Yummy Dirt

I remember learning in PI class that a good source of information (of the yummy, negative kind) is ex-girl/boyfriends and ex-spouses. And that made sense to me. I even heard stories about it from a friend who’s a retired federal agent. For example, they solved a cold case – a murder, no less – by going back and interviewing a woman who, at the time, had been the suspect’s girlfriend. Well, as luck would have it, they’d broken up by then – more than a decade later – and boy was she pissed. So much for the suspect’s alibi. Good for them. Cool story idea, I thought, and filed it away for later use – though the whole “hell hath no fury” angle has been used once or twice before.

But then it happened to me. I was investigating a guy a couple years ago, and really didn’t expect to find a whole lot. Most people, even if they’re complete scum, manage to stay off the radar. I mean, think about it: how many times does the average person exceed the speed limit before getting a ticket? How many times does the average junkie score drugs before they get caught? If it was that hard to do, there wouldn’t be any junkies – or prostitutes, or muggers, or child abusers, etc. But this guy…the more I dug, the more I found.

In spite of that, though, it wasn’t until I spoke with his wife (who was supposed to be his ex-wife but, oops, he’d forgotten to get a divorce before moving on) that I really began to appreciate what kind of person he was. And it wasn’t until I heard her voice, her pain, her stress, that I appreciated what kind of hell a man like that could put someone through. She wasn’t stupid or naïve, either. He’d just been that good a con man. And it wasn’t like she, or the other mothers of his children, could just shrug and move on.

Someday, that case will show up in a novel of mine, in some form. It was a doozy. The bad guy? Last I heard of him, he was in a jail in Virginia – with a little help from me. Here’s hoping he’s still there.