to start his canvass of local hospitals, but he needed to square this away first. He also considered calling Susan, but in his current state of mind he wasn’t sure what good it would do either of them, so he passed.
He thumbed through Aurelio’s address book while he waited. It was fairly organized, with names, addresses, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses written in a cribbed hand. Behr recognized many of the names as students from the school. There were a lot of Brazilian names as well, and information that showed they still lived in Aurelio’s home country. One thing that caught his eye was about half a dozen entries that weren’t names but just initials. There was a “CC,” a “D,” an “F,” a “P,” an “R,” and an “LB.” There were corresponding phone numbers he would run down as soon as he could.
Shipman’s Impala pulled into the lot. The CPA spotted him and waved, then parked. Behr put away the address book and was getting out of the car when his phone rang.
“Yeah?” Behr answered.
“Mr. Behr,” a sixtyish female with a highly professional manner began, “my name is Ms. Swanton. I’m calling from Mr. Potempa’s office at the Caro Group…” Behr was surprised. The Caro Group was a high-end investigation and security-consulting firm started by a few ex-FBI and Secret Service guys twenty-five years back. Between some early results and good marketing, they had built their business to a dozen offices in the largest U.S. cities, and a bunch of international outposts. Clients liked the way they swarmed in when hired on a case, with their dark suits and the shiny black wingtips that were known as their unofficial signature in the industry. “Mr. Potempa would like to speak with you about a matter. Are you available to meet?” she asked.
“Not now,” Behr said.
“What about this afternoon or evening?” she asked.
“Probably not,” he answered.
“Tomorrow morning then, first thing?” she said with persistence. “It’s a priority matter.”
“Fine,” Behr said, closing his car door and walking toward the accountant, “fine.”
“Good. Say eight o’clock? Do you know where our offices are?” she asked.
“I’ll find it.”
“Thank you, Mr.-” Behr hung up, as the willow-thin Ship-man fished a briefcase out of his backseat and crossed toward him, head bobbing while he walked. As he drew closer, Behr saw that the accountant had dark circles under his eyes. They’d grown deeper and darker in the two weeks since their last meeting, and it wasn’t tax season, so that wasn’t the reason. Shipman had hired Behr to follow his wife, Mrs. Laurie Shipman, whom he suspected of having an affair.
It wasn’t the kind of work Behr preferred, but things had been slow. He’d taken a five-thousand-dollar retainer, which would have made it somewhat worthwhile, but now Behr was doing the ridiculous: he was returning twenty-two hundred of it instead of milking it down to zero. If any of his colleagues heard about it, they would laugh him right out of the clubhouse, where the motto was a twist on the old Ernest and Julio Gallo tagline: “Solve no crime before its time”-i.e., before the client has been billed to death.
“Hello, Frank,” Shipman said as he reached Behr.
“Hey, Wells,” Behr said. Over the past two weeks, Behr had confirmed that Shipman’s wife, a vivacious brunette, had spent time outside the gym with her trainer, Jake, a buffed-out twenty-five-year-old with a spray-on tan. Laurie was the trainer’s last client of the day on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and they would go for a Starbucks after the workout. And it was true those little meetings stretched for close to two hours.
He’d followed each of them alternately when they would separate and leave the coffee shop. The trainer went to the supermarket one night when they were done. She went to the mall on two occasions. Jake went to the movies on the last night. Behr had entered the theater, sat two rows behind him, but no one had come to meet him. Behr followed the guy home and put him to bed that night, and no one had showed up there either. Especially Laurie Shipman.
“What’s up, Frank? You got something? Pictures, something?” Shipman asked.
“No. No pictures. Wells, I’m gonna have to wrap it up on your case.”
“Really? So no pictures?”
“No.”
“You got a report or-”
“I don’t have time to prepare one, and there’s not much to put in it,” Behr said. “I can’t confirm your suspicions.”
“Not acceptable,” Shipman said.
“What does she tell you she’s doing after the gym?”
“Going out for a coffee with her trainer, then doing some shopping.”
“Well, that’s what she’s doing.” Behr filled him in on the details.
Shipman frowned. His disappointment seemed to outweigh any relief. “I need you to keep at it,” the CPA pleaded. “It’s been going on like this for months, and you’ve only been on her a few weeks.”
“I don’t usually take rusty zipper cases in the first place,” Behr said, “but you’ve been doing my books for a long time so…”
“Is there someone else I can hire-”
“Yeah, plenty. But Wells, let me give you some financial advice: don’t bother. It’s a non-case. Your wife has a friend.”
“So you didn’t see anything? Were they holding hands?”
“Not even. Listen, buddy, in instances like this we look for what we call ‘opportunity and affection.’ You know what that means? Opportunity is the likely chance for conjugal activity. And affection
… well, that’s affection. Photo or video of the couple in bed-”
“Video?” Shipman blanched.
“Through the curtain or a peephole. A good-bye kiss at a motel room door where they’ve been seen entering the night before. I’ve witnessed no affection. And ‘opportunity’ doesn’t mean a Starbucks.”
Shipman fell silent.
“You want to work it out with your wife? Great. You want to break it off? Then that’s what you oughta do. You want to be her friend instead of the trainer? Give that a shot. Whatever it is, do it separate from all this.” Behr pulled the check out of his pocket. “This is the rest of your retainer. Buy her a present. Get away for a weekend. I’ve got to go.”
Behr slid behind the wheel. Another satisfied customer, he thought, dropping the car into gear.
Frank Behr stood at the reception station of Wishard Memorial Hospital’s emergency room and waited for the attendant to come available. Finally, the burly young man in a hospital-logo embroidered polo shirt hung up the telephone and swiveled his chair forward. He worked a grape Tootsie Pop around his mouth.
“Help you?” the man said, the sucker clicking against his teeth.
“Yeah, I’m interested in arrivals, either late last night or early this morning,” Behr began.
“What kind of arrivals?”
“Patients sporting certain types of injuries consistent with a fight. Specifically, dislocations-wrists, elbows, shoulders. Broken jaws. Even ankles or knees. Broken ribs.” Behr was aware that the laundry list sounded fairly ridiculous.
“That all?” the burly attendant asked. His female counterpart finished with some filing and, after listening to Behr, cocked a skeptical eyebrow at him.
“Heath, I’m going on a coffee run. You want any?” she asked.
“Get me one of them mocha javas, Carrie, would ya?”
“The iced ones?”
“Yeah.”
“You all right here?” she asked, looking Behr up and down.
“Yeah, we fine,” Heath said. She left and the man leaned forward on his elbows. “I can’t be releasing that kind of information to non-police personnel.”
Behr took out his wallet and flashed Heath his old replica shield.
“That’s just a three-quarter tin. Your uncle give it to you to beat speeding tickets?”
Behr had to smile. “Nah, it’s mine. I was on the job, now I’m private.” He let Heath see the license behind his tin-for what that was worth. He also slid a folded twenty-dollar bill across the desk. Heath swept it up, took a suck on his candy, and started pecking at a computer keyboard. After a moment he looked up.
