The art of snooping

Or, What I learned from the junk in other people's homes.

Editor's note: The writer once worked for a P.I. firm, and her first novel, "The Spellman Files," is about a family-run detective agency.

By Lisa Lutz

Read more: Life

May 31, 2007 | Years ago, I got an entry-level position at a San Francisco private investigative firm. I entered the job hanging onto some long-standing beliefs about the gumshoe, based purely on film, television and pulp fiction, of course. During the two-year stretch of my employment at the firm (which chooses to remain nameless) many of my P.I. fantasies came true: I got to hop into a cab and say, "Follow that cab." I got to follow a subject into a bar and order a beer while I was on the clock. I got to work undercover on a case that I'm still not allowed to talk about. I got to rummage through the trash of a complete stranger and attempt to piece together a phone bill.

For the most part, however, my job bore little resemblance to that of the fictional gumshoe. I was never held at gunpoint, nor did I ever pistol-whip anyone. No one ever asked me to find an invaluable figurine of a mysterious blackbird. Of course, I didn't expect those things to happen. But in the back of my head, I had always hoped I'd get to snoop. It seems to me that rifling through a person's belongings is the direct route to that person's character. To properly investigate a subject, we must investigate a subject's stuff.

Sometimes a single item can wrap up, in a nutshell, who a person is. In my grandparents' home, a clear plastic container was enthroned on top of the mahogany bar for at least a decade. Painted on the lid in pink, yellow and light blue was "Have a Nosh With Mort & Ethel." Its four separate compartments offered a constantly changing variety of colorful candies. I recall once bringing a friend to their home and quietly guiding him over to the bar, as if introductions with their human incarnations were unnecessary: Allow me to introduce you to my grandparents' candy dispenser.

Some years back, while visiting from college, I discovered a chink in my parents' sanity, an obsession gone a step too far, when I opened their CD cabinet. The house was already a shrine to their current canines -- Buster, Saul and Vito -- but I was unprepared for an anthology called "Love Songs for Dog Lovers," which included such original tracks as "We Are the Dogs," "If You Weren't Such a Dog" and "Rappin' Gangsta Dog" (which doesn't sound anything like a love song, if you ask me). In my mother's defense, when I confronted her about the CD, she said, "It's not very good."

We're all amateur investigators. We scan bookshelves, we ogle trinkets left out in the open, we calculate the cost of furniture and study the photographs on display; sometimes we even check out the medicine cabinet. A few years ago, when I moved out of my apartment after learning of a series of housesitting opportunities, I looked at it as an opportunity to study other people's stuff, to finally snoop in a way that my P.I. job never allowed. And the pinnacle of my detective work came at the very end of my research.

The subjects were the parents of my longtime friend Jenny Miller. They scheduled my services over a 10-day period in August. We met for dinner at John and Lizzie Miller's residence on a quiet street in an upscale Los Angeles neighborhood for a briefing on the responsibilities required for a week among their plants. After the brief introductory pleasantries, John asked, "Do you need to use the bathroom?"

"No, thanks," I said, wondering if I had inadvertently given off that vibe.

"John," snapped Lizzie, "she's a grown woman. If she needs to use the bathroom, she'll ask."

Dinner was good, and a fine introduction to my investigation. John offered me Triscuits. I said no, thanks. He then opened a cabinet and brought out a selection of four other cracker-type substances. I ate some Wheat Thins because I didn't want the effort to be wasted. After some tasty leftovers, Lizzie sliced and defrosted a zucchini loaf, which we topped with ice cream. John showed me the careful labeling on the package that held our dessert and explained that they always date the leftovers to keep track of the inventory in the extra freezer in the garage. I commented that 2003 was a good year for zucchini bread. (Please note that it was 2004 at the time.)

After dinner, John pulled out a legal pad and reviewed with me his manual for living in the Miller home. We went over to the garden, which did require some detailed discussion. I took notes. Then we returned to the kitchen, where John pointed out the shopping list on the side of the refrigerator. He suggested that if I used up the last of anything to add it to the list. He then told me I should feel free to eat anything in the house. I assumed this was limited to food items.

We then discussed the television. John first demonstrated how to use the VCR. I admired the relic, but ignored the instruction until he broke the news to me: The Millers didn't have cable. "Feel free to look through the tapes," John said, "and watch anything you'd like." John said that he taped the movies right off of the regular TV, commercials and all. He explained to me that I could just fast-forward through the ads. He does it all the time.

"Now let me show you the bathroom," John said. He demonstrated how to turn on and off the cold and hot water and showed me where the sink, shower and toilet were located. He showed me how to use a key and tested me on my own key-lock dexterity. I passed. John then did a funny thing. He turned a knob that was sticking out midway through a wall. As I looked on studiously, a portion of the wall opened into another room.

"I've been wondering how those things worked," I said, although what I was thinking was, Forget their stuff, I'm going to move in and study the Millers in their natural habitat.

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