The Case of the Flashing Fashion Queen

“But you don’t think so anymore?”

I heard her pull a tissue from the box strategically placed on my desk.

“He has a mistress. I’m one hundred percent sure he does.”

“You’ve seen her?”

“Oh, yes. Many times.” Her words were muffled through the Kleenex she held to her face, but in my job you get used to tissue-speak.

I was beginning to think Jennifer Weatherby needed a divorce lawyer more than she needed a private dick. The vision of the five thousand dollars growing wings and flying away popped into my head. If she was that sure her Ned was cheating, why did she need me to gather the proof? “Do you have a name?”

She looked up at me startled. “Er, I told you, Jennifer Weatherby.”

“No, I mean, do you have a name of the other woman.”

She sat up straight. “No, no name. But I’ve seen her many times. She drives by the house all hours of the day and night. Once when I was out in the front garden having my tea, she slowed her car down, and stared back at me.”

I was beginning to have real doubts about this client. “That really doesn’t mean—”

“And I’ve seen them coming out of a motel together. The Underhill Motel.”

“The Underhill?”

She nodded, anxiously. “Yes, I was out shopping one day and saw Ned leaving there with this … this floozy.”

‘Floozy’. That word always struck me funny and I bit down on my lip to kill the giggle. I always pictured an intoxicated duck whenever I heard it.

I knew the place. The Underhill Motel was one of the older motels in the city, known for its cheap rooms and its hourly rates. A lot of the call girls work out of it. I made a mental note to check with some of my contacts. But it struck me that whatever Ned Weatherby was up to, and whomever he was up to it with, he apparently wasn’t out to impress them — not at the Underhill.

“Is it possible,” I asked, “that your husband was employing a prostitute? Maybe this was just a one-time thing? Not a mistress but a—”

“No! Absolutely not! I’m sure she’s more than just a prostitute. She loves Ned. She has to love Ned. I mean, who wouldn’t love my Neddy-bear.”

I looked down on the doodles on the legal pad — tight circles usually grouped in two, and ladders going to nowhere. Something that looked like demonic chicken tracks. No, wait … those were webbed feet. Duck tracks, then, wending crazily around the bottom corner of the page. And one big, block lettered word — NOTACHANCE.

Well, now it was a word.

I had serious doubts about this case. Usually clients wanted proof and confirmations of suspicions. Mrs. Weatherby appeared to have both. The other angle, I knew, would be that she wanted blackmail material. And, okay, though it wasn’t my favorite thing to participate in, it did up the ante a bit more. “What is it you’re looking for from me then, Mrs. Weatherby? I mean, if you’re sure Ned is cheating, what can I do to help you out?”

“I want you to follow Ned for a week. I want his every move documented. His whereabouts recorded.

“Here’s what you need.” The Flashing Fashion Queen snapped open her purse and dumped its contents onto my desk. Holy Hannah. I could not believe what this woman toted around. Six paper- wrapped tampons (in different sizes, no less), four different shiny tubes of lipstick, foundation, blush…. There were packages of bobby pins and even a small can of hair spray. The woman was a walking feminine first-aid kit. Of course, among the jumble was an envelope marked for Dix Dodd. This she handed to me as she began piling the rest back into her purse.

“I’ve enclosed Ned’s itinerary for this week. Or rather what he says he’ll be doing this week. And I need you to photograph him everywhere.”

“When he’s with another woman?”

“Even when he’s not.”

I looked at her skeptically. Now the winged five thou was flying above my head twittering, ‘Catch me if you can!’

“I know my husband, Ms. Dodd. And I love him desperately.”

“But if he’s—”

She handed me the second envelope — this one pulled from a deep pocket of her purple dress. “That’s five thousand dollars. And there’ll be five thousand more at the end of the week. That’s ten grand for one week’s work, Ms. Dodd. Surely, that’s worth a few extra rolls of film. And a few less questions.”

Surely it was. I picked up the package.

“I just have one question, Jennifer. What does this woman … this other woman, look like?”

She swallowed hard, and wet her lips. “She’s … she’s about your height. Slender. Blond hair, hazel eyes.”

Hazel eyes? How close of a look had Jennifer Weatherby gotten?

“Oh, I forgot to tell you, she’s threatened me. Several times she’s called the house telling me she wanted me out of the way.”

I blinked, then stared at her. “This might be a matter for the police then, Jennifer.”

“No, it’s a matter for you, Dix. I have faith in you.

Chapter 2

To say I did the happy dance when Jennifer Weatherby left my office would be the understatement of the year. I did the cookie-dough-right-out-of-the-package two step, the I-got-the-pool-to-myself cha cha cha.

Ten thousand dollars in cold, hard cash for a single week’s work! And five of it already warming my pocket.

This would be my biggest payday ever. And all I had to do was follow one of Marport City’s most successful citizens around for a week. From what I knew of Ned Weatherby, I really didn’t think I’d be digging up all that much dirt, but what the heck? Despite his reputation for being a bastard in business, he didn’t have one for being a bastard with the ladies. But it was Jennifer’s money. And for ten large, I’d give the lady what she wanted. Lots and lots of pictures. Documentation. Proof was in the pudding, as they say. I just wasn’t so very sure the pudding was going to be licked off any interesting body parts.

According to the itinerary she’d left me, Jennifer Weatherby wanted me to start checking out her husband that very night. That gave me just hours to get my digital camera ready, the voice recorder charged. We only had two other cases on the go, and I left them in Dylan’s capable hands. I even managed to sneak in a few hours sleep before I started what I assumed would be a long, boring case. A long, boring week.

For the most part, it was just that. When Ned was home with Jennifer, I dozed in vehicles (the various cars and vans I borrowed from those who owed me favors, or those to whom I was now indebted), always parking nearby so that when Mr. Weatherby left, Dix Dodd was on his tail. I lived on greasy fast food and coffee so mean it spit back.

Thanks to a listening device Mrs. Weatherby volunteered to plant on the phone in her husband’s den (the legality of which was questionable, strictly speaking), I recorded conversations between Ned Weatherby and his mother (loved the flowers dear but you really shouldn’t have), Ned and his old army buddies (did men never outgrow toilet humor?), his lawyer Jeremy Poole, whom I’d heard of, his accountant Tucker Flaherty, whom I’d never heard of, and three conversations with an unfortunate caterer — a Mr. Kenny Kent — who just couldn’t seem to get it right. And I recorded endless conversations between Ned and his secretary Luanne