The man had looked around frantically until he found Peggy Whitley and then made a beeline for her. The pair embraced…a little awkwardly, Jimmy thought, as if they weren’t used to it and hadn’t yet found where all their parts fit against the other person.
Still, it was close contact with a man who was not her husband…a touching of bodies Peggy was not supposed to be engaging in. That much had been made clear in the briefing the attorney had given him. Retrieving his cell phone from his sport coat pocket, he made the call.
While he pretended to search for his luggage, he took snapshots of the man and Peggy as they chatted in a friendly way. Over the next ten minutes, the distance between the two gradually closed. They began an ancient dance of tentative caresses, hip and thigh touches, and cautious strokes that would eventually lead to only one possible ending.
Jimmy followed them out to the parking garage, apparently struggling with the two heavy suitcases, laptop, and one garment bag. The two he was following never noticed the perfectly ordinary man who stumbled along behind them.
He quit tailing them once they reached a dark blue Lincoln parked on the fourth level. Passing by, he snapped a picture from the expensive, but oh-so-tiny camera hidden in the palm of his hand. The high-resolution digital pictures stored in the miniature camera could be downloaded to the laptop and transmitted home to the lawyer who was his contact over any broadband connection. He got two good shots of Mrs. Whitley kissing the unknown man in an increasingly friendly fashion. The three pics of the automobile license plate would ensure the man didn’t remain unknown for very much longer.
********
Mr. Whitley had provided Peggy’s reservation information and it was not difficult for Jimmy to book the room next to hers. The corner of a hundred dollar bill protruding from the pages of a Sports Illustrated magazine was all that was required. The magazine stayed on the counter at the reservation desk when Jimmy turned to go to the elevators.
He unpacked his gear and had time for a nap before a friend of a friend who knew someone knocked at his door. His backup had arrived. Jimmy could have worked the case alone but he anticipated a need for some specialized equipment he couldn’t have carried on the plane without attracting attention and making any number of explanations.
Jimmy was surprised to see his assistant was a woman, a nicely attractive one too. Her name was Cassie; she’d been working as an investigator for three years. She and Jimmy chatted companionably as they went down to a side exit and retrieved a sturdy pole broken down into sections from Cassie’s car.
When it was assembled, he and Cassie could extend a small digital camcorder or a microphone mounted on the end as much as eighteen feet over a gap between…well, for example, between two balconies in a high-rise hotel so the camera would have a better angle. It was a thing for nighttime surveillance only. The room’s occupants would notice in the daytime.