Fletchina Archer - Psychic Detective

“Yes, but I could also tell when you didn’t know what you wanted.”

“Wow. That was something else. But what can I do for you, lover?”

“What would you like to do?”

“I just wish I could give you half of what you’ve given me. How can I do that? You have to tell me. I can’t read minds. Tell me and I’ll do it. Anything.”

“Give me a hug.”

“That’s not enough, is it?”

“A lot of times, that is the most important thing, don’t you think?”

“Maybe. I don’t know.” Ronda embraced her lover and felt the returning pressure of her body. They slept in each other’s arms.

“Mrs. Windborne, I asked you to come in today because now we have the evidence you asked us to get.” Sympathetic but professional and firm.

Angela spread out the photographs on the coffee table in front of her sobbing client. Angela pushed the box of tissues from the end of the coffee table toward Mrs. Windborne as she examined the photos.

The butt of a middle-aged man between the upraised legs of a woman. Her thighs were firm and trim but her face was not visible. The back of his head was visible but the length of his backside obscured the view of the woman’s body.

“Well, we don’t know exactly what they’re doing. I mean, we can’t really see if he’s, you know…”

Angela remained silent. Sometimes people don’t want the evidence, she reminded herself. But she’s paid for it, now she has to see it.

“Penetrating her or anything. Maybe…” Mrs. Windborne’s voice trailed off.

Then her voice became angry. “You used one of your operatives, didn’t you? You set the poor man up. This was a sting. I didn’t authorize a sting! That’s what this is-one of your…your…people…seduced my husband.”

“That’s not one of our people, Mrs. Windborne. Our operative just took the photos.”

Angela fanned the color prints on the coffee table hoping that one of the more explicit ones might convince her client.

“Well, I don’t think these are decisive.”

Angela was familiar with this response, and sympathetic with the woman. What would be decisive? You have pictures of your husband fucking the woman. What would convince you?

Angela tried another tack. “Can you identify the woman?” Angela stood and took from her desktop a frontal photo of Mr. Windborne and a woman, both fully dressed sitting on a couch in what looked like the living room of an apartment.

“Yes, it’s Michelle Anderson from church, my best friend.”

“That’s the woman in these photos.” Angela indicated the photos on the coffee table in front of Mrs. Windborne.

“No. It couldn’t be…”

“Would you like to hear the recordings?”

“You tape-recorded them?”

“You asked for evidence.” Please don’t make me show the videos.

“How could you do this? This is an invasion of privacy! This is unconstitutional.”

“It would be unconstitutional to use this evidence in a court of law, but as I told you, you don’t need evidence for anything legal.”

“But you were spying on them!”

“That’s what we do. That’s what you paid us for. The woman who sat behind you in church Sunday before last? Do you remember her?”

“No. How would I if she sat behind me?”

“You sat next to Michelle Anderson.”

“How did you know that?”

“The woman behind you was one of our operatives. I followed your husband to lunch the Wednesday before that Sunday. I sat at the table next to his at the Greek restaurant downtown, Sage and Honey. Do you know the place?”

Mrs. Windborne nodded.

“He called Michelle on his cell phone.”

“You eavesdropped?”

“In a manner of speaking. It’s noisy in there, but I could perceive his thoughts.”

“The psychic thing?”

“Yes. That’s how we knew to keep an eye on Michelle. But I couldn’t do it because…”

“Because she knows you, she’s the one that recommended that I come to you. She knows all about you. You’re the one that found the evidence about her husband…and she left him. This is her place, isn’t it?” It was a statement, not a question. Mrs. Windborne’s finger was on the innocent photo of the couple on the couch.

“Yes.”

“And this is her bedroom.”

“Yes.” Angela confirmed the observation.

“I still say we don’t know what they were really doing in there.”

“Do you want to hear the recordings?”

“You listened to them?”

“Yes.”

“And they’re…”

“They’re doing what they appear to be doing.”

“All right, let me hear…no…okay, let me…”

“You want to hear them?”

When Mrs. Windborne nodded her assent, Angela, still standing, pressed the button on the computer on her desk. It emitted a tinny static-filled sound, and then a woman’s voice.

“…oh yes, that’s right. That’s it, fuck me. Hard. Oooh, fuck me…”

“Stop!”

Angela pressed the button again.

“I thought she was my friend!”

“You confided in her?”

“Yes, everything. When that…unpleasantness happened with her husband, we talked about it. She told me about an affair she’d had and how she finally broke down and told her husband and that’s what…and I told her…”

“Everything?”

Mrs. Windborne turned a lighter shade of pale and sobbed, “Oh, yes…everything.”

“About that night in the snowstorm? In Chicago? When you lived in L.A. ”

“Yes…”

Both women were silent until Mrs. Windborne spoke again.

“Oh…that’s it. She knew. So she…” Mrs. Windborne was looking at the photos on the coffee table. “Do you think her thighs are fat? Why would he be attracted to that?”

Angela didn’t care to comment on the woman’s thighs. “Because she was available? Because he was available? Simple as that.”

“The lying son of a bitch! With my best friend?”

Angela knew better than to speak.

“What do I owe you?”

“Actually, I owe you a bit of a refund. We didn’t use the whole retainer. I’ll prepare an invoice and send you the balance.”

“Please don’t send it to the house.”

“Where shall I send it?”

“Just keep it.”

“Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“Anything else? Haven’t you done enough?” Mrs. Windborne was sobbing again. “My own husband and my best friend? Haven’t you done enough?”

“Only what you hired us to do.”

“I didn’t hire you to break into my friend’s condo, did I?” Mrs. Windborne dabbed a tissue at her face.

“We use very modern technology, so technically…”

“I don’t want to hear about it!”

“You did ask for evidence, and we provided evidence.”

“You’re right. I’ll take it from here.” Determination replaced sobbing.

“Do you want these? We don’t keep such things.” Angela indicated the photos. “And the digital recordings? We also have videos.”

“No, I don’t want them. Destroy them, please.”

--

“Angela Simmons Detective Agency.” She answered the phone with a practiced professional tone.

“You free tonight?” It was Ronda’s familiar voice.

“Yes. But it’s been a hard day. I just wound up a very difficult case and I’m exhausted.”

“Oh?”

“Don’t even ask. You know I can’t discuss it.”

“Yeah, I know-what if you were working for me-right?”

“Right.”

“Well, I’ll fix us a nice dinner and have a nice bottle of wine to help you unwind. Six?”

“I’ll see you then.” Angela hung up the phone and picked up the photos from the coffee table. I wouldn’t say her thighs were fat. She censored the thoughts from her mind and put the prints of the photos in the shredder before she destroyed the other evidence her operative had gathered. She prepared the invoice for Mrs. Windborne, itemizing every expense, the funds received from her, and the balance due, just in case she wanted it later.

She won’t leave him. But she left me no hint of what she will do. She won’t kill anyone. And she won’t kill herself. She’s not a danger. So, case closed.

Angela left her office building and went to the parking garage where she kept her car, walked up the stairs to her parking place, and opened the trunk to take out an overnight bag with a change of clothes.

She slung the bag over her shoulder and walked down the stairs and through the downtown business area, past the theatre complex where six movies were showing, none of which she cared to see, past the chain restaurants and the Frank Lloyd Wright church, the classical post office, and turned into a trim residential area. She walked past the ornate painted ladies, as people called the Victorian houses, past the simple prairie designs of Frank Lloyd Wright houses to the one that looked to some like a Mayan temple-if they weren’t archaeologists. She rang the doorbell.

“You didn’t bring the car?”

“It’s a nice walk. And I have to go back to work tomorrow. What’s the point?”

“I don’t know, support the economy?”

“It’ll limp along without me for one night.”

Inside the house the two women hugged.

“He’s in Hamburg tonight. That’s the story, anyway.”

“Am I ever going to meet this husband of yours? This Mr. Moore? Or is it Less?”

They both laughed.

“His name is Asshole. Mr. Asshole to you.” They giggled as they walked through the house. “Let’s eat in the kitchen.”

Ronda had prepared lightly steamed asparagus, boiled new potatoes, and smoked salmon with an arugula salad. There were two glasses of wine on the table and an open bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon on the table.

“I got a head start. I can’t cook without wine.”

“It looks delicious.”

Ronda picked at her food as Angela ate.

“Remember our conversation about love?”

“Yes.” Angela nibbled the end of an asparagus spear, shaped her lips around it, wrapped her tongue around it, and drew it into her mouth.