Sinking Ships

As the economy continues to tank and the unemployment level continues to inch up, (some communities are now at 20% unemployment rate), people who were normally a little unstable are being much more unstable.

And those used to a certain "bigger-than-your-average bear" lifestyle are no longer luxury cruise liners, they are sinking ships riddled with holes.

Drowning people resort to desperate measures and P.I.'s are often called in to help the people with the strongest survival instincts, the ones who do not want to go down with the ship.

Sometimes, by bailing water and and plugging holes, a P.I. can help.
Other times, the damage is done to a point of no undoing.
The ship is officially sinking, the rats have left the house and  Davy Jones is calling.
At this point, it's simply a matter of clean-up, if there is any to be done.

It is always better to hire a P.I. sooner  rather than later.
When you've got a cheater, spouse beater, fraudulent book keeper, a stalker,  thief,  meth head, bigamist,  whatever unsavory character or force in your life, or the life of someone you care about....
When you have psycho in your world who could be a neighbor, stranger, spouse, partner, current or ex...
When anything and everything is screwed up in your life and you need help...
that help is more likely to arrive when the cavalry is given enough time to get there.

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That said...  I have been hearing strange truths/stories all week.

A favorite came through this morning over coffee with a friend who stopped by for an assist from my husband, who is good with engines.

The friend, who agreed I could blog his story.... provided I didn't use his real name or the town he lives in... started talking, as all these guys do, when they stop by the man cave  for some kind of  mechanical assist. 

So let's call this friend Mark.
Mark lives out here on the Olympic Penninsula, in an extremely remote town in the middle, literally ,of nowhere.
There are enclaves of small communities off Highway 101.
These communities are built at the end of mile long  dirt roads that lead to more dirt roads.
Then  there are clusters of cabins,  RV's, Campers, whatever people live in.

The people who choose this lifestyle  hate the city, love the rural way. They hunt and fish for all their food. They talk a lot about guns and shoots, fishing, generators and tell stories about the crazy people who live in the middle of nowhere like they do.

So Mark lives in one of those small towns and we have known him a while.

I like Mark a lot. I love his stories because where he lives, the police tend not to respond to  certain calls and it's like the old west. Civil justice of a different variety.

So what brought him to our house this morning was the water his female neighbor, a "tweeker" (meth head), got in his  beloved diesel  truck's engine.

He said he just discovered she had  been stealing his gas, which he kept in cans near his home. When she opened up the can with diesel in it,  she  realized it was different,  and left the cap off, which let water into the can.

Ms. Meth Head confessed to Mark she was the one who did it when she saw him trying to start his  diesel powered pick-up, heard three explosions and then the truck died. Mark said he came out, looked at his engine and just started freaking out. He said he worked on it four five hours before she came out and confessed what she did.

Now... that truck is Mark's pride and joy.
Mark never had kids.
Nor does he currently have a woman.
This truck, which he bought maybe six months ago, is his baby.  Love of his life. Pride and joy.
And now, because of said meth  head,  the engine is currently dead.

As the guys explained to me what happens when you mix diesel with water then put it in an engine, I could almost see the black cloud hanging over poor Mark's head. He was so ticked off.  He said he wanted to kill the tweeker when she confessed.

He said it was a wonder he controlled himself, but she got one hell of a tongue lashing.
And he said next time she comes to him with a black eye, broken arm, hair torn out of her head because her meth head boyfriend beat the crap out of her, he's just gonna' laugh in her face.

Meantime, he's got to pull his engine and save his truck and that's why he's here. To do a pre-surgical consult with the engine meister.

Before they go out to talk, I asked Mark how many meth heads are in his town.
He said, "Heck they're all over the place, we got a bunch living along the two dirt roads we're on. They're mixed in with really good stable people who've lived here all their lives."

He released a torrent of meth related stories.
And then came my question about  what the police do about the meth heads.

He said they don't even respond anymore unless it's meth manufacturing or  murder.
No one wants to be out on the roads after dark so after 10 pm, he said, you don't see the cops.
There are so many drunks and meth heads, driving  the two lane highway around Mark's house, that stretch of road has worse survival odds than a round of Russian Roulette.
I told Mark I'd done two cases in his area and no way I would drive those roads after sunset.

Mark told me that was wise because his good friend was killed on the highway near his house last month.

"He'd been drinking" Mark said, "Was drunk to the gills. Got in his car, drove it round the bend and missed the curve. Flew off the embankment, hit a huge tree, flipped upside down and lets just say..." Mark said slowly, "my friend had to peeled out of that car"

Mark said the community built a memorial to his friend. They took the dead guy's favorite saw  (he was a lumber jack) and sawed it right into the tree he crashed into... and now, there's a cross, balloons, flowers and it's huge.

I said something about how his buddy chose to drive drunk and in essence killed himself. I also said what a good thing it was he didn't take someone else out.

Mark said, "We all drive drunk round there.  Most start drinking in the morning. So you know at night when you get in your car, you might not come home."

While he is saying that, I am thinking about some tourist taking the scenic route home and getting stuck late after dark on the particular spot of 101. Those are the folks who, when hit,  deserve the memorials. Not the drunk drivers.

However, I chose not to debate. Just listen. And on went the tales of lunacy amid meth heads, gun fire in the night, bullets zooming past Mark's head. Semi automatic rifles. And I am thinking.... this is America?

Mark left and headed home in his spare car while I was writing this post.

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Next, Carl, the guy I wrote about a few blogs back... the guy with a bullet in his head, he stopped by. He came in for the coffee  and said his hellos. I asked him about a woman he'd been dating. How that was going?

One word answer.

"Psycho"

My interest, as always, was piqued.

"Psycho how?" I asked.

"Cute gal, " he said, "Great body. It's just she's a raving alcoholic. Also flat broke. She lives on one of those floating homes near the water.

I told him I didn't know there were floating homes there.

He said, they're more like shacks. A lot of homeless people have taken them over.

"Yep, I dated my share of psychos." Carl said. "Don't know why I can't find myself a sane woman."

"Well you're a good looking guy Carl," I said, " And you"re single. You might as well have a target painted on your back. Everyone's after you. You're just not good at picking out the right ones."

He laughed  and said  every woman he meets lately turns out to be  batty.

"Last one before this one, " he said, " she left a butcher knife stuck in the pillow next to me. Woke up to it in the morning and she was gone."

"A butcher knife?" I asked, wide eyed. 

"Yep, he said, "and a damn big one too."

"What'd you do to her to deserve that?" I asked.

"That's the whole thing, " he laughed, "Nothing. Next day she calls me up, asks if we want to get together like nothing happened."

"You didn't?" I asked.

"I didn't" he said. " I told her what I found in my pillow and she denied it. Said it was someone else.
I broke it off right there. But she didn't let go so easy."

The story continued, how he had to separate from what truly became a psycho stalker.
Never got a protective order, never involved the police or a P.I.
Did it all on his own.

Some people go through their lives without an ounce of real trouble.
Others are followed  by it.
Morale of these stories is this:
within each of us lies the ability to control our problems before they control us.
If you need an assist from an attorney or investigator, don't hesitate to ask.
Key is accepting you've got a problem.
That's where alot of people run into trouble.
The river of denial runs deep as the ocean.