Hart and Bowman, PI

No new ground here. A common way to get caught - but never as portrayed in this tale.

Hart and Bowman is not Spade and Archer, but my hart (sic) was in the right place. Hart is a key to this tale that shows although justice delayed is justice denied, the same does not hold true with revenge.

In the Matter of Doris Watson

It was a slow day. Fortunately, I do not have many of those anymore. My business is thriving. I am Hugh Hart, of Hart and Bowman, private investigators. The first few years were lean, but we got it going and for the last six years things have been good.

I decided today was a good day to go through my computer and get the inactive crap backed up and off to our server. Much of surveillance work is gathering videos which now are ubiquitous. If you are not careful, soon you have terabytes of footage of inactive parking lots, empty bedrooms, and countless other stages - awaiting the scene to begin.

I looked at the folders on the screen. One popped out at me. Doris Watson. Of all people, Doris stands out in my mind. For one thing, my business is what it is due to the boost I got from Doris. For another, in my years in this business, Doris is as close to pure evil as anyone I have ever come across. I had no idea why her file would be among my active ones.

I opened the folder. There were more than a screen-full of files, all videos. The most recent one was dated Thursday, yesterday. I started the video.

It was Doris, fucking some guy, who was holding the camera. She was on all fours, and he was behind her. She had her head on the mattress, turned to her left looking back at him. He panned quickly to the point of action and slapped her ass with his free hand. Doris is a kinky one. I know, the camera the lover is using is her cell phone. She loves to watch personalized porn.

I closed the video and looked at the screen. Video after video, thirteen of them dated very recently. I decided to call Jim Watson, who had hired me to catch his wife fucking around.

I found Jim's contact information and called. "Jim, Hugh Hart..."

"Hugh? Oh, yes, I've not heard from you for a while."

"I think it's the better part of six years, as I recall."

"Sounds about right. If I may ask, Hugh, why are you calling, now?"

"I would rather not talk about it over the phone. But I just came across some recent videos of Doris, face down and ass up, as they say, I would like to talk about them."

The phone was quiet. I gave him some time. I knew this would not be received all that well.

He broke the pause, "Well, she does like fucking better than she likes thinking - or she would have stopped all, all, whatever all this is. I would like to know more. How about lunch?"

"How about the Burger King on 3^rd, my treat."

"You never change, Hugh. You cannot say a fast-food restaurant and my treat and be taken seriously, you know."

"Who said I wanted to be taken seriously; I'd like you to pay, if I can talk you into it - I'm just looking out for your interests."

He let out a small snort, not quite a laugh, "As always. Noon?"

"Can we make it 12:30pm? I would like to review what I have so I can talk intelligently."

Now, he laughed, "If you want to talk intelligently, it's going to take more than an hour and a half."

I laughed too, "Good to hear you laugh, Jim. I hope you're doing well. See you at 12:30."

When we last talked, I didn't know if Jim would ever laugh again. He was truly a broken man. Doris had gone out of her way to do all the breaking. As I said, truly evil.

I started opening files and learning what I could. I saw a lot but learned little. I already knew what could be known about Doris. Much of the work our agency does is trying to discover if a spouse is cheating. Too often, we find they are. But in the vast majority of those cases, it is two people who don't belong together - a divorce is good for both of them.

Jim and Doris Watson were different. You'll never find a nicer guy than Jim Watson. Doris had no reason to cheat - and after being caught she had no reason to do all that she could to destroy him - because he objected to her cheating.

When I said divorce is good for most couples we work with, that doesn't mean that the parting couple doesn't fight. Often bitterly,

down to splitting the Post-it Notes evenly. But you don't often see true revenge - and, as in Doris' case, never do you see the cheater exact revenge.

Evil.

I'd mused about the Watson divorce as I made my way through the videos. Doris might be evil, but she is beautiful and puts on one hell'uva show. Keeping myself distracted enabled me to avoid taking a cold shower before I left the office.

I did have a lot to tell Jim.

<<<<>>>>

When I walked in, Jim was already seated eating his burger. I ordered, got my food, and joined him. He stood, we shook hands, sat, and started talking.

"It has been a while, Jim, how're you doing?"

"Oh, it was tough for a while. But life goes on. After Doris, I was gun-shy and didn't date much for a year or so. Even after that it was slow going. A woman friend at work, finally introduced me to a widow with two young children. We have been married now, well three years, back in March. I have three beautiful children - life has never been better."

"Three?"

"Sure, her two and our one. Two girls and a boy. The boy is mine." He stopped and gathered himself for a minute. "I must stop doing that. I would hate for it to get back to the girls, they are mine, too."

"You're a good guy, Jim. I know what you meant. The one you fathered is the boy and they are all yours."

We chatted about nothing and ate our burgers and fries. As we were finishing, I got a bit nostalgic.

"Jim, you know, after your case my business really started taking off. Hart and Bowman now have six employees and much of that is due to Doris and the mayor."

"Well, that and the fact, as I said, she likes fucking, watching herself fuck, and finding new people to fuck better than she likes being clever enough to take any kind of care."

"You've got that right. Did you ever show her any of the videos we took from her phone?"

"I never did. I confronted her, she was just stone-walling and denying it all. I filed for divorce and as you recall showed one video to the mayor's wife."

"Oh, now that you mention it, sure. Did she use it in her divorce?"

"No, I never gave her a copy. It turned out she was someone who you do not want to fuck around on. She went right to the press. She and the mayor had a couple of kids, and he campaigned on law and order. She exposed him as a fraud. Ruined him. And she made it clear Doris was the Jezebel, who was just as guilty."

"And the action shined a big light on Hart and Bowman. The rest, as they say, is history."

"But showing her video to the mayor's wife pissed Doris off. She said I had no right to invade her privacy."

I shook my head. "That was what set her off?"

"No, I told her she had no expectation of privacy when she videoed her performances. That gave her the idea that I liked watching."

Jim was starting to show signs of nervousness. Time to escape the past. "And she is still at it."

"So, how is it you have this current video?"

"If you recall, you got access to her phone and downloaded my partner's spy App, she either still has the same phone or just keeps cloning her new phones to have on them what the past phone had. The spyware is still there, doing its job, sending me reports every day. I just never look in the folder anymore."

"You no longer have a legitimate excuse to monitor her phone - couldn't you get in trouble?"

"Big time. Bowman tells me he can erase the App remotely, basically, he can access her phone at night and remove the App. I guess it can still be discovered by an expert, but she is not likely to ask an expert."

"Thanks, for letting me know. I want to think about this for a bit, talk to my wife, but I want to burn her. Our divorce taught her she can do what she wants and then do all the harm, when discovered. She thinks she can destroy lives and chase her kinks. It's not right."

"I'm going to erase the App. As of right now, I can say I put it on your phone, while you were married to her. I forgot to remove it. When I found my error, we removed it, along with any new files which had been generated. Then, I am sure I will not get into trouble."

"I cannot ask for more than that. I wish I could take some video to her new husband, but we'll just need to do something else. I'll be in touch."

<<<<>>>>

Every so often in life you must take chances, not for a thrill or to prove you are a macho man, but because it is the right thing to do. This was the right thing to do.

Jim had gotten nervous at lunch because he was thinking about his divorce. Doris did not hang her head - she got aggressive. The mayor's wife was in the process of ruining him - Doris decided it was time for a counter offensive.

She and the mayor were victims. Her husband was one of the perverts who gets off on watching his wife have sex with other men. He did most of the videos - they were all for him. It's not just she said that crap; she threatened to show the videos to the press - claiming they proved her point.

What Jim never understood, her story did not get much traction. The mayor's wife was a woman scorned with all that implies. She made it clear this was not the mayor's first rodeo. As loud as Doris shouted, she was not heard over the epic saga of a serial-cheating mayor and his "poor, defenseless" wife.

The mayor tried to echo Doris' claims. He was laughed at. At least three women came forward and said they had affairs with him. Maybe a half-dozen others said he'd tried, and they had turned him down. Meanwhile, anyone digging into Jim's past found a model of propriety.

But friends and family heard Doris. She never backed down from her claims and Jim was humiliated. They didn't believe her, exactly - but why would she say those things and call attention to herself if there was not some reason.

No one could understand why she would draw all the attention to herself - with the sole reason being to hurt Jim.

Jim filed using irreconcilable differences, rather than adultery - to spare her feelings. After he filed, the mayor's wife started her campaign. Then Doris turned around and counter-filed claiming his perverted ways were tantamount to adultery on his part.

Outrageous. Unbelievable. But she was so secure in her attacks, she made those close to them pause. I watched Jim go into a funk, then down further, and finally sink into depression.

Now these new videos have fallen into our lap. I had to find a way to help Jim get revenge - albeit six years after the fact. Even if I had to put myself at risk, I'd do it.

<<<<>>>>

I decided to do a little investigating on Doris; maybe I could find something to help. One of the reasons my file on her went unnoticed is it was inactive until a couple of weeks ago. Now, in seventeen days she had added thirteen new videos.

I asked our assistant to get me what she could on a Doris Watson, divorced about six years ago. Before the end of the day, she came into my office and told me what she found. "She was single for about two years; nothing came up about her during that time. She is now Doris Nelson, married to William F. Nelson, a corporate VP, of Acme International. He has been at their offices here for five years. He is sixty-two, she is thirty-eight. She stopped working shortly before she was married. She now serves on the board of two charities."

I thanked her. Doris might be a flat-out bitch, but she is a beautiful woman. She also looks like a woman in heat, I guess that's what she is - why wouldn't she look like that? Her history made sense. Nelson got to town after the mayor story died down. He was looking for a trophy wife, who would keep him happy. She served both roles.

Now, he is in his sixties and cannot keep up. She has gotten back into her bad habits. The videos were of three different men. Two of them were in one video each, the other guy was in the rest. Initially, Doris plants her phone somewhere and it videos the action as best a stationary phone can do. I suspect she does not want to let guys know. The guy with the eleven videos was now a participant in her video kink.

I had no idea who any of them were. I got online and went to the charity web sites. Two of the guys were pictured on the sites. I knew two of the three were board members, one from each charity. The third was still unknown. He looked younger, maybe just a pickup from some local bar. A plan began to grow in my mind.

<<<<>>>>

I waited for Jim to call. I only had to wait two days. He wanted to "get the bitch," his new wife did, too. We talked about that for a minute. His wife loved him and had spent too many hours helping Jim get back to normal after the attacks by Doris. Jim's new wife would not hurt any other human being - just Doris.

Jim wanted to know what we could do. I told him my plan. I wanted to use the videos and risk, since they were taken inadvertently, I could get away with it.

"Hugh, your plan is not good. Well, the better way to phrase it is Doris is too good for that plan. She is going to raise holy hell. She will claim she pointed out my kinky nature years ago - and even after a divorce, I am spying on her.

"What if we try to find out who this third guy, the mystery man, is?"

"Jim, I owe you. The notoriety we got from your divorce put us on the map. But I have too much going on to give you the time it will take to get this mystery man."

"Give me a reasonable discount and I'll pay for your time."

I thought to myself, that might work. "Okay, she is getting together with this guy every Wednesday at Noon and every Thursday at 3:00. We will tail her those two days and see if we get lucky. I will do it 40% off."

"Why not 50?"

"Pirate. Okay, 50%. If we don't get lucky in one week, we will renegotiate my fee."

Wednesday yielded nothing. She had a board meeting at 1:00, that stopped her liaison. Thursday, I followed her to a motel. Damned if her mystery man was not the manager. She stopped in the office, he gave her a key, and then he disappeared into the back room of his office. A second man came back with him, to take his place, and our boy went to join Doris.

He returned with a big smile about two hours later.

I decided I would see if I could adjust his smile a bit.

I walked into the motel office. Mystery man was again at the desk. There was a sign, "Ryan Donovan, Manager;" Ryan was wearing a wedding ring. Sometimes life is good.

"May I help you, sir."

"I think you can, Ryan. Tell me, did you get any good video this afternoon?"

Suddenly, Ryan was a peculiar color. "Video? I...I...I do not..."

"Ryan, you were in room 134 with Doris Nelson. You have been videoing your last five times with her on her cell phone. Let's not play dumb."

"Oh, please. I cannot have this get out. I am married. I work this job so I can complete my MBA. Give me a break. This will ruin me."

"Ryan, I have good news for you. I am not here to ruin you. Doris is another story. Here is what we are going to do. I laid it out for him. He agreed. Next, I called Jim, with my new plan; most importantly, he agreed.

My new plan involved Ryan saying he took some of the videos and copied the rest. It was leveraged persuasion - which is sometimes called extorsion. We would keep him anonymous, he would escape his bad deeds, and we could use video evidence without risk to my license. I wasn't comfortable letting Ryan go but had to do something to protect myself.

It took a couple of days. I set up a meeting with several officers of the board of both charities, Jim, Ryan, and me.

When we were assembled Jim spoke first. "Thank you for meeting with us. I am afraid I have some unwelcome news. My ex-wife, Doris Nelson is having affairs with married members of both of your boards."

I looked at one of the groups and said, "Tom Benson." Then to the other, "Bill Mason."

"A few years ago," Jim continued, "Doris had a fling with the then, mayor. It got a ton of press. You see, among her other, shall I say, odd moral values, is a desire to video her transgressions and watch them at her leisure."

Jim paused for effect. The board representatives were all stricken. Jim continued. "We have video, if you'd like to see it."

Janice Davis, one of the Board officers, said she most certainly did not. Another, Ralph Williams, asked, "How is it you have video?"

Jim looked at Ryan. "Joe, would you tell them, please?"

When we introduced ourselves, we called Ryan, Joe Smith - not original, but anonymous. We had rehearsed his little speech, "First, my name is not Joe Smith, these gentlemen have kindly agreed to help my identity remain unknown. Unfortunately, I am also involved with Ms. Nelson, and we have progressed to the point that I now use her phone to do the videos. I copied a bunch of them to my own phone and happened to get the videos Jim mentioned in the process."

He stopped abruptly. I spoke up. "We are interested in hurting as few people as possible. We particularly do not want scandal to impact your great organizations. We do want Doris to get what is coming to her - removal from both boards and her actions reported to her current husband."

I got affirming nods all around and continued. "We have a ten second, R-rated, video segment for each board. I would like to send them to you. Both show nothing graphic but do leave no doubt what the easily identifiable people shown are doing."

I got agreement and sent the videos. They took 10 seconds to watch, and I had their full attention.

I asked if it was okay for "Joe" to leave. Everyone thanked him and he left, looking a good deal better than when he had come in.

What followed was a great discussion. The charity representatives were furious. Scandals can end charities. They wanted Doris punished and they wanted the men hung out to dry, too. We talked about how that might be done. They were so mad they wanted to just announce it at a public board meeting. Jim and I had a far better plan. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed, and they bought into our plan.

The result was all Jim hoped for - and more.

Both Boards chose two officers to go to the home of their male board member. In front of the spouse, they spoke of the affair and the video evidence. Two divorces ensued.

Next, representatives of both charities and I went to the office of Mr. Nelson. We told him what was going on and showed him the two 10-second videos. Nelson was beside himself. He knew of Doris' past, and she had sworn to him it would never happen again. He had protected himself with a prenup. He let out a positively sinister chuckle and said, "The arrogant whore never even read it. She'll wish she had. At least winters here are fairly mild; a box beneath an underpass is not all that bad a home, for the likes of her.

I asked if we might talk in private. Bill thanked everyone for letting him know, privately, first, and escorted them to the outer office. He came back in and asked, "How is it we might help one another?"

"Let me give you a hint of why I want to ask this of you. I had a client, Jim Watson. Jim is a really nice guy, straight arrow, and always looking for ways to help people. He'd be a good friend ten minutes after you met him. Doris did the same thing to him that she has now done to you."

"That pisses me off. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but she said she had an affair with the mayor. I guess she forgot about the videos."

I went on to explain to him how Doris had turned on Jim and that I feared she might try it with him, as well.