“Our neighbor was doing something last night after 11:00,” my dad said casually during dinner.  “I heard scrape, scrape, scrape.  So, I got up and looked out the window.  He was digging in the alley.”

Digging in the alley?  “Isn’t that how thriller flicks start?  You didn’t see him drop a human-sized lump into a hole did you?”  I asked only half joking.  After all, this neighbor happens to be the super villain I wrote about a few months back.  “He didn’t see you looking out did he?  Because in this scenario I’m the expendable one.”

“That’s what your brother asked when I told him,” dad replied nonchalantly.  Oh sure, easy for him to play it cool, he’s not the co-star that dies within five minutes of the action.  He’s the star.  The hero.  The Jimmy Stewart of this plot line.

“What was he doing?” I asked hoping he had a logical answer.

“I don’t know.”

Great.

“Well,” I offered trying to appease my overactive imagination, “it was hot yesterday.  If he was digging it would have been cooler at 11.”  I know because I had watched a movie on my computer outside that night.  I stayed out until almost 11.  Wait – would if he had to wait for me to go in so there wouldn’t be any witnesses?

Crud.

I finished my dinner before dad.  “My curiosity is piqued,” I said, “I’m going to go see if I can tell what he was doing.”  What the heck?  I might as well make myself an easy target by playing Mrs. Kravitz.  I went to the fence and obviously looked to see any handiwork from the night before.

There by his fence were two mounds of dirt.  Just kidding.  I really couldn’t tell what he had done.  My dad figures he pushed dirt up to his newly installed fence.

Possibly.

At any rate, if the Lees go missing, please question the super villain next door.