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I don’t know if you’ve ever been an assistant private sleuth? You haven’t? I can tell you right now that you haven’t missed much. Basically what sleuths do is sit in their cars and spy on people. Mostly people being unfaithful to their spouse. And then they try to take pictures of this act of adultery, as I think the technical term is, and show it to the husband or wife. Though in this case, I guess, we were doing things a little differently, as the photographic proof of Mrs. Myers’s infidelity would not go to her husband but to her husband’s childhood friend.

And so it was that we were following Mrs. Myers around for the better portion of the day, and making sure we were in a position to catch her in the act. Odelia had picked her up as she left the house—and a very nice house it was, too, and one she would probably stand to lose if she kept up this infidelity thing—and then we trailed her all through town. Which basically meant we tailed her to the real estate agency where she worked as a broker, and sat there twiddling our thumbs for the better part of the morning.

At one point Odelia had ventured inside, just to make sure our quarry was still present and accounted for, and hadn’t fled through the backdoor for some secret canoodling. But Melanie Myers had still been at her desk. In fact she’d been the one to join Odelia at the reception desk and ask her if she was in the market for a house. She’d of course immediately recognized Odelia as a new bride, and chatting had ensued.

“Oh, God,” said Odelia the moment she let herself tumble down into her car seat, “I’m probably the worst private detective in the world. What was I thinking, going in there? Now she’s seen my face and when she sees me next she’ll know I’m following her around!”

“What did she say?” I asked. “Does she know you’re tailing her?”

“I don’t think so,” said Odelia with a shake of the head. “She asked me a lot of questions about the wedding, and wanted to know what dress I wore and all that guff.”

“She’s not one of those people who are mad with you for not inviting them to the wedding, is she?” asked Harriet.

“No, I don’t think she was invited. Though maybe she was. In the end there were so many people inviting themselves I have no idea who was and who wasn’t!” She rubbed her face. “Maybe I should do a course. Sleuthing for dummies or something. I’m sure there are tricks of the trade I should master before I put myself out there like this.”

“You’re doing great,” said Dooley, who always likes to take a positive view of things.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, Dooley,” said Odelia as she glanced through the windshield at the real estate agency across the street. It was called ‘wefindyourdreamhomeforyou.com’ and was a popular place, with plenty of customers walking in and out, and others stopping to do some window shopping. “At least now I know she’s still in there and not in some hotel or motel with her suspected lover boy.”

“Who is this lover boy?” asked Harriet, who was very interested in this case, I felt. But then Harriet is really into things like The Bachelor and The Bachelorette, and I guess infidelity and relationship issues are part and parcel of those types of dating shows.

“I have absolutely no idea,” said Odelia. “And as far as I could tell Joshua doesn’t have any idea either. Which is probably why he hired me: to find out who this guy is.”

“If he even exists,” I said.

“Oh, he exists, all right,” said Harriet. “Did you see the woman’s face? She looks much too happy. I’d say she’s been having a torrid affair for quite some time. No married person ever looks this happy.”

Odelia slowly turned to face the prissy Persian.“I’m a married person. Are you saying I don’t look happy?”

“Oh, but you just got married,” said Harriet quickly. “Newlyweds always look happy. It’s when they’ve been married for a while that the problems begin.”

Odelia was frowning. A new bride doesn’t like to be reminded that marriage problems exist, let alone are a contingency to watch out for. “Pray tell, Harriet.”

“Well, obviously I can’t speak from experience,” Harriet began.

“Obviously.”

“But from what I’ve seen, the problems usually begin when babies enter the picture. I think you’d do well to consider putting off any ideas of a family expansion in the immediate future. In fact I think having babies is the best way to guarantee the end of that blissful honeymoon stage you’re enjoying so much right now.”

“And how do you figure that?” asked Odelia, who didn’t look entirely convinced by Harriet’s unbidden marriage advice.

“Well, babies drive a wedge between husband and wife, see. I don’t know if you’ve noticed but babies cry. In fact crying is pretty much all they do. They cry at night, they cry during the day, and all this crying makes it so that mom and dad never get a minute of sleep. So this makes them cranky, as most humans need a lot of sleep. And that’s when the shouting begins, and the recriminations, and before long the D word is dropped.”