A Rene C. Clayton Mystery Story: Surveillance Most Boring

Chapter 31

Surveillance Most Boring

(A Fake Excerpt) 

Nobody saw me climb the fence.  Bertha, my little buggy was parked at a safe distance from the road.  And, I was operating under a thin layer of dusk, wearing Fall colors.  Just to blend in.  I made my way around the side of the house and settled in the bushes.  Ask anybody, detective work ain’t always pretty or glamorous.  Especially for the amateur, un-paying kind.  I think I sat there for a couple of hours playing games on my phone.  Volume: off --- of course.  Periodically, I checked my email, voicemail and texts.  No calls from Mr. Cutie Pie Harrison.  Not even a text.  Wonder what I would have to do to get him to send me a “selfie.”  Hmph.  Think I actually know what I’d have to do.  Not doing that.  Well, maybe.  Oh, yeah.  Battery usage.  I might end up having to call for help.  Couldn’t very well do that with a dead phone.

Too late.

Dagnabit.

My phone blipped off and I was stuck sitting there holding the tiniest, most expensive piece of modern day technology that was now useless to me.  Nobody said surveillance was easy.  Now, I would have to entertain myself.  Maybe I needed to rattle off the list of suspects in my head again.  I had my suspicions about who might turn up to take the bait.  It’s a good thing everybody thought I was a nobody.  If they hadn’t, nobody would have started talking, inadvertently supplying me with all those handy little things called “clues.”  Clues add up and sometimes they point directly to a suspect.

And, that’s how I ended up trespassing on an exclusive estate.  Spying on some bitter old queen --- who obviously knew how to make a decent cocktail, I might add.  A car pulled up in the distance.  A very expensive car with a missing tail light.  My breath caught and my heart fluttered with excitement.  I moved forward, parted a couple of branches and watched this mystery come together.

Damn, I’m good.