“You know what we ought to do?” Pat Mulroney asked.
“There’s many things we could do but what is it we ought to do?” replied Glory Dey with a touch of sarcasm in his voice.
Pat pushed his breakfast plate aside, a half slice of toast left uneaten and said, “We should open a private detective business.”
After a long pause and a bit of a staring contest between the two friends Glory said, “And why would we do that? I don’t know about you, but I know nothing about being a private eye other than what I learned watching Magnum and McMillan and Wife.”
“Exactly my point. How hard can it be?”
“Those are TV shows. You do know they weren’t documentaries?”
Glory and Pat often met for a late breakfast. They had been friends for several years and helped each other in complimentary ways. Glory enabled Pat’s story telling at the West Bay Tavern while Pat’s tall tales attracted tourists who paid for his drinks. The tourists were unaware that Pat was drinking water while Glory charged them for alcoholic drinks, pocketing the proceeds.
“You couldn’t find a more recent reference than a couple of shows from fifty years ago? You’ve got to catch up. I mean, Magnum always said that to find someone he employed a proven investigative technique and looked in the phone book. When was the last time you saw a phone book?”
“I was talking about the Magnum PI that was on a couple of years ago, smart guy,” snapped Glory.
“And McMillan and Wife?”
“Actually, that was more about the wife than the detective.”
Pat rolled his eyes and shook his head, things he did frequently when in Glory’s company.
Their waitress, Jan, came by and cleared the table. As usual, she winked at Glory. Both men watched as she walked away with an exaggerated swing of her hips.
“Seriously,” Pat said after a moment of contemplating Jan’s backside, “don’t you think we could be sleuths? We did a…”
“Sleuths? Did you say sleuths?” asked an incredulous Glory.
“I did. Anyway, we did a pretty good job with the guy from Iowa and his black widow girlfriend. If it weren’t for us, they wouldn’t be sitting in jail. We could do it again. There’s plenty of adulterous spouses vacationing here on the coast whose mates want to find out who they’re cheating with. What if we focused on that type of client, only non-violent cases? What if we did only cheating spouses, insurance fraud and that sort of thing?”
“What if dogs had wings? Would they be birds?” Glory interjected.
Pat ignored him.
“You’re serious about this?” asked Glory.
“I am. Are you fulfilled being a bartender?” Pat asked.
Glory snorted. “Look, I know you’re bored and in need of something to fill your time besides making up stories and scamming the tourists at the bar. I’m bored, too. We both need a hobby. A girlfriend wouldn’t hurt either.”
“I’m glad to hear you admit that. That’s step one. And you have a girlfriend.”
“Who would that be?” asked Glory.
Pat turned and looked across the restaurant at Jan.
“We’re just friends,” muttered Glory unconvincingly.
“Uh, huh. And Jackie Robinson was just a baseball player. Anyway, my point is, I don’t want to be that guy; the highlight of whose day is watching Jeopardy.”
“What’s wrong with Jeopardy?”
“Nothing. I just don’t want it to be the highlight of my day.”
“Okay, I get that.” Glory said. “I don’t want to be that guy either. You’re right, a little excitement would be welcome. If I have to listen to one more of your fanciful stories, I may just lose it.”
“I thought you liked my stories,” Pat whined. “And fanciful? Really?”
“Fanciful is a lot more polite than the word I was going to use. I do enjoy the stories the first few times. Then I kind of lose interest.”
“Honestly, so do I,” Pat admitted with a sigh.
“How would this work?” Glory asked. “Don’t we need some kind of licence to be a PI? Surely the government has some sort of regulations so they can collect fees from fools like us.”
“Speak for yourself, fool,” Pat said. “I checked and a licence is required to carry a firearm, but anyone can pay a registration fee and hang out a shingle to be a private investigator. Like I said, we’d work only non-violent cases. We wouldn’t need an office. We could meet clients in public places, restaurants and like that.”
“You’ve given this some thought,” Glory said.
“I have. So, what do you say. Are you in?”
“Sure, why not. I might be fun.”
“Great! I’ll get a burner phone tomorrow and get some advertisements out there,” enthused Pat.
“Is that a phrase you picked up from a spy movie? Do you even know what a burner phone is?” asked Glory.
“It’s a throwaway phone, isn’t it?”
“It is. Why would we need to throw the phone away?”
“I guess that’s a good point,” Pat allowed.
“Geez Louise,” groaned Glory. “What am I getting into?”
***
Five days later they got their first call.
Melissa Cuthbert from Buffalo, New York wished to have her husband Ken followed. The couple had bought a condo on the coast a year earlier. Ken had taken to spending what she considered to be an inordinate amount of time there. He was the self-employed owner of a company that cleaned restaurant kitchens. The day-to-day operations were left to a manager he had hired after purchasing the condo. He claimed to spend his mornings working on a book he’d had in mind since before they were married and the afternoons playing golf. It was how he was spending his nights that concerned her.
Melissa and Ken spoke on the phone almost every evening. He insisted the call be at 7:30. He claimed he went to bed by 9:00 and was at the keyboard early in the morning. However, at home he was, and had always been, a night-owl. He refused to show her the manuscript he claimed he was working on saying he was shy about his efforts and wanted a finished product before he showed it to anyone.
As Melissa had explained it to Pat, “Unless he’s becoming John Grisham and Tiger Woods rolled into one, I’m not buying it.”
She was convinced that Ken was fooling around on her with, as she put it, “some sunburned floozy with pneumatic boobs”. She e-transferred a $500.00 retainer.
West Bay Investigations was open for business.
“So, now what?” asked Glory.
“His wife sent a bunch of info and a photo of him to our email address.”
“We have an email address?” asked a surprised Glory.
“Of course. Our clients need a way to reach us other than the phone and to send us information.”
“I have to say,” said Glory “that you are far more organized than I would have thought you’d be.”
“I’m not just a pretty face, you know.”
Glory let that one pass as the response was too obvious.
“I ask again, now what?”
“Tonight, we set up on the condo complex and wait to see if he leaves. Then we follow him,” answered a confident Pat.
“What if he doesn’t leave? What if he is writing a book and golfing and stays in at night like he told Melissa? Or maybe he’s seeing someone who lives in the complex.”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” answered Pat.
“Great plan,” muttered Glory under his breath.
That evening they sat from just before 8:00 until almost midnight watching the gated and staffed entrance to the complex.
There was no sign of Ken.
***
The next morning, after discussing their uneventful evening, Glory phoned the pro shop at the condo claiming he had been asked by Ken Cuthbert to join him for a game of golf but was unable to reach him.
“He has a tee time of 2:05 this afternoon, as he does every weekday afternoon,” explained the woman at the pro shop.
“I’ve never played with Mr. Cuthbert before. He didn’t tell me if it would be a group of four or just the two of us.”
“He generally plays in a foursome with different people each day. Are you a member here at the club?”
“No,” Glory ad-libbed. “We met the other day. He asked if I’d be interested in playing some time. I’m not much of a golfer so I wondered if I’d be playing with men and women, duffers or semi-pros. I don’t want to embarrass myself.”
The woman on the phone laughed. “He usually has a group of men, but occasionally a woman, maybe two, will join the group. Our starters make up foursomes when they can. I shouldn’t say this, but I’ve seen him tee off on the first and tenth holes. He’s a small step above a duffer. I don’t think you have much to worry about, sir.”
“Oh, that’s a relief. Thank you. I’ll try to get in touch with him to set something up. Please don’t mention anything in case I change my mind.”
“Of course, sir,” she said. “I hope you’re able to play our course some time.”
Glory hung up and turned to Pat who had been listening to the call.
“We’re pooched. He does golf every day. It’s a private course so we’ll never get in. And if he’s doing the nasty with someone who lives in the complex, we’ll never find that out waiting for him to leave.”
“Here’s a thought,” said Pat. “You get access to the complex as a delivery guy. I hide in the trunk, and you drop me off so I can have a look around. I saw a real estate agent’s car go in last night. Ad decals on the door. It never came out, so the guy probably lives there. I got his name. We can claim he ordered some food.”
“I like it. You’re getting devious.”
“Thanks,” said a grinning Pat Mulroney.
That evening at 7:45 Pat climbed into the rear hatch of Glory’s small SUV.
“I’ve got a delivery for a Stan Collins; I think it says.” Pat heard Glory saying to the guard at the gate.
“Oh, the real estate guy,” said the guard. “I didn’t get a call about it. People are supposed to let us know if they’re getting something delivered.”
“I don’t know what to tell you.” Glory motioned to the warming bag on the seat beside him. They had borrowed it from the delivery person who brought their own dinner. “The order is from the pizza place down the street. I just do the delivery.”
“Alright, in you go,” the guard said as he raised the gate.
In the gloom beneath some pine trees, Pat got out of the car and disappeared into the deep shadows of some shrubbery across from Ken’s condo.
Glory drove slowly down the street as if he were looking for an address. A few minutes later Pat called him on the radio.
“Ken’s car is parked in its spot. I’m just going around to the other side of the building to see if anyone is home.” A couple of minutes later he reported that the lights were on, and he could see someone moving inside the second-floor unit.
“I’m going to go up to the door,” Glory said, “and pretend I have the wrong address. Hopefully I can see if he’s in there alone.”
“Hold up there, buddy. That wasn’t part of the plan,” Pat said.
“If we’re going to do this PI thing, we have to be able to adapt on the fly. I won’t be long.”
Pat watched from behind some bushes as Glory, carrying the warming bag, climbed the steps to the second floor and walked along the outdoor hallway to Ken’s door.
Ken Cuthbert answered the door wearing a dress shirt and chinos.
“I didn’t order anything. You sure you have the right unit?” he asked Glory.
Glory examined a slip of paper and looked at the number on Ken’s door.
“Ah, my bad,” he said, “I’ve got the wrong building. Sorry about that.” As he walked back the way he had come a young woman parked her car not far from where Pat was hiding. She took a tote bag from the back seat and walked up the stairs, passing Glory on the landing.
Pat watched from his hiding spot while Glory dawdled at his car, peering up at the second-floor corridor. They both saw the woman knock on Ken’s door and be ushered in.
***
“We need a camera with a long lens for taking pics of our targets,” Pat was saying over breakfast. “If we got a picture of Ken’s lady friend last night, we could have collected our fee from Melissa and gone out for a steak dinner.”
“Good cameras are not cheap,” said Glory.
“Our clients aren’t going to take our word that their spouses are cheating. They’ll need evidence for the ‘gotcha’ conversation and for court. We should be able to get a used camera kit for far less than buying new.”
“That makes sense,” said Glory. “Let’s go shopping.”
Several pawn shops later they had a good quality SLR digital camera with a 200–500 mm lens. They did a recce and found a service entrance at the north end of the property that was protected only by a metal gate. No more pretending to deliver pizza. They could access the complex by scooching under the gate.
“We may have to wait before Ken’s lady friend shows up,” Glory cautioned. “We can’t very well hang around indefinitely. You might get away with it, but I’ll stick out like a sore thumb. The place isn’t exactly a hotbed of diversity. The only guys in there that look like me are the guys delivering pizza and cutting the grass.”
“I hadn’t considered that.”
“I consider things like that every minute of every day. You’ve never had to but take my word for it.”
The two men thought for a few minutes.
“What about a drone?” suggested Pat.
“That would run into real money. Besides, neither of us knows how to operate one of those things. With our luck we’d fly it into the side of the building or through Ken’s living room window.”
“True dat,” said Pat.
“Stop talking like that,” said Glory. He continued, “You got the info on the girlfriend’s car. I can get my cop buddy Ben to run the plate and see who she is and where she lives. Then we can figure out where she works and go from there.”
“Is Ben allowed to do things like that?” asked Pat.
“As long as he doesn’t get caught he can.”
***
By that afternoon they knew the girlfriend’s name was Emily Dykstra. She lived in a shabby condo building nowhere near a golf course or a beach and worked as a receptionist at a car dealership.
Pat took a stroll through the show room. Emily Dykstra worked hard answering phones as well as dealing with customers and sales staff. Young enough to be Ken Cuthbert’s daughter, she wasn’t sunburned or pneumatic. Dealing face to face with people she smiled brightly but when she was on the phone, she looked stressed, as if the weight of the world was on her.
That evening as Glory and Pat were preparing to enter the condo property the cell phone rang. It was Melissa Cuthbert.
“We’ve only just started,” explained Pat, “and accessing the condo complex is proving to be a challenge. But we think we have a plan.”
“Have you seen a woman around the place?” she asked.
Caught off guard, Pat paused just long enough that Melissa had her answer.
“That worthless son of a…”
“We don’t know that she is up to anything with Ken. We have no proof of that at all. There are many reasons she could have been there.”
“He’s no sooner off the phone with me than this woman shows up at his door. And he invites her in. Sure, nothing is going on. Do you really believe that? You don’t and neither do I.” Melissa sounded very agitated.
“Ms. Cuthbert, we need a chance to look into this further. Another couple of days should do it.”
“That might do it for you, but not for me.” She hung up.
Glory had been listening to the call.
“That is not a happy woman,” he observed.
“No, she is not,” agreed Pat. “Good thing she’s in Buffalo.”
***
Finding Emily’s car parked in the same spot as the previous night they hid in the bushes across the road from Ken’s.
Shortly after they got in place a car screeched to a halt in a no parking zone in front of Ken’s building. A woman got out and walked quickly up the steps. She pounded hard on the door with her fist.
“Oh, oh,” said Pat.
“You’ve got that right,” said Glory. “It seems Melissa is not in Buffalo.”
They watched as her right hand disappeared into the large purse she carried.
“We’ve got to get over there,” said Glory as he stood and began running across the road. Pat was right behind him.
They looked up to see Ken’s door opening.
“Well, hello. This is a pleasant…” Ken began to say.
Melissa pulled a pistol from her purse and fired it at Ken’s face from less than a foot away. She stepped over his body and entered the apartment.
Pat and Glory heard a scream as they ran up the steps. The scream was followed by a gunshot.
From the door of the apartment, they saw the woman sitting on the couch. The gun lay on the floor between her feet.
“Melissa?” asked Glory.
She looked up at them and smiled.
***
“I think we’re not cut out for the detective business,” Pat said at breakfast the next morning.
“You think that do you, Sherlock?” answered an unhappy Glory. “You’re a genius.”
The two men had spent the entire night at the police station answering questions about their role in the double murder. They were assured they had done nothing criminal but what they had done undoubtedly contributed to the outcome.
It turned out Emily Dykstra worked a side gig as a freelance editor and typist earning extra money to pay off her student loans. Her goal was to become an editor with one of the large publishing houses. She had been hired by Ken to help with his book, so they met a couple of evenings a week. That was all she was doing with Ken. Her devastated girlfriend provided that information.
“You two,” said a police captain, “have no business playing detective. If I ever hear of you doing anything like this again there will be trouble. You understand me?”
Both men nodded. They thanked the captain and fled the station for the safety of the diner and the ministrations of Jan, the winking waitress.
“Maybe we could start a photography studio. You know, now that we have an expensive camera,” Glory growled around a mouthful of home fries.
“I think I’m going to take some time off from the bar,” said Pat.
“Good idea,” snapped Glory.
A phone rang. It was a moment before Pat realized it was the cell phone in his hip pocket.
“Hello,” he answered, putting the call on speaker.
“Hello,” said the male caller. “Is this West Bay Investigations?”
Pat and Glory looked across the table at each other.
“Why yes, it is,” said Pat. “How may I help you?”
Glory gave Pat a warning look.
“You advertise as being discrete,” said the caller. “Can I rely on that?”
Pat looked questioningly at Glory. After a moment, Glory leaned forward.
“Discretion is our motto,” Glory said. “What can we do for you?”
[Image Credit : Photo by Jack Chen on Unsplash]
by 
M.F. McDonnell
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