COFFEE AT TRAINYARDS today. It’s a small café just down along the Iron Horse Trail. It’s attached to an office-leasing space. An accelerator center, if that means anything to folks. A place where small business can lease rooms with common amenities shared amongst other startups. Saves on costs, which is an important thing with new businesses. Also, allows for some great flexibility in the SOHO business world. People can work in the office, or from home, or from the in-house coffee shop. The Wi-Fi here is excellent—much better than the 802.11b I get at home. I should ask my neighbor to upgrade his router.
The next morning, I headed back to Kitchener to talk to Jim’s wife and see if I could get a deeper dive into their history, as well as to see whether Jim had returned with any excuses about where he was the past couple of days. She said he hadn’t returned yet, but that was the new normal around here. She also asked how I was doing on the case, and I admitted I had seen him with another woman, but that there weren’t any conclusive photos or anything compromising I could show her at this point.
Jim’s wife seemed rather anxious, and my mention of another woman got her a little riled up. She started pacing, and she tossed a throw cushion under the guise of straightening up the place. The pillow knocked over a picture of the two of them in better times. I stood up and went over to adjust the picture frame, and made a comment after looking at the two of them. I asked about Jim’s hair. In the picture, it was thinning. Short hair with a comb-over.
But that’s not what he looked like yesterday, or any of the other times I saw him. His wife mentioned the new hair piece. Said he’d been getting into shape, and that his hair was thinning a lot more these days. Obviously, he wasn’t doing any of it for her.
Fitness membership, a gun, a toupee. A really high-end fitness membership. With custom lockers and everything. And supplements. So many supplements for his workout. Male enhancement stuff. She gave me a receipt she found in one of his pockets. It was a long list of items from one of those nutrition and protein powder stores in the mall.
Not knowing what else to do with it, I pocketed the receipt and thanked the wife. I promised to monitor her husband and get to the bottom of things.
The receipt showed a bill of over $200 in supplements at the nutrition store. Some of them I knew, some of them I’d heard of, and a few others which made little sense to me. Ashwagandha, maca root, Yohimbe extract, black ginger extract, potassium, iodide, Korean red ginseng, magnesium, selenium. I looked up a few online and found them linked to male enhancement and general health for aging individuals. Also, they’d spelled iodine incorrectly.
It wouldn’t hurt to check out the nutrition store at the mall. Maybe grab some lunch there while I was at it. The mall was in south Kitchener, and I hadn’t been there in years. I wondered why people still went to malls. Something to do, I guess. I suppose if you’re trying something on, or there’s a restaurant or movie theatre attached. Did people still go see movies?
The mall was cool and mostly empty. Something expected for a weekday. There were no schools nearby, either. So, no students. Otherwise, it looked like a typical mall. Shiny floors, neon signs over fashion stores. The ever-present scent of cinnamon buns covering up other, less desirable smells.
I found the supplement store and checked in with the dour bodybuilder behind the counter. He looked me over, nodded at me, and pointed over at the protein powders. I smiled a little. Nice to think I’ve still got it.
I showed him the receipt and asked about the items on the list. He cracked a smile and suggested a couple of new arrivals for male enhancement. I was just about to punch him, but decided to roll with it. I asked if these items would be good for a guy in my position. Looking for a little uplift, if you know what I mean.
He said the receipt had a typo in it. I noticed that too. Iodine.
But he said, no, someone put a carriage return instead of a space in the database. Potassium and iodide were not two separate items. It was a supplement. It was specifically used to treat the thyroid and protect against cancer.