Hanging by a Thread: Dan's Story

I would like to thank Randi for the invitation to the "Hanging by a Thread" event.

I especially thank Randi for helping me to improve the quality of this story and to banish anachronisms that would otherwise detract from the story. Please read all the stories published in this event. You'll be in for a real treat.

This is a work of fiction, Any similarities to real people is coincidental.

***

"You have all the information you were after?" she asked him, expectantly.

"Pretty much. There are several points that I need clarification on from some of my contacts, but I expect to have all of those points dealt with and squared away either late this evening or by very early tomorrow morning, which is Monday, of course."

"I'm sorry that you had to work through your entire weekend," she said to him.

He shrugged. "That's really not a problem. This business tends to be 24/7, so I'm used to it. It goes with the territory, as they say. It's probably why I'm no longer married."

"Yes, but even so..."

"How do you think he'll react?"

It was her turn to shrug. "I honestly don't know. I don't know him well enough to say. I know perhaps I should, but things got screwed up way before we were even born, so I don't know."

"Okay, well, I'll be ready to put the call in to him tomorrow morning. We'll just have to see how it all works out."

It was Monday morning and Amy Fisher was getting ready for her trip back to Arizona. Even before he'd married his wife, for as long as he'd known her, even before she'd changed her name from Clarke to Fisher when they'd married, Dan Fisher's wife made the trip back to Arizona to spend the last week of every month with her one remaining relative, her older aunt who lived in an assisted living facility in Phoenix.

As usual, Dan had taken Amy to the airport and left her off at the drop off zone. Long gone were the days when you could take your honey to the gate to wish them goodbye, as quite necessary but irksome security concerns had put paid to that idea long before they'd got married.

He had driven from the airport to his workplace and parked his car in his reserved space in the underground parking garage beneath the building where his company had its HQ.

He hadn't mentioned it to Amy, he hadn't wanted to worry her, but he would have to ask his secretary Wanda to put in a call to his accountant.

Things hadn't been going all that well for Fisher Engineering Products over the last several years. He and his chief salesman Eddy Green had been discussing the downswing in sales for the company. Sales were down, but they could see no discernible reason why this was so.

All Dan knew was that if the situation didn't improve, he would have enough cash reserves to keep the company afloat until the end of the year and then he would have to consider a Chapter 11 bankruptcy. He'd hate to do it, but what alternative did he have?

Meanwhile, Amy was aboard her plane, settling back in her seat On her iPhone she was playing a recording of an app her therapist had made for her. She was going from Philadelphia to Arizona, making the mental shift that was required.

Dan had met Amy when she had accidentally stumbled into him at a Chamber of Commerce meeting, causing him to spill his drink. She had bought him a replacement drink and they got to chatting.

She had told him she had moved from Arizona to Philadelphia to help her get over a failed relationship. He had found it easy to talk to Amy and soon she had been attentively listening to his life story, including the unexpected death of his wife Catherine at a very early age due to cancer, following soon after the loss of his parents.

Three years on, he had still been grieving for Catherine and his parents.

He found Amy a companionable young woman, easy to talk to and by the end of the evening they had exchanged phone numbers. A little over a year later, they had married.

Things hadn't been easy for Dan; the early death of his wife had been preceded not long before by the unexpected death of his parents in a car crash.

This had resulted in, at a young age, Dan being virtually forced into taking over the running of the family engineering concern.

That concern was still dealing with the residual fallout of a major family split of a generation before, which had brought about the creation of two engineering outfits in the Philadelphia area that both contained the name "Fisher" in the title. Fisher Productions and Dan's branch, Fisher Engineering Products. Both made pretty much the same type of engineering products, and at least until recently, both of which had enjoyed similar successful stories.

That was then, this was now; and the future of Fisher Engineering Products was hanging by a thread.

When he got back to the office, he asked Wanda to put in the call. She nodded, but the look of concern in her eyes made him understand why he needed the appointment with his accountant. "Hey, Wanda, don't worry" he said. "I'll make sure you are going to be okay, no matter what. After all, you worked here with both my father and grandfather."

She nodded. "Thanks, Dan. I really do appreciate that, but there's everyone in the factory, plus the other staff to think about, too?"

Dan shrugged, sympathetically. "Yeah, Wanda. I know that. I'll do whatever I can, but if Eddy and I can't get a sustainable boost in sales, or manage to figure out what's happening to our sales and correct any issues we find, it'll be out of my hands."

She smiled at him, reassuringly. She knew he'd do what he could for everyone. He was the son of his father, after all. "When do you want the appointment?"

"Try for next Tuesday at 1PM."

"Have you told Amy about the problems we are having?"

"No. At least, not yet. She's doing well with her graphic design business and she's got a major contract coming up, so I didn't want to bother her. She's doing her usual week in Arizona with her aunt who lives in the nursing home. She's her only living relative. She's relatively young, but she has early onset dementia. I've only seen her once, that was years ago. She mistook me for someone else from her past and started screaming and attacking me, so I haven't been allowed to see her, since then."

"By the way, Dan, someone called for you when you were at the airport. Said his name was Peter Hooper of a company called Hooper-Sneed Investigations."

"Sales call?" asked Dan, skeptically.

"He asked me to emphasize that it's not a sales call, that there will be no financial cost implications to you or the company, but he emphasized that he does have some information that he feels will be of great interest and concern to you and the company. If you're interested, I can call him back and put the call through to your office?"

"Might as well find out what he has, so sure, okay, please do that." Dan walked into his office and a couple of minutes later he found himself talking to Peter Hooper of Hooper-Sneed Investigations. "Mr. Fisher? Good morning, my name is Peter Hooper. I am a founding partner of Hooper-Sneed Investigations."

"Good morning, Mr. Hooper. My secretary said you have something of interest for me. Will you please confirm that there are no cost implications to me or Fisher Engineering Products? And if so, how can that be the case?"

"Yes, I'll confirm there are no cost implications for you or your company. How this works is that sometimes during an investigation for a client we discover information that will be of benefit to a third party. Which, in this instance, is you and your company. As this information is, in effect, the property of our client, we are limited by what we can do with this information.

"But in this instance, our client has explicitly instructed us that we must place this information with you as soon as is humanly possible. Our offices are on Walnut Street, near to the junction with South Juniper. When would you be able to come to our offices?"

"How about next week? Monday, perhaps? I'll have my secretary pencil you in?"

There was a pause before Hooper replied. "The thing is, the information my client has for you is very time sensitive. I think it best if we met with you this week. This morning, in fact, before noon, if that's at all possible?"

"Is it really that urgent?"

"Yes. It's very urgent."

"Okay. I'll be at your office just prior to noon. My office is only on Walnut and South Broad Street, so that's not a problem. Incidentally, who is your client?"

"I'll be able to release the name of my client to you when you are at our offices. Sorry to be so mysterious, but there are good reasons to play it this way, as I'm sure you will appreciate when you find out more."

After dealing with the few letters that had arrived in the morning post and sorting through his emails, Dan found himself at the offices of Hooper-Sneed Investigations. It was somewhat more opulent than he had expected. He was ushered into the office marked "Peter Hooper" and Mr. Hooper rose from his desk, strode toward him and shook his hand in a firm but friendly grip.

"Please sit down, Mr. Fisher. I'm Peter Hooper." As Dan sat down in front of Hooper's desk he glanced round the room and noticed that there were a number of FBI commemorations and certificates on the wall, and photographs with a younger Peter Hooper with four different Presidents, taken in what Dan presumed was the Oval Office.

"I spent over 20 years working as an agent for the FBI after law school and four years in the US Marines. Then I got together with a former Philly police detective friend of mine, Wally Sneed, and we opened up our own detective agency."

Dan declined the offer of a drink. He really picked up a bad vibe about what was going to transpire.

They had decided on first name terms and so Peter tapped a finger on a buff colored file on his otherwise clutter-free desk. "Dan, contained within this file is some information that our client wants you to have. I agree with my client; this information is, or rather will be, of vital importance to you.

"My client became apprehensive about her husband and some of his activities. She was becoming increasingly suspicious of her husband and she became concerned that he was behaving inappropriately, to say the very least.

She is a business owner, and a new hire in the accounts department had noticed something that had caused him some concerns, so he reported these to her. As they involved areas of the company she had left in the apparently capable hands of her husband, her husband works for the family company, she became suspicious and she asked us to launch an investigation into the company's accounts and the activities of her husband."

He paused before continuing. "We employed a forensic accountant and he discovered several areas of great concern from a financial aspect.

"Our own investigations discovered that her husband was having a sexual affair with another woman. It's my painful job to inform you that the woman who he is having the affair with is your wife, Amy."

Dan blanched. "You are sure of your facts, aren't you, Peter? No room for doubt?"

Peter shook his head, "Sorry, Dan. None at all. We have audio and visual evidence and electronic and paper documentation, too."

Dan looked at him. "But there's more, isn't there?"

"You are a very perceptive man. Please bear with me." He pressed a button on the phone on his desk. "Sarah, can you please ask our client to join us in my office? Thank you."

As Peter's client was ushered into the office, Dan felt his blood freeze. Surely it couldn't be?

Peter stood up, as did Dan. Both men were old fashioned in their ways and only sat once the female who had walked into the room had sat down.

"Dan, I am sorry to tell you that your wife Amy has been having an affair with David Brody, the husband of Alison Fisher-Brody, the President of Fisher Productions. Brody is currently the Director of Sales and Marketing for Fisher Productions."

Dan was flabbergasted at this totally unexpected turn of events. Not only was his wife cheating on him, she was having an affair with the husband of his rival?

"I'm so sorry, Dan," said Alison. "I had a strong suspicion that he was cheating on me, but I had no idea that it was with your wife."

Dan shook his head. "Hi, Alison. It's not your fault. But this is just such a lot for me to process. I had no idea that Amy was cheating on me. She hid it well."

Peter interjected "That's the thing, Dan. Hiding things well is what your 'wife' is good at." Dan noticed the emphasis that Peter had placed on the word wife and he had a sinking feeling in his gut. He looked at Peter and said, "Peter, I have a horrible feeling that shit's about to get crazy."

"Dan, you have no idea. When I conduct an investigation I go all out, because during my time in the Marines and the FBI I learned very early on that if you are not entirely thorough at all times it will ultimately bite you in the butt.

"I decided to run a full investigation into your wife. What I found out was that Amy Fisher, nee Clarke was born on May first, 1990 in Santa Clara, California. She was issued with the Social Security Number 545 021 6234.

"However, Sadly, Amy Clarke died in the year 2000 when she and her family were killed in a car wreck. Your wife applied for a birth certificate for Amy Clarke a few months before she met you, and she was then able to obtain a passport and a driver's license, thus she was able to take on a new identity as Amy Clarke."

"But why would she do that? And who is she really if she isn't or wasn't Amy Clarke?"

"I'll get to that, Dan. Hooper-Sneed is a member of the Transcontinental Association of Private Detective Agencies. It maintains a system that is similar to that operated by the FBI. It has DNA and fingerprint databases and the like. But obviously on a smaller scale.

"Using it I was able to establish that her real identity is Amy Bishop. She was born in Arizona a couple months before Amy Clarke, as it happens. Her birth name was Amy Benson."

Dan said nothing, trying to take it all in.

Peter continued: "After she got her law degree, she joined the FBI and began a relationship with John Bishop, a fellow FBI agent in the same office in Arizona. They were strongly suspected of misusing FBI data and as a result they were both dismissed, but never charged with a crime. I'm sorry to have to tell us this, Dan, but they are married and they have a child, a boy of fourteen."

Dan looked even more stricken. "She's married? With a child? What the fuck?"

Peter added: "After they were run out of the FBI, they launched a company called Arizona Industrial Intelligence. They are basically an industrial espionage outfit. Definitely the black hats of the industry."

"Six years ago, David Brody, without the knowledge of Alison or any other members of the board, hired Arizona Industrial Intelligence to infiltrate Fisher Engineering Products and to obtain sensitive and secret information which Brody would be able to use to play interference and to divert customers from Fisher Engineering Products to Fisher Productions.

"They decided to get Amy Benson-Bishop to target you, get into a relationship with you and steal company information from you. The fact that you proposed to her really worked in their favor."

"I was a prize chump. She really had me fooled," Dan said.

Peter shook his head. "She is a professional and very good at her job, so don't blame yourself. There is something else, though. The aunt she allegedly visits doesn't exist. Amy spends that week every month with her husband and her son."

A thought occurred to Dan. "Then the woman I met when I first started dating Amy wasn't really her aunt?"

Peter shook his head. "Probably an actress they hired."

Dan added: "I'm on the verge of having to go for a Chapter 11. Do you have any idea how much money they took from my company?"

Peter said "The rough estimate by the forensic accountant is that they diverted about three million dollars in lost sales."

"Fuck!" Dan's response was explosive. "No wonder we're going down!"

Alison shook her head. "Dan, I'll not let Fisher Engineering Products go down. I'd love to be able to give you the three million dollars out of company resources, but I doubt the board would allow that. But I'll certainly do whatever I can. And please accept my apologies for what my asshole husband has done. Siccing that female spy on you was totally wrong. I had no clue as to what he'd done. I just thought he was doing a good job as director of sales. I should have known better."

Dan said: "I accept your apologies, Alison. But how the hell did he get away with it for so long?"

"He was diverting funds from several departments to provide funding for his industrial espionage. I think he had help from someone who no longer works in my accounts department. It was the diversion of funds that gave the replacement accounts team member an idea that something was amiss. If I hadn't employed that new accounts guy, I still wouldn't have found out. And you and I would still be in the dark. We are both chumps, really."

Dan turned to face Peter. "What crimes have they committed?"

"We are certain that they have breached the Economic Espionage Act of 1996. However, on the face of it, it's possible they might be guilty of wire fraud, false accounting, embezzlement, maybe even a violation of the Mann Act, though the latter almost certainly would not be a viable charge. Maybe even a charge of bigamy, but that'd be a call for the DA to make."

"I suppose the police will have to be involved?" asked Dan.

"Yes, Dan, but mainly my old colleagues in the FBI, as most of their crimes are Federal in nature, and the FBI will take the lead. I know you might feel awkward, what with Amy bamboozling you for all these years, but you cannot allow them to get away with this. I have been liaising with the FBI and the police here in the city, plus we have kept the Sheriff's office updated, too, as a courtesy."

"What do you want me to do?" asked Dan.

"Keep up your normal communications with Amy during this week. It's important that Amy, her husband and Brody not get a whiff of our plans. There will be coordinated arrests of all the players on Friday of this week, arranged at the same time Amy flies in from Phoenix to Philadelphia, arriving at 3PM, local time.

"When she clears security and is about to leave the airport, she will be arrested. But at the same time arrests will be made in Philadelphia of Brody and in Phoenix of Bishop."

The rest of the week was a horrible experience for Dan. He realized that his entire life over the past six years had been based on the lie that Amy actually gave a fuck about him. Damn. How she must have laughed at him! And along with that bastard David Brody, who she was fucking!

Amy had boarded the flight from Phoenix that Friday morning without any issues. At the back of her mind she wondered how it could be that her 'real' husband let her get an Uber to and from the airport, but Dan, the mark in this intelligence gathering operation, always loved her enough to take her to and from the airport? Sometimes thinking too much wasn't a good idea, she realised.

Once on the plane she began to put in reverse the psychological tools she employed to live her double life.

On the way from Philadelphia to Phoenix she began decompressing, using another version of her custom-made recording. On the way to Phoenix she went from being Amy Fisher, loving wife to Dan Fisher, to being Amy Benson-Bishop, loving wife to John Bishop and mother to John Junior, who was now 14.

On the way back, she reversed the process and went from being Amy Benson-Bishop, industrial espionage agent to being Amy Fisher, loving wife to Dan and a graphic designer.

On this trip she began to feel melancholy. She realized that she should never have allowed herself to be manipulated by her husband John into becoming a modern-day Marta Hari; that she should have run away when Dan proposed marriage to her. She hadn't, and here she was, six years later, married to a man who she was trying to ruin, financially.