New River Breeze

by Ed Robinson

  Camp claimed that he was visiting a daughter that he never knew he had until recently. She’d learned about him through a relative’s home DNA test and subsequent family tree research. Camp’s affair with her mother was long before he’d ever met his wife. The girl was destitute, so he was paying for the apartment and trying to help her get on her feet, all without his wife’s knowledge. All of this was relayed to us through Rominger, including the girl’s address. We made a call on her and confirmed the details. Camp wasn’t cheating on his wife or participating in any other unseemly deeds. He was a good guy after all, which was heartening. Finally, we could move on.

  All of which made me revisit the Ed Pennington affair. That failure was still dangling out there, waiting to be resolved. I should have let it go. Our new venture was becoming lucrative and keeping us busy. There was no need for me to go tromping about in the woods of Ashe County in search of a man I couldn’t possibly catch. He’d find his way home when it got cold, or get caught some other way before then. I couldn’t worry about him too much. I had marital statuses to mend and rend.

  Bill had been a member of the Elks for decades. He went to the lodge every Thursday night, except now he wasn’t showing up at the meetings. He was diddling his mistress at the Best Western instead. Tom was spending some of his lunch hours at a trailer park outside of Boone. The young girl he was boinking was almost attractive, in a trailer trash kind of way. Jim was hooking up with his side chick behind a bar in Blowing Rock. They shared a few drinks after their automobile gymnastics were finished. Joe went right to the home of his second squeeze while her husband was supposed to be playing golf. The husband carried his clubs to the car and promptly drove to his girlfriend’s house. We caught it all on camera, documenting times and places. None of them thought they’d ever be followed or watched.

  We also tailed men who weren’t cheating. One guy was driving to Tennessee to shoot his frustrations at paper targets at the gun range. Another would grab an hour or two of fly fishing once in a while on his way home from work. One stopped at a bud’s house, where they’d drink a couple of beers while puttering with an old hotrod in the garage and bitching about their wives. We left the last part out of our report. A man needs to vent now and then. I suppose a woman does too.

  We charged seventy-five dollars per hour, plus mileage and expenses. The mileage fees added up quickly. We also asked for a fifteen hundred dollar retainer to begin each case. It acted as a non-refundable deposit for services to be rendered. In the rare event that the final bill did not exceed, we kept the difference but offered the remainder towards a future case. We did not expect to be rehired by the same client once our work for them was finished. Therefore the minimum to hire us was fifteen hundred. Not once did any client balk at paying the fee. Those with guilty spouses felt justified in paying it, especially if the cheating husband was the breadwinner. Those whose husbands were found to be faithful were grateful that they’d been wrong about him. A few even held it over the heads of their girlfriends who weren’t so fortunate.

  Later in the summer, we finally got a call from a husband suspicious of his wife. He frequently traveled for his job. She was young and pretty. Once she had been downright joyous when he returned from a business trip, but now she didn’t muster as much enthusiasm. He paid us the retainer and promised to alert us the next time he had to leave town.

  We got his call a few weeks later. We’d already driven by his house, the wife’s hairdresser, the country club and anywhere else he thought she might travel during his absence. He advised that the hairdresser was flamboyantly gay, so that wasn’t a part of his worry. He doubted that she could get away with anything at the club without word getting out fast. We asked about credit or debit cards that we could track for questionable expenses. He said that she got a cash allowance each month, and all the household bills were taken care of by his accountant. So the young and pretty wife had paper money to use for her elicit purposes if there were any. We began shadowing the woman the day he left for Atlanta.

  We spent two days following her to the grocery store, the yogurt place, and antique shops. On the third day, Monica drove her white Lexus into a residential neighborhood and parked it in the driveway of a modest home. We couldn’t see whoever it was that greeted her at the door, but she was invited in quickly. She was in there for one hour. Just as she came out, another car pulled in and parked beside her. An equally attractive woman got out, and the two passed each other. If Monica’s lover lived there, he had a second caller immediate following her appointment.

  “That’s odd,” Brody said. “If they were screwing the guy, all sorts of fur would have been flying just then.”

  “It looked like they exchanged a polite greeting to me,” I said.

  “We need to find out who lives in that house.”

  “We’ve got to stay on her tail for now,” I said. “Next time, we’ll stay and watch the next woman come out.”

  Monica got her nails done that afternoon. She stopped at the market for some fruit and vegetables. She went home. We spent another week watching her run errands until it was time to visit the mystery man again. She showed up at the same time and left at the same time. The other woman we’d seen the prior week arrived a few minutes later and went inside. After she came out, a third woman appeared. She also spent an hour in the house. This dude had more stamina than I could imagine. I had to know who he was.

  We used our connections and publicly available records to pin him down. His name was Vince, and he was a personal trainer. He was running his business out of his house, and as far as anyone could tell, it was perfectly legitimate. We’d let our imaginations and human tendency to expect the worst get the better of us. So far, Monica had done nothing wrong. I called her husband to report in and ask a few questions. Did his home have a security system and cameras? We couldn’t watch the place around the clock so we wouldn’t necessarily know if she took visitors. He said no one could come or go without him knowing, or finding out later. Did he want us to continue? If so, we’d need another retainer soon. He agreed to one more round but said he’d call it quits when the second retainer ran out. We continued to follow Monica as she went about the business of being a wealthy housewife.

  We wasted a few more days before I felt compelled to call the husband.

  “Are you sure you want us to keep going?” I asked. “We feel like we’re wasting our time and your money.”

  “Did you ever have a gut feeling that you couldn’t dismiss?” he asked.

  “Sure,” I said. “Is that the basis of your suspicion?”

  “I feel like something is wrong,” he said. “There’s no evidence, just my gut talking to me.”

  “I can appreciate that,” I said. “We’ll step up our game. I’ll let you know.”

  We took half a day to go back to all the places that Monica visited regularly. We checked them all for back exits or other access to the street that we couldn’t see from out front. Both the nail and hair salon had back doors that led to employee parking, behind strip malls. The yogurt shop had no such exit. The last piece of the puzzle was the physical trainer’s house. It had to have a back door, but where did it lead?

  We drove around the block a few times until we located the backside of the trainer’s home. It shared a backyard with a home on a different street. There was no fence between them, and the other house was vacant. A “for sale” sign was posted in the yard. We went back to tailing our suspect, and one of us watched her home throughout the night. Nothing happened there that we could see. When Monica made a move, we followed. When she entered a business, one of us kept an eye on the back door. When she went into Vince’s house, we drove around the block and stationed ourselves within sight of the vacant home.

  Monica walked out of the narrow side yard and was immediately picked up by a grey Ford SUV. We tailed it to another home nearby, where our subject and a tall, handsome man went inside. They emerged about forty minutes later. The man dropped her off at the vacant h
ouse. We quickly drove around the block again and watched her come out of the trainer’s place and get into her car. The mystery had been solved. Miss Monica was stepping out while her husband was away; maybe even when he was home. She’d been good at covering her tracks, but we’d cracked the code.

  I told you that women were more devious than men. She’d gone to great lengths to conceal her affair. The only person that knew was Vince, and he was probably being paid his normal fee to keep his mouth shut. We had Rominger run the tag on the Ford. It came back as belonging to Foster Jones. Monica’s lover owned a chain of convenience stores and had some free time during the day.

  I gave the bad news to our client, including the man’s name and address. He took it stoically but promised to send us a bonus for our extra effort.

  “Sorry, man,” I said.

  “No problem,” he said. “You did what I asked you to do.”

  Somehow I felt worse for our first male client than I had for the women who’d been cheated on. I knew that was chauvinistic, but I couldn’t help how I felt.

  “Should I feel guilty for feeling his pain more than the women’s?” I asked Brody.

  “We’re dealing with the upper crust of Banner Elk society,” she said. “All the women are totally supported by their men. The man is successful and wealthy, and maybe he grabs a piece on the side now and then. The women don’t work, enjoy all the luxuries they could ever want and are expected to turn a blind eye. In Monica’s case, she was enjoying all the advantages of a wealthy husband, but she was the one who wasn’t faithful. I can draw a distinction there. She was ungrateful.”

  “He is gone a lot,” I said, backpedaling a little.

  “No excuse,” Brody said. “But cheating is cheating, whether it’s the man or the woman or who pays the bills. They are supposed to be partners in life.”

  “Like us,” I said.

  “Exactly.”

  “Infidelity is probably older than prostitution,” she said. “One of the uglier sides of human nature.”

  “Man evolves, but the inner animal can never be fully erased.”

  “The inner horn dog,” she said. “Male or female.”

  I found the whole business depressing. I asked Brody if we could take a break from busting cheaters, even though the money was good. She told the next few callers that we were booked for the foreseeable future. We took some time off to go trout fishing, hike to waterfalls, and generally enjoy what life in the mountains had to offer. My legs were feeling much better. In fact, I was feeling healthier overall. Brody attributed this to abstaining from hard liquor and cutting back on the beer. I couldn’t argue with her logic. I had regained a spring in my step and had an improved outlook on life.

  I kept that positive attitude and even started working out a little. I’d drive down the mountain to Valle Crucis and walk the trails in the park at a brisk pace. I used the kid’s swing set for pull-ups and did my pushups in the grass. When I was finished, I’d toss a line in the Watauga River. Eventually, I started running again, and my knees didn’t complain. I was beating back Old Man Time, holding off the aging process for a later date.

  We were enjoying the High Country again, but there was one little loose end that began to nag me anew. We’d taken an interest in Ed Pennington then gotten sidetracked. I brought it up over dinner with Brody.

  “You realize that we made a complicated diagnosis of a man we’ve never met,” I said. “We’re not qualified to call it Asperger’s or any other kind of autism. What if he’s just a fucked up individual? An asshole?”

  “His coach thought he was an asshole, but still had a soft heart about him,” she said. “He must have some redeeming qualities.”

  “His mother loves him,” I said. “But I suppose Charlie Manson’s mom loved him too.”

  “Our guy isn’t a killer,” she said. “He’s a food thief. He’s surviving the only way he knows how. You made friends with the Beech Mountain Hermit. Not much difference.”

  “That guy depended on remaining invisible,” I said. “Pennington depends on being able to outrun everyone. Plus he ruined all those tents in a hissy fit. There’s an edge to him like he might hurt somebody.”

  “What do they say about cornered rats?”

  “I can’t help but think some camper is going to jump him eventually and he’ll kick the crap out of them to avoid capture,” I said. “He can’t cope with other people. He’s cast himself out of society, yet he depends on other people for food. It won’t end well.”

  “What can we do?”

  “I don’t know yet,” I admitted. “But it’s bothering me. I’m going to give it some more thought.”

  “I’ll call his mom.”

  I called the Ashe County Sheriff.

  “What’s going on at the campgrounds lately?” I asked.

  “Looks like your boy has moved south,” he said. “He’s operating outside the park boundaries.”

  “South?”

  “There’s a whole string of campgrounds surrounding the Thurmond Chatham Wildlife Area,” he said. “Minor reports spread out amongst them. Food missing, a knife stolen, shit like that.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “At least we know he’s still alive.”

  “What’s your interest in this anyway?” the Sheriff asked.

  “His mother asked us to look out for him if we could.”

  “She hired you?”

  “Not exactly,” I said. “If we do anything, it will be on our own dime.”

  “Highway Patrol is driving through there once a night,” he said. “But that’s not much of a help. We can’t post guards at a half-dozen different campgrounds every night.”

  “I understand,” I said. “Appreciate the info.”

  Fifteen

  Mrs. Pennington spoke to Brody’s softer side, practically begging us to do something; anything, to get her son to come home. Brody couldn’t offer her any guarantees. We didn’t know that we could help at all, or even if we wanted to invest our energies into a solution. Ed was a tough one. I’d tracked people down, even in life-threatening situations, but none of them had the speed or stamina of this guy. I could track him all I wanted, but if I couldn’t catch up to him, it wouldn’t make much of a difference.

  My only remaining option was to sneak up to him. If I could go full stealth and quietly move in, maybe I’d have a chance. My fear with that plan was the fight that might ensue. How could I prevent him from running away? All he needed was a moment of separation, and he’d be gone in a flash. Pouncing on him in his sleep was one thing. Restraining him was something else all together. Two of us might be able to lasso his feet, but that would mean Brody would have to move as quietly as I did. Her ability to move like smoke was not on the same level as mine. Asking her to crawl through the woods for many hours, maybe even days, seemed out of the question.

  Another option was to use Red somehow. Red could certainly trail the man to the ends of the Earth, but what then? I’d have to keep up with him, or at least stay close enough to move in once he cornered his target. It all led to a physical showdown with an unpredictable opponent. I didn’t want to hurt him, and I didn’t want to get hurt myself. I didn’t know how to talk to him or what to say once I confronted him. His potential disability made him different from the average man. There was no way to know how he would react.

  I kept spinning all these different scenarios around in my head, searching for one that would end peacefully. The more I thought about it, the more I felt that I had to do something, but that led me no closer to a plan that gave me confidence. I’d gotten comfortable bouncing ideas off of Brody, so that’s what I did. As usual, she got right to the heart of the situation.

  “You’ve lost a step,” she said. “You couldn’t run down that Belmonti guy because your knees gave out on you. You’re not twenty-something anymore. So now you’re hesitant. You need to get that mountain man cockiness back. Use your wits and wisdom to overcome youth and inexperience.”

  “Beat him in the wo
ods,” I said. “Outsmart him somehow.”

  “That’s your sweet spot these days,” she said. “You’ve got to own that mountain like you’ve done before. Refuse to be beaten.”

  “That gives me an idea,” I said. “Thanks for the inspiration.”

  “You want to share?”

  “Not yet,” I said. “I’ve got to get my head right. I’ll need my mountain Zen clothes.”

  “Can I wash them like I wanted to?”

  “All that rain should be sufficient,” I said. “Nothing more natural than that.”

  “Hanging clothes on a bush in the rain is not the same as a good washing.”

  “After this,” I said. “One more time, and then you can have at it.”

  “It’s like a good luck charm for you, isn’t it?”

  “Makes me think of Pop and how he moved in the woods,” I said. “He was a true ghost.”

  “Have you been up there to his cave lately?”

  “It’s been a while,” I said. “We’ve been busy elsewhere.”

  “Maybe you should hike up there,” she said. “Get back to your roots.”

  “Good idea,” I said. “I think you understand more than you let on.”

  “Become one with the mountain,” she said. “That will straighten you out.”

  “It will be a good practice run,” I said. “You’re so smart.”

  “I’ve got to earn my keep somehow,” she said. “Because I’m not going out into the wilderness with you. That’s your bag.”

  The clothes that I liked to wear to sneak about the woods were as crusty as week old bread, and maybe a little moldy too. I had to break down and let Brody wash them in baking soda. I wouldn’t let her put them in the dryer, though. I hung them up outside so they could breathe in the fresh mountain air. I got out my lightest backpack and started choosing items for a trip up McGuire Mountain. Red was quite interested in what I was doing.

  “Sorry, buddy,” I said. “I’m going it alone this time.”