THE CASE OF THE FLASHING FASHION QUEEN
A Dix Dodd Mystery
by
N.L. Wilson
* * * * *
PUBLISHED BY:
Norah Wilson, writing as N.L. Wilson
Copyright © 2011 Norah Wilson
All rights reserved. Note re Bonus Material
Please note that bonus material in the form of an excerpt from Family Jewels, A Dix Dodd Mystery by N.L. Wilson, appears at the end of this book. That bonus material will make this book appear several pages longer than it actually is. Bear that in mind as you approach the end and are anxiously trying to judge how much story is left!
Chapter 1
A lot of people specialize.
If you have a toothache you go to the dentist, not the doctor (unless he’s a really hot doctor and then you go there first). If you need a new roof, call the roofer. Groceries? Call the grocer. You wouldn’t go to a mechanic for your annual pap smear, nor have your OB-GYN under the hood of your … um … car. Okay, bad analogy. But you see where I’m going, right?
The point is, when you have a special job in mind, you call a specialist. And if you live in Marport City and need someone to get to the truth of a matter — and when the matter is private and dear to your heart — you call me.
You see, I’m a private detective. I’m not so new to the business itself, but new to being out on my own. Six months’ new. I worked for years at a private detective company called Jones and Associates. The number one company in Marport City. All professional. All business. All men. And no matter how hard I worked there, how brilliantly I put things together (and that would be damn brilliantly, thank you very much), I was always the ‘girl’. The one sent to do the coffee runs. The one who ordered office supplies and hunted down the lost files. I never had a real shot at advancing there, despite my many years of service and their many years of promises. So a few months before my fortieth birthday, I set out on my own. Hung up my own shingle.
The boys at Jones and Associates told me I’d never survive, that I’d be hauling my skirted butt back there within the year. Well, it’s been six months, and I’m still hanging onto that shingle. Hanging on by my fingernails, mind you, but hanging on.
These days, I specialize in trailing men who cheat, or who are suspected of cheating. I trail them for wives who are wondering about girlfriends, and girlfriends wondering about wives. Overprotective moms, neurotic dads, and yeah, the occasional jealous ex-girlfriend who just has to know. I find out where, when, with whom and if you’re really interested — how. I take pictures. I take notes. I check gas gauges, tire treads and odometers. I follow trails left by credit card receipts and miscellaneous bills. I check out alibis.
As you can imagine, it isn’t always pretty. But it’s always interesting.
And some cases aren’t always as they seem.
Take for example the case of Jennifer Weatherby, or as I like to call it, The Case of the Flashing Fashion Queen. Who would have known that one phone call, that one seemingly ordinary phone call, would turn into such a mess?
But then, death is always messy. Or rather, murder is messy. Especially when I’m caught smack-dab in the middle of it.
+++
“Hey, Dix. Jennifer Weatherby just phoned to double check our address. I’m guessing her ETA is about two minutes.”
Oh, thank God! I glanced up at my assistant. “Thanks, Dylan,” I said, as though I’d never doubted she’d show.
Jennifer Weatherby had called me two days ago, on May 30. Called, in fact, just as I was writing out the rent cheque for the landlord, and wincing at how pitifully few dollars remained in my account.
Five thousand dollars. That’s what she’d offered me. I’d just about dropped the phone. But Mrs. Weatherby had been clear: five large for a week’s worth of work.
But here’s the thing — sometimes these hot new clients don’t show. Sometimes they call in a fit of anger or jealously, but when they calm down, they decide they don’t need a private detective after all. And often they’re too embarrassed to call and cancel. So, yeah, I was more than happy when Dylan told me she was en route.
His message delivered, I expected him to turn and leave. Well, kind of. Dylan Foreman rarely did what was expected.
Good thing he was the best assistant I’d ever had.
Okay, the only assistant I’d ever had. And strictly speaking, he wasn’t really an assistant. He was an apprentice. All aspiring private investigators have to complete a period of apprenticeship. I’d done mine with Jones and Associates. When Dylan Foreman knocked on my door just a month after I opened for business and laid his story on the table, I couldn’t refuse him.
The man had a law degree, on top of a degree in communications and another in criminology. After passing the bar, he was scooped up by one of the top firms in the city and had been well on his way to making a name for himself in criminal law. But all that changed one day when he got a call from a scared kid.
The kid had been abducted by his father, a client of the law firm and a suspected child abuser. Bastard had picked the boy up at school and driven him five hundred miles to another city. Police were searching for him frantically. Dylan had been working late that night when the call came in from the missing child. The kid had hit re-dial on the phone while his father had left him alone to go out for beer. Scared and crying, he’d told Dylan things his father had been doing to him.
So Dylan called the police, gave them the number that had come up on the call display and they’d had the kid within the half hour. Found the little boy alone and scared, battered and bruised.
Dylan knew what he’d done. The minute he’d picked up the phone to call the cops, he knew his career was effectively over before it ever really got started. But all he could think about was the fact that the client had called earlier in the day and the senior lawyers had done squat to protect that kid.
Needless to say, he got flack. Then he got fired. Eventually, he got disbarred.
“If you had it to do over, would you do the same thing?” I’d asked him.
“In a heartbeat.”
I’d hired him on the spot. He worked hard; and thankfully, he worked cheap.
And omigod, he was handsome! And young — all of twenty-eight. Okay, yeah, I had sort of a crush on him, but nothing serious. Nothing that kept me up at night. He was just … nice to look at.
He was pretty good on the computers, too, up to and including some minor hacking when the situation demanded. He also made a mean cup of coffee (and I liked my coffee mean), and he didn’t mind getting his hands dirty when it came to that. Plus, holy hell, my clients loved him. If I had a dollar for every time I’d come out of my office to find a dejected damsel crying on his broad shoulders, the male strippers at The Nuts and Bolts next door would be some happy young men. Except the Canadian mint stopped making dollar bills years ago, and it’s damned hard to make a loonie stay inside a G-string unless you tuck it…. Well, you get the picture.
Where was I? Ah, yes, Dylan Foreman, and why I tolerated his idiosyncrasies.
Simply put, we were well matched. What I lacked in compassion, Dylan more than made up for. I could deliver the bad-tasting medicine, but it was Dylan who had the bedside manner. He had a sympathetic ear, a compassionate nature, and a way of really listening to women that few men possessed. While I told the women their men were cheating, he told them they deserved so much better than the dogs who cheated on them. They left my office feeling low, and his desk feeling relieved.