Being a private investigator is mostly as glamorous as Sam Spade’s office. What clients bring you are problems, and there is not normally anything glorified about them or about the things you need to do in order to satisfy the client. Every once in a great while, however, a case comes along that at least brings something humorous to the equation.
We had been hired by her husband (they were separated) to find out what a woman was doing when she was neglecting her kids. Back in those days, kids from a broken marriage generally went with “Mom.” This woman, though, did no laundry except for one day’s underwear for herself. She bought no food, she cooked no meals, she just went out with (and sometimes brought home) “gentlemen friends.” The ten-year-old son took money from her purse and bought and fixed sparse meals for himself and his siblings.
We needed to “get the goods” on her and document her neglect and behavior in order for the father to gain custody of the kids. He was paying for the apartment (for the kids’ sake), so he had a key. We photographed piles of dirty laundry in her bedroom, and filth throughout the apartment. (At least the older boy was ensuring his younger brother and sister ate and went to school.) What we were lacking was proof of her philandering. She was good at hiding her assignations.
We knew, though, that she was loaning out her bedroom to a friend who also was cheating on her own husband. She wasn’t talking. On one of our trips to the apartment, we placed a short-range FM “bug” in the headboard of the bed. Our intent was that, the next time the friend used it, we might hear something we could use as leverage. We spent several nights listening to no more than someone moving around the room. One early afternoon, when “Mom” was at work and the kids at school, we went in to replace the battery in the bug. Having done so, and while we were in there, we heard a man and woman enter the apartment. They’d come for some “afternoon delight!” Like in a comedy movie, we both hid in the bedroom’s closet. It wasn’t a long performance; they were all over each other from the time the apartment door closed. (Now, while we couldn’t see anything, we could hear everything.) The pertinent part was after they’d finished. He apparently laid back and said, “God must’ve taken a vitamin pill before he created you!” (We snickered only internally.)
The next day, we approached the woman at work – she was a waitress – and tried to find out where “Mom” was having her dalliances. The waitress stonewalled us…until I said, “Does this sound familiar? ‘God must’ve taken a vitamin pill before he created you’?” (We told her we had it on tape, but we didn’t.) After the blood returned to her face, she told us everything we needed to know.
With the evidence we subsequently collected, the father was able to get custody of the kids.
We made one final trip to the apartment to retrieve the useless bug.
flamingdarts 