I was driving home from a late night out at the Lazy Boy Tavern when an idea popped in my mind. That night, before the idea came, I was sitting on a
stool in the Lazy Boy Tavern listening to the same talk I'd heard for just about every night that week, there.

'Can you believe the bastard? Guy tells me that she came home last night smelling of men's cologne.'� They all laughed. Arty, Bob, and Jim. They were seated side by side on the stools in the front counter, watching a baseball game, smoking cigars, drinking Bourbon, and chatting drunkenly. I was seated on the stool next to Jim, observing their conversation off handidly. 'I tell you, that Peter DeWitt is one character,'� Jim said. 'Five years we've been working together, and five years he's been yapping about how he thinks his wife is screwing around on him with other men.'� They laughed again. I took a chug of my beer, with an eyebrow raised, as they laughed.
'That's about the funniest thing I've ever heard, Jimmy,'� Bob replied. 'Shit, the day I see that tame chicken with another man is the day I cook dinner at home.'� The laughter that came from the three of them was nearly deafening.

So, as I was saying, I was driving home that night when the idea came to me: Spy on Peter DeWitt's wife. I had it set that I was going to spy on her, and I that I wasn't going to let anyone know I was doing so. The next morning, I went to an electronics store. By the time I was done shopping there, I had a set of binoculars, a digital camera, a police scanner, and a heavy case of anxious excitement on my hands. I also went to the car warehouse that I worked at, and mentally picked out three different cars to use.

At the Tavern, that night, Arty, Bob, and Jim spoke less and without as much energy in their humor about Peter and his wife's marital issues as they had the previous nights there. Their conversation was just about turning stale when I asked the question: 'Have any of you guys actually wondered if what Peter is saying is true?'� Immediately, Bob and Jim laughed, and Arty spit some of his beer out on the counter as he struggled to suppress the laughter that was making its way through him. Bob gave Jim a nudge on his side and said,
'Guy's just about as quiet as a mouse all week and now he says something like this. Unbelievable.'� As their laughter subsided, they turned to me and gave me a look of bewilderment. Then Jim said, 'I know you're new in town, Tom, and I know you're much younger than us, but have you actually seen Mrs. DeWitt?'� A laughing sound came from Arty. I thought about the question and then admitted,
'No, I haven't.'�
'Well, not exactly model material, my man,'� Jim said with a snicker and a pat on my shoulder. Arty and Bob chuckled.
'Yeah, and she's about the shyest woman you'll ever meet. To this day, I don't know how she manages to work as a cashier at Kohls,'� Bob chimed in.
'Peter's delusional, Tom. He's never seen her with anyone, yet he still believes she's cheating on him. The way I see it, you'd have a better chance winning the lottery than seeing her with another man.'�

At six o'clock the next day, I sat in a Ford Taurus, across from a Kohls department store's parking lot with a baseball cap pulled low on my head, and binoculars around my neck. As I sat there watching the minutes tick by, I began to have second thoughts about what I was doing. I had no experience with spying on anyone. If I was to get caught, the joke would be on me. I started to think about what would happen if I slipped up; but after some time, I pushed those thoughts to the back of my mind and looked at the rearview mirror and began laughing at my reflection. During the last ten minutes, I slipped on a pair of sunglasses to better disguise myself. The reflection on the mirror looked nothing like the mechanic that worked long hours in grime and dirt. The reflection looked like a spy. Some 1800's English detective. 'Sherlock Holmes,'� I thought with a chuckle. 'You've really turned yourself into a natural born Sherlock Holmes.'� My right fingers were up against the side of my sunglasses, ready to remove it, when I saw a woman walking out of the Kolhs, that, to a tee, matched the description of Peter's wife that Bob and Jim had given the night before. All 220 pounds of her jiggled like jello as she walked, as they said they would; and, she had so many beads of sweat on her forehead that she looked like she just finished running a marathon in a desert, as they had said. The most notable part about her was her hair. It was jet-black, and ran down to her lower back. She squeezed into her car and then drove out of the parking lot.

For twelve minutes, I followed her through a highway and through residential streets, always keeping at least a two car distance away from her; but as she turned off a busy road into a street called Mullberry, I was the only car behind her. The doubt that I felt as I sat in my car across from the Kohls parking lot, came back as I tried to do the impossible: stay behind her while remaining inconspicuous.

About five houses down the street, she pulled into a driveway on the right hand side of the street. I continued driving as she pulled in, and then I stopped and parked by the curb of a house five units from the one that she parked at. I was beginning to pull out my camera, and I was beginning to wonder about whose house it was that she went into, when, to my surprise, she ran out to the house to the driveway with a man. My hands reached for the camera so quickly I almost jammed my fingers against it. As I hit the record button, a burst of excitement overfilled me. For weeks, I'd heard Arty, Bob, and Jim's jokes about Peter's suspicions of cheating. With the camera in my hand recording what I was seeing, I had proof that she was in fact seeing another man. I couldn't wait to show it to them and see the looks on their faces.

The man, bald and dressed in a blue robe with flip-flops on, stood by the passenger side of her car. She stood at the gas cap of the car, and by the looks of it, she was giving him a tongue-lashing. Her arms flailled up and down as she spoke.

Less than ten seconds later, she entered her car and pulled out of the driveway. I followed her but decided to maintain a wide margin from her until she got on busier streets. The smile on my face stretched from ear to ear. I imagined walking into the Tavern and letting Arty, Bob, and Jim get a good start with their jokes, and then I'd say, "Fellas, look at this." That would make their jaws drop, I imagined.

Three cars behind her, on a street a few blocks from the house she had stopped in, I started to think back about the guy I'd seen her with. In my assessment, they didn't look happy to see each other. I thought about that, and then I began to wonder why in the hell she would cheat on someone to be with someone she apparently couldn't stand. As I was thinking about it, I remembered something that Jim had said during one of his drunkin' outbursts . 'Ha! Yeah, Bob. And then Arty rubbed Peter's head and said to him, 'why, you're about as bald as my newborn baby's ass.' Oh, God,Bob, you should have seen it.'� At the time, it sounded like just another one of Jim's drunkin run offs, so I payed little attention to it. But as I thought back on teh appearance of the man I'd seen her with on the driveway, I almost smacked myself in the head. Two minutes later, I called Jim.

"This Jim speaking."
"Hey, Jim. It's Tom. Got a question for you."
"Ok, spit it out."
"You know... Peter DeWitt."
"Yeah...."
"What street does he live on?"
"Mullbery. Why?"
"No reason. I'll see you guys later."
"Tom..."

I clicked the phone off, disgusted at the reversal of fortune.

At seven thirty five, I sat in my car, a little down the street from a fancy Italian restaurant called Rosetti's. The images I had recorded earlier on the camera were deleted for at least a half an hour by then, but while sitting in the car, a renewed sense of excitement and anxiety filled me because in front of Rosetti's she stood with her arms crossed as if she were waiting for someone. I set my camera in position for a potential shot of her meeting with whom she had been waiting for. Along the sidewalk up to Rosetti's, numerous men, some with women, others alone, walked by. Expectedly, my finger twitched on the camera trigger as each man walked by her. A part of my excitement came from the potential photograph of evidence; the other came from the curiosity that had been building in me since I first set out spying on her.

After some time she turned around and walked into the restaurant. My eyes darted around to see if anyone was following her in, but the only people outside the restaurant at the time were two couples, huddled together chatting and laughing noisily. 'Ah, shit,'� I muttered to myself. I debated what to do.

I first considered driving up the street a little until I was directly across from the restaurant, so I could get a view of her inside it, but then I figured that it would be too strange for a car that had been parked for half an hour to move several feet and then park again for a while. Besides, the area was loaded with cops who were itching to question anyone they found suspicious. They would make a scene, and that was the last thing I needed.

After some thinking, I decided that the best thing to do was to go into the restaurant.
Inside of Rosetti's , I was greeted by the pungent odor of garlic and pasta sauce and a fat, bald man by the name of Georgie, who stood about ten feet from the cash register, which was behind him to his right. Over his shoulder, there was a fair view of the dinning room.
'Can I help you, sir?'� He asked. Georgie was shaped like a brick. His bald head shone from the overhead lighting of the restaurant, and his neck seemed too big for the tight collar of his tuxedo. I glanced at him and then looked over his shoulder to the dinning room, where couples were indulging in food, wine and conversation. 'The black hair,'� I thought. 'The black hair.'� Though, as I scanned around the room, I noticed that many women had black hair. 'Can I help you, sir?'� he repeated, louder and more forceful than before. My gaze shifted back to his face and it met squarely with his cold blue eyes. 'I'd like to use the restroom,'� I said casually. He returned my answer with a look of confusion as if he didn't understand what I had just said. Once again, I looked over his shoulder to the customers sitting in the dinning room.

After a deliberate survey of the area, I noticed her. She was sitting with her back facing me, and to my surprise, she was showing a little skin-- her neckline and arms. Either she was comfortable with the restaurant or the person she was with, because I'd never seen her show much skin. Looking at her from the angle I was at, I could not tell which one it was, because from where I stood, and the angle she sat at, it was nearly impossible to see if she was at the table with another person. All I needed to do was to walk a few steps into the room and I'd be able to find out.

'Sir! Sir!'� My eyes turned to the source of the loud voice, and it came upon Georgie's fat face.
For the first time since I took my eyes off of him, I remembered that he was there. He noticed me focus in on him again, and he frowned as if I were the most repulsive thing he'd ever seen. 'There's a fee to enter Rosetti' s. You're going to have to pay before you can enter,'� he said.
'Look, I just want to use the bathroom. That's all. I'm not looking for a meal or anything.'� He stood stone faced. A glitter of amusement flickered in his eyes.
'Nope. Sorry. Company rules, boss.'� I stared at him with a look of disdain and then asked him what the door fee was. He leaned back in his fat shoes and said, matter of factly, 'Thirty five bucks.'� Before he was able to utter another word, I walked out of the restaurant.

Peter DeWitt needed me the next day because his car was in bad shape. According to him, someone had put a hole through his front tires the night before, and his engine was making funny noises. As I drove to his house, I looked at the twelve-inch knife lying on my passenger seat. 'Now, you didn't put a hole in Mr. DeWitt's tires did you?'� I laughed for a bit. I honestly felt that it was damn funny. Hearing the loud oozing sound of the air inside his tires, and hearing his story of waking up and seeing his car slumped down, was all funny to me but not in a malicious way. It was more so funny in the context of it all. After the horrible experience I had the night before at Rosetti's, I decided that I needed to meet Peter to maybe see I could get some information about his wife's behavior. I figured causing reparable damage to his car would be the quickest and least suspicious manner I could meet him. And he'd get his car fixed to its original state, or even better than it was.

Peter was in every bit like Arty, Bob, and Jim had said he was. By the time I'd finished fixing his car and waxing it down, three hours had passed. We talked about everything from politics to Nascar racing. One thing we didn't talk much about was his wife. At the time, I had no plans to initiate the subject because I figured that it would be strange for someone that he had just met to start poking into his personal life. He did talk about her some, though. Mostly, he talked about how they met and got married. After he handed me a twenty-dollar tip, we engaged in a handshake and exchanged telephone numbers.

During the next week, I spent about six hours a day spying on her. At one point, I contemplated calling the whole thing off, because I had yet to have found any evidence of her cheating. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of that week were three of the slowest days I experienced while spying on here. On those days, I watched her go straight from work to home, where she remained for the rest of the day. It was on the Thursday and Friday of that week that my enthusiasm rose again. Then, she left work, returned home, and then made her way into an apartment building around one o'clock at night. She stayed there for a couple of hours and then went back home. On Saturday morning, I had some plans for that night other than simply spying on her. My plan was to break into the room she was entering.




It was one thirty at night and about seventy-five degrees with a light, cool breeze when I exited my car. I was dressed in a skull cap, a large black sweater, blue denim jeans, black tennis shoes; and black gloves on my hands. A digital camera and my cell phone were in my left front picket, and three different lock picks were in my back pockets. I was dressed so as to make sure that no one would recognize me.

The area was deserted and dark. One incandescent light bulb, hanging on the sidewall of the apartment complex, cast a semi circular light o the ground of the area. It was the only outside light near the complex. There were no lights in any of the individual apartments of the apartment complex, either. I checked my watch: Twelve thirty five. That gave me tweenty five minutes to be in the apartment before she arrived there at the same time she'd returned every single night I'd seen her enter there. Twenty steps from the flight of stairs that led to the second story, which was where the apartment was located, of the apartment complex, I heard a slight brushing sound behind me. My neck snapped around quickly and my heart pounded. The bushes of the embankment above the parking lot were the first things I noticed. As a wind picked up, their leaves blew softly. For nearly a minute, I stood cold and rigid, starting at the bushes. After some time, I began walking towards the apartment again.

The picking of the lock was too easy. Of the thirty industry doors that I practiced picking in the mechanic classes I took as a kid, I can't remember any that yielded quicker than that one did.

The apartment was dark inside. The moonlight shone through the half closed blinds of the front room. The combination of the direction the moonlight struck the window and the positioning of the blinds left an alternating pattern of light on the rug. A feeling of empowerment came over me as I stood in the room. For weeks, I'd felt uncertain as to if I'd ever find anything. Being in the apartment alone, I felt more confident and in charge than I ever felt while tracking her. The rush of adrenaline in me, and the existence of the unknown sped my heart beat up, made my throat dry, and left my palms moist. I checked my watch: Twelve forty one, and then removed my skull cap and gloves before I made my way to the kitchen.

The kitchen was spotless. The curtain that hung from its window was pulled up, revealing the oak trees and shurbs that were cultivated in the apartment's yards outside. I first checked the counters and then saw that there was nothing on them. Next, I went to the refrigerator and opened it. It was full of groceries. The discovery of the amount of groceries in it made me feel surreal, and uneasy. On one hand, it was a direct indication that someone lived there; on the other hand, the surreal feeling I felt came from the realization that I was starting into a part of someone's life. The weeks of spying on Mrs. DeWitt left me dull to that sensation, but the fridge revitalized it. It felt like peering into a person's mind and viewing their likes and dislikes.

I closed the fridge and felt more curious about what else was in the house. Suddenly, the sound of a car pulling into the parking lot came to my ears. Immediately, I ran to the front room window and peered through its blinds.

The parking lot below looked tranquil in the night sky. No cars moved in it, and no headlights on any cars were on. I searched for any signs of movement, but saw none. About a minute later, a man and woman exited a car at the far end of the parking lot. The woman had a baseball cap on. Long black hair flowed down her shoulders. I tried to make out her face, but I couldn't see what she looked like well enough. It was then that I remembered the binoculars. I reached in my pockets for it, but felt nothing but the pliars and other items I had in them. "Fuck," I said out loud.

When the two of them started heading towards the stairs that led to the second floor of the complex, a wild panic arose in me. I found a closet by the kitchen and ran into it. Chrouching in there, I could hear my heavy breathing, and I could hear something else: The sound of footsteps on the stairs. One by one they came slowly and calculated as if they were trying to achieve a predator effect. Keys jingled and the sound of one being thrust into a keyhole made my heart thud.

The doorknob turned slowly, and then the door creaked open. For a minute or so, I stood breathless, waiting to hear footsteps, a voice, or any other indication that they'd entered. The only thing I heard was the thumping of walls. The sounds seemed as if they came from the adjacent apartment, but I wasn't sure. It was then that I remembered the issue with the time. I looked down at my watch: One forty seven is what it read. A sigh of relief, that felt like an enourmous weight had been lifted off me, came from deep within me. However, as I remembered the time, I realized that if I was going to do any more searching of the house, I'd would have to be quick because in thirteen minutes, she'd most likely be coming back.

I opened the closet slowly and started through the side of it's door to see if anyone was standing in the room. There wasn't. Northwest of the closet was a hallway that I recognized from when I first enterted the apartment. The moon's rays, that came through the blinds, only reached the first half of the hallway. Further in the hallway, darkness wall all I could see.

I held my hands out like a blind man trying to use his sense of feel to guide him along his way as I walked through the hallway. It was approximately thirty steps that I took when I reached the end of it. On each step that I took in the darkness, I half expected an evil force to emerge from the darkness, choking my air supply away until I dropped dead.

At the end of the hallway, I felt a door to my left and another to my right. They were both closed. A game of jack in the box came to my mind. Only, the boxes where the rooms behind the door; the door knobs were the levers; and the only question that remined was which door held the stringy monster. Tentatively, my palm clutched the knob of the door to my right. I quickly opened it, and then...

'Tom, is that you? Right as I heard the voice, Goosebumps set all over my body. My initial instinct was to run, but as I heard the voice again, I became numbed. The room was as dark as the second half of the hallway. I squinted my eyes through the darkness, but couldn't make out anything but a bed in the northwest corner of the room. 'What are you doing here?'� I spun around, trying to judge the direction of the voice. As I heard it again, I felt like I had a good idea where it came from.

I walked out of the room and looked down the long hallway. At the front end of the hall, where the moonlight struck, she stood in a red skirt that came up to her mid thigh. Her long black hair hung over her shoulders and red lip gloss was spread evenly on her lips. She looked nothing like the woman I'd been trailing for weeks. Standing there, she had never looked better. 'Thomas,'� she said. Her voice sounded troathy and enchanting. There was an alluring quality to it.

My throat was dry. I swallowed the little bit of saliva in my mouth, and then said,
'How do you know my name?'� A smile formed on her face.
'That's not important.'�
'So, so you're alone You've been alone?'�
'What do you mean by that?'�'
'I mean, you've been clean and alone all this time?'� She smiled again. She had the look in her eyes. I'm not sure when, but some time during the look that she gave, I unconciously began walking towards her slowly. Everything from that point on was an abstraction to me.
Her smile continued on, the look in her eyes became more powerful. I was halfway to her when the ringing of my cell phone startled me.

I picked it out of my pocket and said, 'Hello.'�
'Tom, it's Peter! You won't believe what had just happened. The boys at the Tavern may have already told you about the misses, well, Tom, I decided to do a little investigating on her. And guess what? I think I've got her, Tom. I really do!'� There was a touch of schizophrenia in his voice that I'd heard when I first met him, but had ignored as my own figment. 'Tom, do you know anyone that drives a green Mustang? Tom, are you there?'� He laughed with joy. 'Well I happened to be hidden among some bushes near an apartment the misses says she goes to help her friend that's out of town clean, and I saw a gentelman exit the Mustang and walk into the apartment. I couldn't make out his identity, but I'm walking up the stairs to the apartment right now. I'm going to surprise them, Tom. It will be great!'�

He hung up, and I hid in the only place I could think of as the sound waves of the front door being kicked in ripped through the air. 'Where is he? Where the fuck is he, you rotten bitch?'� The sound of papers being scattered and plates being flung across the kitchen vibrated through the house.
'Peter.'�
'Shut the fuck up.'� I heard loud booming footsteps comming down the hallway and walls being punched in. All through this, I thought about the Peter that I had met, and the Peter that Arty, Bob, and Jim talked about. They seemed like two different people. One was a self masochist; the other sounded like a raging lunatic.

'I'm going to cut his eye ball out, and stick a piece of flaming iron on his tounge and let it rest there. Or I'll just break his little back and torture the hell out of him in front of you. But I've fotta find him, first! You rotten, no good bitch. I'm going to find him and I'm going to make him eat his vomit!'� He slapped her as he spoke. 'Where is he, bitch? Where is he?'� His screaming reached a climax.

'I'm right here you son of a bitch.'� I jumped down from the celing, on the railing that I had been hanging on, and delivered a blow to his face. He fell limply to the ground, and I high tailed the fuck out of the house.

I was in the Tavern the next night with Arty, Bob, and Jim. That night, I was more talkative than I had been previous weeks. 'Ha, and boys, get this. I was at the shop with Arty when Peter walks in with a bruise under his left eye. Arty asks him what happened, and he says that he got beat up by the guy that his wife was cheating on him with. He's gotten desperate now, guys. He's now causing himnself physical pain to try to prove his point.'� Arty, Bob, and Jim all laughed hard. Jim patted me on the shoulder and said, "So you finally believe us, huh, Tom?'�
'Ha, yeah. She isn't the cheating type,'� I replied. The rest of the night we drank heavily and shared jokes about Peter's marital suspicions.

An idea popped into my mind as I drive home that night. I was going to pay Mrs. DeWitt a vist, and I wasn't going to let anyone know about it. Another thought popped in my mind, as well: Arty, Bob, and Jim as young Sherlock Holmes'.

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