August 8, 2005- The Day it All Began
The moment she stepped into my office I knew I was in for trouble. Sauntering over to my desk with a disarming amount of confidence and sexual energy she lit a cigarette and began to lay out (figuratively speaking) plans that would change my life as well as lay out (literally speaking) plans for a brand new hot tub. I had been a detective for my entire life but nothing in my 37 years of detecting could have prepared me for the deal she had hit me with, and when out of her ruby red lips the words “installation included” dripped, I almost asked her there and then to marry me. Upon further investigation and great amounts of detecting it turned out (luckily) that she already was my wife. Pushing my investigation ever further (as any good detective would) and questioned my so called “wife” on what she was doing in my office and not at home with the children that we had made together earlier. She told me she had gotten the neighbor lady (could she be trusted?) to watch our children. Blast! A flawless cover. My wife had thought of everything, but I still wasn’t sure that her intentions were “on the level” as it were.
This hot tub plan- could it be her idea or was someone conspiring against me. Lord knows I have made my share of enemies in my time detecting. This could be some kind of trap. Unfortunately the only course of action I could see to take was to test the information she had brought me. Perhaps under scrutiny her story would fall apart or at least show some discrepancies, and if not that then there’s only one way to find out who is behind a trap- spring it. Asking the wife to go and leave me to my investigations and also maybe make me a sandwich, I went to work. And what work it was! Using my super secret investigation method I consulted the one source that always gave me a leg up on my detection- the internet. A flurry of fact and figures detailing competitors policies, pictures and blueprints scrolling past, a cacophony of clicking keys nearly deafening me as I worked to get to the bottom of the whole sordid situation. I worked late into the night and then early into the morning, the sun running laps in the sky.
Apparently I had worked my self to exhaustion because I woke up in a pile of printed hot tub consultations- their inky words reflected on my palm and across the side of my face. I’m sure I looked like a mess but I had found my answer. My wife had in fact been telling me the truth. The plan she had laid out in my office so many days ago was in fact the best deal in the whole state and contrary to my first impressions, my wife had proven her self trustworthy. Unfortunately time was running out for I had detected that if we did not pounce and take advantage of this deal within the next 48 hours, it could slip right through our fingers like so much water in the tightest of grips. Grabbing my hat off the desk and ripping my coat off of the coat rack I made a beeline for my car. I was about to put key into keyhole when I came to my wits and thought better of it- someone could have wired my car to blow. There was no point in taking chances and taxi drivers couldn’t be trusted in this situation. Turning my collar up so as not to be recognized by anyone who may be watching I headed out on foot.
Making my way to the hot tub salesroom proved to be quite a simple task, which made me uneasy. Pulling my collar back down I walked over to a payphone in the corner of the lobby. Using what was supposed to be my lunch money I made a call to my wife, this could be the last. I heard her pick up and before she could respond I said “I’m about to make a deal” and hung up. Hopefully she would understand my cryptic message for it was all I had time for. The salesperson was nice enough but I didn’t let on about how much I knew. He promised prompt delivery and his prices matched my research. He would go free… for now. I flashed my ID and placed my wife’s credit card, which he was a little to eager to take, on the table that separated us. Upon return of said card I was out of there as fast as my tired feet would carry me. I let myself relax a little there on the sidewalk but I knew that it wasn’t over. Not yet. Not until I was soaking in that pint sized pool filled with water of increased temperature.
I made my way back home with less urgency than the days previous activities had required and upon arrival greeted my wife and kids. It was good to see them alive, but I only had a moment for them before I had to get back to work. I set up a secondary office/observation station in the backyard, cordoned off the area in which there would soon be a hot tub, and started the stake out. Several days later (just as planned) men arrived and with them came a crane and the exact hot tub that I had ordered. Aha! The stake out had worked and I had caught them in the act. It was exactly as my research said it would be with the digging, and craning, and so forth, and upon completion (or at least what I detected was completion) the men made their ways back to their trucks and left- never to return again. I knew that I would miss them, but it wasn’t until later that I knew how much. But there was time for missing people later. Right now I had work to do, and that work included- but was not limited to- checking the area for those who might spy on that backyard of mine, de-clothing, and making myself at home in the hot tub that through an un-tangle-able web of events had found its way into my life and leave the mysteries for another day.
