Death by Sarcasm Read Free Page A

after I’ve gone, okay?”
    “Wait,” Alice said. “You’re still going to give me a bath, right?”
    “I was hoping you would remember,” Mary said. “Would you like the exfoliating botanicals today? Or perhaps the lavender pumice?”
    “Can I have both?”
    Mary looked at her evenly.
    “Do I need to remind you how I feel about the elderly?”

Four
    P hotographs don’t lie. They deliver the truth. The truth in all of its naked glory, Mary thought, studying the spread of snapshots showing a beautiful woman and a handsome man riding each other like Brahma bulls at the county rodeo.
    “Well,” her client said. He was an entertainment attorney, a very prominent one. Mary had been referred to him by one of her other clients. The entertainment industry was very compact. She had broken into the circle of lucrative clientele on a quiet case of kidnapping, divorce style. Mary had brought her client’s child back safe and sound, all without the press even getting a whiff.
    Now, she watched as her current client studied the pornographic images of his wife and best friend, waiting for him to absorb the photograph’s contents. Mary had been a private investigator for well over ten years. Initially, she had thought about becoming a police officer, but after her criminology degree she took a job working for a local investigative service. She found the work interesting and despite the sometimes tedious stakeouts, rarely boring. And since her time in the field, she’d seen it all. Including plenty of clients faced with a cheating spouse. They all reacted differently. It took some folks longer, some of the brave ones faced it right away. She sensed this guy wouldn’t waste time.
    Her client gave a bitter smile. “She said she was taking night classes,” he said.
    Mary nodded. “Well, she’s certainly studying anatomy right here,” she said, tapping one of the photos.
    Her client went pale, and Mary silently cursed herself. It had just slipped out, but that was the problem. They were always slipping out. Besides, she had just been reminded of some infidelity in her own life. Jake and his boss. Mary had taken that about as well as this guy was taking it.
    “You were highly recommended,” the man said. “Your discretion, loyalty and tenacity were called second to none.” His face was pale and an edge crept into his voice. “Your bedside manner, however, was not listed as one of your strong suits. I see why.”
    A couple comments popped into her head, mostly about bedside manner, but this time, she didn’t let them slip out.
    “I’m sorry,” she said. She couldn’t tell if he really believed she meant it, but she did. She just didn’t know how to tell him. Like her bedside manner, ‘opening up’ wasn’t one of her strong suits. “This probably won’t help, but you know it’s rarely about the spouse,” Mary said. “Usually they’re looking for something that’s lacking inside themselves.” Mary thought about what she’d just said. What was Jake lacking? Besides a fucking backbone.
    “It’s okay,” her client said, looking again at the photographs. “How disgusting. Clive and I play basketball together.”
    Clive clearly preferred going one-on-one with Beverly, but Mary didn’t offer that up for discussion. It was a rare moment of self-editing.
    “I know it isn’t easy,” she said. It always went this way. Cuckolded spouses, both male and female, always focused on the friend or the neighbor or the co-worker. Rarely ever the cheating spouse. Probably to distract them from the depth of the true betrayal.
    Her client stood, took out his checkbook and scribbled out a check. He ripped it off with a controlled fury and dropped it onto her desk.
    “Thank you,” he said. “I trust you’ll save those if litigation becomes necessary.”
    “Absolutely,” Mary said. Sometimes they wanted a copy of the pictures to brood over while getting shitfaced. Some couldn’t wait to get away from them.
    Mary