Big Bullies

We P.I.'s walk a fine line in our search for the truth and the means in which we express it.

There are always parameters to consider, boundaries to respect, borders to be drawn.
And within those confines... there are mountains to climb, hurdles to leap, boulders to move.
Private Investigation can be a very challenging business.

When a case comes in from someone I don't know.... asking me to find someone they have lost touch with... my first question is: "why?"

There's always a reason.
That reason will either be the truth or a lie.

"My first real boyfriend. "
"My long lost girlfriend."
"My father's brother."
"I'm big fan of his and want to mail him a letter."
"We lost touch so long ago."
"Childhood friends"
"I want to know if he or she is still alive."

My second question is "what will you do with that information?"
Then there is a third, and fourth question.
And finally, my declaration.

"If I find the person.... and there are no guarantees I will... I will give them a letter from you or a message from you. However, I will not give you their address, phone, location unless they want me to."

The locates, like the backgrounds, can be the bread and butter of many a P.I.'s business.
However, the butter can spoil and the bread can mold and you could be poisoned by your own case.

Find a woman hiding from an abusive or psychotic male and you may have murder on your hands.
Miss a couple of states in your background search and you've got a sex offender employed in an elementary school.
Violate someone's rights in a pre-employment search and you've got yourself a lawsuit.
That's why some P.I.'s back away from backgrounds and hide from locates.

There was a rumor going around among my fellow investigators many moons ago.
The rumor was the Department of Licensing was calling Investigators in a sort of "sting" -- to see if they would find information about a person and hand it over, without respecting the subject's privacy or rights.
I think the rumor was fact.
There is great need for caution because some clients can be dangerous to a P.I.'s professional health.

Case in point are the cases of P.I.'s directing stalkers to their victims.
Many are the horror stories of adopted children reunited with parents who turned out to parasites, or predators.
And there will always and forever be the darkest of the domestics... when love turned to hate.
Then hate tainted the mind... and what was once a sea of love, became a poisoned swamp.

Recently someone told me they were getting a "friendly divorce."
I said there was no such thing as a friendly divorce.
A divorce is war, any way you look at it.
It is never a coming together, it is always a tearing apart.

As the current economy continues to tank, we know what rises to the surface.
And a P.I. never really knows if the person hiring us is being real, or just tossing us a line.
While bad acts are good for business, they are bad for the planet.
The P.I.'s karmic quest is to balance the two.


In this investigator's opinion.... there are generations of little bullies who've grown into big bullies.
Many of them have found their way into influential positions that can make or break a person and their business.
Private Investigators see these big bullies all the time.
They are the subjects we pursue because they are pursuing our clients.

When we were kids, brawn beat brain.
As adults, brain beats brawn hands-down...
provided, you play your cards right.