The Palm Beach P.I. E-Book

Frank Ciatto

• Herausgeber: BooxAi
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

More so than the cases themselves, this book is about the people I have met throughout this strange and unique career path. Some have changed my life in profound ways, some have transitioned from clients to friends, a few have tried to kill me, and some I would just as soon forget. But a desire to help people is the fundamental reason for what I have chosen to pursue as a profession. And the reason for writing this book is the hope that, by sharing my experiences, my successes and my failures, my insight, as well as the mistakes I have made along the way, I am able to reach and help others whose paths I may have never otherwise crossed. The question I continue to ask during this journey is the one I have asked myself numerous times throughout my life. What are we here to do?

This collection of stories chronicles some of the most interesting, comical, and bizarre cases from my career. But it is also an exploration of my faith journey and how that brought me to the path I am currently navigating. The desire to help others led me to the work that I do, but my faith in Jesus has literally saved my life and lifted me out of the pit of grief and despair. My intention is to provide a message of hope and show that through helping other we help ourselves heal. I endeavored to make the content entertaining, but it is my sincere hope that something in one of the stories may help change your perspective in a meaningful way. Whether that be in opening your heart and mind to the contemplation of your faith, or simply just getting involved in helping other people in whatever way you are able. As crazy as it has been, I love what I do and I hope that comes across on these pages.

-Frank Ciatto, the Palm Beach P.I.

Leseprobe

The Palm Beach P.I.

Frank Ciatto

The Palm Beach P.I.

Whiskey, Sex, and Faith: My Life as a Private Investigator

Frank Ciatto

Frank Ciatto

The Palm Beach P.I.

All rights reserved

Copyright © 2022 by Frank Ciatto

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Published by BooxAi

ISBN: 978-965-578-066-6

Contents

Foreword

1. How Far is it to Miami?

From London to Palm Beach

Is This How It’s Going to Be?

Welcome to Florida

2. Psychiatrists, Psychics, and Psychos

Am I Crazy?

Text Messages from the Dead

Anger Management

3. Missing Persons

Lost Babies

Yoga for the Homeless

My Daughter is a Stripper?

4. Women: Lust, Loss, and Loathing

Sextortion

The Apprentice

The Covert Sadistic Narcissist

5. Tales from the Pandemic: Politics, Prostitutes, and Poodles

The Tax Collector

No PPP Loans for Hookers

The Most Expensive Dog in the World

6. The Whole Goddam State is on Drugs

Every Rose Has a Thorn

Ain’t Nobody Got Time for This

The Drug-Dealing Pastor

7. Lawyers, Guns, and Money

Working Every Angle

I Will Shoot You in Your Fucking Face

The Root of All Evil

8. I Gotta Start Charging More for This Shit

I Know He’s Cheating

The Case of the African Statues

Please Don’t Give Her Any More Money

9. Even the Pros Get Hustled

You Can Never Be Too Paranoid

Still in the Fight

Valentine’s Day

10. The Prodigal Son

The Prodigal Son

Notes and Thanks

Resources and Contacts

Thank You

This book is dedicated to all the souls I have loved and lost; most especially my beloved wife Geraldine. May you rest eternally in God’s loving care.

Intro: How the Fuck Did I Get Here?

‘We cannot begin to know ourselves until we can see the real reasons why we do the things we do.’

Thomas Merton

Foreword

One of the strangest things I have ever seen in my life happened while I was stopped at an intersection waiting for a green light. A midget on a ten-speed bicycle was coming down the hill toward me, and a homeless dude in a wheelchair was coming up the hill from the opposite direction. The midget couldn’t reach the pedals on the bike, so he was just allowing momentum and gravity to rocket him downward. The homeless guy had his head down as he was struggling to power the wheelchair up the hill, and he couldn’t see what was about to happen. I could, but it was almost like I was powerless to intervene. Or maybe I was just incredibly curious. Sure enough, they crashed head-on into each other. The midget went flying through the air like Superman and landed about fifty yards up the sidewalk. The homeless guy fell forward out of his wheelchair and literally got tangled up in the bike like a pretzel.

After the initial impact, neither of them was moving. They were both just lying on the sidewalk, groaning and bleeding. After I stopped laughing, I got out of my car because I genuinely wanted to help. I didn’t know who to go towards first, they both seemed pretty fucked up. I hesitated and the light turned green. Not one other person got out of their car, they all just started honking their horns or trying to drive around my vehicle. I know they saw what happened, but no one wanted to do anything except continue on wherever they were going. I took a step toward the sidewalk and got smashed in the face by the side mirror of a ridiculously large SUV that came speeding past me. I got knocked back into the side of my car and ended up on my ass. Now I was sitting there groaning and bleeding too. After a few minutes, the light changed again and some people stopped and went over to help the injured accident victims. No one came over to help me, or asked if I was all right, I just got back in my car and drove off.

This story is the perfect metaphor for life as a Private Investigator. A case always starts with something you can’t quite believe is happening because it seems so surreal. Because of past experience, you can see how it’s going to unfold, but you feel powerless to intervene because people are going to do whatever they want to do. But you got into this line of work to help people, so even though it seems bizarre and ridiculous, you try to make a difference. Most of the time, you get smashed in the face for your efforts. Or beaten up, kicked in the balls, bit by a dog, or almost shot. Then, someone else swoops in, like a lawyer or insurance agent, and saves the day, taking all the credit while you drive off into anonymity. If you’re lucky, sometimes you get paid for your efforts, but even that is a struggle because you have to fight to get your invoices processed. It’s really rarely ever like it looks on tv or in the movies.

For every hour of action, there are eight hours of sitting around waiting. Waiting for some cheating bastard to finish dinner with his mistress; waiting for an insurance fraudster to do something he claims he can’t do; waiting outside a lawyer’s office to give a deposition; waiting for your favorite bar to open. After your third whiskey sour, you start to question why the hell you even bother. But then someone in trouble comes across your path, or you find yourself in a situation where you can actually make a difference in someone’s life, and you remember why you got into this crazy business in the first place.

I have always been curious as to why people do the things they do to each other. Even as a kid, I found people’s behavior fascinating. I grew up in Brooklyn, New York, in the late seventies/early eighties. It was a very loud, dirty, bustling, violent place. No matter how hard parents tried to shelter their kids from it, violence was on display on every street corner, every day. So much so that even as a kid, I had become numb to it. Bensonhurst was filled with thugs and wannabe gangsters. It seemed like the only way anyone could get ahead was by being more violent than the next guy.

One instance I will never forget, I was about six or seven at the time, and my mom took me food shopping with her to the neighborhood grocery store, Key Foods. It was a gathering place for women in our neighborhood and my mom was talking to a friend of hers outside the store. I was waiting beside her and curiously looking around. I became fixated on an older couple that was standing on the corner talking a few feet away from us. The man was completely bald and I had never seen someone with such a shiny head before. In staring at him, I noticed that he had a very warm smile on his face and I totally remember thinking, what a nice man.

Not a moment after having that thought, a Cadillac Coupe de Ville roared up the street and stopped very aggressively behind the older couple. Two young men in leather jackets jumped out of the car and approached the bald man. One of the young guys had a baseball bat. Have you ever seen something happen, like an accident, and time seems to pass in slow motion? That’s what happened. I could still see the bald man’s face as they came up to him. He had the same gentle smile as though he had no idea what was about to happen. Then time sped back up to normal. Without saying a word, the young guy smashed the bald man on the back of his head with the bat and he dropped like a ton of bricks. They got back in the car and sped off. All the noise of the neighborhood seemed to fade out except for the high-pitched screaming of the bald man’s wife. He was laying on the sidewalk, maybe he was dead, I don’t know, but he still had that same expression on his face. It was also the first time I had ever seen that much bright red blood. It was pouring out of his head and all over the sidewalk, draining off the curb and into the gutter.

Anyway, that kind of shit happened all the time. Everywhere was loud and fast and angry. I think that’s why I value peace and quiet so much these days because at that time there was never any escape from it. It was all organized chaos, inside the house, outside the house, at school, at the playground, in the streets. My father had left us and moved back to Sicily when I was five. He died not much later and I have no real memories of him. My brother is six years older than me, so he had his own friends and didn’t have much time or use for me hanging around. Eventually, my mother remarried, but my stepfather was an angry, abusive asshole and pretty much useless at any sort of parenting. I just remember him being pissed off all the time.

The only consistent male figure in my life was Father Joe, the Catholic priest my mother dragged me to listen to every Sunday. But I have to admit, I never really paid much attention to what he was saying and I didn’t give God much thought at all. So, I grew up facing a lot of battles on my own. I took more than my share of beatings on the playground because I didn’t have an older male figure to stick up for me. But because of this, I got really good at talking my way out of conflict and navigating around dangerous situations. It was the perfect training for the challenges I faced later in life, especially in this job I do now. Ninety percent of the time, I find myself on my own. Navigating through the darkness, facing whatever challenge is in front of me, and trying to find answers. Actually, now that I think of it, I am never really on my own, but I will get to that.

In the hopes of leaving behind a very violent and dead-end existence and not really knowing what I wanted to do with my life, I decided to join the Navy. In retrospect, it was one of the best decisions I have ever made. I created lifelong connections with guys that are still very close friends to this day. I was stationed in the South Pacific and the Middle East and got to see places in the world I never thought I would see. It's funny to think that before then I had never even left New York, but now I can say that I have traveled and lived literally all over the world. I left the violence of the city behind me but was exposed to different things that played a part in my education and future job training. I was exposed to alcoholism, drug use, sexual debauchery, and the planning of violence on a grander scale. As an intelligence specialist, I learned how to plot on a strategic level when my previous way of thinking had always been very tactical. I have seen some things in the Philippines and Thailand that I didn't know human beings were capable of. But I'm grateful that it has desensitized me to the extent that the depravity that I see today no longer shocks me. It was a different kind of darkness, a darkness on a bigger scale. And despite the efforts of some very dear friends to impart some faith into my life, it still managed to elude me, and once again I felt as though I was facing the darkness alone.

Life after the Navy was an interesting roller coaster filled with lots of exciting starts and abrupt endings. I had several unproductive jobs, quite a few failed relationships, and a few near-death experiences, which all caused me to question what I was doing with my life. I had some chances to delve deeper into my faith, but I didn’t make the most of those opportunities. I legitimately did want to figure things out, and I felt like I had a calling to help people somehow, but I didn’t know in what way. As part of the process of discovery, I started to write things down and found I had some aptitude for it. But I’m a working-class guy and the idea of being a writer never seemed like something that was even possible. That was for fancy people, who spent all day thinking about stuff but never really doing anything. Nevertheless, I kept writing and before I knew it, I had some articles, a few short stories, and even a film script. I didn't know where I was going, but I knew I was at a point in my life where I had to try to figure that out. It was a long, roundabout journey that I'll get into later in this book, but that journey eventually led me to London, England and to the person that would change my life forever.

I had been out to L.A. for a while trying to sell my script with no success. The thought of going back to New York had no appeal to me and I was looking for a new adventure. My Sicilian cousin Silvia was living in London at the time, teaching Italian to English school kids. Despite not having a relationship with my father, over the years I had grown very close to my family in Sicily and to Silvia in particular. I decided I'd try to sell my script in London, packed my bags, and off I went. I had no plan, but I was determined and felt confident of success. As usual, things were nowhere near as easy as I thought they would be. I found myself trying my hand at any job I could get to support myself and keep my dream of becoming a screenwriter alive. It was through one of these unlikely jobs, selling cheese at a high-end market in the Highgate section of north London, that I encountered the most amazing woman I have ever met in my life. Geraldine, or Geri as everyone called her, had the most amazing smile you can imagine and I fell in love with her instantly.

She was a single mom struggling to raise her kids in the aftermath of her husband’s tragic and untimely death a few years back. There was a sadness behind that smile, a darkness that felt immediately familiar to me. And I'm sure she felt the familiarity of the darkness in me as well. I had nothing to offer her at the time except the incredibly passionate love I felt for her. I had no money, no prospects for selling my script, and I was literally sleeping on my cousin’s couch. But I was determined to convince this woman to marry me. After a brief but intense courtship, we moved in together and got married shortly thereafter. Looking back now, those were the happiest years of my entire life. Despite the uncertainty and chaos of living in another country, in a new environment, with a woman that I loved deeply but barely knew, along with her kids, a dog, and a couple of cats I was deathly allergic to, I can honestly say I have never felt more at peace.

I never did sell that script but it really didn't matter anymore. I was in love and willing to do whatever it took to keep this happy life going forward. I literally did whatever job I could find, from flower arranging to construction, until I got my license as a Private Investigator and started taking cases. I didn't think life could get any better, but then we decided to move out of the hustle and bustle of London and into a cottage on the Norfolk coast. The kids were grown and on their own by this point, so it was just me, Geri, and our dog Tuppence. The three of us walking along the beach while the sun rose over the North Sea was as close as I had ever been to Heaven. This simplicity that I found in life, that had always seemed to elude me, was now suddenly real and tangible. Everything was going so well. It's funny how no one ever really looks for God when things are going well. We always seem to turn to Him when things take a turn for the worst. I had never stopped to thank Him or even think about Him while I was enjoying my amazing new life. But then, in the blink of an eye, He reminded me that He's still there.

One trip to the doctor's office was all it took to send me into a tailspin again and take away the only true happiness I've ever really known. The examination of one small lump brought us the news that our joy would be very short-lived. It provided me with a new role, one that I never wanted or thought I could do, the role of caregiver to the dying love of my life. I would have happily spent the rest of my days in the solitude and peace of the Norfolk coast with Geri. But God had a different plan and seven short years were all he gave us together. I buried my wife in November of 2015. I went from having very little faith to being extremely angry and having no faith at all. I realized I couldn't escape the darkness no matter how far away I moved from it.

My wife was pure goodness. She embodied grace, kindness, generosity, and love. No matter how bad my day was or whatever craziness I had to deal with, coming home to her brought me balance and canceled out all the evil. After she died, I lost that balance. The darkness seemed to overcome the light and there was no respite from the negativity. When it became too much to deal with, I had no choice but to turn to faith to try to make sense of it all. Granted, I did try a few other things first, mostly whiskey, but in the end, there was nowhere else to turn. I have heard the expression when you have been knocked down to your knees, it's the best place to start to pray. I eventually got to that point, but I absolutely wallowed in self-pity and self-destruction for a while first. I let my clients down and my business fell apart. I shut down and turned my back on everything and everyone. The only person I wanted to have a conversation with was Johnny Walker. I crawled into that bottle and stayed there for a very long dark time.

I couldn't think or function properly, so I ended up selling our cottage to a company called We Buy Any House for a fraction of what it was worth. I packed up whatever was left in the house into a storage unit and left it behind for Geri's kids. I really had no plan and no idea what I was going to do. One morning, I woke up on the cold hard tile of our empty kitchen next to an empty bottle. In the silence, I heard a voice tell me to get up. I struggled to get to my feet and listened, but there were no further instructions. The electricity had been shut off by that point and I stood there in the dark, trying to come up with a plan. I knew the first thing I had to do was just take one step in the right direction. Well, maybe take a shower first, and then take a step in the right direction. I thought of Geri and how disappointed she would be seeing me like this. Then I thought of someone I hadn't thought of in a very long time. I thought of Jesus and how disappointed He would be seeing me like this. I wondered where He had been all my life. But when I realized He had always been there, with me through thick and thin, protecting me when I didn’t even know it, I was able to come up with a plan.

I have re-invented myself many times and my journey has taken me around the world. I have held many different roles, from sailor to filmmaker, plumber to politician, private investigator to storyteller. I have battled abandonment issues and addictions. I have lived in million-dollar homes in Europe and slept in my car in L.A. I have lived and travelled around the globe and spent years in dead-end jobs that stole little pieces of my soul. I have known what it is like to find and marry the love of my life, and to suffer unimaginable loss and grief. I have close friendships that have lasted more than twenty-five years, and I have been betrayed and stabbed in the back by people I barely knew. I have failed more than I have succeeded. I have been knocked down and counted out more times than I can recall. But, like Rocky Balboa says, “It ain’t about how hard you can hit, it’s about how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward.”

What has kept me moving forward is love, hope, my incredibly supportive family and friends, a passion for my work and helping others, and, most importantly, my faith. When you read some of the stories in this book, I am sure you will think me a very un-Godly man. It’s true, I am a sinner, and I walk amongst sinners every day. I succumb to temptation, I make mistakes, I have failed a thousand times. But I do my best to try to keep moving forward. I hope I have done more good in this world than bad. I hope I have given more than I have taken. I hope I have helped more people than I have hurt. I will never be perfect, so that is something I don’t even try to aspire to. I am just trying to stay on the right side of the balance sheet. I really do try hard to be a good Christian, and I tend to fail miserably at that most times, but I am hoping God appreciates the effort.

I honestly got into this business to try to help people. I hope, in some small way, I have been able to do that. My business tag line is “We Solve Problems.” There are a lot of them out there. I do what I can. One of the difficult aspects of this line of work is that you will consistently be exposed to and see the worst side of human nature. In anything we do for work, it is important not to let repeated exposure to negativity jade us and carry over into our personal lives. This can cause tremendous stress in our relationships and create inner turmoil. When you are put under pressure and stress, it's important to find a way to turn that around and see the positive aspect. I heard someone say lemons are meant to be squeezed, that’s how you get the juice out. A buddy of mine also says, when life gives you AIDs, make lemon-AIDs. Wait, what was I talking about? I think I was trying to be motivational. I don’t know, I’m not a psychiatrist or life coach. All I can recommend is, don’t cheat on your partner because you will always get caught, no matter how smart you think you are. And, generally speaking, try not to be an asshole.

As you have probably surmised by now, I will be making absolutely no effort in this book to be politically correct or sensitive in any way. That choice comes from a desire to be as authentic and true to reality as possible. These are real stories about real people. With a few exceptions, I have changed the names of all individuals involved to maintain confidentiality. But the accounts of what took place are very accurate. Unless I was drinking, in which case I can only vouch for a general recollection. I have tried to include a mix of anecdotes that highlight people’s behavior as shocking, strange, amusing, in some cases disgusting, and sometimes inspiring. Maybe inspiring is too strong a word, but my hope is to share the choices I made in these situations and leave them for you to examine. I, and the people I reference, have admittedly made some very bad choices. You may have chosen to do things differently, or not to have gotten involved at all. But, right or wrong, these are the stories of how things turned out.

I realize I have opened myself up to judgement and criticism, but I do that in the hopes that you might learn something from my mistakes and failures. I am not here to preach to anybody. I am not righteous; I am a sinner and fail at my faith over and over again. But I keep trying, keep asking for forgiveness (and the strength to forgive others), and move forward as best I can. I think that’s all we can do. I wanted to share some of my stories and experiences to bring awareness to the hardness of life that is going on all around us. The darkness you may never encounter but are consciously aware of exists out there.

These stories may give you a glimpse into that world without having to physically cross that line. Most people spend their lives trying to avoid the darkness. Other people only feel comfortable in the dark because that is all they have ever known. But for some of us, who have experienced pain and evil, trying to bring some light into those dark places becomes our calling and the reason for our existence. There is no set way that gets us there, our paths are all very specific and different. But when we experience anger, pain, hurt, and loss, there are only two ways you can react. Stay trapped in the darkness or try to move forward toward the light. When we strive to move toward the light, we inevitably bring others with us out of the darkness. This becomes our mission, and we can accomplish that goal in so many different ways. Whatever you are good at, or feel called to do, is your strength. Use that to help others and you will find your purpose. I think I have found mine.

1. How Far is it to Miami?

From London to Palm Beach

“I’m sorry sir, the flight is completely full, I don’t have anywhere to move you.” Can I sit in the bathroom? “No.”

Leaving England after having lived there for the previous ten years wasn’t as difficult as I had thought it might be. My wife and I had made a beautiful home together on the Norfolk coast after moving out of the hustle and bustle of London, where we initially met. I had been working as an investigator at the company an old military colleague had founded, and life was pretty good. I was even integrating into the English culture and had been perfecting the dry, sarcastic sense of humor, the humble self-depreciation, the quiet disdain for social interaction, and the innate horror of drawing attention to oneself. I could also complain bitterly about the weather as well as any of the indigenous population. My beloved English wife Geraldine had been helping me assimilate, although she found my attempts to utilize British slang while somehow maintaining my Brooklyn accent quite hilarious. But unfortunately, she lost her valiant battle against cancer and life in the UK held very little meaning for me anymore. I decided to take the skills I had developed as a private investigator and attempt to ply my trade on more familiar ground. I was flying back to the States, to Florida specifically, seeking a fresh start and to be closer to my family.

While I was living abroad, they had retired and moved down from New York to Palm Beach County. Like ninety percent of the city population does. This was back many years before COVID would change the way we interact and travel. Flying wasn’t as bad as it is now, but it was still a pain in the ass. I was entering the last leg of my flight to Ft. Lauderdale and had decided to upgrade to first class. I had been through a lot in the previous months, so I felt I deserved to treat myself. Plus, it is inevitable that whenever I travel, I always get stuck sitting next to either the smelliest or most boring yet talkative person on the flight. Sometimes both. So, I figured if nothing else the free booze would help. At least I wouldn’t have to trudge down the valley of the damned to get to the back of the plane. As I was scanning the cabin to find my plush, extra-comfortable seat, I locked eyes with the gentleman who was in the first row of the coach cabin. He was a Hasidic Jew, and he boarded before me because his elderly travel companion had to be helped to her seat in a wheelchair. He had a pleading look in his eyes as though he were hopeful that I would continue up the aisle, take the seat next to him, and save him from what appeared to be the old woman’s incessant complaining. Sorry buddy, I’m not headed back that far, you are on your own.

Whenever I fly solo, waiting to find my seat is always the most exciting and anxious moment of the flight. To this day, I am always filled with hope that this will be the time I end up sitting next to a beautiful, interesting, uninhibited single woman whose last bucket list item is to join the mile-high club. I have no idea why I even get my hopes up because that has never, ever happened to me in all my years of flying all over the world. Inevitably, they always seat me next to the fattest, sweatiest bastard on the aircraft. Of the literally hundreds of flights I have taken, from my early days in the military, through all my civilian careers, whether it be domestic or international travel, in any of the different cabin classes, I have never, ever lucked out and sat next to an attractive woman. Never. Flatulent, elderly alcoholic divorcee? Check. Overweight, middle-aged comic book enthusiast with halitosis? Check. Blind, hypoglycemic Jehovah’s Witness? Check. Most people pray that their plane doesn’t break apart in turbulence and crash into the sea. I pray that I am not seated next to an ageing, neurotic insurance salesman with a sleep disorder and an opioid addiction. Again. Although deep down I was expecting the worst, for some reason I just felt this time would be different.

After what I had just been through, I figured Jesus owed me a lucky break. I had just spent the entire previous year heartbreakingly serving as my wife’s caregiver. I had to watch her fight as hard as she could in a battle that had no chance of victory. Through it all, she was a pillar of strength, courage, dignity, and grace. She was the best thing that ever happened to me and losing her nearly killed me. Starting my life over again took everything I had inside of me. But moving myself and my business to Florida was going to be my resurrection. I was looking to Jesus for confirmation that I was making the right move, and then it finally happened. After all the years of miserable flights, sitting next to the most ridiculous and annoying array of people you can imagine, I finally got a lucky break. To my surprise, the stewardess led me to the open aisle seat right next to a very attractive woman. I must have been smiling in happy amazement because she looked up and smiled back at me. Before I took my seat, I had another look back at the Rabbi in coach. I shrugged my shoulders and grinned as if to say, sorry man. He raised his eyebrows and shrugged, then hung his head and continued to listen to his travel partner’s complaining. I settled into my seat, ordered a double whisky neat, and thanked Jesus for this turn around in my fortunes. The thing about Jesus though is, He has a great sense of humor. He is fucking hilarious.

I introduced myself to Jasmine and we immediately hit it off. She had a great smile and she smelled amazing. She had dark black hair and was very exotic looking. She also had a little bit of a strange accent that I couldn’t quite place. At this point, I should tell you about a quirk I have in my personality. Once I get fixated on something, I focus on it to the point of distraction. She was talking up a storm, but I wasn’t really paying attention to what she was saying because the accent thing really started to bother me. I had literally travelled all over the world and had heard so many different accents, but I couldn’t quite place this one. At times like this, I literally have to tell myself to stop obsessing and let things go. Maybe she was from Azerbaijan or some fascinating place I had never been to? What difference did it make? I am finally getting what I had always asked for, and I was ruining it by fixating on silly details.

I decided I was just going to let it go, and when the stewardess passed by, I ordered us another round of drinks. Damn first class is awesome and so totally worth the extra money. You can get completely hammered before the flight even takes off. I was relaxed, happy, and actually looking forward to the long flight. I looked around the full cabin and all of the boring people I could have been sitting next to. Then I thought about the Rabbi and all of the assorted mouth-breathers packed like sardines back in coach, and it made me feel very blessed and grateful. I was just about to thank Jesus again for my good fortune, but as the stewardess handed us our drinks, I noticed that Jasmine’s hands seemed disproportionately large for her body.

Our flight took off on time and we were soon airborne. When we reached cruising altitude, Jasmine started blitzing me with an endless stream of questions. I was dying to ask her where she was from, but I couldn’t get a word in other than to respond to her interrogation. When asked why I was flying, I told her that I was moving from England to Florida to set up my own private investigation business. She said she thought I was the coolest and most interesting man in the world, which of course I am. I was just about to mention my wife’s passing, but I decided not to because that sort of thing tends to make people feel uncomfortable. I wasn’t close to being recovered from that yet and was still wearing my wedding ring, but she either didn’t notice or didn’t care. Then I started feeling some survivor’s guilt and my responses were shorter, causing the conversation to get a bit awkward. To her credit, Jasmine must have picked up on my change in demeanor and attempted to fix the situation by ordering more drinks. It has been my experience that this is a fool-proof and guaranteed way to rectify any situation in life and something I learned early on from my days in the Navy. When our drinks arrived, I was determined to be more personable. And to get over the fact that her hands were so big.

About an hour into the flight, the downward spiral my day would eventually take had begun. The stewardess announced that there was a problem with the first-class bathroom, so we would have to use the facilities in the coach cabin. I couldn’t help but think that everyone in coach smiled smugly when they heard that. I would have. I excused myself from our conversation and took the walk of shame back to the coach restroom. When I got there, the Rabbi was in line ahead of me. “You can go ahead of me,” he said. Are you sure? I’m not in any hurry. “Neither am I,” he lamented, “I don’t even have to go. I just wanted to sit in there quietly for a few minutes to escape my mother-in-law.” Yeah, that looks brutal, I said, I noticed you when we were boarding. “I was going to say, if you get tired of listening to your wife, we could change seats,” the Rabbi said, “but I would never do that to another human being.” I laughed but then said, she’s not my wife, unfortunately my wife passed recently. “I’m very sorry to hear that,” the Rabbi said very sympathetically. Thanks, was all I could come up with in reply.

Then we awkwardly let the fat guy that came out of the bathroom shuffle past us. Listen, you go first, and take as long as you need, I said to my new friend. “Thank you,” he replied, “I can see by your cross that you are not Jewish, but pray for me anyway.” I will, I told him. After I did what I had to do, I walked back to my seat determined to put any social anxiety or fixation on insignificant details behind me. We still had a good long flight ahead of us and I was going to make the most of it. When I arrived, I noticed that Jasmine had a blanket over her lap and half of it was stretched out so that it was laying over my seat as well. This was getting interesting. This was back in the day when the seats were next to each other. Now, in first-class, there is like a dividing wall between the seats so that if the person next to you is really disgusting, you can raise a little privacy screen and pretend you are trying to sleep while not coming across as a complete asshole. What happened next would have caused me to give a kidney for one of those privacy screens, a dividing wall, something.

Jasmine lifted up the half of the blanket that was over my seat and after I sat back down, she placed it over my lap and said, “I thought you might want to share.” This was exactly the scenario I had always wanted to experience, apart from her abnormally large hands. But instead of being able to relax and enjoy the moment, and regardless of the pep talk I had given myself, I was still so annoyed at not being able to place her accent. Before things progressed any further, I just blurted out, where are you from? To which Jasmine over-enthusiastically responded, “West Palm Beach, baby!” I almost told her that is where I was eventually heading, but instead I just asked, no, where are you from originally, why do you talk like that? Jasmine looked at me for a moment with a puzzled expression and then said, “I was born and raised there.” This didn’t make any sense, I thought to myself, and totally ignored the fact that she was rubbing my arm. It felt kind of nice, but I was curious as to why she was speaking with what was clearly a fake accent. I tried to tell myself that I was just being overly critical and paranoid because I couldn’t quite believe that I had caught a lucky break.

Everything had been falling apart lately so why would things turn around now? Something hadn’t felt right from the start, and then I realized what it was. I looked over at Jasmine’s side of the blanket and noticed a strange bulge in an area where there shouldn’t have been one. Maybe it was all the whiskey I had consumed, but it took me a minute to figure it out. Then, almost comforted by the feeling that my familiar run of shit luck had returned, I sat back and said, of course. All of my previous travel debacles flashed through my head, but at that moment, they all seemed to pale in comparison with the realization that Jasmine had a penis.

I have been trained very well to remain calm in stressful situations, so I didn’t panic. I wanted to jump up out of my seat, but I had been living in England for so long that I had started to develop their sense of social awkwardness. I actually thought to myself, I am incredibly uncomfortable right now, but how do I politely extricate myself from this situation without offending her? Or him? This was before the woke renaissance overtook society and everyone had their own pronouns. So, I very politely excused myself and went to speak with the stewardess in private. She told me that the flight was completely full and asked me if I had a pressing reason why I wanted to change seats. If she only knew how accurate that phrase was. But how do you explain to Janice from United Airlines that you are trying to discreetly escape from your co-passenger, who happens to be a horny pre-op transsexual? I needed a plan, and then I spotted my old friend the Rabbi. He was still in the midst of absorbing the constant barrage of complaining from his mother-in-law.

So, thinking quickly, I approached them with an offer. I said, excuse me madame, but earlier the Rabbi had told me that you had never flown up in first-class. I was really praying that was true. When I offered to switch seats with her, she looked over at the Rabbi, confused. Luckily, the Rabbi assumed that I wanted to sit next to him because I had questions about faith resulting from my loss. He encouraged her to switch seats and she reluctantly obliged. I plopped down next to the Rabbi and let out a sigh of relief. Then he turned to me and said, “so, you want to know if God still cares about you.”

To be honest, that question hadn’t crossed my mind. Despite evidence to the contrary given my latest travel fiasco. But when he asked, I started to think about it. The past year had been a whirlwind, and I never felt that I had time to pray. On the rare nights when my wife was able to sleep, I would be up all night worrying. And after she passed, I spent most of my time feeling sorry for myself and didn’t give much thought to anything else. But sitting there next to someone who might actually have the answer, I finally did feel like I wanted to know why. So, I asked, why did it feel like God was punishing me by taking away my wife? The Rabbi contemplated for a moment and then said, “in Deuteronomy it says, ‘I crush you and I heal you.’ That is the mystery.” With all due respect, I told the Rabbi I was hoping for answers, not more mysteries. Then he said, “the mystery about God is that it all comes from Him. The pain and the joy. But we are meant to trust Him either way.”

I’m sure I looked confused, but he continued, “we never know when grief is going to come or how long it will be with us, but faith is always with us.” I was fighting through the surrealness of my travel situation, as well as all the whiskey, to try to make sense of what he was saying. But it wasn’t making sense, and to be honest, I am surprised I even remember this much of the conversation. He could tell I was having trouble relating his wisdom to my situation, but then he said something that has stuck with me to this day. The Rabbi said, “remember what King Solomon said, that no man dies with even half his heart’s desires fulfilled.” I still wasn’t getting it, and I asked, what does that mean? He said, “it means that we are all grieving our own particular losses. You are not the only one. But you are not alone.” He let that sink in for a while. Then he spent the rest of the flight telling me the funniest mother-in-law jokes I had ever heard in my life.

We landed in Ft. Lauderdale and I thought that I had avoided any awkward further interaction. But Jasmine had other plans. I hung back and assumed that she would have deboarded the plane first, but she had been waiting in her seat for me to pass by. The Rabbi had hurried up to the front to assist his mother-in-law, so he could no longer help me. Looking back now, I realize what Jesus was up to when He caused our paths to cross. But, little of the wisdom that the Rabbi had imparted to me actually sunk in. I was just wondering how I was going to deplane without being propositioned.

I needed a new plan and was grateful that I hadn’t told Jasmine that we were heading to the same place. Jasmine locked eyes with me as I headed up the aisle, and without even thinking, of course I politely let her exit her seat in front of me. After asking how the rest of my flight was, she said, “so, you never told me where you are going.” I had to think quickly, and I knew it was in the opposite direction, so I just blurted out, Miami. “Oh, that’s a shame,” Jasmine said, “that’s in the opposite direction from me.” I just shrugged and pretended to be disappointed. I was in the clear for now, but I still had to get through baggage claim.

Jasmine followed me down to baggage claim, and as we were waiting for our luggage, the lack of conversation was becoming uncomfortable. The English social awkwardness kicked in and I became overwhelmed with the feeling that I needed to reinforce the fact that I was heading south. For some bizarre reason, I turned to the gentleman standing next to me and asked, how far is it to Miami? Then he asked, in the thickest Cuban accent I have ever heard, “you are going to Miami?” I smiled and nodded. Then, of course, he says, “I am going to Miami too. Do you have ride?” What? Did he just ask me if I have a ride? I immediately start thinking of ways to avoid this, but I can’t turn down a free ride, that would look suspicious. Damn, if only Uber had been big back then. Or Lyft even. These were the days when the only alternative was a taxi. So I said, no, but that’s all right, I’ll just take a cab. It would have been too easy if he had just left it there, but instead he said, “are you crazy? You know how much it costs a taxi? My family is coming to pick me up. We have room, you come with us!”

I thanked him for being so incredibly kind. I figured I would wait until Jasmine left and then tell him that I really wasn’t going to Miami after all. But just as I am sure God intended, so that He could reinforce why I shouldn’t lie, Jasmine insisted on waiting with me until Fidel’s family arrived to pick us up. At this point, any sane person would have confessed and just walked away from this ridiculous situation. But not me. Jasmine gave me a big hug and waved to me as I drove off, heading south in a minivan full of Cubans.

So, that is how I began my new life in Palm Beach. Well, not right then. First, I had to drive an hour and a half in the opposite direction, to a city I did not know, with a family of people I had never met before. Their English wasn’t great, but they all seemed to enjoy the story of how I ended up in this predicament. By the time they realized I had no idea where I was going or what I was doing, it had gotten late and they insisted that I stay with them for the night. I protested, but they wouldn’t take no for an answer. So, they made up the sofa bed for me and I just figured I would find my way up to Palm Beach in the morning. I have to say, all jokes aside, that was incredibly gracious of them. The homecooked meal was amazing and Fidel even broke out a couple of Cuban cigars.

As I laid there on the couch that night, I reflected on the wisdom that the Rabbi had imparted to me. I was in a strange house with people I barely knew, not quite sure what tomorrow would bring, but I had an overwhelming feeling that everything would work out all right. And for the first time in as long as I could remember, I didn’t have a feeling of being completely alone. I also laughed out loud when I thought about the ridiculousness of my day and what a sense of humor Jesus had. I eventually made it up north and looking back now, I realize this story is actually the perfect metaphor for what would be my new life in Florida. It always takes longer than you think it will to get anywhere; and nothing is ever what it seems to be.

Is This How It’s Going to Be?

“You are in a different world than you are used to, mate. All I can suggest is, don’t get too emotionally invested in your cases.” God, I really wished I had listened to this advice.

Graham, my mentor from England, called me a few weeks after I settled into life in Palm Beach. He knew I was still recovering emotionally after the death of my wife and wanted to make sure I was all right. He also knew that it would be difficult to get my business started, especially if I didn’t have my heart and mind fully in it yet. So he wanted to offer whatever support he could. The English are not ones for overtly expressing their emotions. I had known Graham for many years, going back to my days in the military, and I knew he cared, but we never sat around and discussed our feelings. We had been through a few difficult cases together but maintained the English resolve to just ‘get on with it.’ The underlying sentiment being, I acknowledge that this is extremely fucked up, but I am just going to get the job done and not let it affect me.

This approach worked well in the UK, but I would find that wasn’t the case in Florida. My training as an intelligence specialist in the Navy gave me a clinical eye for detail. And also a realization of the necessity to gather and analyze information from a variety of sources. Training as an investigator in England, where the nature of most people is subdued self-constraint, allowed me to utilize these qualities to great effect. I was able to achieve results without having to get too personally involved in the outcome. But Florida is a whole different world… these people are all up in their feelings. And everything, about every case, becomes personal.

“How are you doing mate?” was as close to a heart-to-heart as I have gotten with Graham. We had both lost our wives, mine from cancer and his from a car accident, but we didn’t talk about it other than to acknowledge how much it sucked. Graham and I worked well together because we both approached our work intellectually, even though our backgrounds couldn’t have been more different. Graham was from a privileged English family, attended boarding school, and had been a Royal Air Force Intelligence Officer. I am an Italian-American from Brooklyn, prone to fits of rage, and grew up in an environment where yelling and emotional outbursts were elevated to an art form. But years of being married to an English woman, and living amongst the English in their culture, had resulted in my ability to temper my feelings to a large extent. I adapted to my new environment and working life, wherein expressing too much emotion simply wasn’t done.

Professionally, there is a lot to be said for that level of emotional restraint. But, in your personal life, repressing your feelings for too long generally leads to disastrous outcomes. They are going to come out at some point, and it is probably best to release some of the pressure slowly, over time, rather than letting everything build up and then explode. My new home in Florida would turn out to be an environment where people were much more comfortable letting their emotions run rampant. And my former colleague was happy to point this out. “You are in a whole different playground now, my friend,” Graham ominously warned me. If he only knew how right he was about that.

My very first case after getting licensed in Florida pretty much set the tone for what was to come for me in the ensuing years. I got into this business to help people. I knew it would require getting my hands dirty. And being exposed to unsavory characters, difficult situations, and sometimes downright evil. But I didn’t realize the level of personal attachment it sometimes requires to help people through difficult situations. I had experienced that in my personal life, but it hadn’t crossed over into my professional life before. Then, I was contacted by a young woman named Casey. Casey had been dating her boyfriend Rick for years but was now convinced he was cheating on her. I hadn’t worked many infidelity cases in England. Most of my work had dealt with financial fraud or providing security. The clients were large companies, not individuals, so I had to quickly develop new customer service and interpersonal skills.

The clients that I would be serving now would be much more emotionally invested in the outcomes of their cases. I setup an initial phone consultation with Casey, explained my retainer and fee structure for surveillance, and then asked her what her expectations were from the outcome. She was confused by the question and said, “if he’s cheating, I want you to catch him.” I said that I understood that but wanted to know if she had given any thought to what her reaction would be if her fears were realized. Once you know something, I said, you can’t unknow it. She said she was prepared to deal with whatever happened, so I gathered some information from her about her boyfriend Rick and planned to get started.

I had booked my first case, but one case doesn’t pay the bills. It was clear that it would take me some time to build up a client list, so I had to do what I was dreading and actually get a job. One of the shittiest jobs I’ve ever had was as an investigator for the Department of Family Services. The job title was “investigator,” but all I really did was go to old people’s houses and check to make sure they weren’t dead or starving. These were people who were on their own, usually with no family, and neighbors would call us to go and check on them because they were concerned for their welfare. Or the stink coming out of their apartment was overwhelming. The latter was more often the case and usually the result of their corpse decaying for days because they had dropped dead and no one had missed them. If they hadn’t died, they had fallen, couldn’t get up, shat themselves, and were just lying there in it, for days. And no one missed them.

Most of these people don’t have friends or relatives, at least none that regularly check on them. It must be the saddest thing to have lived your whole life, get to the end, and no one realizes you died three weeks ago. Don’t get me wrong, some of these people are evil, toxic bastards who have driven away anyone that may have ever cared about them. Still, these are our neighbors; if you haven’t seen someone in a few days, maybe knock on their door and check to see if they are ok.

I hate to sound uncompassionate, but for the most part this job was pretty gross. I remember driving from case to case thinking, what the fuck am I doing with my life? I had a vision for my future, and this was not it. I do believe that God hears our random musings, and He does respond even when we aren’t really expecting an answer. I think that’s why I came across Tanya. Ninety-nine percent of my cases involved senior citizens, but Tanya’s listed age on my stat sheet was thirty-two. I was assigned to visit her place and determine if she was capable of living on her own or if she should be recommended for an assisted living facility. I remember thinking, she is only thirty-two, how fucked up could she be? I still regret thinking that.

Tanya was living in a block of one-room studio apartments in Riviera Beach, which if you don’t know, is a shithole. I parked next to a car that was so completely covered in bird shit I didn’t know what color it was supposed to be. Before I even got to her place, an old guy sitting out in front of the apartment next door angrily asked me who I was and what I wanted. When I told him I was there to check if Tanya needed some help, he changed his demeanor, got up, and politely knocked on her door. “Tanya, there is someone here to visit with you, I’m gonna open your door,” the old man said. I thought it was odd for him to phrase it like that, but he waited a moment and then opened the door without waiting for her to respond. The room was so small, as soon as he opened the door it practically hit the bed. What was inside was heartbreaking.

Tanya was a strikingly beautiful young black woman who I would have guessed to be in her mid-twenties, not thirty-two. Her place was tiny but tidy and had a small kitchenette, a little bathroom, and not much else. Proudly displayed on the wall was a framed Bachelor’s degree from Florida Atlantic University, along with lots of pictures of friends and family, and Jesus. Tanya did her best to sit up in bed and waved at me. She struggled to use the remote to turn the volume down on the tv and my first thought was that she seemed either really drunk or really high. “She can’t talk, but if you got questions, she can somewhat write the answer down,” the old neighbor informed me. “She can move around a little sometimes, but mostly she stays in the bed.” Between her incredibly difficult-to-decipher handwriting and the neighbor’s constant commentary, I learned that Tanya had been living on her own like this for the past year. And that her health was rapidly deteriorating. Otto, the chatty neighbor, told me that she had family, but they visited her less and less as her condition worsened.