Valentine’s Day a Sweet Occasion for Private Detectives

Heart-shaped boxes of chocolates. Arm in arm strolls through city parks. Passionate kisses over candle-lit dinners.

Ah yes, Valentine’s Day. God’s gift to the private eye working an adultery case.

Aside from Christmas and birthdays, the experienced gumshoe will tell you that no time is better for catching that cheating spouse in flagrante delicto than today. “People that are running around are obviously going to run around on that day,” says Barbie Bunch, a private investigator in Severna Park, Md. “You try to cover as many domestics as you can on Valentine’s Day.”

So today, like many a Feb. 14 during her 19 years in the business, Bunch, owner of Maxwell Private Investigations, will not be luxuriating in her own romance; she’ll be spying on someone else’s.

She will not be alone. Billy Thompson, a veteran investigator who teaches detecting at a community college, encourages all his sleuths to take advantage of Feb. 14 when they’re on the trail of a suspected adulterer. “That’s just a day where you know there’s going to be contact,” he says. “It’s a day where a wayward husband or wife is going to be careless.”

For almost 40 years, detective Frank Alessi has turned that adage to his advantage. A few years ago, Alessi was hired by a man who believed his wife, a business executive, was cheating on him. The woman told her husband she had to attend a conference in Chicago and boarded a plane on Valentine’s Day. Alessi was right behind her. He was also right behind her at O’Hare Airport when she flew into the arms of another man.

Valentine’s Day. The detective’s dream.

“I’ve just found that husbands and wives will go to extreme lengths to be with their sweethearts at that time of year,” Alessi said.

Bunch, 39, was planning to start shadowing a woman from her home to an anticipated Valentine’s weekend romp with a lover in Ocean City, Md.

“She went out and bought lingerie for the weekend, Victoria’s Secret, Frederick’s of Hollywood,” Bunch said. “The husband found the receipts. He knew the stuff wasn’t meant for him.

If today is like last year, it will be a banner Valentine’s Day for Maxwell Private Investigations.

“We had one case where a man left work, went home and wined and dined his wife,” she said. “He then had himself beeped and left. We followed him to Harbor Court where he had dinner with his girlfriend and then went up to her apartment.”

Meanwhile, Bunch herself was following another quarry. In a couple of hours, she found herself at a Poconos Mountains motel in Pennsylvania, one of those with heart-shaped beds and champagne bubble bath. Bingo.

Opportunity alone, though, isn’t enough. To make an airtight divorce case, the detective must also observe “a display of affection.”

“I was with State Police for 16 years,” says Dennis Seymour, an investigator in Annapolis. “People involved in domestic affairs are harder to track than drug dealers. I say that having followed both.

“Certainly, Valentine’s Day is designed for romance,” he says, “but if the romance isn’t with your spouse, be careful. We’re probably going to be out there watching you.”