Chapter 1

I swear, I'll never complain about my wife's new cat, Ginger ever again. For a six month old kitten she was already nearly larger than some dogs with a personality and appetite to match. She chewed and bit everything in the house (especially the hand that feeds her) and in a professional eating contest could probably out-do an entire pack of starving wolves. She loved to jump and climb everywhere and, still being relatively immature and uncoordinated (and absurdly fat for her young age) she could be counted upon knock over nearly everything in her pathway. Especially if it was chewable.

In this one particular instance in her eagerness to greet me, Ginger's clumsy leap and bull-rush across the contents of my wife's desk in our home office knocked her attaché case over onto the floor, spilling its usually locked and secure contents cross the carpet floor. Seeing movement (and possibly fresh prey), Ginger completed the job by leaping down onto the stack of fluttering paper and gave it a good pounce just to make certain. Left alone to her own normal carnivorous devices, she'd have given all of the papers a good chewing as well but I chased her off of the pile in the nick of time ... earning a bite on my index finger that nearly broke skin, and a half-hearted clawing that did scratch my wrist before Ginger scampered off to reinspect her food bowl.

I'd gotten home late tonight, well past eight-thirty, and was just dumping off my checkbook into my own desk, next to Calista's, when Ginger had come bounding in to greet me. A few months ago she was the smallest rescue kitten at the animal shelter, but with regular access now to food her size and weight had doubled nearly weekly ever since. She's a maniacal kitten, but she does like people ... unfortunately primarily as chewtoys! Calista, my wife of about sixteen years now, was undoubtedly off at one of our local HOA meetings. She's the head of the beautification committee of our homeowner's association and her group meets the week before and after the normal monthly public HOA meeting. Sometimes more often. They're responsible for the upkeep of the 'public' lawns, esplanades and gardens, and our two parks, and unofficially she raises hell with any homeowner that doesn't keep their own private lawns kept up to her particularly strict standards, which tend to severely exceed the actual written requirements of the HOA contract.

That's Calista for you. Hellraising at both work and home, wanting exactly everything her own way. To keep the peace, I'm usually the one that gives in when we disagree (which in increasingly often), but I have to admit that had gotten rather old and annoying with her always wanting to wear the pants in the family. I make very good money as a criminal defense attorney and Calista is a salaried executive at the corporate office of a prestigious retail chain, so we ought to be just rolling in the dough, but it just doesn't quite work out that way. Somehow money flows out just as fast as it comes in ... and somehow after a dozen (or several hundred) lectures about fiscal moderation, my darling wife can still spend it as fast as either of us can sock it away.

Things aren't too bad for us though, I've been making double house payments for quite a few years and our mortgage will be paid off in a few more. In just two years the private school fees for Justin (our son and only child) will be over and done with as well, and his college fund has already been established. That should leave us then ready to start saving for our retirements ... if Calista's tastes don't become even more extravagant!

Now, picking up her spilled papers, I could tell immediately at a glance that these were documents that she probably hadn't wanted me to see at all. She's always been of a secretive disposition, keeping her business and financial affairs private and sharing little in the way of details with me ... except to ask for a check (or two) each month to help subsidize her own personal expenses. Now I was getting a rare opportunity to see into her work files, which were normally kept locked shut at all times in her attaché case. Tonight, perhaps in her rush to drop off her work stuff before racing off to the HOA meeting, her case wasn't properly locked, or perhaps Ginger's knocking it down to the floor had sprung the latch loose. In any case, this was a nearly unique moment.

It was the stapled collection of documents right at the top of the pile that instantly got my attention. The first was an embossed business envelope from a travel agent containing a computer printout confirming the booking for a seven day cruise at the end of next month. Attached was a copy of the itinerary, with all of the scheduled ports of call. The next sheet of paper was hand-written by Calista, with a listing of possible plane flights from San Francisco (our home) to Miami, round trip covering the departure and arrival dates of the weeklong cruise, with a note that 'Mimi' could have the final tickets ready for pickup next Tuesday from the airline. (Note: this was back in the days before hardly anyone had heard of the internet and travel tickets were formally printed by mainframe computers). Last of the documents of interest, was a cash receipt from the downtown Hilton for the amount of over a thousand dollars, but there was no itemization as to what this expense was for.

You'll think it quite amusing that I didn't suddenly leap to any radical conclusions about these findings. No, I did not at once suspect my wife of having an affair. Actually, I'd figured from the get-go that Calista wanted to surprise me, that for the first time in years we'd be taking a 'family vacation' together. I'd tried for years to get us to take at least some of our vacation time together, but it had almost never worked out ... and never happily. Her idea of resting was to go shopping all afternoon long and 'do things' while I preferred to be lazy, so the idea of taking a cruise together had been laughable. I'd brought the idea up once, three or four years ago and she'd literally laughed in my face at the idea.

Actually, our habit of taking separate vacations together had probably actually saved our marriage. We were both serious hardcore workaholics who rarely saw each other much even at home during weekends. A full week spent in each other's company would probably drive one or the other of us quite mad. We'd been lovers at college together and had tied the knot nearly immediately after getting our sheepskins, but we'd been drifting apart gradually (or not so) ever since then. We were 'comfortable' with the status quo but honestly neither of us seemed to be particularly madly in love with each other anymore, and so we just coasted on.

In any case, I carefully put everything back into place and snapped the lock of the attaché case closed and placed it right back upon her desk where it had been before Ginger had knocked it over. Shutting the door to keep the crazy kitten out, I went down stairs and warmed up something for dinner and waited for my wife to get home from her meeting, which was late, just after ten p.m.

I'd kind of thought that Calista would be anxiously waiting to break the exciting news of our cruise together, but everything seemed as normal after she got home. She held the anticipated surprise all week long as well, even through the weekend. By then, a tiny little flickering of doubt was beginning to cross my mind and the lawyer for the defense had one or two burning questions that I was itching to put (very carefully) to the witness.

"Cali, what's on your schedule for next month? I'd had the Cordova trial inked on my calendar for the whole end of the month but I think we're going to work out a last minute plea deal instead. Can you take vacation then? How about a trip to New York? I'll stake you to a shopping trip to DKNY if you'll come with me to one of the Yankees/Red Sox games? Or someplace warmer if you'd like ... it has been a cold spring this year." That was a deal that normally she'd take, but if she did in fact have cruise tickets for this period she'd have to offer some sort of excuse ... and I wanted to hear what it was!

"Ummm, no... ," she muttered, eyes looking up at the kitchen ceiling in apparent thought, "I'm pretty sure that the end of May's the big national Indie Jewelry Show, and I'll need to go for work. I think it's in Miami this year." She helpfully offered, knowing that I pretty much hated Miami, or the thought of a week on any Florida beach. I'm very fair skinned and do not tan whatsoever, I go straight from fish belly white to severe third-degree sunburn with just an hour of exposure. No sunning on the sand for me, sadly.

"Oh." I commented, without much apparent additional interest. I still wanted her to just admit that she'd made alternative vacation plans for us and so I still wanted to press the issue a bit to get her to commit herself one way or the other. "So that's completely out then?"

"Yeah, I think so." You hated your trip to Florida that time a few years ago when you went down there to be a defense jury consultant and you'd be bored spitless in day, let alone a week."

"Ok, so I'll be on my own then for about a week then? Well, maybe then I'll just go fishing up at Forestville. I haven't been up to the cabin in awhile." I hadn't; one of my few personal frivolous expenses about ten years ago when my career started to take off was the acquisition of a nice cabin in the wilderness along the Russian River, near Forestville. Calista had gone with me just once shortly thereafter and was bored to tears in just a few hours and flew back home from the local county airport two days later, alone.

"You'll enjoy that!" She agreed, "I don't think you had time to go up there last year and you do enjoy trips up there. Go ahead and make plans to go!"

That was not what I had been expecting to hear! She was being unusually reasonable, which a suspicious person might have interpreted as relief ... that now my plans wouldn't at all interfere with hers. But I just nodded my head and waited for her to elaborate on her own possible travel arrangements, but she didn't and immediately changed the subject.

Now for the first time, I was having doubts about Calista's faithfulness. If the sales show she was attending was in Miami, then why was she taking a seven day cruise? Now my mind was beginning to wonder. I'm a defense attorney, and I'm conditioned by my personal nature and profession to trust people, to believe what they are telling me ... even if their story is likely a rather convoluted twisting of the facts and having zero relevance to reality. Still I will do my best for my clients. It is my absolutely sincerity when speaking before a jury, defending my client, that has won me at least as many cases as the use of clever legal tactics, or even a genuinely innocent client.

People in my book are innocent until proven guilty – the golden thread of English and American common law, and I wanted to believe Calista, but a growing kernel of doubt was planted within me now and I wasn't going to be fat, dumb and happy until I'd investigated all of the facts for myself.

As I've mentioned, Calista is a mid-level corporate executive who handles purchasing and marketing of jewelry for a very upscale and prominent department store chain. Their flagship store is right here in San Francisco, right on Market Street, but they have twelve other branches in the bigger cities of the west coast. Their merchandise tends to be very posh, limited edition or custom made items intended for the nuevo and old rich alike. Not the crap found in mall or chain stores. Good stuff ... and if you have to ask the price, then very likely you can't afford it.[Unknown A1]

Calista is one of three senior buyers and she does makes quite a few legitimate business trips, perhaps about one such a month, but usually only for a few days, gone three or four days at most at a time. For really big conventions and shows featuring independent designers, especially trips to the east coast or overseas ones, she'd sometimes be gone for up to a week, it was true ... and these sorts of bigger/longer shows now seemed to be occurring more frequently. She'd just returned from a large Los Angeles exhibition less than a month ago where she'd stayed for nearly a week and a half.

At her company Christmas party a few months ago, Calista's boss Irving had told me with a shit eating grin that I'd be seeing less of my wife this year, that she was 'indispensable' and being groomed for promotion. This would mean more travel ... and apparently for longer trips. This increase in responsibility certainly seemed fine with Calista and honestly I didn't bother to complain that we'd be now seeing each other at home now even less. I did however notice that she and her boss did dance a few times (fast ones) together, but I didn't detect any noticeable affection between them and didn't even think twice about it.[Unknown A2]

If they were having an affair, or if her dalliance was with another co-worker, then she'd done an admirable job (if admirable is indeed the right word) of keeping it covered up. I should have been able to forget this whole matter, but I couldn't ... and after awhile I figured out at least one little matter that was disturbing me.

Calista's company had its own internal travel department that handled in-house employee travel and other arrangements for select well-heeled customers that expected only the best of everything. If this trip was for 'official company business', then shouldn't she have coordinated this trip with them? Instead, for her cruise and airline tickets, my wife had engaged a private travel agent from an independent company a few blocks away from her work. Why?

This question bothered me for most of the next week until I had a sudden brainstorm and decided to pay that independent travel agent a private visit of my own.

"Hi, Ms. Fielder?" I enquired, squinting at the nameplate upon her desk inside the travel agency, "I've got a terrible problem and only you can save me!" I gushed helplessness and in moments I had the young (and rather pretty) travel agent (Mimi) pretty much eating out of my hands.

"My wonderful wife, bless her, came home last week with the news that she'd signed us up for a week long cruise and I've gone and already misplaced the reservation information already. Can you please print me up a spare set? On the hush-hush please! If she finds out I've almost ruined the trip she'll be furious ... and I'm looking forward to a lovely and quiet second honeymoon. Can you keep this our little secret?"

Hehe, yes ... she certainly could! In fact, she quite gushed herself about what a wonderful cabin my wife had selected, just perfect for rekindling a romance. It was one of the larger ocean side honeymoon suites, she elaborated, complete with an oversized bed and a private balcony. Everything first class (Premier Class, she called it) on one of the most elite ships afloat, catering to the cream of society. A glossy travel brochure the agent offered me (apparently a duplicate of the one she'd given my wife) confirmed that the Empress Madeleine could make an argument for being one of the most refined cruise ships on the Atlantic/Gulf circuit, with luxurious accommodations second to no other commercial liner, with world class chefs and patisseriers and even onboard shopping opportunities to rival the salons of Milan or Paris. We would be pampered and indulged and treated like European royalty (members of which did frequent this cruise line).