Your Cheatin’ Heart: Infidelity Investigations

“Never sleep with anyone whose troubles are worse than your own.”  Lew Archer in Black Money by Ross Macdonald

Introduction
This article is a basic introduction to the world of infidelity investigations by private investigators (PIs).  It can be used as a primer for writers folding this type of investigation into a story (for example, a P character is hired to check out a cheating spouse), for the reader to bring more understanding to such scenes in fiction books, or for the curious who’d like to know more about this type of investigative work.

Note: This article is primarily written from a professional PI’s perspective, but it also has a slant toward writers developing PI stories/characters.

So why focus on the world of PIs and cheating spouses?  Because this is the kind of work most people think PIs do.  And actually, for some it is.  One PI says 85% of his clientele are people wanting to know if their spouse is cheating.  At my investigations agency, maybe 15% of our business involves cheating spouses or domestic relations.  We attribute this to how we’ve marketed ourselves (our work emphasis is legal investigations, meaning we work primarily with attorneys and legal communities).  However, in the future, we’ll be taking out ads in phone books, at which time we’re expecting more infidelity inquiries to come in.

PI as Marriage Counselor
When an individual calls and says he/she suspects the spouse is cheating, my investigative partner and myself don’t immediately hop on the case.  First, we’ll discuss the situation with the person in more detail, mostly to hear the person out.  It’s difficult and painful to wonder if your loved one is unfaithful.  It takes a lot of nerve to call a total stranger and discuss intimate details of your life.  Sometimes the person cries.  We don’t think this is the time to go to contract.  We’ll always ask the person to think it over, maybe even try marriage counseling first, then call us back.

We want the person to be absolutely certain they want to put out the expense to know the truth.  And maybe more important, to be certain they really want to know the truth.

The Cheating Checklist
Here’s a checklist of signs that someone may be cheating:
• He needs more privacy than usual.
• She’s starting exercising, losing weight.
• He suddenly has the need to work overtime or late.
• She had chunks of unaccounted-for time.
• He comes home smelling of alcohol or perfume.
• Unexplained credit card charges.
• Unexplained cell phone numbers (typically the philandering spouse will use his/her cell phone for calls to a lover, although there might be unexplained numbers on the house phone, too).
• Diseases.
• Unexplained email addresses or new email services being used by the suspected person.

The list could go on and on–you get the idea.

There are online sites that cater to the broken-hearted, selling everything from investigative services to semen-analysis products to software.  Regarding the latter, evidence obtained by capturing snapshots of chat room conversations or email exchanges isn’t always admissible in court because it can violate privacy and eavesdropping statutes.

Catching the Cheater
When we accept an infidelity case, we request:
• Information about the suspected cheater’s habits, work schedule, days off, etc.
• Photographs of the suspected cheater (and the suspected girlfriend/boyfriend)
• Addresses and phone numbers (suspected cheater’s home, businesses, etc. as well as addresses/phone for suspected girlfriend/boyfriend)
• Any known routes suspected cheater takes on way to work, home, to exercise gym, etc.
• Vehicle descriptions, license plate numbers for suspected cheater (and suspected girlfriend/boyfriend)
• Contact information for client, preferred times to call, private numbers person can be reached at, preferred means of contact (work email, cell phone, etc.)
• Any other pertinent information

As with any other case, we then devise an investigative strategy.  Sometimes the client will call and inform us if the suspected cheater has changed his/her work schedule, or is taking off for a surprise appointment, etc.  We can’t always comply with last-minute schedule changes (which we’ve made clear to the client up front) but if time permits, we do.

Part of our contract is that we’ll provide reports on either a biweekly or monthly basis.  However, we’ll work with the client on a different report scheme as long as it’s appropriate, workable, and legal.  For example, we’ve had clients who like to call periodically and discuss the case.  We don’t mind discussing the current progress on a case as long as the client remains professional and courteous.  Sometimes a client might request an email update the morning after an evening surveillance, and we’re happy to comply.

The most difficult thing we’re ever had to do was tell a client that we had garnered photographic evidence that her husband was being unfaithful.  It had been a lengthy investigation (several months) and the husband (who had a background in military investigations) had covered his tracks exceptionally well, so well we had a final discussion with the wife that we believed her suspicions were unfounded.  We had scheduled one last surveillance, and she asked us to continue with it, and after that we’d terminate our investigative work. 

It was during that very last surveillance that we saw, and photographed, his infidelity.  The wife’s suspicions of his infidelity had been right on—he was involved with her best friend.  We finished the surveillance, did a wrap-up meeting where we discussed how to present the evidence to the client, then made the call.  The client immediately wanted to know if her husband and her girlfriend were still at the location where they’d been photographed (Note: a PI never tells a client, in real time, where her/his spouse is flagrante delicto—remember what happened in Texas when the cheated-on wife ran over her philandering husband three times in the hotel parking lot?).  We explained to our client that the husband and girlfriend had already left the scene, but we had photographic evidence that we would provide.  The client asked that we write up a report, with photos, and send to her private email address.

We’ve since talked to this client and learned that after being confronted with the evidence, he admitted to the affair, and they are now in marriage counseling.  This was a happy ending.  More often, a client’s next call to us is requesting a recommendation for a good divorce lawyer.

Think about how to use infidelity investigations with your fictional PI.  It could be a comic subplot if a subordinate PI broke the cardinal rule and called a client while an investigation was in process.  Or maybe, as we’ve all seen in movies before, a seemingly distraught client hires a PI to watch his/her spouse, when the real reason for the investigation is something darker.

If you’re curious to read more about our infidelity investigative services, go to http://www.cheaterfinders.com.

Colleen Collins is a professional PI by day and a fiction writer by night, often vice versa.