by Tom Fowler
“You know TVs don’t work that way, right?”
“The old ones don’t.”
“None of them do,” I said. “They never have. The government isn’t spying on you. They wouldn’t waste the time.”
“I know they have me on a list,” he said.
“I’m sure they have you on several. Now take off your tinfoil hat and listen: I’m putting you on a list, too. It’s called the do-not-call list. Stop watching X-Files reruns and get outside more.” I hung up the phone before he could say anything else.
Of course, he called right back, then again, then again. I didn’t answer. The government wouldn’t waste time with him, and I decided to adopt the same policy. After four callbacks, he got the hint and stopped. Or the government found him and killed him. I had no preference.
A few minutes later, the phone rang again. I checked caller ID to make sure it wasn’t that same idiot before I answered. “Hello?” I maintained my professional tone.
“Are you C.T. Ferguson?” a woman said. “The guy with the ad?”
“Speaking. What can I do for you?”
“I need you to find someone.”
I pumped my fist at a legitimate call. “I’ll give it my best shot. Who am I looking for?” I grabbed a legal pad and a pen.
“Her name is Muffins.”
I had started to write, then stopped. “Is she a stripper?” I said.
“No, she’s a Labrador,” the lady said.
“You want me to find your dog?”
“She’s a very nice dog.”
“I’m sure she is. I like dogs, but I’m not here to find missing pets. Print out signs and staple them to telephone poles. If those don’t work, walk around your neighborhood with a whistle and a cookie.” She started to say something, but I hung up. I wondered if established detectives had to deal with crackpots, too. The advertisement of free services brought out the crazies. I hadn’t wanted this gig to begin with, but if the signal-to-noise ratio didn’t improve soon, it would be worse than I imagined.
Another few minutes went by, and the phone rang again. My professional voice started to crack under the weight of exasperation. “Hello?”
“Is this C.T. Ferguson?” the woman on the other end said.
“It is.”
“I saw your ad. I . . . I think my husband is cheating on me.”
I winced. Of course, now someone would call me and want me to poke around in some domestic matter. I wanted a juicy murder or at least an interesting burglary, not someone diddling the office secretary. How boring. I took a breath, shoved those thoughts aside, and summoned my professional voice again. “Why don’t you come in, and we can talk about it?” I gave her my address, and she gave me her name and other basics.
“I’ll be there in an hour,” she said.
It would be a long hour.
Chapter 2
I spent some of that time tidying up. In my younger days, none of my imaginings of my future life included having an office. After spending nineteen days in the Chinese prison, I wanted to keep myself busy. Plus, if I wanted any of the family money—and I did—I had to get used to having an office and having clients in it.
I used my second bedroom. The apartment boasted one large and one medium-sized bedroom. As apartments went, the rooms were spacious. My office held a desk, a small refrigerator, a high-backed leather executive chair for yours truly, and two conference chairs for prospective clients. The desk was large enough to fit a pair of 24-inch monitors, a keyboard, a color laser printer, and still leave me space to doodle, take notes, or pretend to take notes while people droned on about infidelities real and imagined. I made sure the conference chairs faced the desk, and the overhead light and ceiling fan were on.
After I put everything in order, someone knocked on the door. I looked through the peephole. A woman stood on my welcome mat, bundled up more than she needed to be against the cold. Between her coat, hood, and wool hat, I could barely see any of her face. A few stray locks of black hair spilled onto her coat. I unlocked the deadbolt and opened the door. “You’re Mrs. Fisher?” I said.
“Yes,” she said. “May I come in?”
“Of course.” I moved to the side and let her enter. She stopped, took a deep breath, and removed her gloves. I noticed she still wore her wedding ring. Years as a professional bachelor conditioned me to look for it, and it could have been important to the case. Once her gloves were off, Mrs. Fisher pulled back her hood and removed her hat. Her ovular face was rounded in the right places. It wouldn’t launch a thousand ships, but I figured it good for a solid two-fifty. Her hazel eyes already had worry lines etched around them. Her hair was shoulder-length and straight. She wore dark blue jeans and a Ravens sweatshirt under her coat.
“I’ll take your coat,” I said. She handed it to me, and I hung it in the small closet. “My office is right down the hall.” Alice followed me. I sat behind my desk and gestured to one of the conference chairs in front of it. She looked at me.
“Call me Alice,” she said. I looked back at her. Alice was no taller than five-four, but possessed an above-average figure to match her pretty face. Her clothes hid a lot, but I guessed she frequented a gym—or at least a home treadmill. She didn’t seem like a woman a man would cheat on, but I knew several fools who cheated on their very attractive wives with women they shouldn’t have glanced at a second time.
Was I supposed to say something now? Alice came to me, so it made sense she should do the talking. On the other hand, she was a guest in my office, and I was the detective. Maybe I should ask her. Why didn’t the state go over important matters like this? Alice solved my conundrum by talking.
“Like I said on the phone, I think my husband is cheating on me.”
“Why do you think so?”
“The usual signs.”
“Usual signs?”
“You know.”
“Pretend I skipped cheating husband day at detective school,” I said.
Alice sighed. “You know . . . he works late a few nights a week.” Her eyes rarely focused on one thing for more than a second or two when she talked. Even if she looked right at me, she would glance away, then at something else, then back at me. The whole thing felt disconcerting. “That started a couple months ago. He doesn’t always let me know in advance, either. Sometimes, I don’t find out until I get home and call him.”
“Did anything happen at his job around the time he started working late?”
“Like what?”
“Like a new secretary, new coworker . . . anything like those?”
“He didn’t mention anything.”
“Anything happen at home two months ago to drive him away?”
Alice shook her head. “No, nothing.”
I nodded. “What else have you noticed?”
“He’s usually evasive about where he’s been, even if it’s just work. He won’t tell me the things he worked on. I can never reach him at his desk after hours, either; I always have to call him on his cell phone.”
“So you think he’s playing grab-ass in someone else’s office.”
“Yes, I do,” Alice said with a frown. “I also noticed he had a black eye a couple weeks ago. He said it was an accident . . . someone knocked a machine door into him, or something like that.”
“Did you believe him?” I said.
“I didn’t press it.”
I thought of ways a black eye could be indicative of an affair and kept arriving at situations where Alice’s husband should have been hurt worse. “Do you know many of your husband’s coworkers?” I said. “Especially the women?”
“I’ve met most of them at holiday parties, cookouts, things like that. Most of the women there are attractive. They’re almost all friendly, too.”
“Doesn’t mean he’s sleeping with them.”
“I know.” Alice’s eyes welled with tears. “I just have this feeling he is. That after nine years, I’m not enough for him anymore.” She wiped at her eyes with the outside of
her index finger. “I need to know, either way.” I realized although my desk had many useful things atop it, a box of tissues could not be included in that number.
“Do you want a tissue?” I said.
Alice nodded and sniffed, wiping at her eyes the whole time. I got up, left the office, and went into my bathroom down the hall. I grabbed the box of tissues from atop the vanity and carried it back. As I moved behind my desk, I held the box out toward Alice. She grabbed a tissue and dabbed at her eyes with it. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I guess now that I’m talking to a detective, the reality is hitting me.”
“Don’t apologize,” I said. “I’m sure it’s a stressful situation.”
“Have you ever been married, C.T.?”
I chuckled. “No.”
Alice cracked a smile. “Yeah, you don’t strike me as the marrying type.” Alice dabbed at her eyes some more. I let her compose herself. Outside, a succession of horns honked. No matter the hour, someone drove badly in Baltimore, and three or more people had to react. Alice wiped her eyes again, blew her nose, and tossed the tissue into the wastebasket.
“Where was I?” she said.
“Telling me I wasn’t the marrying type.”
She smiled again, briefly. “Oh, right. My marriage has been great until now. This patch of uncertainty has taken a lot out of me.”
“Has your husband noticed?” It occurred to me I didn’t yet know the husband’s name. I really had to get better at this whole asking questions thing.
“If he has, he hasn’t said anything yet. I’ve tried to be a good wife and keep up the façade at home. Besides, he may not be cheating on me. I don’t need to worry him over nothing.”
“I should get some basic information from you.” I took a legal pad and pen out of the top drawer. “What’s your husband’s name?”
“Paul. Michael Paul Fisher, but he goes by Paul.”
I jotted it down. “Where does he work?”
“He works for Digital Sales. He’s an account manager.”
“Is he a glorified salesman?” I said.
Alice frowned. “I think salesmen report to him. I’m not a hundred percent sure, really.”
“You said you’ve been married nine years?”
“Yes. Nine years last month, in fact.”
“Where do you live?”
“We bought a house in Glen Burnie about ten years ago.”
“How’s the house holding value?”
“It’s not.” Alice’s eyes continued flitting to anything in the room. “We’ve lost a good bit on it since we’ve owned it.”
“So you’re underwater?”
“Yes,” she said.
I finished taking my notes. “All right, I guess I have all I need for now.”
“You’ll be in touch?” she said.
“When I know something,” I said.
“What about updates?”
“I’m not going to send you status reports, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re not paying me, and I’m not paying a secretary. When I know something, I’ll tell you.”
Alice stared at me. “That seems irregular, but I’ll trust your professional judgment. Have you worked a lot of cases like this before?”
I shook my head. “Can’t say I have, no.”
“Did you used to be a policeman?”
I winced. “God, no.”
“How did you come to be a detective, then?”
“It fits my skills.”
“I hope it does.” Alice stood. “Thank you for taking the case. With the house situation, I don’t have enough money to hire a real detective.”
I would probably have to get used to the remark. Alice realized what she said because her eyes went wide, and she shook her head. “I didn’t mean it like that,” she said. “I meant I couldn’t afford a detective who charged the going rate.”
“I understand what you mean. I offered her a smile, which she returned. “I’ll let you know when I know something.”
“All right.” I walked Alice out of the office and back to the foyer, where she fortified herself against the Alaskan winter not currently enveloping Baltimore. “I’ll be in touch if anything else comes up that might be important, she said.
“OK,” I said. “Take care.”
“Thank you.” Alice Fisher walked out of my apartment. I closed the front door behind her and locked the deadbolt. My first client. I had a case. A case about adultery, but maybe not, starring a man who just so happened to have pretty, flirty coworkers, and a wife who couldn’t look me in the eye while she recounted her sob story.
What the hell had I gotten myself into?
Chapter 3
I sat at my computer. The vast world beckoned. Alice Fisher wanted to know if her husband cheated on her. The answer was out there, and I would find it. I found a lot more sensitive information without ever leaving the comfort of my chair in Hong Kong. Finding dirt on the Fishers would be easy.
Or so I thought. I really didn’t know where to begin. Between my computer classes, things I taught myself, and what my friends in China showed me, I felt confident I could hack the CIA and misdirect the operation to some ayatollah in Iran if I had to. How could I use those skills to help the average American married couple? This wasn’t a Chinese database I was breaking into or a website we defaced for the laughs. These were regular people with regular problems.
I had the world at my fingertips and I didn’t know where to begin.
This seemed so easy when I got my license. My cousin Rich laughed at me and told me I had no experience, and this would be harder than I imagined. I scoffed at him, but right now, I couldn’t argue. I didn’t know how to investigate a case of maybe-infidelity. I knew I didn’t want to dangle out of a tree with a fish-eye lens and take pictures of Paul Fisher groping someone not his wife. All I had to do was find something worth doing in the meantime.
Alice told me a few things about her and Paul. I looked at my notepad. They lived in Glen Burnie. Home was as good a place to start as any, and didn’t even require any hacking to get their address. She said they didn’t have a lot of money by virtue of being underwater on their mortgage. A lot of people found themselves in that same situation when the housing bubble burst, and home values slid down a slippery slope. Years in, the recovery still hadn’t happened for many people.
Finding out how much they paid for their house only took a minute. I learned the Fishers spent $259,000 for their house seven years ago. Because I’d rather dive into a freshly-dug grave than live in Glen Burnie, I didn’t know how the figure jibed with the market, but it sounded reasonable. Recent comps confirmed the numbers. Now I needed their mortgage information. I wondered if American banks fortified themselves better than those in Hong Kong.
After a few minutes, I learned they didn’t. Finding out which bank held the loan took hardly any time. From there, a firewall and an intrusion detection system presented flimsy roadblocks. An IDS sounds like a great thing, and many companies rely on them. But once a hacker knows which IDS is online (and there are myriad easy ways to figure it out), bypassing or tricking them is easy. Locks only stop honest people, and IDSes only stop stupid hackers.
I brought up the Fishers’ loan. They had refinanced a year ago to take advantage of the lower rates. The loan looked normal to me. They still owed just over $236,000 in principal, made their payments on time, and could boast of a good interest rate. Why did Alice say they were underwater? Did the house lose its value? The appraisal performed for the refinance valued the Fishers’ house at $256,000. Even if it lost 10% of its value in the intervening year, my estimate still put it around $231,000, which was close to their outstanding balance.
Alice Fisher lied to me about her and her husband’s loan balance exceeding their home’s value. The lie bothered me. If they couldn’t afford a “real detective,” it had nothing to do with their mortgage. I would have to dig deeper. I wondered if either of them
had a rap sheet. If Paul got arrested for something and had to take a lesser job at work, it would explain things—and he may not have told his wife about the demotion out of pride. I wanted to see what the police knew about Paul and Alice Fisher.
I pursued the information in person.
“Are you serious?” Rich said, laughing.
So much for cooperation from the Baltimore Police and from my cousin in particular. I took a chance trying to catch Rich at his desk, and risked a bigger chance hoping he would throw me a bone. “I am,” I said. “You can share information with me. I’m a licensed private investigator.”
“Faking your background doesn’t mean you know how to solve a case,” Rich said. He looked at me with smug amusement. “If you did, you wouldn’t be here.” Rich’s desk was the most Spartan in the place, which didn’t surprise me. Only the essentials sat atop its medium cherry surface and nothing could be out of place. Rich and I both favored our fathers, so we looked a little alike, but he had a sharper, sterner face. His hair remained in the buzz cut he’d sported since before he enlisted in the Army, though some gray now mingled with the brown. His dark blue uniform looked like it had been pressed the moment before he put it on.
“I know enough to know I need more information,” I said. “I need to see if the BPD has anything on these people.”
Rich shook his head. “You’re actually working a case,” he said.
“This is my job now,” I said.
“Yeah, sure it is. We both know you’re doing this so your parents don’t disown you.”
“I don’t see what my motives have to do with anything.”
“Oh, come on, C.T.! You don’t really want to do this job, so you’re going through the motions enough to make your parents happy with you again. Then it’ll be to hell with everyone else, just like it always is with you.”
“Look, maybe helping people hasn’t always been high on my list of things to do. But right now, it’s what I’m doing, and I’m going to do it as well as I can.”
“I’d like to believe you. Really, I would. Then I remember you’re the guy who went overseas to help Chinese criminals with hacking and piracy.” I noticed a few people looking at us now. Rich’s desk sat against a wall on one side, but the other three were populated with people who had taken a sudden interest in the conversation.
