ONE
Joshua Stallard pulled his bill from the printer, tucked it in behind the other thirty-odd pages he'd printed, and then tapped them softly on his desk to align the edges. He stared at the cover page a moment before turning the sheet to make sure the detailed report of his findings, the photographic evidence to support his report, and the bill listing his hours and expenses, were all there and in the proper order.
The report would add another twenty-five hundred dollars to his bank account and put another man in a difficult position. He hated his job. Because he'd caught another man with his zipper down, he was going to destroy another family. He knew it wasn't his fault the guy was unfaithful, but that didn't change the fact that he was the one who was going to deliver the bad news. It beat selling washers and stoves for East Coast Appliance, but the jury was still out on if it beat being a Marine. At least as a Marine he felt like he was doing something good, something positive, and not destroying families... at least not American families.
After carefully reading his report one more time to make sure it was clear and professional, he slowly flipped through the photos of a reasonable looking guy, Anthony Marker, and his lady friend, Amanda Stellins, enjoying a lunch with big smiles. As he continued to flip through the printed photos, the story they told became ever more damning, the final photographs being Antony and Amanda entering a motel room together, emerging again fifty-one minutes later, and them kissing beside Amanda's car.
He'd been hired by Mrs. Marker because she suspected Tony was having an affair. He was, and now Tony was going to have to answer a lot of very uncomfortable questions... if he was lucky. Ms. Susan Marker didn't strike Josh as a particularly forgiving woman, and Mr. Anthony Marker might come home one day and find his stuff piled in the yard. He sighed as he again tapped the papers to align the edges before he slid the stack of paper into a large envelop.
After three tours as a Marine, he'd left the military and returned to civilian life, looking forward to some stability, meeting a nice girl, settling down, and living the American dream of 2.2 kids, a wife, a dog, and a mortgage. That's what he expected. What he'd discovered was there isn't a lot of demand for a sniper in the private sector. He'd thought a big city police department would snap him up as soon as he hung up his uniform, but that hadn't proven to be the case.
He'd joined the Marines immediately after graduating high school, full of patriotism and a desire to make the world a safer place. He'd done his bit, but what he'd found upon leaving the service as a thirty-year-old E-6 was that everyone wanted a college degree for practically any job, even as a sniper on a police force. He was yet to understand why a degree was required to be a sniper. You didn't have to be particularly educated to pull a trigger, just disciplined.
Desperate for a job, he'd finally landed a position selling appliances while he waited for an opportunity somewhere, but the mind-numbing monotony of the job had gotten really old, really fast. After a year of selling refrigerators, ranges and microwaves, and plenty of 'don't call us, we'll call you' letters from various police departments around the country, he'd decided to take a leap of faith and open his own business... and
Joshua Stallard Investigations
was born.
He'd always loved detective shows, movies, and books, and enjoyed solving puzzles, so it seemed like a good fit. He enjoyed the work but hated the job. He was hanging on, but JSI had been teetering on the edge of financial ruin since the day he opened his door. He'd dreamed of locating kidnapped children and busting industrial espionage rings, but what he actually did was hide in plain sight, take pictures of cheating spouses, and dig up dirt that could be used by divorce attorneys to win their cases. It beat talking to blue-hairs about refrigerators... barely, and it paid the bills... barely.
With a resigned sigh, he folded the clasps down to seal the envelop. He'd caught Tony in his compromising position yesterday afternoon, and had sent an email to Ms. Marker first thing this morning requesting an appointment to deliver his findings.
He was pretty good at reading people. He could watch a person a moment and then oftentimes predict their next move. It was a skill he'd honed as a Marine that had saved more than one Marine's ass. His spotter had called it his 'spidey sense,' and that intuition said Ms. Marker was determined, and maybe a little afraid, to find out if her husband was cheating on her, but she hadn't struck him as a shrewish woman. Susan was attractive and seemed to care about Tony, they had a nice house, and two cute daughters. He couldn't understand what Tony was thinking. It seemed like a lot to piss away for a bit of fresh ass.
-oOo-
Josh sat at his desk, reading the latest Mathew Scudder, when he heard the outer door to his small, two-room suite open. He quickly tucked the business card he used as a bookmark between the pages and placed the book in a drawer before rising. The outer room served as a small waiting area separate from his larger office. He'd consider himself lucky to be busy enough to have someone waiting, but the room served the purpose of preventing people from stepping off the street directly into his office.
He quickly rounded his desk and entered the waiting room, wondering why Ms. Marker had arrived without responding to his email, but instead of his client, he saw another woman.
Pretty, in a girl next door kind of way, she was dressed in a well-cut business suit of ultra-deep purple, a white top with the top button open, and sensible black pumps. The woman was examining the room with a critical eye, and he felt a bit of embarrassment. His office was in a small strip mall, squeezed between an accountant on the left and pet groomer on the right, and while his waiting area was clean, it was furnished and decorated in office supply store chic.
"May I help you?" he asked.
"I'm looking for Mr. Stallard."
"You found him," he said, stepping forward and extending his hand. "Josh Stallard."
"Hazen Allen," the woman said taking his hand.
"Nice to meet you, Ms. Allen. How may I help you?"
"It's Hazen, please. I have a problem that I hope you can help me with."
Hazen's two-inch heels brought her to average height, but without them she'd be nine or ten inches shorter than his own six feet. She had straight black hair, parted down the middle and cut to frame her face, that fell to the middle of her shoulders, and an exotic appearance that was hard to place. She clearly had some Asian Pacific heritage, but her skin tone suggested there was more to her than that.
"Would you like to step into my office?" he asked with a gesture to his door.
"Thank you," she said as she entered his office.
Hazen didn't know what she expected when she decided to call on Joshua Stallard Investigations. She didn't expect Tom Selleck, or pictures with presidents, but this guy could pass for Joe Everyman. He had some nice arms, but no rugged good looks, no dark wavy hair, no banging body, no nice suit... nothing. He was entirely forgettable. Neatly dressed in khaki pants and a light blue, button front, short sleeved shirt, he was trim and handsome enough with his short, light brown hair, but he was type of person you saw hundreds of times a day, and then didn't remember sixty seconds later.
She entered his office. While the outer area was cheaply furnished and decorated, his office was a little better. His desk was an open, modern, glass and metal frame, with a matching metal file cabinet tucked under one corner. Behind the desk was a similar table the width of his desk holding a printer and nothing else. The prints on the wall appeared to have come from the same place as the generic prints in the entrance, but the chairs were a step up in comfort and quality. The office was clean and tidy, but sparsely decorated with no personal photos or touches to give her a hint to the personality of its occupant. She smiled. At least he did have one thing in his office that all private investigators should have... and that was a small bar and refrigerator.
"Please, sit down," he said as he followed her into his office, closing the door and motioning to one of the two guest chairs. "May I get you something to drink?"
"No, thank you."
He settled behind his desk. The woman seemed to be in complete control, resigned almost, so this was probably another case of some guy dipping his wick in someone else's honey. He placed a small microphone on his desk and tapped a key on his laptop.
"With your permission I'm going to record our conversation, so I don't miss anything." He paused, giving her a chance to object, and when she waved her hand in dismissal, he continued. "I need you to verbally confirm your acceptance."
"Yes, it's fine."
"Thank you. So, how may I help you Ms. Allen... Hazen?"
She took a deep breath. "I need help finding my brother. The Navy says he's gone AWOL, that's absent without leave, and they're looking for him. I know he isn't AWOL. Well, I mean, maybe he is, but I'm sure something's happened to him. He wouldn't go AWOL on his own. If the Navy finds him, they're going to arrest him, and I want to find him first."
