Body Copy - Michael Craven [52]
Tremaine believed it was very important to examine these gifts and to treat them with the utmost respect. To listen to them. He believed your subconscious mind was just as valid, if not more, than your conscious mind. It’s 162
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alive, it’s relevant, and, Tremaine had come to learn with regard to the field of private investigation, it’s right a lot of the time.
Sometimes he listened to his subconscious doing something as simple and stupid as the Daily Jumble. He wouldn’t try to solve the puzzle; he’d just look at it, and, just like that, the unscrambled word would appear. Like magic, almost. Who figured it out? The conscious Donald Tremaine didn’t. He was barely even thinking about it.
Other times, Tremaine’s subconscious told him more important things, things that pertained to his professional life. It was, indeed, his subconscious that told him to come talk to Wendy Leahy. It gave him an idea he wanted to share with her.
At nine, Tremaine called Wendy, and she, open as ever, had told him to come on over. This time, being an old pro, Tremaine just walked by the receptionist, through the gym, past a grunting man or two, and down the hallway where her office was. Sure enough, the place was packed.
Don’t these people have jobs?
Wendy Leahy greeted Tremaine with a smile. She said,
“So, what’s up? I’m telling you, there’s not much else to say, unless you want the bedroom details.” She giggled at her own comment, flirting in a way with the P.I. standing in front of her.
“No, I don’t want the bedroom details,” Tremaine said.
“I just have a question for you.”
Wendy Leahy gave him a look like, okay, go ahead.
Tremaine said, “You didn’t have an affair with Roger Gale, did you?”
Wendy Leahy stared at Tremaine. She didn’t speak for 163
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what seemed like an eternity, but was probably closer to ten seconds. She fidgeted behind her desk, and then said,
“It depends on your definition of ‘affair.’ What I told you happened, happened.”
“Wendy, the man is dead, and you’re not going to get into any kind of trouble for what you tell me. It stays here.
Remember, if you’re protecting him, you’re not just protecting a guy who’s dead. You’re protecting a guy who was murdered. Somebody out there took another person’s life.
And if I’m going to find out who did it, I need to know the truth.”
She didn’t respond.
Then Tremaine said something he didn’t want to say.
He said, “You’re not a suspect.”
This of course made her feel like she was one. Instilled a little fear in her. Her eyes opened a bit, changing her face, the way it looked. Tremaine was almost amazed at how the brain’s reaction to something could alter one’s physical appearance.
“It’s hot in here,” she said. “Can we go out into the courtyard?”
Tremaine and Wendy Leahy sat in a pretty, tree-lined courtyard that was between the building L.A. Shape was in and the parking deck next door.
Wendy said, “Roger Gale did come to look at the gym and I did have an immediate fondness for him. And we did become friends, sort of.”
“What do you mean?”
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“I mean I got to know him a little when he asked me to do him the favor.”
Tremaine waited for her to go on.
“He told me his wife suspected him of having an affair.
I guess he worked late a lot and sometimes even spent the night at the office. Then he told me that he wasn’t having an affair, but that his wife wouldn’t let it die, and had even hired a private investigator to follow him around. He said his plan was just to pretend that he was having an affair, get caught, then promise to stop, just to get it over with.
Just to get the notion out of his wife’s head. He kept saying his wife was obsessed, and that he couldn’t convince her that she was wrong. He’d given up trying. So, he was going to admit guilt to something he wasn’t guilty of.”
“To make her think she’d caught him. And inspired him to end it,” Tremaine said.
“Yeah.”
“What did he offer you for going along with it?