My ex-wife is suing me for stalking her across Ontario. I’ve been recovering from spinal surgery…

“That’s concerning. Very concerning. Where did you find him?”

Graham asked.

“He’s Patricia’s new boyfriend. She met him right before my surgery,”

I answered.

Graham was quiet for a moment.

“This might not be a coincidence, Robert, but we need to be careful. We can’t just accuse him without proof. Do you know anything else about him?”

“Just his name and that he lives in Ottawa,”

I said.

“Let me do some digging. In the meantime, your phone records should arrive tomorrow. That’ll tell us a lot,”

Graham replied.

The phone records came via email the next morning. I printed all 68 pages and went through them line by line. The calls to Patricia that Judith mentioned weren’t there.

According to Rogers, I’d made exactly two calls to Patricia’s number. One was on March 3rd at 2:47 p.m. with a duration of 1 minute 43 seconds. The other was on March 4th at 9:12 a.m. with a duration of 2 minutes 6 seconds.

Nothing else. I called Graham immediately.

“The calls don’t exist. According to my records, I only called her twice,”

I said.

“That means someone spoofed your number. Made it look like the calls were coming from you when they weren’t. That’s actually easier to prove than you’d think,”

Graham explained.

“We can get call detail records from the cell towers. If you were in the hospital and the calls originated from Ottawa, we’ve got them.”

“Why would someone do this? Why go to all this trouble?”

I asked.

“That’s what we need to find out. I’ve got a private investigator friend, Marcus Webb, former RCMP. I think we should bring him in,”

Graham suggested.

The Final Confrontation

Marcus Webb met me at a Tim Hortons near my apartment two days later. He was a large man, maybe 55, with the careful movements of someone who’d seen things that left marks. I showed him everything: the lawsuit, the photos, Dennis Maxwell’s Facebook profile, my phone records, and my hospital documentation.

He studied the photographs for a long time, occasionally pulling out a jeweler’s loupe to examine details.

“This is sophisticated,”

he said finally.

“These aren’t snapshots. Look at the angles, the lighting. Whoever took these knew what they were doing. They wanted clear, usable images.”

“You think someone hired a photographer?”

I asked.

“I think someone planned this very carefully. Tell me about Dennis Maxwell,”

Marcus replied.

I told him what little I knew. Marcus made notes and promised to do a full background check. Three days later, he called me back.

“Dennis Maxwell doesn’t exist,”

he said.

“What do you mean? I saw his Facebook page,”

I argued.

“You saw a Facebook page created 11 months ago. The profile picture is stock photography from a modeling agency in Toronto. The other photos are stolen from various social media accounts. Dennis Maxwell is a fake identity.”

My mind reeled.

“So who is he? Who’s Patricia dating?”

“That’s the interesting question. I contacted some friends in Ottawa law enforcement and asked them to quietly check if Patricia’s been seen with anyone matching the description,”

Marcus said.

“They found something. A man named Kevin Dutton, age 58, has a record. Two prior stalking charges in British Columbia. Both cases settled out of court. Moved to Ontario last year.”

“Jesus Christ. Patricia’s dating a stalker,”

I said.

“It appears so. And get this: Dutton looks nothing like the guy in these photos or like you,”

Marcus added.

“He’s 5’7″, heavy build, full head of dark hair. But he’s got experience with surveillance, with harassment, and with manipulating situations.”

The pieces started clicking together, but the picture they formed made no sense.

“Why would he frame me for stalking Patricia if he’s the one dating her?”

I asked.

Marcus leaned back in his chair.

“Maybe she doesn’t know what he’s doing. Maybe he’s playing both of you. Stalkers are often obsessive and paranoid. They see threats everywhere. You’re the ex-husband. In his mind, you’re competition.”

“But I’ve been in a hospital bed,”

I pointed out.

“Which makes you the perfect target. You can’t defend yourself. You can’t investigate. He probably thought you’d just settle, pay her the money, and disappear from her life permanently.”

“We need to tell Patricia. She needs to know what kind of person she’s with,”

I said.

“Not yet. If we tip him off, he’ll disappear. What we need is proof he’s the one in these photos. And I think I know how to get it,”

Marcus replied.

Marcus’s plan was simple but risky. He wanted to do surveillance on Kevin Dutton to see if he’d make another move. In the meantime, Graham filed our response to the lawsuit, including all my hospital records and the discrepancies in the phone records.

He also filed a motion requesting cell tower data for the alleged calls to Patricia. The response clearly rattled them. Judith Brennan called Graham two days later requesting a meeting.

We met at her office in Ottawa, a glass tower overlooking the Ottawa River. Patricia was there, looking older than I remembered and harder somehow. Judith sat beside her, and across the table was a man I’d never seen before: 5’7″, heavy build, dark hair.

Kevin Dutton.

“This is my client’s partner, Mr. Dutton,”

Judith said.

“He’s been helping support her through this difficult time.”

I kept my face neutral, but my heart was pounding. This was the man who’d been impersonating me, stalking Patricia while making it look like I was doing it. And he was sitting right across from me, playing the supportive boyfriend.

Graham laid out our defense methodically: hospital records, nursing logs, and security footage of me in the recovery ward. He showed phone records showing only two calls and the impossibility of me being in multiple cities while bedridden. Patricia’s face went pale as the evidence mounted.

She kept glancing at Kevin, but he maintained a concerned, supportive expression.

“Miss Brennan,”

Graham said.

“Someone went to considerable effort to make it appear my client was stalking Mrs. Harrison. Someone who looks similar to him, someone who spoofed his phone number. This isn’t a case of mistaken identity. This is identity fraud and criminal harassment. But not by my client.”

“That’s absurd,”

Judith said, but her voice had lost its edge.

“Is it? We’d like to request that all parties submit to forensic analysis, including Mr. Dutton here,”

Graham proposed.

“If someone’s impersonating my client, surely you’d want to find out who.”

Kevin’s expression finally cracked, just for a second. It was a flash of something dark.

“I don’t see why I’d need to submit to anything,”

he said.

“I’m not the one being accused of stalking.”

“No,”

I said, speaking directly to him for the first time.

“But you are the one who did it.”

The room erupted. Judith demanded we retract the accusation. Patricia looked between Kevin and me, confused and frightened.