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Bill and Betty Rowland have kept watch in hotel pools for hours and schmoozed at black-tie dinners, helping their clients catch cheating spouses or track down missing relatives.
Now the private investigation duo are benefiting from the down economy as companies tighten the screws on folks trying to game the system.
They'll still help clients find a lost lover, uncover where a husband goes after work or background check a babysitter.
But increasingly they're being called in to investigate corporate theft, insurance fraud and workers' compensation fraud. Per the PI code of ethics, they can't reveal many details. But business has been up over the past 12 months.
“It seems like when the economy is bad, everybody is cheating or stealing,” said Betty Rowland, 69. “Everybody wants something for nothing.”
Bill Rowland spent 37 years with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, while Betty worked with the U.S. Postal Service. They met on a blind date in Chattanooga, Tenn., in 1971 and were married eight weeks later. After retiring, Bill opened up shop as a PI in 1988. He and his wife now mostly pursue private investigations to stay active.
They pride themselves on putting together evidence that is admissible in court in a divorce or child custody proceeding – another set of cases they're seeing more of in the down economy. Spouses might have their suspicions, but the situation is often too volatile to do anything about it themselves.
Bill, 75, trails the suspects searching for undeniable proof, like photographs and video.
But he also takes more uplifting pictures. Their office has a photo on the wall of a Rock Hill man he reunited with his father. His mother had given birth while in high school, and the dad had fled to California, never to be heard from again. It took three years, but the Rowlands tracked the father down. They met later that year at a family reunion.
They also help people in dire need. One lady called saying she didn't have the money to pay for a private investigator but desperately needed to find her ex-husband, who had access to some of her son's medical records.
The Rowlands began investigating and found him. The woman broke down in tears and said she would begin to pay them back.
“I said, ‘Ma'am, you just paid me in full,'” Bill said.
