Metro Pulse/Cover/The Love Dicks

Comment
on this story

Under the Magnifying Glass

Once your suspicions are aroused, it isn't difficult to find a private investigator. Your search need go no farther than the yellow pages, where more than a dozen detective firms are listed. Two local P.I.s have this advice to offer on how to further narrow your options.

According to Affordable Investigations' Ed Sweat, this first thing to look for is a business that has been around for more than three years and has done a lot of domestic cases. Then check with the Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance (website) to make sure the firm is a licensed P.I. in good standing.

Don't base your choice on whether your prospective private dick was a former police officer, since Sweat thinks the skill sets are different. Law enforcement offers work in the open where they can use their uniform to get information. But "everything that we do is pretty much covert," Sweat says.

"There are a lot of bad investigators," says Pinnacle Investigations' Barry Hurt. "You definitely need to interview them." Use this face-to-face meeting to make sure you trust your potential investigator and that he or she communicates with you in a way that you understand.

Above all else, make sure that you are comfortable with your choice of investigator. After all, you're only compounding your problems if you are suspicious of the person checking out your suspicions.

—A.M.

Private investigators dig up affairs of the heart

by Adrienne Martini

Nothing says "I love you" like a criminal background check. Perhaps it is a statement of our times that one of the few ways that you can truly know whether your beloved is a lying, cheating cretin is to hire someone to follow his movements and to look into his past. Or, her past, since lying and cheating have always been equal-opportunity vices.

In days of old, someone's character could be illuminated by what his friends and neighbors said about him; in our more mobile society, friends and neighbors change as quickly as the seasons. Perhaps, though, lovers have always been suspicious of each other and only now do we have the technology to confirm our darkest fears.

For an example of how widespread it is to hire a private dick to follow your significant other, one need look no further than the news, where broadcast and print media have been churning out at least one story per week on the Houston Mercedes-Benz murder. The case runs as follows: dentist Clara Harris hired a detective to follow her husband, orthodontist David Harris, whom she suspected of having an affair. Said detective phones Clara Harris when David Harris enters a hotel room with Gail Bridges, his mistress. The wife, who, strangely, had once appeared on the Jerry Springer show, then drives over to the hotel, confronts her unfaithful spouse, and runs over him with her German automobile. At least twice. With his daughter (from a previous marriage) in her car. Classy. The whole incident is caught on tape by, you guessed it, the P.I. hired by Clara Harris.

While this case has thrust private investigators into the national spotlight, their services on domestic cases are not unusual. Two local firms—Pinnacle Investigations and Affordable Investigations—each take more than 100 domestic cases per year. Between 75 and 90 percent of these cases end with proof of the object's guilt,

guilt, investigators say. As Pinnacle's Barry Hurt says, "No one's immune from [adultery], no matter what income bracket, race, or religion. We've caught preachers and police officers. It's pretty rampant."

B.J. Morgan, the self-titled "Love Dick," frightens me.

We're sitting in a local coffee house chatting about her chosen profession. She does not take her coffee black, like all good detective novels would suggest, nor is she wearing a trench coat and fedora. Morgan is attractive, with big eyes that never leave your face and a broad, winning smile. If I didn't know what she did for a living, I'd immediately assume she worked for TVA.

I'm not sure why she makes me nervous. I don't have anything to hide—or, at least I don't think I do. Maybe I'm living a second secret life, so secret, in fact, that I haven't even told myself about it. I'm half tempted to hire her to investigate me, just to see what she would find and vaguely fearful that she'd discover that my secondary persona can afford real champagne, rather than just the champagne of beers.

Morgan, who has been a private investigator for five years, runs Matechecks, an agency that specializes in domestic cases. Why the name? "Because," she says, "before you move into the castle, you should check out your queen or your king to know if they're a rook." Her typical client is "a baby boomer who has been married once and doesn't want to make a bad mistake again."

While Morgan is cagey about the number of cases she takes on per year—"I'm busy enough to keep my two children fed," she says—she charges $40-$60 per hour and generally asks for 10 hours payment up front. Most of her cases bring back either peace of mind or confirmations of the client's worst fears. "In 75 percent of my cases, whatever he or she wanted, we got it. Twenty-five percent [of the time] it's all in their head. But they need proof. They need a professional to say yes or no," she says.

While cheaters can be investigated almost every minute of the year, Valentine's Day is one of the better times of the year to hire a private eye.

"Most people give their sweethearts cards or gifts this time of year," Morgan says. "If an affair is going on, this may be the right week to initiate surveillance or other services we offer to detect who they go see, who they call, where they go, and, even, what they buy. Sometimes the person having an affair finds it hard to divide their time between their live-in love and their lover on the side, because Valentine's Day is the one day you should be with the one you love."

Catching adulterers is one of the least romantic jobs out there. Morgan, however, started her professional life in one of the more romantic fields out there. Her mother was the founder and owner of Gatlinburg's Honeymoon Hideaways, and, starting at age 12, Morgan checked in and cleaned up after the couples who stayed there. She even scrubbed heart-shaped tubs, which may have foreshadowed her future career.

After graduating from Gatlinburg-Pittman, Morgan joined the Air Force. Once there, "I learned very easily that a lot of people do not tell the truth. And being from smalltown Tennessee, I was gullible and I believed a lot of untruths or half-truths," the Love Dick says.

"My mother always told me "B., you will not be in trouble if you tell the truth.' So anytime I ever would do anything suspicious, if I told my mother the truth, I was never grounded or anything. So I took that philosophy into my world.

"I don't have a law enforcement background. Therefore, I don't think it's right for me to claim to Knoxvillians that you should hire me to investigate your criminal case—I just don't do that. I do what I know. I know men. I know women. I know children. And I want to do family law investigations.

"I do believe that I can help men and women, single or married, gay, straight, whatever—doesn't matter. As long as they don't intend to come down and shoot the person, as long as there's no criminal intent at all, if they truly need me to do divorce collection of evidence or they just need to know if someone has a criminal background, or was this woman a 'golddigger.' I can find these things out, and that is all I want to do."

Morgan's quest to seek out the truth is shared by one of her detectives, D. Lane, who prefers her first name not be used. "We're perceived as shady characters, nine times out of 10," Lane says. "[People] think we just peep in windows. We really find facts out. The truth might hurt, but at least it's going to be the truth."

Working as a private eye isn't accurately captured in popular media. "Most of the stories that you've heard and what you see on TV isn't anything like what we do," says Affordable Investigation's Ed Sweat, who got started in this line of work when he was a skip tracer. "People shouldn't believe everything they see in the movies."

A private dick's job is not as glamorous and action-packed as The Maltese Falcon or, even, Fletch, would have you believe. Investigators spend long hours in their cars, watching, for example, a hotel parking lot or intersection near their subject's residence. Hurt, on the morning I spoke with him, had been on a case until 2 a.m. the previous night. The job requires dedication, 365 days per year and 24 hours per day. Hurt even worked on his wedding day. And these investigators can find it difficult to turn their eagle eyes to their own relationships. "My first wife cheated on me and I never saw it," says Hurt.

The hardest part, most detectives agree, is maintaining concentration during their seemingly endless days. "I don't know that there is an easy part," Hurt says. "Every case is different and, yet, every case has a lot of the same characteristics. We learn on every single job and every case is different because everyone is different. We've caught someone in 12 minutes; one case has gone on for four years. It's a lot easier to prove somebody is doing something than not doing something."

Hurt recently had a client who spent $50,000 to have her husband watched 24 hours a day for three months. While Hurt was quickly able to confirm that her husband was cheating on her, the wife was looking for more ammunition to take to divorce court. Not every case concludes with the investigators heading to a trial, but it does happen more often than not.

Investigators in domestic cases occasionally feel sorry for the person they're investigating—especially if it is a child-custody case. Sweat remembers a father he followed. "He was great with the kid," Sweat says. "We didn't have anything on him that would hurt him." But when Sweat testified in court, the man's attorney didn't think to ask Sweat how the father was around his child. Ultimately, the case was decided in favor of the child's mother, and Sweat later found out that the father had committed suicide.

"Some people are just vindictive and want to use children as pawns," Sweat says. "But we're supposed to be neutral about it and do our job."

"Child custody [cases] are always sad," Hurt succinctly sums up. "But adultery, I have no qualms. If they're doing it they need to be caught. I feel bad for our clients, not the other person."

Gone are the days when a P.I. can rely simply on taking notes or shooting a few snapshots. Now, most of the work is helped by hi-tech gadgets. While most of the truly cool tools—like satellite imagery and heat-seeking cameras—remain in the hands of the federal government, private eyes have picked up a gizmo or two, like pager cameras and night vision goggles. The Internet has also been a huge boon—and the person who pops up in your instant message box may be one of these love dicks.

Morgan, in fact, will chat with her target online and hope that he invites her into a private chat room. Once there, she will copy any naughtiness that may go on, paste that into a word file, then email that document to her client. Instant proof without every having to leave her computer.

The Internet has also made background checks easier. "A lot of the time we rely on databases and public records," Morgan says, "and some of them are used only by law enforcement and other private investigation companies. On a background check, it's typically $100 minimum. I can tell a whole lot about a person—who they are, real names and aliases, criminal records, address the last 7-10 years, driving record—I can get a lot for $100."

The favorite tools of most P.I.'s, however, are a video camera and several reliable cars. And, contrary to popular belief, an investigator cannot tap your phone lines or bug your house—both are illegal in Tennessee. A service that many local investigation firms offer is actually de-bugging, which is a sweep through your home or business for listening devices that may have been illegally placed.

Private investigators can also act as a decoy. Most firms employ agents of both sexes, and some owners, like Morgan, do that kind of work themselves as well.

"I don't approach them," Morgan says. "I do not solicit them. I do not 'entrap' them. If they propose something to me—if I smile and wink and they approach me—technically I can use under the law what's called a pretext to get information out of them. So I can lie my ass off. I can do whatever I want. People trust me. They tell me things they shouldn't tell me."

"Ethically and morally, I will not take a man to bed. I will not take a man and go into a hotel room with him and stay. If I did this, I would have another licensed P.I. with their video camera and they would take video," she says.

It was a humble video camera that brought down the Houston dentists. In Morgan's opinion, "If that P.I. knew that that wife was going into that hotel and was going to verbally confront that man, and intentionally stayed in the parking lot to view it, I think he should be charged—accessory, aiding and abetting—pick the charge.

"But, legally, he is legitimately exonerated. He will probably not spend a day in jail. The reason why—if he can claim that he was accidentally in the wrong place when his client went in there, because he was watching the husband, had no knowledge of her intentions, then I think that he should be given a medal for videography."

The key to being successful in this business, Morgan says, is to do what you're asked, as long as it's legal. Persistence is also key, according to all three investigators.

"I tell my clients 'pretend I'm a bloodhound,'" Morgan says. "'I work for you. You tell me where you think those smells are coming from. Give me what you know. And tell me how you feel. And tell me what you're going to do if I find out, before you sign a contract.'"

My meeting with the Love Dick ends oddly. After I turn off my tape recorder, she asks me why I didn't take my husband's last name when we got married. I explain, as I have dozens of times, that I had been published under my given name and, besides, only a fool would lose a name like "Martini." But something nags at me.

"How did you know that?" I say.

Oh, she explains, I ran your name after you called to set up an interview and found out that bills come to two different names at the same address.

I guess this means she loves me.