Chapter 17
I was sitting in my office and doing it better than all other Roanoke private investigators combined, when Dr. Rod Buchanan stormed in, the guy I surveilled at the casino.
He wore penny loafers, pale khakis with sharp pleats, a white shirt with the collar unbuttoned, and a knit blazer the color of his shoes.
Some college professors dressed like white collar workers, some like absentminded geniuses, some like dignitaries.
Dr. Buchanan dressed like he was dining at a Caribbean resort’s nicest restaurant, though it was November. He closed my door and raised his chin.
“Do you know who I am?”
I nodded.
He said, “You had no right.”
“Sure I did.”
“I have the expectation of privacy, sir.”
“Not in public places,” I told him.
“You cannot follow people around.”
“Sure I can.”
“My lawyer is on standby over this outrage,” he said.
“Then you’re being bilked by an unscrupulous attorney.”
“I committed no crime.”
“I reported none.”
His eyes flashed to my forehead, the corner of which was still purplish from the jailhouse spat. “I broke no marital covenant,” he said.
Depending on their wedding vows, deception was likely breaking something. But I was a PI, not a judge.
“I reported no infidelity,” I said.
“I insist you tell me what was in your report to Mrs. Buchanan.”
I disliked it when people insisted of me. I disliked his tone. But Mrs. Armstrong had obviously thrown me under the bus. I hated cheating-spouse work.
“Say please.”
“What?”
“I’m not enjoying this interrogation, Dr. Buchanan. I may toss you down the stairs. I’ve done it before to men bigger than you. But if you say please…”
He adjusted his jacket and twitched his neck, like his collar was too tight, though it wasn’t.
“Please. Tell me what was in your report to Mrs. Buchanan.”
“I already did,” I said.
“Did what?”
“Told you my entire report. I reported to my client that I saw no infidelity and I was done with the investigation.”
His eyebrows tried to rise but couldn’t, likely from Botox. “And my wife?”
“What about her?”
“What did you report to her?”
“Nothing. She was clearly deceived about your trip, but I didn’t correct her.”
“Why not?” he said.
“She wasn’t my client.”
He let his hand rest on the back of my client chair. Lots of people did that. His anger lost steam.
“Then what was the nature of your investigation?”
“Mrs. Buchanan’s coworkers suspect you are unfaithful. They hired me to follow you for a weekend. I did and I told them I saw no indication of cuckoldry and that I would no longer work on the case.”
“I’ve never had an affair.”
I nodded. “Me neither.”
“Why didn’t you tell my wife she’d been lied to?” he said.
“The dishonest is slimy but I’m not paid to judge.”
He stepped around the chair and fell into it hard enough that it squeaked. I’d never heard it do that before. “Perhaps my indignation made me hasty coming here.”
“Fear will do that.”
“Mrs. Armstrong called me and claimed that Detective August had pried into my personal life and discovered my dirtiest secrets and that she’d tell Mrs. Buchanan if I didn’t,” he said.
“Mrs. Armstrong,” I said, “ is a grimalkin.”
“Your understanding of archaic terms is impressive.”
I plumed. “Thank you.”
“Do you know the origin of cuckoldry?”
I nodded.
He waited. I waited. He said, “Well?”
“You want me to prove it?”
“Hardly anyone knows, and it’s a fascinating tidbit.”
I nodded and smiled. He waited.
I wouldn’t take the bait.
“It’s an old French term. The cuckoo bird liked to lay her eggs in other birds’ nests,” he said.
I smiled more, and in the silence I detected he felt diminished at trying to prove himself to me, when I had declined to do so for him. He wished he hadn’t. His regret raised his stock, but only a smidgen.
“I recognize you from the poker table,” he said.
“You did well, while I was there. I even ordered a book based on your recommendation.”
He chuckled a sound of relief, like discovering we were pals. “Which?”
“The Greatest Sentence Ever Written.”
“Isaacson,” he said. “He’s a renowned historian, but it’s not an accessible read.”
“Yikes. I’ll get a dictionary too.”
“Why would Mrs. Armstrong pry into my life?” he said.
“Likely she’s unhappy with her own.”
“Mr. August,” he said. “My PhD is from the University of Chicago. I’m published in The Journal of Economic History, and Cliometrica, and Comparative Studies in Society and History.
I’m the head of my department at a well-regarded private liberal arts college.
My daughter married a doctor of Osteopathic Medicine, who is training at NASA.
I deliver commencement speeches and serve as a moderator at the American Historical Association conference most years.
I would have thought an experienced detective could’ve looked into my career, balanced that against the tittle-tattle of a school secretary, and decided whom to trust and whom not to. ”
“I just figured what’s weird about your face,” I said.
“My god.”
“Glasses. Most men your age, with your imperial dignity, wear prescription glasses. But you choose contacts. Lenses that make your eyes greener I bet,” I said. “Trying to look younger?”
“Lenses make my life simpler. They are not colored.”
“Contact lenses plus the botox? I hope Cliometrica doesn’t find out,” I said. “That’d be humiliating. Like sleeping in the back of a Lexus on Saturday nights.”
He made a sniffing noise and crossed one leg over the other and examined his shoe. “You’re mocking me.”
“Detecting.”
“All those accolades of mine,” he said, “do not add up to a financial surplusage. I cannot afford the over-priced hotel rooms at casinos.”
“What if you hadn’t busted at the end of the night?”
“You saw that,” he said.
“Devastating.”
“I still would’ve slept in the car. I need the money. You see, Mr. August, I’m being extorted.”
“No.”
“I am,” he said. “By an editor at Georgetown University Press.”
“Please don’t tell me about it.”
“I was a contributor to A Thorough History of American Hedonism. A book that won the Pulitzer Prize for History two years ago. A huge success. I was paid a pre-determined lump sum for my contributions. Unfortunately. The book has sold well and is being picked up by the universities as required reading, and the royalties would be welcome. Anyway. The editor unearthed some of my former writings, after publication of American Hedonism. As a young man, I was … too zealous about causes considered fallacious today. I regret many of the things I wrote, and not only because they would destroy my credibility. Mr. Baxtor, the editor, said my earlier writings would be released online if I didn’t pay him to keep them quiet.
It would be a minor scandal for the book, but ruinous for me.
I had no choice. We agreed on a price—twice the lump sum I received for my work on American Hedonism. ”
“That’s what I call this batch of potpourri,” I said but he didn’t hear. A shame. I liked the guy but didn’t want to hear his life story. My own life was too full.
“As a college professor in my sixties, my sources of income are limited. So I play poker on the weekends, which I’m good at, and don’t tell my wife, so she won’t ask questions, which would lead her to discover the overly zealous writings of my youth.
It’s only a little hush money. I am paid off in six months or so.
All in all, no great disaster. I enjoy poker.
But now.” He raised a hand. “A private detective is involved.”
“And he’s a stinker.”
He nodded, still examining his shoe.
“So you see the nature of my embarrassing weekends. Can you keep all this under your hat? And not accept more contracts from Mrs. Armstrong or any other crone?” he said.
“I’m not accepting anything from Mrs. Armstrong,” I told him. “No matter how hard she pushes herself against me.”