by Sean Dexter
“You're hiring me to provide proof, is that correct?”
“I have to be certain.”
“What then?”
“Then?” He skipped a beat. “Then she stops.”
“What makes you think she will?”
“He's conned her, convinced her that they can get away with this, that nobody will be hurt. Once I can prove it's not that simple, that he's only using her, Denise will come to her senses.” John waved his arms as he paced. “We're a family.”
“And if she doesn't?” I didn't want this to escalate.
“She loves me. In my heart, I know she loves me.”
It was impossible to hold the eyes of someone who wouldn't stop moving, but then maybe my client knew this. “For the sake of argument, what if she wants out?”
“Then--” John shuddered to a halt. “If Denise wants out then I guess I was wrong, and we're through. But I don't think I am.”
“You'll let her go.”
“If she wants out, she's already gone.” The way his body shrank in on itself, I believed that he believed what he said. Which was no promise he wouldn't turn violent.
It was always a risk in this kind of work.
“Let's talk about her daily schedule.”
*****
Denise only left work on her lunch break, and then always alone. She ate at a nearby restaurant, turning off her phone as she entered the building, ordering one of several salads or turkey sandwiches on wheat wraps.
One day she ran an errand at lunch. Alone.
I never saw her on her phone, calling a lover or anybody else. She seemed to hold her lunch break sacred.
Not to toot my own horn, but Denise never knew I was following her. I'm certain because she never even checked. She never looked over her shoulder, never checked mirrors or mirror-like surfaces.
Maybe she just found Bob McNally funny.
Maybe she thought her career could be helped by sucking up to someone in sales. Maybe Bob had connections.
I certainly never saw the two of them together, and in my extensive experience, people who carried on affairs got together at some point.
Maybe with the internet, Denise and Bob could send each other steamy messages, share their most intimate secrets, commit adultery that way. But for how long would either be satisfied with nothing more?
All of which meant...what?
Was my client wrong, or were Denise and Bob extra careful? They worked for the same company. Did that make it easier or harder for them to wait until they could be alone?
For six days, I felt as though I was wasting my time and my client's money. I followed Denise to work, whenever she left work during the day, and on her ride home. The only evenings she went out, she went out with her husband.
John had paid me a week in advance. On the seventh day of that week, I finally had something to report.
Denise didn't go to the nearby restaurant for lunch. She didn't head to either cluster of stores.
Instead, I followed Denise to a motel at the edge of town. She knocked on the door to room 126. Somebody I couldn't see from this angle let her in.
I'd get pictures when they left.
Until then, I documented the midday surveillance, pulling details off the GPS.
My feelings at moments like this were always jumbled. Satisfied that I'd completed my assigned task. Disappointed in human weaknesses. Dreading the eventual meeting with my client.
Success was not only two edged, it boasted a handle smeared with poison ivy.
Would proof of today's liaison be enough or would my client want more, determined to record every indiscretion until he finally accepted the truth?
The truth. Ha.
When my client confronted his wife, emotions would be running high. John might never learn the truth, as if there ever could be just one.
Denise herself might not know why she did what she did. Might not be able to express the myriad of motivations that took her from married to adulterous.
Paperwork completed, I prepared my camera and waited for the motel door to open.
*****
John cried when I made my report. “No. I just can't believe she did this to me. How could she? Maybe if I don't make an issue out of it.... Maybe it's too late.”
“Would you like some water?”
John glanced up at me, his eyes already red. “Water?”
I'd made sure I had a bottle in the refrigerator before he arrived. “Some people, it helps.”
John shook his head as if responding to more than my question. “Maybe it isn't her. Pictures can be tricky.”
“John, I followed Denise from her place of employment to the motel. She was driving her car. It's Denise.” I wiped my hand across the top of my desk. “Unless there's an evil twin you haven't told me about who works in the same building as your wife and drives her car.”
“No.” John moved the photographs out of his sight. “I suppose it's possible, though.”
“I'm sorry. Even though you suspected the truth, I realize that this is a bitter pill to swallow.”
He hung his head. “It's not what I wanted to hear.”
“It never is. You might find it beneficial to take some time to think this through. Consider your options. Not rush to discuss what we've learned with your wife.”
“And just how do I do that? How do I slip proof of her infidelity into casual conversation? Or do you expect me to test her? Ask if she's familiar with that particular motel?” A trace of hysteria had crept into John's voice.
“It all depends on the communication style of your relationship.”
“Ha! Given that my wife is sleeping with another man, I'd have to say that the communication style of our relationship is broken.”
“Remember your children.”
John jerked his head back and forth, hunted. Haunted. “You seem to think this is going to be easy.”
“No, I never said that. I don't imagine it will be, which is why you may want to consider approaching the matter in a public place. That will help contain emotional responses. After all, if things get physical, a bad situation could easily turn worse. Worst-case scenario, someone calls the cops. You want to think long term.”
“Long term.” John rubbed his face. “I can't think long term. I can't think five minutes from now. My wife is....”
“I know. Handle this incorrectly, however, and Denise will be perceived as the victim. That's why you need to think long term, to show self-control in your words and actions. If you like, I can be there when you talk to her.”
“You're not exactly an impartial witness.”
“No, but I might serve as a lightning rod. If she turns her anger at me instead of you, that might keep the situation from getting out of hand.”
“I suppose.”
“Your wife probably had her reasons for what she did. Whatever happens, you might decide this has all been for the best.”
*****
When my doorbell rang, I paused the movie.
Who came calling on Christmas morning?
Jim Lager rocked back and forth on his heels. It had been almost a year.
“Hey John. What's up?”
He pulled a gun out of his coat pocket and let it dangle at the end of his arm. “We need to talk.”
“Come on in.” Even though the gun wasn't pointed at me, a gun was a gun.
He followed me into the living but continued to pace when I sat. “Happy holidays.”
John laughed as though the comment was more painful than funny.
After watching him change direction three times, I continued, “Would you like to put that gun away?”
“I'm glad to see you're alone on Christmas.”
“And why is that?” At least he was talking.
“You ruined my life.”
“How do you figure?”
“You know. You destroyed my marriage with Denise. You stole my family. It's Christmas.”
I couldn't argue that last point. “You hire
d me to determine if your wife was having an affair. I uncovered evidence that supported your theory.”
“I'd still be married if it wasn't for you. I'd still have my children.”
“Maybe, and maybe not. Maybe the affair would have developed into something more, and Denise still would have left.”
“It's all your fault.”
I could understand him wanting to blame someone for his troubles. That didn't mean he was right. “John, why don't you put away the gun and have a seat? We can talk, finish this movie, see if there's something you'd rather watch.”
“Today is Christmas. I should be watching my children open their presents. Do you have any idea what this past week has been like for me?”
“I'm sure it has been difficult. This is the first Christmas since the divorce, correct?”
“You don't care. Don't pretend to care.”
“Would you like something to drink? Coffee perhaps?” I stood and took a step for towards the kitchen. “I was planning to make some eggs after I finished the movie. Perhaps you'll join me.”
“I don't want anything from you. Haven't you already taken enough?”
How did I decipher that last exchange? Was he confused, past reason, or desperate to keep talking? I turned away from the kitchen. “I'll wait then. So, John, what brings you by? You could have just mailed a card.”
He rubbed his forehead with his free hand. “You don't know what it's like, losing everything. I always loved Christmas morning with my children. Their excitement when they found their stockings. Their gift from Santa.”
“One can find a lot of joy this time of year.”
“Not any more.”
“Maybe not the way you used to experience it, but the joy is still here. Maybe you're just not ready yet to accept that you can be happy in your new life.”
“Happy?” John waved the gun. “I've lost my children!”
“There are--”
John raised the gun to his head and pulled the trigger before I had a chance to react.
Stephen D. Rogers is the author of Shot To Death, Three Minute Mysteries, and
more than 700 shorter works. His website, www.StephenDRogers.com, includes a list of new and upcoming titles as well as other timely information.
The Same Old Story
by
Keith Dixon
Keith Dixon shows us PI fiction can just as easily take place in the UK as in the States. He’s been incredibly successful with his Sam Dyke series which he self-publishes. He’s also responsible for the cool cover to this very anthology.
When I was younger my dad said something to me that I've recently been turning over in my head.
I'd been playing in a football match and my team had lost. I was fourteen and man enough not to worry about it, but he must have seen something in my face.
'There's no such thing as winners and losers,' he told me. 'And if you meet people who think there are, ignore them. They're idiots.'
One of the first things I noticed about Richie Downes was that he carried himself as if he thought he was a winner: the straight back, the grounded stance, the chin slightly raised so that he could look down his nose at you with the appraising stare of an Arab horse-trader. He was as tall as me, at just over six feet, and his large square head was covered with corrugated blond hair that was turning grey over his ears. His shoulders were broad and his hand, when he pushed it out to greet me, was a claw of muscled knots and tendons, the hand of a wrestler. A big man with a big persona, as I found out.
'Dyke,' he said, looking around my office for a chair solid enough to take his bulk, finally settling for one of the two facing my desk. 'Thanks for seeing me. Short notice, I know. Had to squeeze you in. Don't mind, do you?'
He looked as though he didn't actually care whether I minded or not. He crossed his long legs, dangling one foot off the other knee. It was shod with what appeared to be a size 13 Doc Marten. I was beginning to feel squeezed in my own office.
'Mr Downes,' I said. 'I'm happy to see you but as I said on the phone, I don't take this sort of case.'
'My money not good enough?'
'I don't do divorce work. Call it a principle.'
'I call it bollocks. Anyway, it's not divorce work. I just want you to find out who my wife is screwing.'
'Why, if not for a divorce?'
'I think that's my business, isn't it? I don't want you to take photos or anything. And I'm not going to beat him up when I find out.'
'Good to know.'
'You're a cocky bugger, aren't you?' he said. He had a wide face to go with his wide shoulders and now it seemed to flatten out, the eyes losing their depth, his lips becoming thin. If I was the kind of man who was easily threatened, I might have felt threatened. He shifted his glance to my filing cabinet and nodded towards it. 'Got lots of clients in there? Busy in the office these days?'
I knew what he was driving at. The submerging economy was hitting everyone hard. Small players like me were barely keeping ourselves above water.
I decided to tack sideways.
'What business are you in?' I asked.
'Motors. Fixing them. A small place off West Street, you wouldn't know it. Brakes, tyres, exhausts, replacing windscreens. Little old ladies or blokes who can't afford fancy Service Departments at Volkswagen or BMW.'
'How are you doing?'
'All right, given the state the country's in. This part of your investigation, then? Has the clock started?'
I wondered what kind of promises I could make myself. I didn't do divorce work because I didn't like to take sides when two people were falling out. They both had their stories and each was—more often than not—as valid as the other person's.
But that was a hard route to take when office rent was coming due, my Mondeo needed a service and I had this crazy desire to eat occasionally.
'You don't want photos?' I asked. He shook his head. 'No actual documentary evidence that she's spending time with someone else?'
'I won't be taking her to court,' he said. 'And no, that doesn't mean I'll be burying her in the front garden. I just want to know who it is. Then my wife and I will have a little chat. It may end up in separation, who knows?'
I sized him up again, and there was a lot to size up. I had no doubt he could be physically violent—it oozed out of his skin. But there was something soft in his eyes, in the end. Something wounded. If he just wanted to know that his suspicions were right, and he really wasn't going to need physical evidence, then I could do that. I thought that he might have been one of those big men who have small emotional resources. Black and white, right and wrong—those were the nuances he dealt in. When he knew for certain that his wife was seeing someone else, then he'd probably sack her like firing a secretary and move on. No time to waste with grief or remorse.
See how easy it is to fool yourself when there's a payday down the line?
*****
If they ever wanted to remake Psycho in the North West of England, one of the Gothic monstrosities on Wychwood Park would make a great location for Norman Bates' house. A few miles outside Nantwich, the Park is a gated community containing modern constructions that look as though an architect took handfuls of gables, arched windows, garages and redbrick walls and just threw them on the ground to see where they stuck. Each house is different, which is to say ugly in a different way. Each one tries to appear grand but looks only grandiose. There are huge arched windows spanning a couple of storeys and belonging on the side of a church, not on a modern house in Cheshire. There are clusters of roofs gathered together at odd angles so that you begin to think you're looking at an Escher drawing. There are porticoes and conservatories—so much glass on view that you'd think the architect had shares in Pilkington Glass.
This was where the Downes lived. The motor-repair business wasn't doing too badly after all.
Richie Downes had had the foresight to get me a permit so the next morning I was able to get past the security gate and find my way to the address he'
d given me. I had no real plan other than to watch the house for a while and see what Mrs Downes—Emily—might do on a typical Tuesday morning.
Turned out, not much.
Fortunately I had sandwiches and a couple of Cokes and the new CD from The Pines to keep me company. The morning passed slowly. A large dog dragged his owner down the street and squatted to dump on the grass. The owner dutifully unfurled a poop-bag and picked it up, holding it at arm's length like … well, like a handful of dog shit. He didn’t give me a second glance. I suppose he thought that if I was there, I had a right to be there. How else could I be there?
The afternoon was the same—no sight of anyone. Downes had told me that his wife had said she planned to be in all day, but of course he couldn't be certain. That was what I was for.
It seemed she'd been telling the truth. Neither of the twin garage doors opened and I saw no sign of her walking anywhere … not that she could have gone very far without wheeled transport of some kind. So I sat in the car all day, listening to music, eating sandwiches and chocolate, doing a crossword, making a couple of phone calls, and earning eight hundred of your British pounds.
At ten past six Richie Downes drove his black BMW 3-Series up to one of the garage doors, which opened, and he drove inside. My day ended.
*****
I was back early the next morning. So early that Downes was just reversing out of his garage. He swept out of his drive, slowed as he passed me but then sped away. I folded my newspaper to the crossword and settled in.
An hour later the other garage door opened and I sat up. Emily Downes reversed her own small Alfa Romeo out of the garage, fiddled around a bit in the drive as she got her angles right, then turned and also drove past me. I mimed speaking into my phone as she went past but I looked at her haughty profile from the corner of my eye—blonde hair pulled back and piled high on a long neck, gold hoop earrings, slight over-bite of the top lip, a hint of Scottish blood, perhaps.
I let her turn the corner and then followed. We were on an estate with only one exit so I could be leisurely in pursuit. She had gone through the exit gate when I caught sight of her again, so I sped up fractionally then kept her in view as she headed down the Newcastle Road towards the A500 and Stoke.