CHAPTER ONE
This kind of stuff makes me sweat.
With a penlight in my mouth, I was opening drawers of a desk in a study in a house belonging to a man, whose wife had hired me to investigate. She thought he was fooling around on her, so she wanted me to check for evidence. The house I was in was owned by the husband. The wife didn't know about this house. I found out through my street connections that he lived here sometimes, so I thought it best to start here. The wife had told me she looked through his things at home and found nothing unusual. The case looked like an easy one, with tailing the husband, seeing who he met, taking pictures, all that kind of boring stuff that pays my bills.
The study was nicely furnished. Paintings adorned the walls, which were painted an off-white color. A strip of wallpaper with drawings of books ran just below the ceiling around the room. I guess he wanted to pretend he was in a library. On top of a nice woven area rug were two nice leather-bound chairs facing a dark mahogany desk. A desk calendar sat on top of the desk, with the telephone, stapler, a desk lamp, a cup with pens and pencils, all black in color, stationed around it like an army. The letter opener and scissors were positioned just so, to the east, I realized. Maybe his moment of zen.
His chair, behind the desk, was one of those ergonomic, super-expensive chairs (not leather), with what appeared to be too many levers and knobs to pull and turn. I didn't want to even sit in the thing. It might close up on me like a venus flytrap. I remembered the position it was in, and had moved it aside so that I could try the drawers.
She had told me that he takes “business trips,” once or twice a month, off to New York, or Florida. In actuality, he stayed here, I discovered. I was pretty sure I'd find something to implicate him in his adultery.
I just found out about this address, and maybe I could have staked out the house to see who comes and goes, but this was such a simple little job, I really didn't want to waste my time. It was so obvious that he had a secret, and what better one than a house with a live-in mistress?
The wife had given me all the information she knew about her husband: the bank he used, the clothes he liked to wear (Armani suits and Stacy Adams shoes), the cologne he wore (Stetson, really?), where he likes to golf, where he likes to eat. Sounded like a lot of footwork, so I decided to start small and work my way up to real labor, if it called for it. Was I lazy? I really didn't think so, I was just logically taking things one step at a time. I don't like things too complicated and kept my life that way.
Wiping sweat off my brow, I pulled a knob. Here was a locked drawer. Using my lockpick set, I was able to unlatch it. Opening it, I saw there were a stack of papers and a checkbook. I pulled out the checkbook and opened it up. The checks were from a different bank than the one the wife told me about. For a guy who is bent on keeping secrets, I wondered why he was using carbon copy checks. I flipped through the checks he had written and noticed he had awful handwriting. Was he really a doctor or something? The scribbles were unreadable, but the dollar amounts were not. He must have a passkey to Fort Knox, because he spent a lot of money. Too much money for a guy claiming to be an carpet salesman. Way too much money. One of the names I could make out was for a woman, Martina Smithson. Monthly payments of twenty thousand went to her. This must be the mistress, I assumed.
I folded the checkbook open, so that I could take pictures with my camera phone. I got in close and took some shots of the various written checks. I was going to show the wife how much money he was spending. I'm sure she would be happy with the alimony she might receive.
I felt a vibration in the floor. I heard muffled voices and realized someone or several someones had come home, closing the front door. I couldn't hear what they were talking about. There was a woman in the group. I picked up her voice easier, and she said she was going upstairs to change.
I had come in through the back door and up the stairs. I needed to find another way out. I shook my head at not thinking about a Plan B or an escape route. I went to the window, unlatched it, and tried to pull it up. It wouldn't budge. It had been sealed in with paint. Cursing the contractor hired to do this job, I knew I had to think of something. I couldn't force the window open. It would alert the people below and I don't think they'd be happy to know I was here. Not wanting to be found and perhaps beaten to death, I tried a second window. Same as the first.
The woman was coming up the stairs. I was relieved for a moment, knowing that the woman was going to a bedroom and not the office where I was. That was short, as I heard more steps on the stairs and realized that at least two men were coming up.
There just happened to be a bathroom off this office, so I went to that door and opened it up. It had a sink and a toilet. The window looked big enough for me to squeeze through. I am a skinny guy, and that worked to my advantage on occasion. I just didn't like being in this occasion at the moment. I was still sweating and needed a beach towel, like right now.
I pulled the latch on the window, and gingerly pulled it aside. It emitted a scraping noise, but not too loud, and I got it open. I pushed the screen out and was getting ready to go through, when I realized I left the desk drawer open and the checkbook out on the desktop. Ugh! Okay, relax.
Footsteps were heard clumping down the short hall. The office was at the very end of the hallway from the stairs, the bedrooms and the other bathroom were on the sides. I heard one door close. The woman had gone into her room. The men were chatting. Their voices were garbled and I couldn't make out what they were saying. They sounded happy though. I smelled a cigar and it seemed one of them were smoking, likely the husband. I ran to the desk, and threw the checkbook in and closed it quietly. Putting the chair back where I found it, I went to the bathroom and closed the door behind me.
The office door opened and I heard the men, finally. One of them was talking to the other about a trip they needed to take.
“We need to take care of business in Barbados, and soon. It's getting out of control, you know.”
“Yeah, I know, I know,” said the other man. “I just hate having to go down and take care of stuff myself, that's why I hire people to do that. Why do I have to go through this?”
“You're the boss. Besides, I could do it, but I'm only the accountant.”
“I could change your job description, you know.”
That was the last I heard as I wriggled through the window. I put it on my mental list to figure that out later. Maybe an expenses-paid trip to Barbados?
I was out the window, and doing a handstand on the eave of the house. There is never a graceful way to exit out of a small window. My left foot was pedaling air, while my right was trying to unhook itself from the sill of the window. Finally it came free and I fell down with a thud and almost slipped off the roof.
That alerted the party inside. I heard a “Hey! What the...” and the bathroom door open. I didn't wait around to see who said that. Looking down, I could see the grass and thought I could jump down to it easily. So, I sat on the edge of the roof and launched myself off.
I landed on one leg awkwardly, and felt a sharp pain go up my leg. But I couldn't think about that now, I had to take off. So, I limped away, not turning around.
Somebody called to me, but the wind was whistling and I didn't look back. They can't really identify someone from the back anyhow, I hoped.
My car was parked two or three blocks down, so I hurried as fast as I could, slowing to listen for cars, and guns.
I arrived at my office about an hour later. As I was getting out of my car, I saw my friend, Dane, approaching. He waved a greeting.
“What up?” he signed. Dane Fellows could hear just fine. He had learned American Sign Language a few years ago, so he signed to me when he could. I knew sign language too, but only signed when I really had to. I knew I needed to be more fluent in sign as it was the first language I learned as a child. I guess I was too proud of the fact that I could hear just enough to survive in the world of telephones and most verbal communications. Dane was a huge black man, bald with an earring in one ear. His t-shirt was tight, not doing a good job of hiding the bulk of his chest and biceps. He was a good right hand man to have when things got ugly. He had on shorts today and Vans shoes. It was his normal mode of dress in the summer.
He saw I was limping. He pointed, “Your leg? Happen what?” He signed again.
“Ah, I was jumping out of a window,” I told him.
His face lit up. His smile beamed and he leered. I wish my teeth were that white.
“Wow. Almost caught by husband? Wife loving?” He laughed, doing the sign for “fornicate”, each hand in a “V”, the left coming down repeatedly on the upward facing right hand.
“No, not for that,” I replied, shaking my head. I told him what my current job was and what I had found and heard.
“Understand, okay.” He nodded as he signed. I asked him where he had been, as he had been gone a week. He related that he had gone to Mississippi to visit his girls, who were living with his ex-wife. His twin daughters had their birthday recently, and he had gone to see them. I asked him if it was pleasant this time, as it usually wasn't. He did “so-so” with his hand. I didn't press further, but took that to mean that it wasn't that bad.
I had an ex-wife too, but no kids. This kind of made me sad, but relieved at the same time. Kids who deal with parents who are divorced have it hard. Loyalties are tested, impressions are made. Some grow up hating men, or women, in general, because they see what happened with the parents, or they hear what one parent says about the other. Some can't formulate good relationships, because they see their situation as normal, that it's okay to divorce when things get hard.
I wanted to get married again, but hadn't found a woman with the right disposition or the right attitude. Here in California, I found them to be a bit more selfish, more materialistic. I figured I would have to go to Iowa or someplace in the sticks to find one that wasn't touched by the world's madness. I wasn't ready to do that, as there's no money in Iowa or the sticks, and I needed the money.
Dane and I walked into my office, to find it already occupied.
