Requital

Moving like an automaton, he rode the elevator down to the parking garage but couldn't remember where he'd parked his pickup. He walked nearly every level, scanning each row of parked cars before he found it.

He sat in the big black Ram Charger without moving, without thinking, until he could summon enough energy to start the engine. When the motor started, it roared for a long minute or two before he realized his foot was pushing hard on the accelerator. The noise was an assault on the ears that echoed and reechoed off the concrete walls and down the corridors.

The original owner had blown the engine in the five-year-old pickup truck. He'd bought a replacement that was bigger and more powerful, and then he'd fine-tuned it so it developed even more horsepower. The guy had just finished adding a heavy-duty suspension to go along with the increased power when he had a massive stroke. Steve had gotten the truck cheap. The man's widow had been eager to get rid of it. She wanted nothing around to remind her of her late husband.

The rearview mirror showed the angry face of a man getting into an expensive car on the other side of the aisle. He threw Steve a one-fingered salute and drove off. Finally realizing what he was doing, Steve still had to make a conscious decision to pull his foot off the pedal. Everything was so damned hard now. His world had been blown apart. He was lost, adrift in a sea of misery, rage, and pain.

*******

He'd felt it coming though. The Christmas party had been a wake up call, but he'd felt Barbara withdrawing from him even before that. After the party, and the subsequent argument, Steve had redoubled his efforts to show his wife how much he loved her. He put little gifts, like a tiny bottle of her favorite perfume, on the dash in her car so she could find it when she went to work. A vase with an arrangement of daisies was delivered to her office in the middle of a long week of hard work for her and her firm. He sent e-cards to her vowing his love and devotion to her. He tried to close the distance between them using everything he could think of. Nothing seemed to work.

It had gotten a little better around Valentine's Day. Barb had come to him, finally sorry for the coldness and even sorrier for the way she'd acted at the party, she said. They'd had a month of renewed warmth in the marriage. He'd gotten into the habit of doing his homework for night school while still in the classroom half listening as the professor explained poorly grasped concepts to slower students. Twenty more hours, sixteen of which he had to take in residence at the university, and then he'd be finished. He'd have a BS in Architectural Engineering and would have finished the last prerequisite for the promotion already promised him.

Then in at the end of March, he'd had to go to Washington to represent the firm while they bid on a number of Corps of Engineers construction projects. It was supposed to only be parts of two weeks with the weekend between but he'd been diverted to Little Rock on the way back to work some issues on a building site already two weeks behind schedule. He'd wound up gone three weeks.

When he returned, Barbara had seemingly lost all interest in working on the marriage. If their interaction had been cold before, it was icy now. She'd been pale and listless. All she seemed to want to do was sleep. She'd carried herself stiffly around him, as if repulsed by him. A sex life that had begun a slow revival before his trip dropped to nothing when he returned.

He did all he could to change whatever was wrong but nothing worked. One day, when he sent her a funny email greeting card, she sent it back with a terse reply that she was getting fed up with his controlling, manipulative ways. Stop smothering her, she said.

Yeah, because of all that had happened these past few months, he'd been expecting to find out she was cheating…but seeing the first real proof was still enormously disconcerting. He needed more information. A low-resolution photograph in a newspaper was hardly evidence. For one thing, he needed to see all of what he thought was a cropped picture. He had to see if that man's hand was actually on Barb's ass or not.

********

"Jon!" he said into his cell phone. He'd been driving around aimlessly. He didn't want to go home. Barbara would be there in a while…at least he thought she would. He didn't know now. Was she out with that asshole right now? He wondered.

"Hey, Stevie boy," Jon said loudly. Jon was one of those people who didn't really believe the volume on a phone was ever set high enough. He sincerely believed if he didn't raise his voice, he couldn't be heard. Steve had to dial the volume down every time he talked to his brother. He let the diminutive pass this time. Jon was older by fourteen months and never let Steve forget it. Today it was comforting.

"Jon--" Steve's voice broke. A sob nearly escaped his throat before he could strangle it. Jon noticed immediately.

"Steve, what's wrong?" Jon said urgently. The background noise abruptly decreased by several orders of magnitude. A TV station preparing for the 5:30 local news was not a quiet place. Jon must have shut his office door…something he almost never did.

"I…I think Barbara is running around on me," Steve admitted. He took a deep breath while he listened to Jon curse. Steve felt a little better. The cursing did nothing, not really, but it helped to know that his brother was squarely in his corner in whatever was coming.

"What can I do?" Jon asked when he ran out of four-letter words.

"There's a photograph in Sunday'sObserver," Steve told him. "I need to see the whole thing, not just what they fit into a few column inches. Can you think of any way I can get a copy of it…a good quality copy?" Jon was quiet for a couple of heartbeats.

"Yeah, Steve," he said at length, "I know a guy over there who owes me a ton of favors. He wouldn't have his job right now if it weren't for me. Let me pull his chain and see what I can shake loose, okay?" Steve felt his twisted gut begin to relax minutely. Someone was working with him instead of against him.

He told Jon where the picture was located in the two-day-old newspaper. Jon said the age didn't make any difference at all because they kept digital copies forever in the newspaper industry these days. His buddy would have no chance finding the edition he needed.

Chances were the photograph was in digital format too. Many of their photographers went out with high-end digital cameras that were the equal of any of the old 35mm cameras. Jon would see what he could find out and he'd get back with him. Steve thanked him and thumbed the button to end the phone call.

********

It had been hard seeing and talking with Barbara that first night and the next one too. A naturally affectionate man within his family, Steve had no desire to be around his wife for the first time in their marriage.

On Friday, Jon brought a thin, oversized envelope to the construction site and delivered it to Steve in the office trailer. Jon was visibly relieved to be indoors--even the insubstantial walls of the converted mobile home were a comfort. There were entirely too many enormous vehicles on the site whose engines roared at unexpected moments for Jon's peace of mind. Just watching the steel girders being slung up to the highest floors by massive cranes was a dizzying, nauseating sight for Jon. He was glad to be inside where Steve could ensure his safety.

Steve showed his brother a small grin. Jon's sweating forehead and nervous talk was a tiny moment of humor in an otherwise somber day. Steve walked Jon all the way off the site and back to his Volvo, thanking him again with every step the pair took. Jon shook his hand at the edge of the sidewalk and exacted a promise for Steve to come over for dinner soon…as in, very soon.

*******

Night had fallen and everything was quiet. Only Steve and three well-armed security guards were still there. Steve had a big .45 caliber semi-automatic in a holster lying on the desk in front of him. He'd fasten the clip over his belt on the right side when he got ready to leave.

Construction sites were dangerous places at night. Crackheads and winos were always hunting a new place to hide and indulge themselves in their vice. Then there were petty, and not so petty, thieves who were always in the market for a roll of copper tubing or something else in the stacks of supplies and building materials they could sell somewhere. After a couple of workers had been beaten up by scavengers on his first job, Steve had obtained a concealed carry permit and gotten into the habit of going armed nearly all the time.

After Jon's departure, the afternoon had been hectic and Steve hadn't had time to sit down and review the packet his brother had brought him. Steve's trembling fingers opened the clasp at the end of the big envelope. He didn't want to look; he knew he had to.

There were three pictures of the party at the mansion with Barbara somewhere in the photograph. None of the three were exclusively of her and this other man. They were always off to the side instead of centered. They had not been the people the photographer had focused on.

The first one was the raw photograph that had been cropped for publication in the newspaper. The 8 X 10 print was clear and sharp. With a magnifying glass pulled from his middle desk drawer, he could see the man's left hand was, in fact, cupping Barbara's right butt cheek. Her short white skirt was hiked up higher on that side. The pleats were badly out of alignment. The man was pulling Barbara closer at the same he was fondling her.

Steve had to force his jaw muscles to relax. He was grinding his teeth and the dentist had warned him against that. Working very precisely, suppressing the urge to rip the photo to shreds, he set that picture aside to look at the second.

This one showed Barbara and the man standing on a grassy area with champagne glasses in their hands. Barbara had her right arm around the man's waist and was pulling him tight against her body. The man's left hand had been caught in a sweeping caress of Barbara's back. Their lips were pressed tightly against each other. Steve felt his jaw tighten again. He set the photo on top of the first.

The third showed Barbara and the man sitting on chairs at a patio table. They were facing each other with the guy slightly offset to Barbara's right. The man was leaning toward Barbara as if about to kiss her. Barbara's face showed her excitement. The magnifying glass showed the man's right hand on the inside of Barbara's right thigh. His fingers had disappeared under her skirt. Detachedly, Steve wondered how far up his wife's thigh this man had thrust his hand after the picture had been snapped.

"AAARRRGGH!" He had to let it out or he would go mad. The first roar was followed by a second and a third. It didn't matter. The security guards were on their rounds. No one could hear him in the office trailer. He wished he had something he could punch. There were only the too flimsy walls. He forced himself to be calm.

His efforts forced the anger inward. Gradually, he made the fiery rage cool. The surges of fury became fewer and less intense. He closed his eyes and sat back in his chair. His hands rested on the ends of the armrests. He deliberately relaxed his fingers and then worked on all the other muscles in his body. After a long while, his churning stomach calmed. He could think again.

From the way Barbara accepted the man's caresses in the photos, the affair had been going on for a time…or the guy worked fast and Barbara was especially receptive to his advances. Either way, Barbara was actively participating in things a married woman could not do.

The pain he felt became almost overpowering. It changed to anger almost immediately and it took a while to suppress again. He didn't know why Barbara was doing this but it was not something he could overlook. All that remained was letting go…and a formal recognition of the demise of the marriage by the courts. He would call a lawyer tomorrow.

The vibration in his pants pocket was a shock. He hadn't been expecting a phone call.

"Hey!" Jon said when Steve answered.

"Hi, Jon," Steve replied. "What's up?"

"Can you talk?"

"Sure, why? Oh…I'm still at work," Steve told him.

"Yeah," Jon said. His voice was full of sympathy. He knew why Steve wasn't at home.

"Well, anyway, I got a call from my guy at the newspaper," Jon said. "He showed the pics to a friend and found out who this guy is. You got something to write with?"

Steve fumbled a ballpoint from his shirt pocket. Suddenly, his heart was racing. Knowing who Barbara's other man was had no real significance. It wasn't going to change a thing, but it felt like he was making some kind of progress. He wasn't just sitting around and taking everything anymore.

"Yeah, go ahead," Steve replied. He heard his brother take a deep breath on the other end of the line.

"Okay. The guy's name is Rafael Leland Porter. He's Hispanic on his mother's side; his father is Anglo. That accounts for his name. He goes by the nickname "Rafe." Got all that?"

"Just a sec," Steve answered. He couldn't write as fast as Jon spoke. "Okay, go ahead. What else you got?"

"Okay…he's a well thought-of executive type with Harper Insurance. He's kinda on the lower rung of upper level management and the word is, his star is on the rise."

When he heard those words, Steve made an instantaneous decision to see what he could do about that. He knew Barbara was doing what she was doing of her own free will--he blamed her for wrecking their marriage--but there was no reason the guy should get away Scot free.

Jon had stopped talking. He knew his brother. He knew Steve was almost certainly running through options in his mind for derailing Mr. Rafael Porter's rise to the top of his little insurance business world.

"Okay…I got all that," Steve said finally. "Anything else?"

There was much more. Jon's friend-of-a-friend at the newspaper had the man's entire public record available. Rafael Porter was married to Elaine Jeanette Porter, né Anderson. The Porters had been married eight years. There was one child, a daughter, Rachel Marie, who was six.

Elaine worked as a sales manager for a fashionable downtown department store, apparently because she wanted to stay busy. The couple certainly didn't need her income.

Rafe liked to mingle with the powers-that-be in the insurance game as well as the movers and shakers in the local government. There were rumors he might be contemplating a career in politics but he'd taken no steps in that direction yet.

When he had notes on all the information Jon had found, Steve thanked him profusely and terminated the call. It wasn't everything he wanted to know about the asshole running around with Barbara, but it was a hell of good start. He had a good idea of how to develop more, and better detailed, information.

*******

Private investigators come in all flavors. There are the "Rockford Files" and "Magnum P.I." wannabes who are in it for the excitement. They have someone gin up a flashy identification card for them, invest in a set of handcuffs, a camera or two, and sometimes a pistol. With almost no regulation of the industry, that's all they have to do. The star struck amateurs buy an ad in the yellow pages and set up shop in out of the way offices where they wait for glamorous jobs to come their way.

Then there are the ex-military and ex-cops who want to use their experience in those other professions to jumpstart a career in investigations. They never really examine how a career as an army supply clerk or a traffic cop qualifies them for their new avocation, but they are always quite certain about what they want to do.

At the top are a few professionals who scorn the theatrics of the "TV private eye" and view the retirees from other fields with undisguised contempt. These investigators often get their early training as police detectives or from having served in the various military's criminal investigation divisions. Some, a very few, grow up in investigation agencies, learning from masters already practicing the trade.

The chief of security for the construction firm Steve worked for had been with the Department of State's VIP protection service. He'd had to retire when he took a bullet in the kneecap one afternoon in Baghdad but he had few regrets. His wife was a lot happier with his new jobandhe was making roughly six times what he had as a government employee. More importantly, he had cultivated acquaintances with large numbers of policemen and women who knew all the players …and who did what…on the street.

With the security chief's recommendations in hand, Steve jotted down a short list of private investigation agencies with thoroughly professional staffs. Most of them provided a broad array of services, but two were specialists in electronic surveillance as a part of their investigations. He selected one over the other simply because that one could give him an immediate appointment to sit with a lead detective.

********

Steve had been pleasantly surprised to find the office was much like any other business office. There was some "elevator" music playing softly in the background. The half-dozen office personnel were working purposefully in cubicles. In overheard conversations, everyone used jargon and terminology with which he had no experience. He half-regretted not bringing the security chief with him to interpret.

The initial interview had gone very well so far. The woman was an experienced detective according to the plaques on the walls in her office. Steve assumed she was. Her questions had been probing and complete, as far as he could tell. She had worked on a list of things he wanted the agency to find out for him while they talked.

"Mr. Curtis," she said after reviewing the legal pad she was writing on, "most of this information you could get yourself from public records at the courthouse or a reverse street address directory and a telephone book at a public library. Did you know that?"

Steve knew some of what he wanted to know could have been obtained from courthouse records. The directory she named wasn't familiar to him. It came up because he wanted to know everyone who lived at the Porter residence, what that address was, their phone numbers, and email addresses. He shrugged.

"I suppose I could," he said. "But there's more I want to know that I cannot imagine would be public information…and I can afford to pay you folks to put it into a nice, professional report for me."

That was true. After Barbara had set up a separate checking account for herself in early May, he'd closed the joint account and opened one of his own. That had caused an argument--chiefly because Steve demanded Barbara continue paying her share of the household expenses. For some reason Steve couldn't fathom, she'd thought Steve would keep the old account and take care of everything himself. It wasn't the only example of bad reasoning she'd exhibited over the past six months, but it was the one that stood out in his mind at the moment.

For the past few months, Steve had deposited all of his salary and two bonus checks his wife knew nothing about into an account Barbara had no access to. He could easily afford having the agency do work that he technically could have done for himself.

The investigator nodded. She'd felt compelled to advise her client on his options, but she and her partner were in business to make money. They'd be glad to take care of this for him.

*******

Forty-eight hours later, Steve had phone numbers for Mr. Raphael Porter and Mrs. Porter as well as their bosses' numbers. A few workers in each of those businesses, plus the corporation where Barbara worked, had been happy, for a consideration, to provide a dump of all the email addresses they had. After surveying three or four such individuals' email address books, the agency was reasonably confident they had virtually all of the home and business email addresses for every employee in the firms where the Porters and Barbara worked.