As the clerk is finishing up my packages, his wife comes over and he introduces her and then me as his "could have been wife". I honestly don't even remember hearing her voice, I don't think she actually said anything. But the three of us all walked out to the parking lot together, where ironically we were parked next to each other, and said our goodbyes as his wife hastily jumped in the car and drove them off. She was short, had short brown hair, was dressed in a tank top and shorts, and seemed to be older than us (we're the same age). In retrospect, she reminded me of what I remember his mom looked like last time I saw her, which makes sense because he was very much a mama's boy. (For good reason, though, his father died very young and he was I believe the next to oldest son in a family of about 5 kids) When we were walking outside, I thought "man, I have a crappy old car" but their car was in worse shape than mine.

So to really try and make a long story short, being a detective by nature (and former profession) also, and an internet freak, I came home and spent two nights looking things up out of curiousity. I had really mixed feelings at first, I felt sorry for his wife, both for having to put up with the legal problems I know he'd gone through in the 90's (it was on the local news, another story for another time...), and the fact that they obviously weren't very well off financially, that her Ebay packages looked like they were wrapped in empty Kleenex boxes... I still had a million questions and a strange desire to help. Not that I'm wealthy or anything, but at least we're comfortable, and I'm really good at eBay, it's sort of been my life for about for many years now. (Sad, huh?)

But I jump on all the search engines, he had mentioned they had an email account with Juno but he doesn't seem to be real active on the net, I only found a few traces of him, an article I'd already read about his legal problems, a note he's left on someone's guestbook (with his full name and email) bragging about how he was a retired police officer, etc. He's in the phone book, so his address and all three phone numbers came up. (Following my parents example, I've always had an unpublished number and been very careful with what personal info I allow onto the internet) His sister seems to be very prominent in the local churches, good for her, she came up a lot. His wife was a ghost, though, which perplexed me. I thought maybe she's going by her maiden name, I still do in some situations, so I actually managed to find the vital records for Texas and Harris county online. I found them backwards, though, through their FTP site, so it was slow going. I found their date of marriage in 1993, and a woman's name that didn't match the name he'd introduced her by... maybe she's going by her middle name, half the people I know seem to, including my husband and my father. I do find this new name (with his surname) on one of the major people search boards, but I'm not willing to shell out any money to find out anything else about her.

Weird thing also, the woman he married in 1993 was 13 years older than him. So I don't feel so sorry for her anymore, she's old enough to know what she was getting herself into when she married him. But something still doesn't seem right, so last night I looked again and actually found the front entrance to the vital records site (it's searchable, duh!), so I stick in his last name, which is unusual like my own, and I get a couple of apges of results. Births, marriages, deaths... and divorces. Including one for him from 1999 from the 1993 wife. But no remarriages. Unfortunately, their database seems to stop at 2001. So is this the same woman (who would be in her mid fifties by now), or has he remarried... I dunno, I'm still curious.

I know it sounds dumb, but K. is one of the few ties I have left to my past, he was a big part of it, though often a very painful part. He went out with another (much younger) girl while he was living with me (which I found out later), he's a very self-centered person who likes to have the spotlight focused on him. He pretends to be things he's not, he lied to me numerous times, even borrowed my Corvette to take the other girl out. He's not actually a bad person, though, just rather misguided and irresponsible in his own weird way. He used to brag that all the girls he'd dated had remained friends with him afterwards, which I never believed but it's a nice thought.