I videotaped more close-ups of Peter’s face and saw only joy; no trepidation at all. A player, pure and simple. He was alone, out of town, horny and about to make it with a beautiful young woman who wouldn’t charge him a dime.
How lucky could one plumber get?
Once inside the room, Peter immediately tried to kiss Samantha. I could hear the microphone being jostled as their chests collided with one another.
“Hey, slow down,” Sam said.
“I’m sorry,” Peter stammered. “It’s been awhile. I guess I’m out of practice. I didn’t mean to . . .”
“It’s all right,” Sam cut him off. “I’m kind of new at this too.”
Good girl, I thought. Keep him cool. We’re almost there.
“Why don’t I freshen up? The cigarette smoke was pretty thick in the restaurant and I hate the smell.”
“So do I,” Peter replied.
There was a long period of silence in the room that made me uncomfortable, but then our plumber playboy said something that would be the final nail in his marital coffin.
“Would you be opposed to getting cleaned up . . . together?” Long pause. “You know . . . have a shower, or bath, if you prefer?”
“Let me think about that,” Samantha replied, as she entered the bathroom and closed the door. “Let’s rock and roll,” she said in a low whisper to me.
This was my cue. I auto-dialed Samantha’s pager and a minute later, I could hear Sam’s distinctive pager tone go off in my earpiece. I heard the bathroom door open and Sam give out a short cry as she read the message.
“My father’s had a heart attack.”
“You’re kidding?” I heard Peter say.
Wrong reaction, friend.
There was authentic fury in Samantha’s response. “Do you think I would kid around about something like that? What does this message say?”
I visualized poor Peter’s expression as he read my message: Urgent. Dad’s had a heart attack. Call me. Sara.
“Sara is my sister,” Samantha snapped, venom dripping from each syllable.
“Geez, I’m sorry . . . I didn’t mean to imply . . .”
“I have to pack,” Sam cut him off again. “I’m the one who should be sorry. You’ve been so nice and we were getting along so well.”
“No, these things happen.” He was good at hiding his disappointment but what choice did he have?
Samantha continued to sob into my ear as the exterior room door opened and I saw Peter looking out.
“I’ll grab the taxi we came here in. It’s still out front.” He turned to Samantha and enveloped her in a big bear embrace. “Everything will turn out okay. Trust me.” He looked at Samantha’s tear-stained face and kissed her on her right cheek.
Samantha stepped away and smiled weakly. “Maybe we’ll meet again.”
As Peter put on his coat, his attention returned to the bed. “I attend these conventions twice a year. With any luck we’ll be able to make some beautiful music together next time.” There was another awkward pause before he added, “I’ll get out of your way so you can pack. It was very nice meeting you.”
“Again, thanks for dinner, it was lovely.”
Peter walked down to the parking lot and then looked up to Sam’s room, where she remained standing in the doorway. They waved to each other as he entered the back seat of the taxi, which was driven off the lot. Five seconds after Samantha closed the door my phone rang. I couldn’t even get, “Hello,” out before she started screaming at me.
“Did you see what he did? That perv kissed my cheek so he could taste my tears! What kind of sicko does that?”
“If your father had cut out those fatty foods, maybe you’d have found out.”
“I don’t think so,” she hissed. “Are you coming up?”
“Be there in a sec. I’m going to follow the taxi, to make sure our mutual acquaintance gets to his hotel in one piece.”
Unfortunately, due to slow traffic flow on the main drag, I lost sight of the taxi a short time later. As it was heading in the right direction, I made the executive decision to pull the plug and return to the motel.
I opened the door with my key and was immediately struck by how gorgeous Samantha was. That she was stretched provocatively across the bed in only bra and panties was also mighty appealing to my old eyes.
“Now what would your significant other say about us hanging out together under these circumstances?”
Before a response could be uttered, I found myself joining Samantha on the bed, where she gave me a long sensuous kiss.
“How’d I do tonight? Were you jealous?”
“You were wonderful,” I replied as Samantha began to unbutton my shirt. “As for being jealous—I don’t get jealous. I’ll admit I was a bit envious when plumber boy wanted to take a shower with you.”
“Do you want to take that shower with me now?”
“I thought you’d never ask.”
As the room was already paid for in full, we decided to use all the amenities provided for a few more hours. The in-joke was I would then bill the client for the time it took to debrief the other investigator on the evening’s events. Some female clients actually praised me for such a thorough job and said the other woman’s comments had been very enlightening.
If only they knew just how enlightening those sessions were for Samantha and me.
Around ten–thirty, I offered to make a quick dessert run, as we were both hungry after our very physical interview session. I drove the van off the lot, hoping to find the ice cream stand up the road open. I thought a banana split would hit the spot. Bananas, whipped cream, three scoops of ice cream, two spoons and one Samantha.
What I hadn’t counted on was having the tables turned and now being the one under surveillance. Like most of my targets, I was completely oblivious to being watched. I hadn’t noticed that our jilted plumber friend had returned in his dark green Saturn rental car and saw me exit the room kissing Sam in the doorway on my way out.
Apparently, he had been waiting to make his move for some time, seething over our little deception. A taxi driver would come forward to say he had driven the former Plymouth resident—who appeared agitated at the time—to the Holiday Plaza Hotel around 7:45 p.m. “He was, you know—frustrated,” the driver was quoted in the newspaper the following morning.
What this scumbag cabbie failed to mention was he’d told Peter the Plumber about our $40 arrangement outside the restaurant. Mr. Plumber, always good with numbers while on the job, had no difficulty putting two and two together.
When I returned fifteen minutes later with the banana split on the passenger seat, the only thing left for the police officers to do was fill out the proper paper work. They had already responded to a 911 call about an enraged couple screaming at each other in a cheap motel room. They had already shot and killed a man covered in blood and brandishing what looked like a gun (but turned out to be a hammer). And they had already determined the naked woman on the bed inside Room 215 had been bludgeoned to death with the aforementioned household tool.
As I looked up to our room and then at the plumber’s dead body on the pavement below, I could only think of the question