When Dashiell Hammett gave his readers Sam Spade, he gave them a tough-guy detective, a gumshoe with his own set of hard-boiled values willing to get to the truth no matter the body count. When Pacifican John Palmer was a kid he used to listen to the Adventures of Sam Spade, a radio series based loosely on the Dashiell Hammett character from “The Maltese Falcon.”
“I loved listening to Sam Spade,” Palmer said. “I wanted to be a private detective.”
A Pacifica resident since 1979, Palmer began his career as a machinist. After four years he changed careers and spent close to 12 years as a law enforcement officer. When a disability took him off that job, he spent a couple of years as an investigator for Southern Pacific Railroad before heading back to the machinist union. In 1991, Palmer took the State’s private investigator examination. Nine months later, following the required FBI investigation and proof of qualifying experience, the former law enforcement officer received his license. He has kept it active since.
“When I started out I did a lot of work for insurance companies,” Palmer said. “My first case was a tentatively fraudulent workers’ comp case. It turned out to be a legitimate injury.”
Since he started, Palmer has worked 1,451 cases. He has a variety of cases but identity thefts, locating missing relatives and background checks, particularly for women who are dating, dominate his caseload. He’s seen both the best and worst in people.
“This fellow worked long hours and he met a gal online,” Palmer said. “They ended up being romantically involved. But then he decided to break off the relationship and she became a stalker.”
The victim lived in Contra Costa County and his stalker worked for a law enforcement agency. She would show up when he was out on a date and pour wine on him. She killed his dog, though it couldn’t be proved. She posted flyers throughout his neighborhood with his name, address and photo identifying him as a pedophile. Palmer got a permanent restraining order against her and she stopped.
Palmer’s most interesting case to date took place in 1997.
“I was hired by a large company to do a background check on a prospective vice president,” Palmer said. “The fellow had started as a bookkeeper and worked his way up. He’d been there seven years.”
The case was anything but routine.
“I couldn’t find anything on this guy prior to 1981,” Palmer said. “He graduated from college, he had all the credentials. But his college had nothing on him other than he received the degree. I went to former addresses where he lived, but nobody knew him. Same thing was true on his wife, nothing prior to 1981.”
For two weeks, Palmer met nothing but brick walls. Then he got a call from a U.S. Marshal and was told to drop the whole thing. The man was gone from the company within two days; turns out he was in the Witness Protection Program.
The primary tools of Palmer’s trade are his computer, subscriptions to “data miners,” talking to individuals, and a good pair of walking shoes.
The case that touched him the most was the case of an elderly woman living in Berkeley. She was desperate to find her estranged daughter.
“I did find her daughter, but her daughter didn’t want anything to do with her mom or stepdad,” Palmer said. “But finally she agreed to communicate with them through email. I felt good about that.”
One of the toughest identity theft cases Palmer worked on was with a woman who was a vice president of a company. Someone had stolen her social security number and used it and her name to work at several jobs. The victim got a huge bill from the IRS for not declaring her “other” work income. Palmer compiled the evidence and the IRS dropped the charges and closed the case.
Palmer is especially proud to note that in all his years as a private detective, he has never had one complaint registered through Department of Consumer Affairs.
“Funny, as a kid I wanted to be a detective and later in life I was able to do that,” Palmer said. “And I still listen to the old radio mystery series on the Internet.”
Palmer Investigations, A Full Service Detective Agency. 650-359-7008.
Jean Bartlett can be reached at editor@jeansmagazines.org.
