Disaster!

They were lying on the bed sweating, waiting for their heart rates to return to normal after some pretty athletic sex, when the black Cadillac slammed through the front of the house.

“What the fuck?” Benjamin bolted up, wrapping a sheet around his nakedness.

“Wait here,” he hissed at Felicia as he raced into the living room. He’d been flirting with her for months and finally persuaded her to visit during her lunch hour. Not waiting, she jumped up and found her underwear.

The big car had split the credenza below the bay window, sending the enormous pink turnip-shaped vase that Benjamin’s wife Margie had inherited from her great aunt flying across the room spewing pussywillow branches, and continued into the middle of the living room, shattering the glass coffee table before shuddering to a stop. The woman in the driver’s seat opened her door and stepped out. She was a compact black woman with a shaved head, several earrings in each ear, and a muscle shirt. Her body looked like an ad for a power-lifting program. She seemed undamaged.

“What the hell?” Benjamin said.

“I’m so sorry,” said the woman. She didn’t sound particularly sorry. “I was parking in front and I got distracted thinking about what I had to say to you. Slammed my foot on the gas instead of the brake.”

“Are you crazy? Who the hell are you?”

“I’m a private investigator,” she said. “Name is Becker, of Becker and Decker. I’m sure you’ve heard our commercials.”

Benjamin had indeed heard their commercials.

Felicia, with most of her clothes back on, was trying to be invisible as she headed toward the front door. Becker grabbed her by the arm and sat her down on the couch to the left of the pink vase, which had landed there unbroken.

“Your wife hired us,” Becker said, “to catch you cheating. Gave us a deposit yesterday to get started. Unfortunately, we found her body this morning behind the dumpster in our office parking lot. I thought I should come chat with you about it before talking to the police.”

Benjamin’s knees began to buckle. He barely made it to the couch, elbowed the pink vase out of the way and sat. Benjamin had hated that vase from the moment he’d seen it. He’d often thought his marriage was doomed from that day.

“Behind the dumpster?” he stammered. “She’s dead?”