It was another typical boring stakeout. The night air was still. The weather was clear, and the neighborhood was beyond ordinary. It wasn’t that no one who lived here ever did anything on the wild side. It’s just that if they did, they usually went somewhere else for it. Usually.
This was the kind of place people bottled up their frustrations and hid darkness behind suburban politeness, a large glass of wine, and a prescription. The kind of place where people don’t say what they really think until they’re behind closed doors. The kind of place filled with people who love to hire a private investigator like me. Which was how I found myself parked out here in the first place.
In this day and age of rampant paranoia, I am guaranteed a steady stream of customers who want me to investigate and check out every little thing. Today, my current client was Vanessa Abrams. With too much free time and plenty of money to indulge herself, she wanted me to check out what her ex-husband was up to. Definitely a popular request these days.
I had done the initial background research, which was much ado about nothing. Although that didn’t count for much. If someone wants to be paranoid about someone, they’re gonna be paranoid about someone.
So that meant I was sitting in my car down the street from the house currently occupied by Vanessa’s ex-husband. A nice enough place. It said, well-heeled suburbanite. Not my first choice, but it was acceptable. The sun had set a few hours ago, so I sat there in the dewy night air with one of my audiobooks playing as background noise.
I was just about to help myself to some of the snacks I’d brought when I saw it. A shadow slowly emerged from the backyard of the house in front of my car before it climbed over the fence into the neighboring yard.
At first, I had no idea who or what I was looking at. But then the shadow stepped under the harsh orange security light, and I saw it was a man dressed from head to toe in black gear, with his face obscured by a black ski mask.
The sight sent a chill up my spine. As a private investigator, you look for anything that doesn’t belong. Anything that doesn’t fit the context of a situation. It was a comfortable spring night, and there was no reason for anyone to wear a ski mask, much less discretely stalking around.
Since documentation is a private investigator’s best friend, I took out my phone. I took some photos and a video of the figure quietly walking around the perimeter of the house he was looking at. He circled it several times, clearly assessing something. Much like from behind my tinted windows, he had no idea I was assessing him.
Then the figure walked over to the door to the garage on the right side of the house and took something out of his pocket. I couldn’t see what it was, but from the way he was carefully looking down at the front door and moving his hands, there was no doubt it was some sort of lockpick. I made sure to take a video of him doing that as well.
The house belonged to a younger married couple. I’d briefly looked them up as part of my background research, and the couple, the Saltworths, were as ordinary as could be. So what exactly did this stranger want with them? It wasn’t good, that was for sure. A figure dressed like that breaking into a house is never a good sign, especially when I could see a large hunting knife strapped to their belt. It gleamed in the orange glow from the security headlight hovering overhead.
Then the figure stopped, and I watched as the door opened a crack, and he discretely pushed it open, stepped inside, and closed it behind him—a sight I captured on video.
I paused while dialling a local friend on the police force and explained the situation. But midway through the call, a scream emerged from the house, and my friend heard it on the other end of the line.
“Do what you have to do, Will. We’ll be there as quickly as we can,” He said as I ended the call.
I carefully stepped out of my car and pulled out my gun. After a quick ammo check, I crouched and carefully walked towards the same door the figure had opened. It was unlocked.
Being as quiet as I could, I gently pushed it open and stepped into the garage. It was dark, but it held two nice SUVs. On the other side of the garage was a door open to what I could faintly see was a kitchen. With my gun in front of me, I stepped onto the neat kitchen floor and carefully began to scope out the house. The entire first floor was quiet.
Then an angry grunt came from the second floor and was followed by something in a voice I couldn’t understand.
From the house’s layout, the stairs to the second floor were parallel to the master bedroom, with the bedroom door facing the landing. Which meant I could see the figure in black standing in the middle of the doorway with his back to me.
“Now the fun begins,” I heard him whisper in a tone that can only be described as gleefully nasty. I saw a faint flash of silver in the moonlight and saw that it was the knife raised in his hand.
Since he still had his back to me, the figure didn’t realize that as he moved forward, I stretched out my arm and gently squeezed the trigger. The gunshot was muted, but he still faintly turned before the bullet hit his shoulder, and he dropped the knife as he howled with pain. That was when I fired another shot into his right leg, which made him immediately lose balance.
That was when the layout of the house turned against him yet again. Because in the moment’s chaos, he took a wrong step and immediately fell down the glossy wooden stairs, making a heavy thunk as he fell down each step. He landed unconsciously near my feet in a crumpled heap, having made a bloody trail the entire way down the stairs.
The house was now silent.
“Everyone ok up there?” I called up while not taking my eyes off the masked man.
“We’re ok,” I heard a man quietly answer. “Who’re you?”
“Private investigator. Was in the area on a completely unrelated matter. The police are already on their way. I called ‘em before I came inside.”
There was no answer, but two figures came out from the master bedroom towards me. I recognized them as the Saltworths.
“Thank you,” Mrs Saltworth said.
“No problem, ma’am.”
“But what were you really here for?” She asked.
“Paranoid ex-spouse.”
“Unbelievable.” Mr Saltworth shook his head.
“I know.”
The police arrived soon after that. It didn’t take them long to figure out the masked man was a serial killer who’d been attacking couples. The Saltworths were beyond lucky. I also never told them who exactly hired me, but it wasn’t hard to figure out because while I didn’t say a word to Mrs Abrams, she said the Saltworths had sent her a generous birthday gift. True to form, she couldn’t figure out why and was paranoid over it.
I won’t lie; it was pretty funny.
[Image Credit : Photo by Maxim Hopman on Unsplash ]
by 
Grant Butler
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