Sushi Detective

I became a P.I. when I was single… in-between husbands.

It wasn’t a career I intended to dabble in. Rather, my goal was to be a private investigator, build a successful, ethical, well-respected business. And support my two daughters.

Like all self-employed people, I quickly learned it’s important for a P.I. to drum up business.
The way Rockford, Magnum and Bogie did it in the old days was in smoke filled bars.
The Angels had their Charlie.
There was just me.
And sitting alone in a cocktail lounge just wasn’t what I was about.

Sushi bars, on the other hand were.
They were a favorite on mine since I was first introduced to them in the 90’s when I lived in LA. Not only did I like the food (everything) , the drink (sake) and the company (like minded people), I liked the singles-friendly seating arrangement at the bar…. and the fact that you order slow and steady through the night.

I also liked the response my solo presence would evoke in other sushi customers -- always an interesting conversation that often led to a new client.

Having learned years before I moved to Seattle, from the best of the sushi easting masters in L.A., I could order in Japanese and would love the stuff most whites consider gross. The sushi chefs, inevitably, would be impressed and strike up a friendship.

Ultimately business cards would be exchanged and before I knew it, I was the investigator of choice for all the sushi chefs whose Western Washington bars I would frequent on my route up and down the highways I travel.

Problem was, a few chefs wanted me to investigate their wives who worked at their restaurants. And when I did, my great success was a great loss on many levels.

Once someone suspects a spouse or partner is cheating it’s like a DNA test, there’s a 99.9% chance cheating is really going on.
I know going into most domestic cases it’s only a matter of time – and money -- until I get the evidence my client needs.
So I would find the cheating spouses, tell their spouses, or partners -- the sushi chefs.
And after that, things got really messy.
Because either there would be a divorce.
Or they’d remain in the marriage and in the restaurant… despite the truth revealed… trapped in a tentative and treacherous alliance out of financial necessity.
Or, worst case scenario, my favorite sushi restaurant would close.

Ultimately, my identity would be exposed when my clients told their cheating wives who found them cheating. I could never go back to the restaurants I worked for two reasons: conflict of interest and fear of being poisoned by the subject of my investigation.

One of those spurned wives… who I believed didn’t know I was watching her… sprinkled my sushi with solid gold flakes when she served it to me.

“Apparently that’s a big deal in Japan,” the guy next to me told me.
“When they like you, they put solid gold flakes in your food. And if you refuse it,” he said, “it’s a sign of the ultimate disrespect”
My subject’s husband, my client, was standing behind her. He winked and nodded at me,
I felt it was a reassurance, so I ate my solid gold sushi. Despite the fact that eating gold, rather than saving it, is a waste -- literally and figuratively.

The night after eating the gold sushi I followed the wife on her day off with my partner, who was manning a camera. We found out she was not only sleeping with one man, but several, who ended up chasing our surveillance vehicle up I-5 until we lost them.

So I passed the info onto my client, her husband… simply disappeared. I moved from one sushi hot spot to another. Then another. Until I left Seattle and moved here to the Kitsap Peninsula.

Now I don’t give out my business card at sushi bars unless I really need the business or someone really needs me and I know it.

When I get to know a chef and he asks me to follow his wife, I tell him not to bother because if he thinks she is cheating, she probably is… and his money is better spent elsewhere. On a therapist. Or a divorce attorney.

If he continues to insist, I hand him the card of an investigator I trust. No way I am giving up a single sushi bar I like out here.

Morale of this story…
Be careful who you investigate.
You could be screwing with the food chain.