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Read Part One Here.
Enjoy Part Four!
I call Grover.
No, not THAT Grover.
My buddy Grover from college.
Grover’s perfect. There isn’t anyone I know who has more free time and less responsibility than my old college roommate.
And check out what he does for a living.
He’s a movie location scout.
He gets freelance assignments from producers to drive around and find suitable Midwest locations for their films and take pictures of them.
He’s worked on some pretty big films too.
The Dark Knight.
Transformers: Dark of the Moon.
Man of Steel.
And a whole bunch of independent movies that no one has ever seen.
Also, and this is not an unimportant point, Grover is a pretty big dude. He’s like a hair over 6’5” and works out like he takes his shirt off in public. I haven’t worked out since the kids were born. Who has the time? I don’t, but Grover does.
Private detectives get the pulp beat out of them all the time on cases, so it helps to have an intimidating sidekick to watch your back.
Not that Grover is a violent dude. Ninety-nine percent of the time Grover is as gentle as a petting zoo goat. The reason is because 99 percent of the time Grover, like the goat, is stoned.
I mean the man is homegrown.
He’d smoke up in a church confessional, and since he gets pretty honest while high, he’d use that as his confession and offer the priest a toke.
Still, Grover is perfect for what this job needs.
I call his cell and tell him about the case.
He says, “Oh my God, Cal. I’m salivating this so exciting.”
“So, you’ll do it?”
“Absolutely. This works out perfect, I’m on a job right now scouting sleazy motels for this new film called I Declare Thumb War.”
“What’s it about?”
“Beats me, I didn’t read the script, but the producer wants a sleazy motel location and if your client’s wife is cheating on him, she’s probably meeting up at one of them.”
“That’s what I figured.”
“From here on out, you can let me do the figuring. Grover is on the case.”
“Just so we’re clear. I’m the private dick and you’re like my assistant who’s helping me out on this one particular aspect of the case. I’m talking a very limited scope here.”
“No, I get it. You’re the somewhat boring lead character with a moral code of honor and I’m the badass sidekick who gets his hands dirty. I’m cool with that for now. Maybe one day I’ll get myself a spin-off series due to popular demand. And besides, you’ve got the wife and kids at home, so I’ll get to pick up all that stray leftover trim.”
“Trim?”
“Dames, femme fatales, women with dark pasts. I wouldn’t be surprised if I struck up a torrid affair with this Nora Rasmussen twist. She sounds like a hot number. Do you know if she smokes up?”
“Grover, you’re building this up way too much. All you have to do is follow her from her house to wherever she goes and take pictures.”
“That’s cool. What’s our policy regarding nudity?”
“If it’s essential to the scene. Nothing gratuitous.”
“Tastefully done.”
“Right, tasteful nudes, but no video. The client was firm on that point.”
“OK, but one more question.”
“What?”
“Should we open up a detective agency office now or wait until we solve our first case?”
“Just take the pictures.”
I hang up.
This might have been a mistake.
***
But, Grover comes through, like he always does, eventually.
We did another solid week of surveillance on Nora Rasmussen.
I handled the at home surveillance monitor tapping, while Grover picked up the tail and followed her to her mysterious destination. He then took pictures with his iPhone and sent them to me.
And where was she going all this time?
Here’s the big reveal.
She goes to lunch everyday with a woman who looks like her except slightly younger and a shade darker-haired.
I can only assume that it’s her sister.
Monday they met at Chili’s.
Tuesday they went to Starbucks and drank coffee and ate stale overpriced muffins.
Wednesday they had a picnic lunch at the park.
Thursday they walked around the mall eating wraps.
And Friday, they hit up Chili’s again.
So that’s it.
That’s the big mystery.
Disappointing, right?
Grover’s pissed. He’s all like, “You promised me a sexy cheating wife case. She didn’t visit a single no-tell-motel! All I saw was two women drinking white wine and picking at their salads. Once she went shopping at the mall, but she didn’t try on anything sexy. Forget tasteful nudes or brief nudity, there wasn’t even a single scene of adult content. Her life makes yours look exciting.”
That’s a shot.
But he’s right.
Nora Rasmussen’s life looks boring when you watch it from the outside and record the cold hard facts.
***
Ty scrolls through the surveillance pictures I sent to his phone.
I’m back sitting in Ty’s man cave laying out the facts of the case. I provided him with a detailed log of all his wife’s comings and goings for a span of two weeks and a typed up summary of all the conversations I overheard on the monitor.
All the facts point to the same conclusion.
Nora Rasmussen is not having an affair.
“I hope you’re tapping that ass every night, because no one else is.”
Ty looks up from his phone. “I’m sorry, Calvin, who is this again?” he says, pointing at Grover seated next to me, wrist-deep in a tray of sliders that Nora whipped up for us.
“I’m the sidekick,” Grover says.
Ty looks confused. “Sidekick?”
I explain, “With the kids, I couldn’t do the 24-hour, 360-degree surveillance that the case needed. So I had to bring in an outside consultant. But don’t worry, he’s the best at what he does, and you can totally trust him.”
Ty looks over at Grover whose shoving two sliders in his mouth at the same time. Ty says, “OK, but I’m not paying him too.”
Grover swallows the burgers and says to me, “You got paid? This was a paying gig?”
“I was going to split it with you,” I say to Grover.
Ty says, “Well, I’ll let you two work that out amongst yourselves. But, I think I’ve got all the information I need at the moment, so this case is officially closed.”
I say, “You should feel pretty good, right? Your wife’s not cheating. It was all in your head.”
Ty purses his lips and nods in agreement.
Maybe that was wrong thing to say.
He’s still tapping away at his phone.
“Are you deleting the photos?”
Ty nods again without looking up.
“That’s smart,” I say. “Cover your tracks, our tracks that is. Don’t want Nora going through your phone and be like, ‘Ty, why do you have surveillance photos of me having lunch with my sister?’ And you’ll be like, ‘Uh, our neighbor took them and sent them to me.’ Awkward, right?”
Ty doesn’t respond. He’s still engrossed in his deleting.
Awkward.
Silence.
“Hoppy,” Grover says, holding up his mug of Mad Hops.
“I told you it was good,” I say to Grover.
“Say Ty, do they sell Mad Hops at any stores around here?”
Ty taps the phone one last time, slides it shut, and says, “Gentleman, the case is closed. You can go now.”
“Oh,” I say. “I thought maybe we could hang out a little? The Cubs are on this afternoon.”
I mean, Ty’s a little bit of a stiff, but with the TV and the comfy seats and the free beer and the homemade snacks and the lack of screaming children, this is a pretty nice place to watch a game.
Ty doesn’t say anything. He just reaches over and presses a small plastic button on the side of the bar.
The garage door opens.
OMG.
We’re getting shown the door.
Like he’s an evil genius behind a desk pressing a big red button, opening up a trapdoor underneath us.
“OK then,” I say, getting up. “Grover, let’s go.”
Grover finishes the foamy remains of his beer and sets it down. He then grabs two handfuls of sliders off the tray and stuffs them into his baggy shorts pockets. “To go,” he says to Ty as he walks out into the cruel sunlight.
I follow him out, kicked out of the man cave Shangri-La, probably never to return.
Come back tomorrow for Part Five of "Monitor".
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