Chapter 1

Don Clark sat at his desk going over the papers from his last case. The case had been very lucrative and he was putting the finishing touches on the report that he would be giving to the client. Most of his clients were women that suspected that their husbands were running around on them and they wanted Don to get the goods on the husband. Clark's reputation was earned because his clients knew that when they hired him he would get the evidence that the spouses needed for the divorce; but they came to Clark because he also dug into the financial history of the philandering husband. Don Clark was good and he knew how to get the information on financials that so many husbands tried to hide from the wife. When he turned his reports over to the clients the husbands always set the wives up for life; not that they were always happy to do so.

Don Clark had spent twelve years on the police force. He had a degree in criminal science and he had become a detective after five years. He quickly became the detective that solved the most cases. He was aggressive and was well-liked by his superiors because he made them look good. Don was set to be promoted when the "the incident", as he always called it, happened. The drug dealer took a shot at him and the bullet grazed Don's shoulder. Don went out of his mind and beat the dealer so bad that the man had permanent brain damage. He was about to be indicted for using excessive force. Don had a meeting with the department supervisors and he gave them copies of his logs that he had been keeping since his first day on the force. The police force had a lot of skeletons that they wouldn't want the public to know about and Don knew where many of them were. After Don threatened to let the press see the log he was offered the chance to resign without any charges. He took the offer and left the force with no blemishes on his record. He was well-liked by the rank and file members of the force and he still had a lot of friends on the force that helped him whenever he needed some information.

His dedication to the police force had taken its toll on his marriage and the woman that he had married in college divorced him after ten years of marriage. Things had been getting tense between them for a couple of years. She complained that he loved the police force more than he did her. Two years before "the incident," he would call home while he was on duty; trying to let her know that she mattered to him, only to find that she was not home. Often he would find that she had hired a babysitter to watch their two boys. Don suspected that she was running around on him while he was working. He took some of his vacation time to find out what was happening. He left for work as usual and then staked out his house. He quickly found out that his wife had another life. She would leave the house with one of several men. The men that she was running around with were sleazy types that lived on the fringes of society.

Don bought a good camera with an expensive lens and set out to get the evidence that he needed. The love that he had felt for her left him when he found out that she was leaving their children with a babysitter and running with people that Don would never associate with. He had followed her to a mansion in a better suburb and set himself up in the woods behind the house. He had an excellent view of the rooms at the back of the house and pool area and the patio. After a while the party moved out to the pool area and Don watched as six men and three women, including his wife, cavorted in the pool. Everyone was drinking and having a good time. He knew that this was not enough to nail her so he watched as the party progressed.

Soon Don saw one of the men bring some cocaine out of the house and everyone began to drink and use the cocaine. Don got several full-face pictures of his wife snorting cocaine. One of the men grabbed Don's wife and snatched the top of her bathing suite off of her. She laughed and made a show of covering her breasts. Within minutes everyone had shed their clothes and the party began to get rowdier. Before long each of the women was getting fucked or was giving a blow job to one or more of the men. Before the end of the night Don's wife had been fucked by all six of the men. She usually had one man fucking her and one man shoving himself into her face. She also had sex with one of the women. Don took two rolls of thirty-six exposure film.

A few days later he made arraignments for his parents to watch the kids and he was waiting for his wife when she got home. He had the prints spread out on the kitchen table when she walked in the room. He had put the negatives in a safe deposit box for safekeeping. When his wife saw the pictures she slumped in the chair, beaten. Don gave her his demands; she would give him an uncontested divorce. She would get no alimony, no child support and would take nothing from the house or their bank accounts. She would give up custody of their sons and she would not insist on any visitation rights. She would move out of the state immediately or Don would make sure that the pictures were posted on the Internet and that she would be arrested on drug charges. She protested weakly but Don grabbed her arm and led her to the front door and pushed her out on the porch. That was the last time that he ever saw her.

A year after the divorce, "the incident" happened. Don resigned from the force with no idea how he was going to support his family. Several weeks later, one of Don's mentors on the force met him while Don was on a trip to the mall with his boys. Don sat with the ex-detective in the food court while the boys ate pizza and then began to play in the kid's area. Don didn't tell the man about "the incident" or that he had resigned from the force. The ex-detective told Don how he had opened his own private detective agency but that it wasn't doing too well. The man told Don that he wanted to get out of the business but he owed four months rent on the office and about twenty thousand in other bills. Don could smell the alcohol on the man's breathe so he knew what the problem was.

"Have you considered trying to sell your business?" Don asked.

"Hell, I'd give it to someone if they'd take over the bills. I need to get out of town. In this business you make some enemies. Not too many people know enough about detective work to take over a business like this."

Don expressed an interest in the business and made an appointment to look over the office and the past cases. He found that the office was dirty and papers were everywhere. There was no filing system and the phone was turned off. Don said that he would take over the business and within a week he had his license and was in the detective business.

For a week the phone never rang. Don began to panic. He pulled out all of the old files his mentor had left and began to compile a list of the old clients. He researched the phone numbers of the people he could locate and then picked up the phone. He didn't know what else to do.

He quickly found that his mentor didn't have a good reputation. His work was sloppy and he often tried to hit on the women that were trying to get evidence on their husbands. Don found that once the detective had even sold the evidence he had gathered to the husband for more than the wife was willing to pay. Don tried to tell the past clients that he was honest and that he was going to run his business the ethical way. He always asked that if they knew anyone that needed his services to please think of him first. On his next to the last phone number he struck pay dirt. The client said that her sister was thinking about hiring a private detective to find out if her husband was running around on her. She told Don that she would urge her sister to contact him.

The next day a woman about fifty-five sat across from his desk and began to explain why she thought that her husband was running around on her. She said that her husband had taken over her father's business after he died and had turned it into a major corporation. She had caught him having an affair years before but they had worked it out. Lately he was beginning to travel more than usual and he was becoming more distant with her. Don explained his fees, told her that the investigation could take some time and that his investigation might involve some travel. He asked if the wife was willing to pay for the travel and expenses involved. The wife assured him that she had the money to pay for a complete investigation.

Then Don asked her, "Mrs. Swift, my fees will remain the same no matter how you answer the questions I am about to ask you. We've found that many husbands that are having an affair and many that don't sometimes hide substantial amounts of cash. Many times the wife never finds out about this money. It is money that you have a right to or at least a part of. A financial investigation can be time consuming and very expensive because it takes specialized people to conduct the investigation. I'd like you to consider this. I want you to go home and tonight list every asset, bank account, all of your stocks, pensions, what ever you feel you would be entitled to if you find that your husband is having an affair and you file for divorce. I want you to include everything that you can think of. I want you to give me a complete picture of your net worth as you know it. If we find that your husband is having an affair we can then launch a complete financial investigation to find out if he has hidden any assets from you. We will only do a financial investigation if you authorize it. My fee for the financial investigation is one third of anything that we find above the assets that you know of today. If we don't find any hidden assets you pay only for my regular fee."

The woman sat in her chair without speaking for a while. Don could hear the gears turning in her head. She began to smile and then nodded.

They talked for quite a while. The woman told Don everything that she could about her husband's habits and schedules. After she had told him everything that she could think of she signed the standard contract for the investigation. As she was about to leave the office, Don told her that he would have her sign the contract for the financial investigation if she decided that she wanted to go ahead with it.

Within a week Don found that the man was having an affair with a young woman that worked for the company. He was thirty-five years older than her and lavished her with gifts. They usually met in an upscale condo in one of the better sections of town and Don knew that she didn't have the money to afford a million dollar condo. After checking the county records, he found that the condo was listed in her name. Don did some checking and found out that the young woman was a receptionist in the husband's office. Apparently they had been successful in keeping their affair secret from their co-workers. The payoff was when the pair left for St. Kitts. Don followed and watched as they cavorted on the beach in front of the multi million dollar beach house. He found that the beach house was owned by a corporation.

After two weeks he had all of the evidence that he needed. He made an appointment with the wife to meet in his office. He started making inquiries in to the corporation that owned the beach house in St. Kitts and found that the corporation had only one stockholder; the husband.

Mrs. Swift walked into his office, "Well, have you found anything?"

Don spread out the photographs and he could see her getting red in the face. She snapped, "That bastard! He likes them young doesn't he?"

Don leaned back in his chair, "Mrs. Swift, do you own a beach house in St. Kitts?"

"No, why do you ask?"

"Mrs. Swift, I think you do. I'll have to check some more to be sure but I'm ninety percent sure right now that you do own a beach house."

Mrs. Swift set her jaw, "Do you have that contract for that financial investigation ready?"

"There's one other thing Mrs. Swift. I'm sure that you've noticed the age difference in your husband and his girlfriend. She's a very beautiful woman and I'm sure that she wouldn't have any trouble finding a suitable partner her own age. It could get messy, if you decide to pursue it, but if she is just playing him for the money she can get from him I think that you can get back most of what your husband has given her."

Mrs. Swift grinned, "Go for it!"

Don called a few of the accountants that he had worked with on his investigations on the police force and one accountant that used to be with the FBI. They began to delve into the finances of Mr. Swift. Swift hadn't tried very hard to hide the money that he was keeping from his wife. Within three weeks the accountants had found over fifteen million dollars in property, stock options, bonuses and assets hidden in fake corporations. Don knew that there was one last piece to this puzzle.

Chapter 2