Asheville’s “No. 1 Lady Detective” on love-related high jinks.

by Melanie McGee Bianchi     .     photo by Rebecca D’Angelo

When there’s a private investigator involved, the goal is often to catch people with their pants down. In 2003, Michelle Carter Sullins, a WNC native, took over Carter Investigations from her brother Wayne. (Their dad Neil Carter started the business in 1985.) Sullins says the company’s juiciest love story by far is a stolen-slacks debacle in which Wayne accepted a cell phone call from a client at an inopportune moment.

Wayne and his assistant had just discovered the female client’s spouse coupling with his suspected lover in a car outside a hotel. When the wife unexpectedly phoned to inquire about how the investigation was going, he told her. But when passions run high, live bulletins can be a dangerous thing.

“The client is paying you for this information, so you want to be able to tell them what you know,” Sullins says. “But we learned that you don’t give them the exact details until after it’s all over.” After the phone call, the PIs got busy capturing video footage of the affair in progress but were then surprised to see the furious wife speeding into the hotel parking lot. After forcing her way into her husband’s vehicle, where he was still ensconced with his mistress, she seized his pants and keys and fled in her own car. “Talk about a woman scorned,” says Sullins with a lilting laugh. 

Another love-gone-wrong case proves that philandering, perhaps thanks to Viagra, knows no age limit. One man Sullins investigated was married and having an affair with his deceased brother’s wife under the pretense of helping her repair a rental property. She had been his sister-in-law for 50 years. “And the guy was creeping up on 80!” Sullins exclaims. Her warm manner and feminine drawl belie the hard-bitten reputation of her profession. Besides documenting illicit love affairs, Carter Investigations performs background checks on companies’ prospective employees and investigates insurance-fraud and child-custody cases.

Despite the dangers, however, the investigative process is well suited to women. People who are being investigated are more likely to open up to a woman. “They don’t feel threatened, and so they start talking. Nobody suspects you,” she says. What also works to her advantage is that Sullins herself looks particularly wholesome. When she tells people what she does, they are often incredulous. “They say, ‘But you look like a soccer mom!’”  

Like her popular fictional counterpart, Precious Ramotswe of Alexander McCall’s No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency book series, Sullins relies heavily on hunches. McCall’s heroine searches for clues in the African bush; Sullins has been known to haunt suburban churches in pursuit of perps. (“We couldn’t believe he was meeting his girlfriend at a church,” she says.) The top tool of their trade is the same: “Intuition,” says Sullins, “is huge.”   

To hire Michelle Carter Sullins, call 828-628-2345.