One:

Who said there are no more mysteries left in the world? Certainly not anyone who ever got divorced, suffered from some form of fraud, or fell prey to some other sort of crime. As a girl, I often found myself drawn to Nancy Drew novels or the Hardy Boys. (Hey, no gender discrimination from me pal!)

Often, I was imagining my life tracking down the gentleman thieves or the femme fatale. What no one bothered to tell ten-year-old Regina Giles, was that she would be sitting in a window ledge on a sticky summer day, waiting for the eventual tryst scheduled for this evening.

Even after my short stint as a homicide detective was ended, here I crouched, still pushing my way into everyone’s business for a paycheck and a mystery to solve.

Here in Peckford, Georgia, the largest city outside Atlanta, the summer days were in the hundred-plus-degrees. The humidity index was roughly one hundred percent, and the some-called lovers in question, well, let us just say they are not the world’s finer choices of a nude specimen. At least when this happens on the popular cop shows, it is always a hot but desperate woman, and either a man or woman of some sexual prowess and allure. Not two very average, and very nearly wrinkling people pushing fifty, and their best years are nearly three-decades behind them.

My job is not romantic, in fact, my job often happens well after the romance has been put out into the pasture and shot dead. However, ask me to become a mall cop or some other form of token security, and I would rather eat my gun!

Here in Peckford, there are no good choices when it comes to investigators—and yes, I am including the actual police in this statement. As a girl with a time-honored love of the craft, even if it is a thankless and often disgusting job, it is one I still feel compelled to take on when my boots hit the floor in the morning. (Insert theme song here.)

Tracking down and photographing philandering spouses were nearly 80% of my clientele. However, a girl lives for that other twenty-or-so-percent where she can solve more desirable cases.

My phone vibrated while I am mid-shot, nearly causing me to lose my angle, just about the time the lovers seem to lose what remains of their dignity, or at least from my perspective.  I do try not to judge, considering I am a very gay woman myself, and plenty of people think what I do is strange.

After snapping ten more rapid click frames with my lovely long-range lens, I pulled my phone from my pocket with one hand, while looking through the lens with the other.

“This better be life-or-death man-thang, or else we’re gonna have words!”

My tone was very annoyed, with a side-dish of spicey. In my twenty-seven-years of life, I had but one friend whom I could greet like this and not worry about where we stood later. That friend also happened to be my business partner of sorts. He handled the office work, and I handled the cases.

“Bitch, please, you know you want a distraction from whatever over-the-hill boning your eyes are feasting upon. Or are the subjects hot for a change?”

Harry’s voice was possibly higher pitched than mine. If you could not tell from the very city-southern sound of his lilt, Harry is very much gay, not that we made this a business model or anything. He was always looking for girlfriends to play dress-up with and do make-up for when growing up, and well I was always looking for a guy to run around with, I guess we both had a bit of a strange compromise in our ways, but we’ve been thick as thieves without a single break in our friendship since we were seven.

I chortled and murmured, “I don’t know, but from the size of the packages, I would say it is like watching two moons orbiting around Jupiter.”

I murmured in a crude but somewhat savvy joke. Harry chuckled in amusement and said, “Only you could find a way to be both a geek and a bitch at the same time!”

I scowled to myself and muttered, “Easy there sister man! Don’t make me text you my hidden reserves from the early two-thousands of you at prom with that little Mediterranean number you were wearing! I mean, even a blind gay man could have told you that outfit was too loud for a prom!”

He sucked down a deep breath as if flabbergasted that I would mention our junior prom. In his defense, I did sort-of agree to burn all the evidence, but I mean, come on! I had to have one or, five mementos to remember that loud and proud evening with! This was also five whole years before we elected our first gay Mayor, so it was a bit tense back then.

“Then I might happen upon some of those butch-girl photos I have of you in college! Back before you realized you could look like a girl and still be completely gay at the same time!”

Harry taunted me, and I cringed at the memories. I suppose we all go through a few phases of identity confusion and transition.

“Ok, truce, but no more antagonizing the traumatically challenged!”

I said, and Harry promptly replied, “What does that even mean?! That you cannot become traumatized?!”

I frowned and shrugged to myself, and said, “Not sure, I guess I just let that one out a bit too soon.”

He hummed in agreement, and I could practically hear the gears shift in his mood.

“So, we had a late walk-in. Wants to meet with you, but she’s being rather vague about her problem. I can’t rightly say what the girl wants, just that she is insisting on speaking with you.”

Harry said, and I could hear the curiosity was eating him alive. Harry loves stories, gossip, and intrigue. A mysterious client with a less than open agenda would send him into a tizzy if he couldn’t get to hear her story soon.

“Well, I have what I came for. I doubt the gentleman will require an entire slideshow presentation of his wife’s torrid affair.”

Somehow, I managed to say that with a straight face, despite knowing there were no gentlemen left in my city. Corruption had eaten this city from the inside out as it expanded from the small town it had once started as. Now, it was a teeming metropolis filled with a skewed sense of personal interest.

To the outside, it seems like a beautiful construct of modern architecture and promising business developments. An entirely new city, a neo-southern modern design that blanketed the whole of the city. No ancient gothic or old-world concepts, all post-modern and neo-American themed structures. The very best way to describe the city is like a very large college town that just seemed to spread and spread.

“On the bright side, I can have our friendly neighborhood therapist’s information and pamphlets out for him when he comes to settle his debt.”

Henry exclaimed cheerfully, and I shook my head in faux disgust. Henry had yet to find a single opportunity to avoid chasing a buck. We received a fifty-dollar kickback every time a client we referred paid the good doctor their first visit. That might seem seedy and unscrupulous, but hey, we have C-notes piling up demanding to be paid. Our little firm is hardly a massive and lucrative venture currently. We are nearly drowning under the expenses, and our office space is hardly cheap. Heck, I have considered packing up and sleeping on my damn couch in my office, rather than keeping my apartment. However, it is very nice to have a place that is not my work, to hang my hat at the end of the day. Besides, I’m far too paranoid to allow the random flings I meet on the town into my office unchecked. I’m just not the type of girl who keeps her most valuable possessions at home. My most valuable contents are client details and case data.

I might have a lot of cheating spouse cases, but I also have plenty of criminal cases as well. PI’s are not as frequently approached about a criminal case, but there are plenty of times where private citizens feel their cases are not being given the proper due justice or effort. In this town, justice is not only blind, but she’s also deaf and dumb as well. That is to say, only the prolifically stupid end up wearing iron bracelets or going up the river. Most of the real criminals of this city seem to find ways to wiggle off the hook. This place often rates off the charts on the criminal scale. Peckford City was created on the oceanic front of Georgia, a new port city. Like a lot of other port cities before it, Peckford was vulnerable to the plethora of criminal enterprises looking to take advantage of its convenient positioning.

With much of Florida now under a microscope due to the cocaine pipelines from South America, many Cartel bosses began to seek out new blood in a new vulnerable city without the infrastructure of history to defend against high-level corruption. While the US is plenty filthy with moles and other forms of intrusive malevolence, Peckford lacked the power-players and independent wealthy business moguls whose self-interest aid in some of the day-to-day checks and balances with spotting corruption. Corporate spies and corporate security often incidentally turn over paydirt involving federal and state corruption. Naturally, these independents are not saints themselves, and they will only exploit these for gain, however, the presence of so many separate agendas and investigating bodies provides an extra layer to secure against the types of systemic issues here.

“Henry, I’ll be heading back your way. Tell your lady to keep her socks on in the meantime.”

I said, and Henry chortled at the very old-time sounding phrase. What could I say, I was weak towards some of the bygone age and their proclivities for clean and cheesy speech? I was hardly a choir girl when it came to speaking, hell I was more closely aligned to the devil herself when it came to linguistics, but I guess sometimes we can be drawn to things so contrary to ourselves, despite this truth.

“Well, if it's just her socks you’re worried about…”

Henry joked, and I huffed and rolled my eyes at the phone.

“Honestly, you’re incorrigible Henry. You know I don’t knock boots with the customers.”

Henry murmured, “That’s about the only women you don’t screw!”

His sassy, sarcastic tone was biting, and I knew he was not far off the mark with me. In the past couple of years, I had gone from the occasional girlfriend to girls in bars, and any other place one might go to meet a fun and no-strings lesbian encounter. Hell, I’ve even fooled around with the occasional curious college girl, but they do often tend to appreciate my sexual prowess the most, even if they most certainly will end up dating a man soon. However, I’ve been seriously lacking for any deeper connections of late.

Anything to keep me from finding someone to commit to. Since there is nothing in this world as deadly as trusting someone. Not just the men who hurt me, but the women who scorned me and deserted me in the process. I learned my lesson a while back, and I don’t plan to let history repeat itself once again.  My life was like a sad sack of pitiable experiences. All of them leading me to the door of my own office.

After I closed out my photographic surveillance, I then had to crouch down and climb the narrow ladder on the fire escape. Not for the first time, I was thanking all my lucky stars that I was not born with some form of vertigo problem or fear of heights. I had been raised on military bases. My mom and dad had been career Army Intelligence officers. It was their passion for deductive reasoning and investigation which passed to me honestly. The memory of their deaths was a perpetual blow. Even now so many years later, and several foster placements removed. I was toughened and taught to defend myself from an early age, and the foster care system only amplified this instinct in me.  Now, I was hell-bent never to let anyone get the drop on me again, not in anything. Peckford is as good a place as any for a gal like me to hang her hat since Peckford is not for the weak.

We are either the spider or we are the flies caught in the criminal web.