Deborah Aylward

private detective

By Suzanne D'Amato

Action-hungry private eyes crashing through motel-room doors to photograph their subjects’ wrongdoings – that’s the image of private detectives made popular by television and films.

Deborah Aylward knows what really goes on. She’s been a private detective for 14 years and founded A Woman-Owned Detective Agency, which operates in central New Hampshire and Virginia.

The name clearly identifies Aylward’s agency – which specializes in domestic relations and family-law issues such as divorce, adultery and child custody – as female-operated.

Women represent only about 20 percent of private detectives, according to Aylward, and her client base is evenly split between women and men.

“Some of the most competent private detectives I’ve worked with are women, who naturally operate on intuition,” she said. “This profession demands that skill, as well as noticing social cues, heeding gut instinct and anticipating behavior. You also need tenacity, patience, excellent observational habits and common sense.”

Aylward’s surveillance work often occurs at night and on weekends – when adulterous spouses have time to “play.” Not surprisingly, she is booked each Valentine’s Day with infidelity cases.

Typically, Aylward’s days are spent screening telephone inquiries from prospective clients. About 40 inquiries yield her one bona fide professional investigation, instead of situations in which one partner just wants to “dig up dirt” about the other.

“Unfortunately, some of my callers don’t have the financial resources to leave miserable marriages,” Aylward said. “I always provide these callers with community resources or self-help alternatives.”

Aylward chose this career after she became aware of the suffering parents endure when their children go missing – circumstances she became all-too familiar with while helping abused and neglected children as a Court Appointed Special Advocates volunteer.

“With some divorces, desperate parents may abduct their children instead of complying with adverse child-custody court orders,” she said. “I organized the first charitable, non-profit group of private investigators to locate abducted children on a pro bono basis and have law enforcement recover them.”

Aylward said being a private detective actually is quite safe.

“Essentially, I just document or observe a subject’s activities,” she said. “Legally, I can’t speak to a subject, and I videotape long-range from public places without trespassing or privacy invasion.”

She added, “Sometimes I find myself in the strangest situations – like being in a movie. I don’t need to watch the private-eye shows on television. I live them!”

The least desirable part of her job, Aylward said, is watching the sunrise after a grueling all-night surveillance.

“Private detectives live for micro-seconds of adrenaline separated by long periods of tedium,” she said, adding that it is necessary to stay alert since you never know when the moment to videotape a suspect will arrive.

“People always use deductive logic to arrive at conclusions, and that’s really what private detectives do,” Aylward said. “There’s a bit of detective within us all.”

For more information, visit www.deborahpi.com.

Suzanne D’Amato is a freelance writer who lives in Bedford.