the doors of the office buildings. I knew what that meant: lunchtime. I was getting a little hungry myself, although strictly a breakfast-and-dinner type, don’t ask me why—take it up with Bernie.
Now was when we had to watch extra hard, in case our guy got lost in the crowd. But Bernie wasn’t watching hard, wasn’t watching at all. In fact, he was gazing down at his hands—Bernie had big strong hands, one or two fingers bent a little out of shape—doing what, I had no idea. Waiting for Suzie’s answer to his question? Could that have been it? And Suzie did say something, but whatever it was, I missed it because there stepped our guy, out from behind two women on the other side of the street. Bernie was much better with faces than me, especially from a distance, but we’d been tracking this guy off and on for days, and he had a mustache, a big black one that divided his face into two parts, making him easy to spot.
“Why is Chet growling like that?” Suzie said.
“I don’t—” Bernie raised his head at last and glanced out the window. “That’s him. Justin Anthony III.”
“He even looks suspicious,” Suzie said.
Bernie laughed. What was funny?
Justin Anthony III got into a huge SUV, possibly one of those Hummers that Bernie hated so much; or maybe not—car identification was another one of my weaknesses. They all smelled the same. He pulled in to traffic. We followed.
Bernie drove, always keeping a car or two between us and the subject, which was the word we used for anyone we tailed. I sat up straight, then stood so I could get my face right next to the windshield.
“Chet. Siddown, for God’s sake. Look what you did to the mirror.”
But—I sat down.
“And don’t pant.”
Nothing I could do about that.
Suzie took out a notebook. “So the background here is that your client, Mrs. Justin Anthony III—”
“You’re not planning to use real names?”
“Just yours.”
“And Chet. You can use his real name.”
“Is it short for anything? Chester?”
Chester? That was a name? Don’t tell me my real name was Chester.
“Just Chet,” Bernie said.
Whew.
Suzie wrote in her notebook. “So your client suspects that her husband’s cheating on her?”
“But can’t prove it. The divorce will go much better for her if she can.”
“Are they rich?”
“I wouldn’t say rich. He’s a stockbroker and she’s a real estate appraiser.”
“Typical Valley couple.”
Bernie laughed again. Why? No idea, but it was nice to hear.
“And what’s your gut feeling?” said Suzie. “Cheating or not?”
“Cheating,” said Bernie.
“But you’ve been following him for a week with no result. What makes you so sure?”
“Ninety-nine percent of the time, if a wife suspects the husband of cheating, she’s right.”
“Why is that?”
“They sense something.”
Suzie’s pen was moving fast. “And the other way? Husbands suspecting wives?”
“They’re right half the time, if that.”
“Yeah?” said Suzie. “Why?”
“Maybe men have more active imaginations.”
“You’re pulling my leg.”
I glanced at Suzie’s leg. Bernie wasn’t even touching it, had both hands on the wheel. No explanation came—not that I cared about this particular subject, or any of the back-and-forth when we were on the job—because at that moment the SUV turned onto a narrow street and parked in front of a long low building with lots of doors and a big cactus sign.
“The Saguaro Motor Inn?” Suzie said. “My sister and her girlfriends stayed here last year.”
“A respectable place in a safe area,” said Bernie, backing into a space on the opposite side of the lot. “He’s a stockbroker, after all.”
Justin Anthony III got out of his car, went through a door at the end of the building, returned with a key in his hand. He walked all the way to a door at the other end and let himself in.
Bernie took out his recorder, spoke low. “Twelve-twenty-two P.M., subject Justin Anthony
Carmen Caine, Madison Adler