Back To The Stars: ROMANCE: ALIEN (Alien Invasion Abduction SciFi Romance) (Fantasy Anthologies & Collections) (7 page)

Chapter 7:

I don’t care who you are, nobody says to themselves when they’re a kid: You know what, when I grow up, I want to be a private investigator. Most kids want to be firemen, an astronaut, a movie star, a fairy princess, a superhero (You know, because they’re little kids haven’t quite figured out that neither of those last two things are real.). But none of them say: I want to work at a fast food restaurant, I want to be a certified public accountant, I want to be a garbage man, I want to be a private detective. Because at their impressionable ages, the world is wide open, their’s for the taking. Reality has yet to crash in on them yet and punch them right in the nose and laugh at their dreams.

Me, I wanted to be Police just like my grandpa and my dad. Whenever I said this when I was 5 or 6 years old, dad and grandpa would light up with huge smiles and dad would ruffle my thick head of curly red hair and say:

“You keep dreaming, Laurie-girl. Keep dreaming and that’s just what you’ll be.”

Of course, at the time dad was God and so was grandpa, and I had no idea either one of them was so dirty that it would completely queer my chances of ever becoming a police officer. Hell, their reputations soiled the Morris name so much that there was no way I could even become a meter maid.

But here’s the reason why no kid will every say I want to be a private detective when they grow up. Picture this scene:

You’re sitting in your piece of crap 2003 Toyota sedan—which, by the way, you’re sitting in because you can’t afford a newer more comfortable car—and you’ve been sitting in it for the past 12 hours drinking cup-after-cup of bad gas station coffee, puffing on your e-cigarette wishing it was a real one—it’s been 2-years-3-months-and-6-days since my last one, and since smoking was my only vice, I come at it like a booze hound would, one torturous day at a time—and you only ever leave your crappy Toyota to use the bathroom (And if for some reason you can’t make it to the bathroom, you have 4 empty large gatorade bottles waiting. Yeah, I know, you probably didn’t need to hear that.) and to buy refills of the crappy coffee. As far as food is concerned, you have a cooler full of PB’n’J’s and a half a bag of generic, store brand potato chips. You eat like this for the same reason you’re driving the crappy sedan, you’re broke and don’t have enough money to buy a terrible pre-made deli sandwich from the gas station.

The reason you’re doing this is because a weepy suburban wife came to your offices clutching a wad of tissue, her face teary and gummed up with dried snot. You can tell at one time she was quite beautiful. In fact, when she was in high school and college, she was probably the type of girl who made fun of girl’s like you because you weren’t stick thin and had real curves like a woman is supposed to have. But, now that she’s approaching middle age and has popped a few kids out, that once pristine size 2 waist has now ballooned to a size 12 and she’s sagging and aging just like the rest of us. You can’t help but gloat a little bit even as you hand her more tissue.

She’s in such a state because her former college sweetheart and husband of 15 some odd years has been coming home later and later every night over the past couple of months. Which, at first, didn’t bother her all that much because he had accepted a promotion at work that gave him a significant pay bump and would require him to work some extra hours. She didn’t mind this because all of their kids were in private school, the mortgage for their McMansion is $3000 a month, and their credit cards were maxed to the hilt because of retail therapy and the suburban sport of keeping up with the Jones. So, obviously, the promotion was more than welcome. At least until the reality of the extra hours set in, and she ended up never seeing her husband.

He worked until well after 9 PM on the weekdays—sometimes even later—he worked weekends, and the job had him out of town and traveling at least 1 week a month. Yes, the money was nice, but she didn’t have a husband anymore, their children didn’t have a father. Plus, all the extra hours he was working were starting to worry her. How was all this extra responsibility affecting his health and mental well-being? But the fact was, she really wasn’t too concerned about his health and stress levels, she was worried about how his promotion was affecting her, and how it was most affecting her was that he hadn’t touched her in months. And because of this, she was starting to wonder if he really was working all those extra hours? She started wondering if maybe, just maybe, he was having an affair? Maybe with one of his co-workers, maybe his personal assistant, who knows? But she wants you to find out no matter the time or cost.

You take the job—insisting on a $2000 retainer in cash because you know her credit is an absolute wreck—and here you are, sitting in your crappy 13-year-old sedan, noshing stale sandwiches, slurping cold coffee, and contemplating relieving yourself in one of your Gatorade bottles because you know that the possibly cheating husband is due to leave work and you don’t want to miss him pulling out of the underground garage you’re parked in.

Yeah, this is the glamorous life of a private detective, kids, and the only reason you dream about this kind of life is because all of your other dreams have been crushed under the heel of reality. No Johnny and Joanie, you’re not going to be an astronaut or the president. You’re going to be a garbage man or an accounts payable clerk when you grow up if you’re lucky. If you’re unlucky, you’ll end up just like me. Trust me, I know I sound bitter, but this is the life of a modern PI. I don’t track down murderers, I don’t squirrel after missing persons. I shadow cheating husbands and wives and when I’m not doing that, I’m running background checks for large corporations who are too cheap to hire someone in house—which is most of them—to do it.

Oh, and I think about smoking cigarettes, a lot.

I’ve been on this particular cheating husband for a little over a week now. His name is Stephen Marsh and he’s the VP of Human Resources for his company, Myriad Software. And his wife is pretty much as I described her, except she’s closer to a size 24 as opposed to a size 12, and I can completely understand why Mr. Marsh hasn’t touched her in months. Because simply put, Mrs. Marsh is what you would call a dragon lady. Sure, she’s a bit on the hefty side, but otherwise, she’s gorgeous, at least on the outside. On the inside, well, she’s pure demon. She’s a bitch on wheels, she’s an absolute—and cover your ears if this word makes you uncomfortable—cunt, and trust me, I rarely use the C-word to describe anyone, but it fits her to a T.

And despite what she thinks of Mr. Marsh, after a week of following him, I’m pretty sure that he’s not cheating on his wife, he just can’t stand being around her, which I don’t blame him one damn bit. However, because he’s so straight laced, my whole week has been duller than a soccer game or a football game or whatever. Mr. Marsh is very regimented in his routines. He arrives at work at around 6:30 AM—a full 3 hours before anyone else arrives—he then works until around 12:30 and walks to a sandwich shop around the corner from the office, orders the same thing—a turkey club on wheat with extra mayo—every day, then brings it back to the office. Mr. Marsh then works—only breaking once to order take out, usually Chinese or pizza—until around 8:30, and then heads home. The past four days have been exactly the same without deviation, and I’m expecting tonight and tomorrow—Yeah, the guy even comes in on Saturday—will be exactly the same. Sure, it’s easy money and I won’t be breaking up a marriage, but it wouldn’t be so bad if Mr. Marsh mixed it up a bit for my amusement.

But, like clock work, here he came. Mr. Marsh isn’t a bad looking guy by any means. He’s around 6’3, maybe clocks in at around 200 well developed pounds—I don’t know when he finds the time to work out? I figure his company offers an onsite gym?—but there’s this quality about him that I don’t know how to describe? Maybe it’s a look of defeat, or longing, or loneliness, or maybe it’s a combination of all three? I mean, obviously his home life isn’t all that great, particularly considering who he’s married to. Or maybe it’s the same quality I find in myself: Defeat, resignation, and I can’t help but feel a bit of a bond with him because of this. Or maybe I’m doing nothing but projecting myself onto him? Maybe he’s perfectly content with his workaholic lifestyle and his raging bitch of a wife?

I duck low in the driver’s seat of my car as he steps into his top of the line BMW—which just happens to be a company car, one of his many perks of being upper management at the second largest software developers in the world—and he goes through his usual shuffle: Briefcase in the backseat, moonroof open, fiddle with the radio until he finds the  sports talk channel he listens to every night, then he’s off and heading for the exit.

I wait two minutes, manage to kick my heap to life, and roll out behind him. Normally I wouldn’t wait two minutes to start following a tail, but I know Marsh isn’t going to deviate from his route.

And sure enough, I spot him a block away from his office heading to the I-10 offramp. I close the gap from 7 cars to 3 once we hit the freeway. The 10 is Friday night busy, not exactly bumper-to-bumper, but slow enough that I have to ease back a bit so he doesn’t notice me. Although, considering that I’ve been following him all week and he hasn’t picked up on me, I could probably ride his bumper and he would just chock me up as some asshole. But why take that chance other than it would amuse the hell out of me for 30 or 40 seconds. Traffic moves along at 45 miles an hour, and for the first time in the 5 days I’ve had him under surveillance, Marsh makes an unexpected move and pulls off the freeway. I’m so surprised by the move that I end up cutting off a few cars to stay behind him.

Where we pull off is mostly nothing but an industrial area. Lots of warehouses, machine shops, and vacant lots waiting to have a warehouse planted on it. Oh, and there also happens to be a half-a-dozen strip clubs. Each vibes sleazy and security as the parking lots are surrounded by chainlink and topped with concentre wire. Marsh pulled his Beemer into the lot of the only seemingly "classy" joint of the strip, a club called Cougartown. Apparently he was into ogling women his own age instead of the borderline jail bait most of these places usually featured. I have to admit,  I was gaining a little respect for the guy, he wasn't as much of stiff as he let on. The lot was fairly large and there were enough cars parked in it that I could have blended in, but it also had a couple of beefy security guards doing rounds, and I imagined they would probably have a fit if I just parked, so I pulled in across the street and settled in, hoping that security wouldn't notice me.

I figured I would be sticking it out for the long haul while Marsh unwound from his week, but 30 minutes later, I spotted him heading out of the exit and he wasn't alone. I'll be the first to admit, when I think of a "cougar" I typically think of a woman over the age of 40.  But the woman who was trailing Marsh looked like she was a couple of months shy of her 15th birthday. But then again, ever since I turned 30, just about anyone under the age of 25 looked 12-years-old to me. Marsh was a gentleman and opened the passenger side door for his friend and then he jogged around  to the driver's side like a marathon runner crossing the finish line, and he pulled out of the lot like a Nascar driver.

Gotcha.

Marsh jumped on the freeway again and headed for friendlier environs; friendly environs being a no tell motel 5 miles down the road. I love no tell's, mostly because all of them are single story and haven't been updated for the last 20 years. The place Marsh selected looked like it had been built in the 50's and had all the charm of the Bates Motel. I almost expected to see some screwy guy dressed up like his mom working the front desk. Marsh rented a room at the far end of the lot and escorted his "date" inside. I couldn't believe my luck. Sometimes that’s just how a case works out, you spend 60 hours doing nothing but sitting and feeling your ass get fat, and then everything falls into place.

I had snapped pictures of Marsh going into the strip club, coming out of it with his little friend, and then walking into the room with her, too. But most family court judges—and most clients for that matter—want to see more than just walking to and from places. They want physical contact, they want bodies pressed against bodies, and the more explicit, the better. Which meant getting out of the car and shooting some peeper shots. I open the car door and almost fell on my face as I stepped out. Both of my legs were numb and going on pints and needles. That’s probably the biggest problem you face while doing surveillance, your body starts to atrophy. After 12 hours, your muscles turn to jelly and you aren’t much good for anything other than pushing the gas pedal and the break pedal, but if you have to make a run for it, forget about it, you’re toast.

Luckily, I’d only been in the car for around 10 hours, so my legs had a little bit of get up and go, I just needed to rub the pins and needles out of them before I went creeping up on Marsh’s little love nest. Hopefully I wouldn’t be noticed and wouldn’t have to do any running, but you never knew. Once I was feeling somewhat normal on two legs, I grabbed my night vision lens from the trunk just in case my loving couple turned out the lights. But my guess was that Marsh only did that with his dragon lady when he worked himself up enough to lay a finger on her, but he’d most likely want to see his “date” in all of her young and toned glory.

I started walking towards the office, but once I was  close enough to the building, I ducked into the shadows and made the slow walk down to Marsh’s unit. Every door I passed, I could hear the sound of couples getting tangled up and sweaty in sheets, or having their asses spanked, backs whipped, and God knows what else. My only hope was that Marsh wasn’t into the same kind of kink I was hearing and he was just having plain old vanilla ice cream cone sex. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case.