A Case of Defamation

THIRTEEN

Shay drove through the Los Angeles traffic in her rented Toyota RAV4, following the white Lexus LX, keeping at least one car, but never more than two, between their vehicles. The Toyota was a rich red, and though it was an attractive color, she felt a bit like a whore in church driving the thing. She didn't get to choose the color when she rented the car, and she knew, logically, nobody was paying attention to her or the car, but she always chose either a white or silver car for her own because they blended in so well.

She'd agreed to continue working on Dan's problem, but it was going to have to take a back seat to other obligations for a few weeks. It wasn't because she didn't want to work on his case, but because she had other clients. She'd put off working her other cases as she tried to get a handle on Dan's, but she couldn't put off her other commitments any longer.

Now she was back to chasing cheating spouses. She was currently following Mr. Ronald Smithson, forty-two, financial advisor, married with three kids, from west Hollywood. He'd claimed he was going out for a beer with his buddies every couple of weeks, but when Nichole, his wife, had casually mentioned it to one of his friend's wives, the woman didn't know anything about it and claimed her husband hadn't seen Ron in weeks. When Nichole confronted Ron, he'd laughed it off as a misunderstanding. He'd stopped meeting his buddies for beers, but Nichole suspected something was still going on, and had contacted Clearview Investigations last week and asked her to find out what her husband was up to. After Nichole had stopped by Shay's office to discuss what she wanted, Nichole had signed the paperwork and paid the deposit. Now Shay was following some asshole who likely couldn't keep it in his pants, wondering why there couldn't be more people like Dan.

When the Lexus turned into a bar, she drove past and circled the block before parking in a restaurant's parking lot across the street. With a clear view of the door to the bar and Ron's Lexus, she rolled the passenger window down so there would be no reflection from the glass.

"Smithson, Ten May, fourteen eighteen, at the Blue Dragon on Raymound," she said into her phone.

She settled into her seat to watch before picking up the SLR with the big one-eighty to six hundred zoom. Balancing the camera on the center console with a short monopod, she quickly snapped a couple of pictures of Ron's LX sitting in front of the bar, one wide enough to establish where the car was, and one close enough so that the license plate was easily visible. Going to a bar at two in the afternoon made her quarry appear guilty as hell.

Twenty minutes later he emerged with a man. Shay sniffed in surprise as she lifted the camera again. Zooming in on the two men's faces, she snapped a couple shots in case the new guy was one of Ron's friends. Maybe Ron wasn't a slime-ball after all. It'd be nice to give a spouse some good news for a change. Her opinion changed a heartbeat later when they kissed, and not the polite air kiss the Europeans used. Oh hell no. It was a full on, hands in the hair, lip lock. She popped the camera up and it clicked rapidly as she captured it all.

"Well, that's new," she muttered to herself. At least Ron wasn't cheating on his wife with another woman.

She watched as they parted and walked to their separate cars. As they turned onto the road, she pulled in behind the second man's Ford pickup and trailed them to a sleazy motel about twenty minutes away. Like before, she continued past before turning around at her first opportunity. She had no choice but to park in the same parking lot as the motel, but hopefully coming from the opposite direction, and with the delay as she turned around, they wouldn't realize the Toyota was the same one that had been following them. She needn't have worried. By the time she had her camera ready, they were quickly walking across the second floor, oblivious to everything except their need. Once again her camera clicked rapidly as the other man opened the door and shoved Ron roughly into the room.

When the door closed, she lowered the camera and settled in to wait. "Smithson, Ten May, fourteen forty-eight at the Budget Inn on Nevera."

A little more than an hour later, Ron emerged, the other man standing in the door shirtless. She grabbed some shots of that, then continued to shoot as the man grabbed Ron behind the neck and pulled him in for another torrid kiss as Ron pinned him to the door and ground into him with his hips.

"Jesus Christ, take it back in the room," she muttered as the camera clicked rapidly to capture everything.

The kiss dissolved, and Ron caressed the other man's face and lips gently. Another quick kiss and he turned and hurried to the stairs. She grabbed a couple photos as he pounded down the steps so she had the sign for the motel in the shot to prove where he was. He looked very satisfied with himself, the ass.

She waited until Ron left before starting her car. She always tried to get more than one set of pictures of the accused to really drive the nails into their coffins... so they couldn't claim it was a misunderstanding or a one-time thing, and this guy was going to be easy because he didn't take any precautions at all.

As she drove home, she called Dan. Ostensibly it was to talk about his case, but in actuality, she just wanted to talk to him. She'd only known him for ten days, but she was really growing to like him. She made it a point to do something, anything, on his case every day so she'd have an excuse to call. They'd spend five or ten minutes discussing the case, then they'd spend another hour or more just talking. She was sure he was wise to what she was doing, but he seemed to enjoy their conversations as much as she did.

"Hey! What've you got for me today?" he said in way of answering his phone.

"I do have something. I talked with one of Gail's cast-off boy-toys this morning."

"How'd you manage that?"

"Finding him was easy. All I had to do was scan the gossip sheets. I called him and said I was doing a piece on Gail for hollywoodgossip.com, and that I wanted to talk to him about Gail's open marriage. I had to try several of her former lovers before I finally found one who, like so many people in this town, is an attention whore. He was more than willing to spill his guts to see his name in print."

"What did you find out?"

"I think Gail is the one doing this. According to Rafael, that's my source, if she doesn't get her way, she becomes vindictive as hell. He said one time her husband wouldn't do something she wanted him to do, attend some movie opening or something with her, because he was off somewhere banging his latest bedmate. She had a screaming fit, throwing and breaking stuff, and stormed out. He wasn't sure what happened after that, but the next day her body was all scratched up and bruised, like she'd been in a fight. The next time he saw Christian, her husband, a couple of days later, he was banged up too."

"Jesus!"

She smiled. "Yeah. That was the second time he'd seen them that way. Apparently, Gail and Christian have some kind of weird, twisted, love hate relationship. Rafael said Christian was there one day and he, Rafael I mean, heard them screaming at each other in the backyard over something. Rafael hadn't been her lover very long at that point. Anyway, he was going to break it up, but the staff warned him to stay out of it or there'd be trouble. As he watched, Gail took a swing at Christian. He hit her back, and then they really went at it. This is where it gets weird. According to Rafael, they never hit or scratched each other in the face, and they seemed to intentionally try to rip each other's clothes off as they beat the shit out of each other."

"Christ," Daniel muttered.

"Yeah. I don't know how much I believe this guy. It's just too weird. According to Rafael, they were slapping, scratching, pinching, and throwing each other around while screaming insults at each other. They ended up wrestling naked in the grass, then they started fucking right there in the yard, and according to him, it wasn't makeup sex either. He called it hate fucking. He said they were choking and hitting each other, spitting in each other's faces, pulling their hair, all that shit,

while

they were fucking. He said it was definitely rape, but he wasn't sure who was raping who, and he said both of them seemed to get off on it. After they were done, they split up and acted like it hadn't happened."

"That's just messed up."

"No kidding. He said he asked her about it afterwards, and she said she hated Christian's fucking guts, but other times she'd say she loved him. I don't know what to believe. The only thing I know for sure, if Rafael is telling the truth, is that chick is a few clowns short of a circus, and is capable of anything." She paused while he snickered. "Anyway, when she was done with Rafael, she gave him ten grand to go away and not cause any trouble, but she warned him if he tried anything, she'd ruin him. After what he'd seen, he took the money and ran."

"He may be an attention whore, but he's not stupid."

"No kidding."

"That's really good news."

"Not really. All we have is more hearsay, and that doesn't get us anywhere. We need something a lot more solid than what we've got."

"So, what are you going to do?"

"I'm working on it. Tomorrow I have to track down some turkey and serve a summons for a law firm that has me on retainer, but after that, I can spend a few hours working your case."

"How are we doing money wise?" he asked.

"I've only put in about ten hours. You want to call it off?"

"Not at all! I just want to stay current on my bill."

"I'll bill you at the end of the month. How's that?"

"That's fine. What else are you working on when you're not delving into the weird sex life of Gail Dunnally?"

She told him in general terms what she'd been doing for the last three hours, leaving out names because of client confidentiality. She didn't even mention the guy was seeing another man because that was a little too case specific.

"Don't you get tired of following cheating spouses?" he asked.

"You have no idea, but it pays the bills. If I only took interesting cases, like yours, I'd starve."

"Man, doing what you do would depress me."

"You get used to it after a while. It does tend to make a person cynical, though."

"I imagine."

They talked for another forty minutes until she arrived home, when they said their goodbyes. She hadn't eaten yet, so she threw together a chicken stir-fry using frozen chicken, quickly thawed in the microwave, frozen mixed vegetables, and a boil-in-the-package rice. Dan might be willing to spend an hour preparing a fresh, healthy meal, but she wasn't.

As she ate, she couldn't decide if she were in Nichole's shoes if she'd be more upset if her husband was having an affair with a man or a woman. Any affair sucked for the party being cheated on, but she wondered if it would sting as much losing your spouse to a member of the same sex. It wasn't like Ron had chosen a younger, better looking, more sexually adventuresome woman. If his tastes ran towards men, how could any woman compete with that? She shook her head. She guessed it took all kinds, and in her profession, she couldn't afford to be judgmental.

For example, she didn't like Gail Dunnally. She didn't even know the woman, but she'd done enough digging on her to know she probably wouldn't care much for Gail. She didn't approve of her open marriage, didn't approve of her threatening or suing people to get her way, and Gail's sexual peculiarities were too off the charts weird. Gail seemed to have all the personality traits to cause her to do something to Dan because he'd brushed her off, but her personal feelings toward Gail weren't

proof.

She needed something incontrovertible to show Gail was guilty of what she suspected.

She needed Gail to threaten Dan in some way, something she could take to the police that would carry enough weight to get a warrant. But what? And how?

She pushed her meal around on the plate as she thought. A sting was going to be necessary, that much was certain. Gail needed to get mad about something, something that would get under her skin in a big way, so hopefully she'd say something without thinking. Half of Shay's job was pretending to be someone she wasn't, to get someone to say or do something they otherwise wouldn't. She was no Meryl Streep, but for a quick con, making it up as she went along, she was pretty good.

She finished eating as a plan began to come together, but she was going to need Dan's help. He'd help sell it, plus he'd be the bait. She spent the next two hours refining the plan, working out responses and counter responses to Gail's possible actions. Her story had to be tight, and she had to act natural if she had any hope of goading Gail into a mistake.

Finally satisfied she had a workable plan, she showered. Standing under the water, she rolled her eyes as she heard the faint sounds of the couple next door screwing their brains out in the shower again. They were running late tonight. She loved her little duplex, but it was times like these, when she was missing the caress of a man, that she wished there was a little more soundproofing between the units. She shouldn't complain. The only time she heard them was when she and the neighbors were in the shower at the same time and were less than a foot from each other.

As Shay toweled off, still in the shower, she heard a muffled, 'Ah, fuck, I'm coming!' followed a moment later by the soft sounds of a woman caught in the teeth of a massive orgasm.

"Lucky little bitch," Shay muttered as she finished drying, stepped out of the enclosure, and hung her towel.

The woman's significant other, Demetri, was an average looking guy, but hearing his girlfriend getting the hard one reminded her of how long it had been since

she'd

had a man between her legs.

She pulled on her sleep shirt and flipped out the light as she returned to her bedroom. She wanted to sleep on her plan, to give it a little time to percolate, before she checked with Dan to see if he was game to try it. She tumbled into bed and pulled her extra pillow into her chest with a sigh. She loved her life, she really did, but sometimes it'd be nice to have someone around. She'd had a few relationships, but none had ever progressed much beyond the friends with benefits stage. She'd never had a live-in lover and wondered what it'd be like to have someone hold her as she fell asleep, even if they didn't make love. It sounded wonderful, but she'd never found the right guy.

That's what she couldn't understand about Gail's relationship. Being married but fucking around. It made no sense to her. What made even less sense was being married to a guy you claimed to hate. Life was too short for that. If Gail was willing to be married to a guy she said she despised, screw around on the side, and physically attack her husband, but still fuck him, that sounded like a woman that'd be willing to do nearly anything.

As she began the slow slide into sleep, she ran her plan over in her mind one more time. She thought she knew which of Gail's buttons to push, and with Dan as the prize, she might just be willing to go for it. The worst that would happen was nothing, but even that might not be a total loss. If Gail was willing to walk away without a fight, maybe she didn't care enough to put the screws to Dan. She smiled in the darkness as she pulled the pillow in a little more snuggly. She sighed heavily as sleep pulled at her. No matter what Gail did, it'd be another piece to the puzzle.

Sleep began to take her. If, in the morning, her plan still seemed viable, she'd call Dan and put him in the loop. She was looking forward to meeting Ms. Gail Dunnally to see if her expectations of the woman matched the reality.

.

.

.

FOURTEEN

Daniel ended the call with Gail. It had been a little over five weeks since Shay had approached him with her idea. Given what she'd dug up on Gail, the plan sounded good to him, but they had to be cagey. He had to wait for Gail to make the first move, so he didn't tip their hand. Good to her word, Gail had called him again to see if he'd changed his mind about giving her some private training. Not only was her sex life fucked up, but she was also tenacious.

The month-long wait had been brutal. The rumors were starting to go viral. He'd put a statement up on the Daniel Beckette Fitness Center website and DanielBecketteFitness.com, categorically denying the rumors, which had only seemed to fuel the controversy. He had a few people defending him, but the tide of public opinion seemed to be turning against him... so much so the publisher of his book had called and placed the book on hold. They hadn't canceled it, but they said they wanted to wait and see how the controversy played out, and then address it in the book. They didn't say the book would be cancelled if the rumors proved to be true, but what they

didn't

say spoke far louder than what they did.

Two days ago, he'd appeared on Lunch with Lois, a local puff news show, to address the rumors. Once again, he firmly denied any and all claims of harassment and had pointed out that all the rumors were from nameless, faceless individuals, and challenged whoever was making the claims to come forward and make their accusations public... but until they did, he'd argued they were nothing more than a smear campaign designed to tarnish his good name.

What bothered him the most was Mairead. She meant nothing to him, but having her dodge the kiss for the first time stung. After that, he'd stopped offering it, but he'd been offering her the kiss, and she'd gladly accepted it, for more than two years. Her rejection told him everything he needed to know. It didn't concern him that she didn't want his friendly little kiss anymore, what concerned him was that she didn't want his friendly little kiss anymore because her opinion of him was beginning to change.

He spoke with Shay almost nightly. She sympathized with his plight, but there was little she could do because she'd run completely out of leads. He knew she felt bad about her failure, but he reminded her she'd warned him at the beginning that finding who was behind all this was iffy at best.

She was the sole bright spot in all the turmoil. He wouldn't say they were dating. Technically she was still working for him, but they'd grabbed a few lunches and dinners together while pretending they were business meetings. They even talked a little business during them to maintain the illusion, but in reality, they were having meals together because they wanted to. Their meetings were completely above reproach, with only a quick kiss in greeting and departure, much like those he once gave Mairead, was all he allowed himself. He wanted more, much more, and he could sense she did as well, but by unspoken agreement, they remained professional.

He wanted this case over. Not only was it ruining his reputation, but because it was also preventing him from pursuing a relationship with Shay. He wasn't in love with her, but he'd never felt such a strong attraction to a woman before. He didn't know if she felt the same about him, but he wanted to find out. Now that Gail had finally called, maybe Shay could make some progress.

Not putting his phone down from the call with Gail, he dialed Shay.

"Dan," she said, sounding busy.

"Is this a good time?"

"Waiting for this ass hat to leave so I can follow him."

"Want me to call back later?"

"No. Go ahead."

"I just hung up with Gail. It's a go. I know it's short notice, but six o'clock at the fitness center on Merryweather."