier to rationalize why he still remained hidden.

Officially, he wasn’t a cop anyway. He had been suspended until he had a psych evaluation. With private citizen status, Dick was entitled to mind his own business if he chose to.

He’d soon be dead anyway so it wouldn’t matter that he had watched a woman roll a corpse into a shallow grave. Or that she picked up the shovel again and began filling in the hole he had watched her dig minutes before.

By the time she began replacing the bouquets of flowers over the grave, the struggle within Dick ended.

***

Alexis sneezed again but didn’t allow it to keep her from quickly finishing up the heinous task at hand. She figured she was minutes away from being home free in pulling off the crime of the century in small town Lewisburg. That alone kept her from breaking to dry her watery eyes and nose.

Hold it right there lady, sliced through the darkness behind her.

Alexis’ heart jumped to her throat and remained there. She was ordered to turn around and was complying when she caught sight of the shovel near her right foot.

Dick moved in closer to her, trying to steady the gun with both hands as he took aim in her direction.

The combination of the humid night and over exertion that had Alexis perspiring, dried instantly from the chill of fright that ripped through her as she stared down the barrel of a gun. The mere sight of the deadly weapon was enough to chase back a new round of sneezes she felt coming on. A second glimpse of the shovel sent a spark of bravery through her fear and she let loose with the round of sneezes because of it.

It was automatic for Dick to issue a, bless you, and quickly reach into his trouser pocket for his hanky.

The second he let down his guard, Alexis went for the shovel and brought it up and against the side of his head before he knew what hit him.

She continued her firm grip on the shovel, while she debated striking a second blow as she watched the man with the gun remain on his feet, but stagger backwards until he bumped into the rear fender of her car. His bulky frame started to lean in her direction, then his knees buckled and the body did a slow motion nose dive into the gravel road.

A few nerve-racking seconds passed before Alexis could move. She gulped in clumps of air as she tiptoed over to him. She used the narrow toe of her leather pump to poke at his ribcage. No response from him. She let go of the shovel and reached down and grabbed his wrist to check for a pulse.

She wasn’t sure if she felt relief or panic when she found one. As she let his wrist slide from her fingers, she focused on the shovel.

A throaty moan from him set a fire under her. She grabbed the shovel and bolted for the safety of her car.

She rammed the gearshift into reverse, her foot an inch from tramping on the gas before she slammed down on the brake. She didn’t take time to rationalize why she stopped herself from backing over the injured man and permanently silencing him. Instead, she yanked the gearshift into drive and sped off.

Chapter Three

Alexis made a sharp right turn onto Seventh Street. She thought about using the stop sign ahead to take a few minutes to think. But the fear of the gun toting stranger not far behind, kept her moving through the intersection.

As she approached a red light an eighteen-wheeler barreled down the hill on her left. Instead of running the light and risking being mowed over by the truck, she hit the brake and glanced in the rearview mirror, surprised to see a deserted street. She thought it odd, since it was Friday night in a college town and on a street running through university property. If the man in the cemetery wasn’t up to following her, she expected a few party animals to be tearing up the street.

During these endless seconds, it finally occurred to her why the street was so quiet. It was summer. Most of the college students had headed to their own hometown’s weeks ago.

The light changed and Alexis turned onto the highway. She didn’t feel any measurable degree of relief to be finally on her way again.

She had about five minutes of driving ahead of her. Not enough time to perfect the plan of action she would insist