private detective
private investigator , PI (abbreviation)
private eye informal

Your mother says you told her he was a private detective?

Up to about a year ago he was a private detective, but has no work now.

Why do you have all the private detectives running around the last couple of days?

He could be only one thing, I was sure: a private detective.

We had more than our share of private detectives for a while.

What if the only thing she saw in him was an opportunity to play private detective?

She tried to run away once, but he sent a private detective after her.

All that about being a private detective - was it true?

And I hear you had a visit from some private detectives.

She had cast herself in the role of her own private detective.

Perhaps I was taking my role as private detective too seriously.

A couple of private detectives were also on her trail.

Why did that private detective drop the case after coming down here?

Maybe he'd sold out, the way the two private detectives had.

You're probably wondering just what the private detective wanted to talk to me about.

He even hired a private detective to find out who she actually was.

Jack had this idea that I should be a private detective, like him.

He worked as a private detective for the next several years until poor health forced him to stop.

Only his brother, a private detective, still believes in him.

And I have never really spoken to a private detective before.

President Clinton's use of private detectives has been widely reported.

Or why would her husband have engaged a private detective?

Her mother has worked as a model, designer, and private detective.

She knew I was a licensed private detective and had come on business.

Talking of jobs, I've always been interested to know how you private detectives go about things?

In that sense, he is something of a private investigator himself.

When that was done, he looked at the private investigator.

It was also said that the paper made use of private investigators.

I had him followed for a week by a private investigator.

"There must be some reason why you're coming to me, rather than a private investigator or the police."

We are like private investigators at the home of a missing person.

We're private investigators and we got involved in a very dangerous case.

So I started reading about private investigators and got interested.

Then another ten years trying to make a success of being a private investigator.

"Certainly in my time, we have not used private investigators," he says.

The private investigator was paid for a job with the film.

Private investigators: Not used since he took charge in 2007.

Not just the police, but also private investigators, medical professionals and phone companies.

It was nearly a year later when the really bad news from the private investigators arrived.

"I'm sure you've been asked this a million times, but how did you become a private investigator?"

The woman the little girl has been put under the care of charges a private investigator in order to find her.

A private investigator sets out to find a woman's natural parents.

She then moves to Chicago, working as a private investigator.

Private investigators are licensed by the state in which they work.

So I left the force and got a license as a private investigator.

He's a private investigator, no doubt the best your husband's money can buy.

I've been a private investigator too long to want to get mixed up with them.

I may have a friend of mine, a private investigator, call you to look into all this.

He probably had a private investigator watching the house to catch her in the act, right now!

She and her family were monitored by a private investigator.

Time was when private eyes were anything but thinking men.

I'll play private eye for three days, and I'm out of here.

"It could have been the office of a private eye."

But not as easily when people know I'm a private eye.

Any private eye wants to play ball with the police.

This showed I was a still a pretty good private eye.

Wonder if I can get a job after this as a private eye.

A minute later, the private eye walked from the building toward the car.

"I call myself a private eye for the dead," he said.

Getting down to the business of hiring a private eye.

Today we might call him a tough Jewish private eye.

West was one of the first female "private eyes" to ever appear on television.

I thought he was referring to the private eye trade.

She spent all her money on private eyes, to no avail.

Hell, she could have her choice of sophisticated private eyes.

"Then it must be a case for a private eye.

Like many private eyes, Harry started out as a cop.

Being a private eye meant having an appreciation for the small things in life.

But the private eye sooner or later has to get beat up on.

"Private Eyes" itself often seems a bit of an in joke for theater people.

For example, the basis of a private eye strip is the work he does.

Hollywood might do well to hire a private eye and find him.

It's almost more than the juvenile private eyes can handle.

Q: Your parents were private eyes who ran an agency from home.

He turns to private eye work with a soft touch for children.