Otter Under Fire

by Dakota Rose Royce

  “You’re right, but I do need to talk to her. I left her very upset.”

  “A couple of days won’t matter,” Tempest said, “You may know more and can give her some answers.”

  “OK, so Jameson Pennell was on the sign out sheet. Did he sign in a guest? He did. Good, that makes sense then. Does Joel know? He will want this information and maybe get a warrant for their records. OK, thanks, yes we will, you too, goodbye.” She put her phone away.

  “He told me to tell you to be careful.” Susan said.

  “Everybody is telling me that,” Otter said. “I’m as careful as I can be and still be myself.”

  “That’s why everyone is telling you to be careful,” Susan said. “I need to go get my dog and go home. Bruce and Duke make a point of having dinner together every night.”

  “Do they really?” Tempest asked.

  “Oh yes, I’m serious. Duke won’t touch his food until Bruce gets home and sits down to dinner. I am expected to join them, but he waits for Bruce.”

  “Why is that, do you think?” Otter asked.

  “Because on most nights after dinner Bruce takes Duke out for an ice cream cone,” Susan said. “There’s a little drive through place not far from us. On really nice days they walk.”

  “That’s really cute,” Tempest said. “What do they think at the shop?”

  “They are Duke’s biggest fans. Even if I stop by for a burger or a cup of coffee, he starts whining and they automatically make him a cone. It’s a pain in the ass sometimes.”

  “That’s really sweet.”

  “They try to not let me pay for it, but I make them take the money. I told a few of my fellow deputies and now few other K-9 units stop there, and a lot of happy dog cops get ice cream cones. It’s good for the business too, everyone knows that we stop in all the time, the place is less likely to get too much hassle from anyone.”

  “A community that doesn’t support its police force is a community destined to rot, in my opinion.” Otter said.

  “They have a sign in their window that says ‘ice cream cones for all K-9’s.’ You must have seen it on the news.”

  Susan opened the patio doors and Duke jumped to his feet and trotted into the house. The puppies came in after him.

  “He’s a mover and a shaker,” Otter said as she patted the sleek head. Duke grinned at her and he and Susan headed out the door.

  There was chaos as the puppies were fed and then the cats were fed and the puppies were bedded down in their crates in Tempest’s room. They had to come out a few more times and get petted and told they were good dogs before they finally settled down for the night. Stella, who had worn herself out running around the house was deeply asleep in her bed in the cat tree, Spooky still couldn’t hide his outrage, and made a point of sitting with his back to her. Mouse had taken off somewhere and was probably quietly contemplating her revenge.

  She knew she needed to sit up and wait for him, even before she got his text. He wouldn’t be able to stay away with the new information that he got from Detective Addison. It didn’t take long, less than an hour, before she saw his car drive up on the security monitor.

  “Took you long enough,” She said when she opened the door.

  Joel grinned. “You didn’t tell me you were going to come up with some good stuff.” He said as he came in and presented her with a bouquet. “So now you have to tell me what you’ve been up to.” When she took the flowers, he kissed her.

  “Thank you,” she said and went into the kitchen to hunt up a vase. She got the flowers ready to put in water as he watched her work expertly snipping the ends of the stems and arranging them in the vase she had found.

  “You do that like you’ve done it before.”

  “I took a class a long time ago. One of those things I always wanted to know how to do.”

  “So you figured out that someone going by the name of Jameson Pennell is a member of a Scottsdale gun club?”

  “It makes sense,” Otter shrugged as she moved the flowers around in a colorful display.

  “The merry men are digging through the gun club’s files to see if they can find out any information.”

  “That’s good,” Otter said as she set the vase down on the kitchen table. “Do you want to know what else we found out?”

  “There’s more?”

  “Of course, there is. There is always more. We figured out how to get into the laptop that showed up on my porch.”

  “Do tell,”

  “Apparently the nephew designed the software for it and it needs an alpha-numeric code then a voice command. It then shows you a portion of the information. When you complete that part, you put in the password and it takes you to the next section.”

  “Where you have to find out the code and the voice command,” Joel said, “Sounds like our boy wanted you to figure this all out in order, by some kind of priority list.”

  “That was my take too.”

  “So what was in the first section?”

  “All kinds of financial documents for his adopted nephew. He sold or implemented some of the software that Jeremy created and made a nice pile of money for him. He then invested it so that Jeremy would have money to go to school or whatever he wanted to do.”

  “Wow, that’s a big chunk of news.”

  “I gave Jeremy the information and he took it home. He seemed shell shocked.”

  “Can I get a copy?”

  “I’m afraid to back track and screw with the system. I don’t know what the closing passwords are—Jeremy did them and I need to find out what’s in the next section.”

  “Then I’ll go and talk to Jeremy and get the information from him.”

  “Thank you, and there’s something else.”

  “More? Wow, you’ve been very busy today.”

  “You have no idea, but anyway Jeremy told me he developed some facial recognition software and Clark used it on his shooting pal. That’s how he found Marvin Jones and decided to meet him.”

  “Hold on,” Joel pulled out his phone. “Joel, check to see if Marvin Jones still has his Facebook account open. We need to see if our target is on there.”

  “You didn’t check before?”

  “The Michigan police looked on his account to see if he talked about suicide or any problems he was having. I don’t think they thought to look if he was corresponding with his killer.”

  “You told me that Marvin was friends with the killer in high school,” Otter said.

  “Yeah, but we got that from interviewing the people that were in their graduating class. They were best friends, and some people thought they were dating.”

  “Have you found out the killer’s secret?”

  “Otter, we don’t know if she has one. That’s just a theory.”

  “I’ll bet I know what it is.”

  “Oh, do you now, and what do you think it is?”

  “She’s transgender. She can go from male to female quite easily it seems. If she’s going as Jameson, she’s male. Since you said she’s an actress, she probably knows how to change her looks and the way she moves to fit either role.”

  Joel was on his phone again. “Troy, look back into her birth records, see if she was born male or female. Yes, you heard me right. Just look and let me know as soon as you find out.”

  “You believe me,”

  “You could be right.”

  “Oh and Ron Defray is missing. I don’t want to forget that.”

  “Yeah, I heard about that too.” Joel said. “If it was Charlotte, then she’s getting desperate and will run again soon.”

  “You know it’s interesting, and I didn’t think about this until just now, but Ron Defray had some long blond hairs on the front of his uniform shirt a few weeks ago. I commented on it to Gonzo because Defray’s wife is a brunette with short hair.”

  “Wow, I’m surprised he didn’t take them off his shirt.”

  “He’s colorblind, and he probably didn’t see them. He has a light shirt with stri
pes on it, which blond hair probably wouldn’t show up.”

  “So do you think he’s our killer?”

  “I don’t know, but whoever stole from our company and was dressed like him—wasn’t him. Someone was impersonating him. Unfortunately we have a few stocky guys that run in the 5’10” to 5’11” range.”

  “Can you get me a list?” Joel asked as his phone rang. “Yeah, ok, well Otter suggested it. That’s interesting, isn’t it? What about the sister? That’s extremely rare isn’t it? OK, I’m on my way in.” He turned off his phone and tucked it in his pocket.

  “You were wrong, she’s not transgender.”

  “Well darn.”

  “She and her sister were both born complete hermaphrodites.”

  Chapter 14

  “So she and her sister both had sexual organs of a male and a female.” Otter said.

  “Yes,”

  “I believe the correct term is ‘intersex’ now, not hermaphrodite.”

  “Well, they were born in an age that wasn’t as politically correct. That was the label they were given.”

  “But she and her sister both identified as female and were raised that way.”

  “As far as we know,”

  “But she can also be a male when she wants to be. It sounds to me like she fooled a lot of people.”

  “She was exceptionally good as an actor. She would probably enjoy fooling people.”

  “So you don’t know what she looks like as a man?”

  “No, we don’t. And if we did, she could change it.”

  “I knew her sister would be in on it,” Otter said, “She has to have someone she can trust. There’s really nobody else.”

  “That’s true. So are you safe here? How good is your security?”

  “Better than most,” Otter took him to the hall closet. Inside the door was the security monitor.

  “Just like James Bond,” Joel chuckled.

  The monitor flashed through the different screens monitoring the property.

  “Uh-oh,” Otter said.

  “What?”

  “Someone tried to come over the back fence,” Otter said as she looked at the screen. She got her television remote, flipped it open on the back, and tapped a few keys. The picture went searching in reverse.

  “You really have to tell me about your gadgets someday,” Joel murmured as they watched the screen.

  The screen stopped and began to play. They saw a head coming in sight like someone was climbing a ladder on the other side. The picture was in color, but the focus wasn’t very good so they could see a general shape, but no details.

  “I’m not liking this; I’m not liking this at all.” Joel said.

  “Let’s see if we can see who it is,” Otter said, watching the screen intently.

  The head led to shoulders and hands rested on the top of the wall. The stocky figure with long blond hair appeared to be gazing around the yard.

  “That’s got to be her, and she knows where you live,” Joel said. “Wait a minute, why is she brushing her arms off like that? Now she’s shaking them and brushing them off again. What’s happening?”

  “She encountered my security system.”

  “Your security system?”

  “Well, part of it.” Otter continued to gaze at the screen. “There she goes, back down the ladder. I guess she didn’t like that.”

  “What was it she didn’t like?”

  Otter paused for a minute and then flashed a mischievous smile at him. “She thought she saw wolf spiders the size of kittens crawling up her arms. She felt them too; she felt their little hairy feet as they crawled around inside her clothes.”

  “That’s giving me the creeps and I’m not seeing or feeling them. You want to tell me how your system does that?”

  “Nope, it’s proprietary.”

  “What if the spiders didn’t stop her?”

  “Well, there are other surprises waiting that aren’t so pleasant.”

  “I’ll just bet. Who are you Otter, why do you need such crazy security? Who are you really?”

  “I’m a private citizen who wants to stay that way. I also have an uncle who loves to invent unconventional things. Who are you really?”

  “Touché,” Joel said.

  “En guarde,” Otter said with a grin.

  “Before we get too carried away with the jousting, I just want you to know that I still want to see you after this is all over. I also know you are totally unsure about me. To be honest, I would be too if I were you.”

  “Let me lay out a scenario for you,” Otter said.

  “Please do,” he said gallantly.

  “Three young men figure out a number system and they win several lotteries that give them millions. They are only 19 years old at the time. They call themselves the Apollo Institute of Phoenix.”

  “It was the high school we went to.”

  “And they took this money and bought huge tracts of land up by Black Canyon City and they put the rest into CD’s and some other investments and two of them joined the service. One of them goes to Quantico for some kind of training.”

  “Troy isn’t the military type.”

  “You told me it was two hundred acres. The lands are well over five hundred.”

  “It’s a work in progress,” Joel said with a smile. “We wanted to have lots of land for expansion.”

  “You were sneaky too, nobody caught on to what you were doing.”

  “People will start thinking that there is some big company coming like Disneyland and start buying up all the land thinking they’re making an investment. Walt Disney did the same thing, we learned from him.”

  “Some years later they start building the Community Center and the lottery funds are in a trust that takes care of it. The military and retired military that are invited to join don’t pay any kinds of fees.”

  “And instead of worrying that Charlotte is trying to come over your back fence, you’re thinking about this?”

  “There are more dangerous people in the world than hot blooded killers.”

  “Just so we know you’re not worried or anything,” Joel murmured to himself.

  “Oh, I’m plenty worried, but I’ll take steps.” Otter assured him.

  “That concerns me more than it should.”

  “I’ll be OK.”

  “Now let me tell you a story,” Joel said sitting in an easy chair and putting his feet up. Spooky immediately jumped into his lap.

  “Sure, why not?” Otter said as she sat in another chair next to him.

  “Supply chain logistics in the military is a complicated thing as I am sure you can imagine.” Joel scratched Spooky under the chin.

  “I bet it is.”

  “But once in a while an extra piece of equipment would show up before it was ordered—Like an extra gun, an extra Humvee, an extra helicopter. It always seemed to come from some guy in Phoenix who repaired equipment and sent it back.

  “At first he got in trouble for it, but oddly enough that extra piece of equipment would show up just in time to save someone’s life or sometimes the lives of a whole platoon. Soldiers that were saved started calling him the Magician.”

  “He sounds very talented.”

  “He does, doesn’t he? I had never heard of him until the night I needed him a few years ago. My best friend had been kidnapped by insurgents. It was such top security that the news organizations ever heard about it. I tapped all my sources and I found out where they were being kept.”

  “They?”

  “He wasn’t alone. Then I did the craziest thing I’ve ever done and I got to a place that just happened to have an extra helicopter and there just happened to be a guy there who could fly it that was just as insane as I was and who was willing to go. I got a crew together and we went to find out if the captives were there.

  “I won’t bore you with the details of how we found out and how we did our recon and everything that went into it. The long and the short of it is they were there and we
got them all. Killed the house full of captors and got the captives away.”

  “Highly unusual for the military,”

  “Hell, yes it is. If I had been caught before I led that raid, I would have been court marshaled.”

  “Did you do that often?”

  “Absolutely not, it was a wild couple of days. Looking back I still can’t believe that night took place.”

  “Ok, so what happened next?”

  “We get back and the brass in charge of the equipment is pissed. We get off the copter with our rescued prisoners and people went speechless. Not only did we rescue my friend, but a handful of special ops guys that the president would have sold the Lincoln Memorial to get back.”

  “Now that is interesting,”

  “It was. I got my hand slapped officially. But I became part of the brotherhood of the Magician’s chosen few so I would hear whispers and I tracked the man back to his lair here in Phoenix.”

  “Did you meet him?”

  “Oh yes, he’s a Master Sargent in a local outfit. I talked to him for a bit. His name is Juan O’Grady.”

  “I know Juan.”

  “Yeah, I know. I asked him how he knew to send the extras and he said he didn’t know—he would just get a strange feeling and then move heaven and earth to see that the extra thing was on its way to where it needed to be.”

  “OK,” Otter said cautiously, “What happened then?”

  “Well, I know the military pretty well. Nothing moves that fast, so I asked him how he could get his repair parts done so quickly. He told me it was otter magic.”

  “Yeah, I’m familiar with that term.”

  “He says he calls Otter magic and she makes it happen for him. No matter how suddenly or how quickly he needs a repair part she usually gets it to him in time to get it shipped out when he feels he has to.”

  “I just do my job and I charge him an expedite fee. I also told him not to tell anyone about Otter magic.”

  “Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me.” He urged Spooky off his lap and got up from his chair. “I need to go. We have a lot of work to do tonight.”

  “Goodnight then,” Otter said walking him to the door.