Manheim went to the door and I hovered my finger on the camera button. The Greeting Them At The Door shot is always a great one, particularly since it establishes the identity of the lover in case it is not clear later or my client doesn't want to look at the nude shots.
The door opened... and I sighed. I whispered a curse. A complication. I kept shooting, but I already knew I had to handle this one delicately. Manheim and his lover kissed, Manheim offered a drink which the other refused, they undressed, and they went to bed. I kept shooting, getting all the gory details, all the nudity, keeping their faces in the frame whenever I could. I got enough to incriminate and then stopped, giving the cheating couple their privacy. Sometimes I do some shots of the lover leaving, but didn't bother this time. The client probably wasn't going to look that far.
I turned off my camera, pulled it out of the tripod and gingerly put it in its carrying case before dismantling the tripod. For good or for ill, that footage was my income, so I was real careful with the gear. Once it was secure, I sat down on the bed and pulled out my phone. I dialed Sally.
"Hey John! How's the Manhei - err, the job!"
I had talked to Sally before about using the name of the client or subject over the phone. Unless we're in the office, she should never mention any identifying details of the case. Besides it possibly putting me in an uncomfortable situation on the job if someone overheard, if client info ever leaked from me that would probably kill my credibility. While Morty did send me good jobs, I've received a few via word of mouth; someone who had a great divorce settlement happily telling their friend where they could find evidence for the same.
Yes, Sally is my employee. I'm moving up in the world, aren't I? Sure, I only have one employee, but it's something. After the Vanders Incident, I was half a million dollars richer, less the inevitable cut taken by taxes. One vacation to the Caribbean later, I was back in Austin with a fat bank account. Not enough to retire on, but still some nice cash. Morty suggested real estate investment, but I didn't like the idea of it. He had plenty to invest, so bad investments didn't kill his savings. But I would only get one investment. I knew nothing about real estate, so I didn't want to choose poorly.
However, I didn't just save it. I reinvested it into the one business I was sure about. I reinvested it back into myself. John Keats the private detective became owner and operator of Endymion Investigations. It was really still just me doing the same work, but it was a nice anonymous name and a spiffier operation. I leased office space in northwest Austin on Jollyville to sometimes meet clients at, giving it a little more air of professionalism. And then I hired Sally.
Sally was my Girl Friday. She was my operator service, my front desk, my customer support, and my internet when I was frustrated searching for things on my smart phone out of the office. She was actually a college student at UT Austin majoring in Accounting. She needed a part time job, I needed someone other than myself, and it worked out to be a good match. She also handled the financial books. She said it was just helping to give her experience for jobs after college, while I know the financials would be hopeless without her help. We both overlook the work she's doing for free, but I'd give her a raise or an advance if she ever needed it.
"I'm done here, but there's a complication," I said with a tired sigh.
"Uh oh," she said. "Is he not cheating?"
"No, he's definitely doing it, I got the pictures. It's clear as day. He's just doing it with another man."
Gay marriage is now legal across the country, and in a city as culturally tolerant as Austin, it's really not something special. No eyebrows raised. Even those who disagree with it know they happen with enough frequency that they keep their outrage to themselves. That was not why this was a problem.
The problem I had discovered from doing this job long enough was how wives react to same sex cheating. Husbands don't have this problem, because lesbian affairs borders on erotic fantasy - it was only much later after I'm done with them that the full realization sets in, their relationship falling apart. But I had encountered wives with quite... extreme reactions. Many women felt much more emotional about their husband's exploration with same sex partners than they would if it was another woman. For some, it almost seemed like it offended them somehow. I've had wives characteristically deny the evidence in my photos, suggesting that I had even doctored the photos. Some have become downright belligerent, rising to stalwartly defend their previously untrustworthy husbands. It was as if the idea of their men cheating with another man somehow threatened their femininity, as if they weren't good enough women. That's my best guess for why.
I had taken enough of that hostile blowback that I moved these cases to Sally. One of the reasons I hired her was as a buffer. I can have her deliver news that might be problematic for me to give. Since she is not the one who gathered the evidence, only my employee, she can blame me for problems and shift any anger the client had onto me. And because she is female and young, the double standard in gender swings the other way. She can commiserate with women and diffuse their anger. Affluent men used to country clubs and office spaces generally wouldn't get aggressive toward a young woman, and men in a failing marriages tended to be very friendly to a pretty young girl.
It may sound cowardly, but she was in no danger. If she ever was, I would hunt down the offender and make sure in no uncertain terms that he would never do it again, and perhaps also make sure they walked with a limp for a short while. I don't think it'd ever be necessary. I know people, especially my class of clients, well enough to know that the simply game of switching out their point of contact was enough to diffuse client anger.
"Ah," she said. "So I should cancel your meeting with Kirstie Manheim tomorrow?"
"No, keep it, just have her come to the office. Of course, I will conveniently have another appointment and you will deliver the results of the investigation. I'll upload the photos to the server later."
"Ah, face to face client meetings, my least favorite part of the job," she said.
"Welcome to my life," I said. "I get my least favorite part of everything. But I do actually have a meeting tomorrow, I'll just be doing it offsite."
"Offsite? You mean the Starbucks again? You could just say 'Starbucks'."
"Regardless," I said, refocusing the conversation, "Meet with Mrs. Manheim, deliver the results, and keep it short. Don't worry about getting payment if she's angry, we can invoice her later. Just deliver the results and get her out of there as quickly and politely as possible."
"Okay, Boss."
I shook my head and hung up the phone. She only called me Boss when I was being overly specific on what she needed to do. She knew her job very well, I just sometimes forgot.
You might have caught that I'd invoice an angry customer later, once they've gotten proof. You might suggest that invoicing them afterwards would mean I never get paid. I agree with the concern, but remember that I possess pictures of their spouse in a pretty compromising position. Other detectives might use that information in ways that give my profession a very bad name. I have never had to blackmail someone and don't know if I would ever have the lack of morals to do so. However, it seemed that clients knowing I could has always been enough for them to pay their bill and make it go away.
It was all so tiring, especially for someone who was routinely getting poor sleep. I dearly wanted something else to do, so a missing person's case seemed like a breath of fresh air, even if I was uncomfortable with the way Morty dangled it in front of me. So I took the case and called the client. A breath of fresh air? No way. I was going to find that air stagnant, weird, and deadly.
Two
I met Morty's client the next afternoon. This is where you might expect me to give some Raymond Chandler-esque description of my new client. I'd describe how she filled out her blouse in dramatic metaphorical detail, how her legs went all the way up from high heels into the tightest skirt you could find this far from LA. I'd give you a description dripping with sex and misogyny th
at puts her appearance in the vampy valley between Veronica Lake and Jessica Rabbit. It'd be as titillating and sordid as the pictures I hated taking, and in this case, it was all wrong.
Meredith Aldridge was indeed young and pretty, but she was no vamp nor was she some noir tramp. She looked to be in her early twenties; based on the check I ran on her, she was twenty-three, just a few years older than Sally. She had a tan that said that either she enjoyed beachside vacations or moderate use of tanning salons. Since she was the daughter of someone Morty associated with, either could be true. She had long straight hair, professionally cut and amateurly styled. Her general demeanor and body language showed off her age; she had that mixture of confidence you only see in those fresh from college. On one hand, she had graduated in the past few years and she was ready to take on the world. On the other, she was right out of college and trying to make it without any work experience, just a degree; I knew from personal experience how scary that was. Add into that the almost fanatical belief that she still knew what was right - a belief the world would chip at for the next decade - and you had Meredith. She wore nothing suggestive, nothing to invoke the spirit of noir. She wore a casual burgundy shirt and a long skirt. She had an oversized purse she wore over her shoulder and cross her body. A small plush doll hung from one end of the purse. Around her neck hung a lanyard that had her name and the logo for PBS Studio Austin.
Sally's snide comment aside, we were meeting at a Starbucks across from the Arboretum only a few blocks from my office. Despite how indie Austin is, the city is rather short on non-chain coffee houses and cafes. There are a few shining gems of independent coffee in the town, but not nearly enough and they tend to be concentrated in certain areas. Austin is just as infested with Starbucks as any other urban metropolis.
Meredith had arrived and sat down first. Since I was a few blocks from the Starbucks, I could claim I was fashionably (lazy) late. That wasn't true. I watched her cross the parking lot, guessing her identity. I like to see clients before they see me, before they can put on a mask. It helps let me know if they're lying to me, or what they're really thinking. As I approached the door to the Starbucks, I saw her searching the faces of everyone who came in, trying to know if they were me. I saw hope in that face, but she was also weary.
"Hello," I said, sliding into the seat across from her and offering my hand to shake.
"Thank you for meeting me, Mr. Keats," she said, giving me a weak handshake. Then she averted her gaze and looked at her coffee. "I'll admit, this is awkward. I've never met with an investigator before. But I wasn't sure who to turn to."
"Just call me John," I said. "And just relax. I'm not really a formal person. You tell me what's going on, what you're hoping to gain, then I ask a few questions. I'll let you know if I can help you and how much it will cost. If neither of us likes this, we can both walk away. Simple and relaxed."
"That's a little more than simple," she said with a smile, but it was weak.
"It's fine," I said. "Let me start. I was told you're trying to locate someone. Is that right?"
She nodded. "Yes. It's my old friend Nick. Nick Cavalos. He's missing and I'm worried about him."
"Okay, so how long has Nick been missing?"
"Two weeks," she said. There was a bit of a waver in her voice.
"Two weeks? How do you know he's really missing?"
"He's missing," she asserted.
"But two weeks? That could be an impromptu vacation or a back to nature thing. Hell, I've known people to go on benders that lasted longer than that." Her face tensed at my disbelief, so I backpedalled. "I'm just trying to put this all together. Why do you believe he's missing?"
"Nick and I speak... spoke nearly daily. He was the creator of the project at our studio. For him to disappear in the middle of that is unthinkable. He would never do that. Besides, I know Nick. He is not one to run off on a vacation without telling anyone. He'd have the whole vacation planned for months before and still stress about every detail up until the day of. There's just no way he decided to just go have fun. Something is wrong."
"Were you two dating?" I asked.
"What? No! Why would you even ask that?"
"Well, Miss Aldridge, it's just something I always need to find out. A find-my-ex case is different from a missing person case. I'm assure you can appreciate the difference. If he's just trying to avoid you..."
"He's not!" she said, now very emotional. "He's been missing from work and others can confirm."
"I'm sorry, Miss Aldridge. You said you two spoke every day, so I had to ask about the relationship."
"First off, call me Meredith. Second, no, we were not dating, nor have we ever. Nick and I have been friends since we were freshmen in college. We've always been great friends but there's never been anything romantic between us. And when I say I know how Nick is, it's true. Nick has confidence issues. He has his own brand of neurotic. He wouldn't just up and go somewhere. And even if he was avoiding my calls, he'd still show up at his job."
"Calm down," I said. "I'm not trying to be antagonistic. But I'm going to need to ask questions and some of them are going to be hard questions. Sometimes I can't be tactful, but to do this job, facts need to take precedence over courtesy. Facts are important, but I also will need to know if you're being straight with me. And for that, I may throw you some curve balls. I'd apologize for that, but," I shrugged, "I'm not going to. I'll be straight with you if you're straight with me, and I'm not at all sorry if I ask something that offends you. It's my job. Tactful detectives don't close cases."
I think I was maybe overselling the bluntness. Closing cases was not really something I talked about, since I generally was just taking pictures. Maybe I was being a fraud and pretending to be the kind of detective I wasn't, but she bought what I was saying anyway.
"I'm sorry," she said, losing much of the force of her words, as that emotion gave way to sad frustration. "I had to go through this all with the police, who have refused to do anything. They believe he's an adult and he can do whatever he wants. Since I am not a spouse or family member or anything and there's no evidence of anything criminal, they also believe he could just be out of town or, like you suggested, avoiding me. I'm just really frustrated."
"Understandable. I'm here to help, but part of it is ascertaining if I can help," I said. "So you've been to his home?"
"Yes, his apartment. The windows shades are down, no light behind them. I don't think he's been there since he went missing. The first of the month hasn't hit, so I guess they're not trying to evict him for not paying his rent yet."
"I'll need that address," I said. She scribbled it down on a napkin, which I pocketed. "So, you mentioned that his job was important," I prompted. "That he'd never miss it. Tell me about that."
She nodded. "Nick and I both work at PBS Studio Austin on the Hornswaggle & Friends pilot. I'm an Associate Producer, but Nick is the chief creative force. He created the title character, most of the secondary characters, and wrote the initial dialog. It was his original pitch to PBS, with my help of course. While everyone has contributed, it's really his creation. It's his baby! I can't see how he could just abandon it."
"Maybe the pressure of success was getting to him."
"Even if so, I'm his best friend! If it was that much of a problem, he'd be talking to me about it, complaining, hiding in his bathroom until I talk him out, something. Instead there's nothing. Dead silence and not even commiseration with me. Even if he were quitting, he wouldn't be quitting like this. He was at work one day and the next... nothing."
"Was he acting weird at all before his disappearance?" I said. "Anything preceding it that maybe at the time didn't seem odd, but now could mean something? Perhaps something was going on he didn't want to tell you about."
Meredith nodded again. "I've been over everything in my head many times since he's been gone. He was nervous, but he's always been nervous. He was even more nervous in the day or so before his disappearance - edgier, maybe even sulle
n. But at the time, I thought it was just stress. The project is getting closer to our final cut of the pilot. That also means lots of work. But maybe... maybe that's not what was stressing him. I keep second guessing what I remember. Looking for something."
"Did he say anything that was odd at the time, out of character? Did he mention any places he didn't usually?"
Meredith shrugged. "He's always been a bit odd, saying non sequitors that made sense because he was thinking about things he wasn't saying out loud. He's always been endearingly quirky. He mentioned Downtown, but we work close to Downtown and everyone goes down there, so..." she turned up her hands, "who knows if that's relevant."
"Yeah, that's not much. Anything else?"
"Well..." she said, her voice trailing off.
"What is it?"
"On the day he disappeared, I had a chat with him in my office. He was distant and distracted, but like I said, it didn't seem out of the ordinary. When he walked out, a balled up napkin fell out of his pocket. At the time I just tossed it in his trash. But when he didn't come in the next day and nobody could reach him, I was curious. Luckily the janitors hadn't come that night, so I still had it."
"So what's with the napkin? I assume something if you're telling me."
"I have no idea," she said. "You tell me."
Meredith reached in her purse, grabbing a plastic zippered bag with a crumple of white paper. She opened it up and gingerly handed it to me. It was definitely a napkin, now mostly smoothed out, creases still in the paper. There was no stain of food on it, just a single drop of what looked like coffee. But there was something written on it in a blue ballpoint pen. The hand was shaky but otherwise decisive in its strokes. In capital letters it had written: HE MOVES THROUGH IMAGES
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