INTERVIEW WITH A PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR

INTERVIEW:

LYNN: What motivated you to become a licensed private investigator, and what type of cases did you work?

SUSAN: In 1996, we moved to Montgomery, Alabama. I did some substitute teaching, which paid remarkably little, but the hours were flexible, which was important because I had three school-aged children, and my husband traveled for work.

I took stock of my skills. I was a former newspaper reporter and covered the crime beat, so I was familiar with criminal investigations and procedures. I had solid interviewing and writing skills and knew how to access public records and how to locate credible information which people will pay for.

At that time, I had literary agency representation, as I was developing two true-crime stories. The agent wasn’t keen on nonfiction, and he suggested I write a series of mysteries in the style of Sue Grafton, who had launched her alphabet series with fictional detective Kinsey Milhone. While I thought the idea had merit, my only knowledge of PIs came from fictional characters, so I decided to get some on-the-job training and became a PI.

I began serving court papers and built my reputation among Alabama attorneys and their assistants. Eventually, I became a contractor for a national clearing house for process servers, and my business took off. I began picking up divorce and custody cases, and did information gathering through courthouse research, interviews, and surveillance activities. I never imagined the variety of work I would do or the roads I’d travel. I never thought I’d still be an active private investigator nearly 30 years later.

LYNN: Did you ever feel personally vulnerable or physically unsafe?

SUSAN: Nearly every aspect of PI work is fraught with risk. Every time I served papers, conducted surveillance, fielded interviews, or simply found people, I knew something could go wrong. As a mental exercise, I considered all the ‘what could happen’ scenarios and developed resolutions, escape clauses, if you will.

There is nothing predictable about this work because we deal with people, many who are caught up in serious situations: they owe money to creditors, or they’re entangled in love affairs, or broken by loss or sorrow. Others risk losing their children or homes. Some people are under indictment for murder, and I met them in jails and prisons, where chaos can erupt at any moment. The atmosphere in these facilities is unstable, like how the air feels when there’s a tornado watch. The hair on your arms and neck rises and prickles. It’s palpable.

It’s also difficult to gauge how people will react to a private investigator. We’re messengers, observers, and often the bearers of unwanted news.

LYNN: What type of training did you have to keep you safe?

SUSAN: I rely on my wits and my ability to stay situationally aware. I have never carried a gun. I have Mace and a small taser, which I carried primarily for aggressive dogs. I’ve never used either.

As vigilant as I thought I was, however, there were times when I became nonchalant and lost focus. I made some dumb mistakes, like trespassing in a backyard and accidentally locking myself inside, or going alone into a home to interview a witness without doing a proper criminal background check before the meeting.

In retrospect, I was very lucky. I am friendly yet professional and have disarmed some situations by simply being, unexpectedly, a woman. I stopped serving papers in August 2018 after a man pulled a gun on me.

Over the years I’ve served at least a thousand sets of court documents. But since that day I’ve never served another one. Professional process servers and PI’s now use body cameras to record encounters and to provide proof of service.

LYNN: If you had one piece of advice for a mystery author, what would it be?

SUSAN:  My advice to anyone who wants to develop a murder mystery with a private investigator as a main character is simple. Find an investigator who is willing to give you advice or is willing to read your manuscript for errors or suggestions on how to make your scenarios plausible.

Investigators love to tell our stories and sometimes have a bit of ourselves inserted into the stories of other writers. I often provide nuggets of investigative truths to a couple of the mystery authors in our weekly Writers on the Brink Zoom calls. They may present a chapter, and I will chime in with a tip or two to make the scenarios work just a little better!