Defray came out of the upstairs bathroom and paused when he saw Otter standing off to the side with Joel. Otter had never seen Ron Defray at a loss for words and it was worth it. She walked up to him and punched him in the shoulder.
“You don’t know how happy I am to see your ugly face again.” She said. She almost wanted to hug him, she was so happy he was alive--but there was no sense in getting carried away. She had texted Michael when they had found him and she was sure Michael was making arrangements to get to them as quickly as he could.
“Almost as happy as I am to see you,” he said and he actually looked like he meant it.
“We need to take Mr. Defray in to the station and get his statement,” Detective Addison said.
“Can I go too?” Otter asked. “I’d like to know what happened to him.”
Joel and Addison exchanged a look.
“Let’s go back and get my car and let Graham and Troy go home. I’m sure Tempest is probably ready to go home as well.” They looked over at Tempest who was in earnest conversation with a tall handsome officer.
“She doesn’t look ready to go back, but I’ll ask her.”
“Meet you at the car in five,” Joel said.
“Hey Tempest, you ready to move?” Otter asked. “We’re going to head out.”
“You must be so happy,” Tempest said and hugged her. “You found Ron alive.”
“That is good,” Otter admitted, “But there doesn’t seem to be any sign of Victoria.”
“I have faith you’ll find her. You seem to be a part of an unbeatable team.”
“I hope you’re right.” Otter said with a sigh, “So are you thinking about venturing into the law?”
“He’s cute, isn’t he?” Tempest said and smiled her brightest smile at the police officer who was talking to a lieutenant a short way away.
“He’s very handsome.”
“We have a date to meet for dinner in a couple of days.”
“Tempest, I could take you to Mars and you’d find a date.”
“Isn’t it nice to be consistent? Now what were you saying about leaving?”
“We’re ready to roll. Are you coming?”
“Absolutely, I’m not riding in the back of a cop car. What would that do to my reputation?”
“Knowing you--it would enhance it.” Otter said as they stepped outside.
“I don’t know who had me prisoner, I never saw anyone.” Ron Defray was telling the police, “But whoever it was drugged me a lot and left me notes.”
“How did they capture you?” Addison asked.
“As near as I can remember, I met an ugly blonde in the bar.” Defray said, “And she offered to buy me a beer.” Otter and Joel looked at each other. Joel had gotten her a place in observation, but she had to promise to not tell anyone what she heard.
“Then what happened?”
“I got really drunk, which was weird because I don’t get that drunk off of a couple of brews. I felt like the room was rotating around me.”
“Then what happened?”
“She took me out to her van, which had a mattress in it and I was so tired it looked like a good place to take a nap. So I climbed in and fell asleep. When I woke up I was in the jail cell naked and my clothes were hanging right where I could see them. There was a note that said I would wear what was given to me or I would be killed.”
“Were you tortured or deprived in any way?”
“Well I didn’t have my cell phone, but I had a TV and a bathroom. Whoever it was left food and soda’s for me, but I never saw anyone.”
“Did you hear anyone?”
“I would hear movement once in a while and I thought I heard voices that seemed like they were vaguely familiar, but other than that, nobody.”
“Did you feel like your life was in danger?”
“Well I don’t know, they left me a note saying I would be killed if I didn’t cooperate, does that count as danger to you?”
“We’re just trying to figure out what happened to you.”
“You say I was in Mitch’s house?”
“Yes, do you have any idea why he would kidnap you and keep you in a jail cell?”
“I have no fucking idea. That’s just creepy. Why would my boss want to kidnap me? He could make my life miserable at work any time he wanted.”
“You didn’t see anything unusual about Mitch or say anything to alienate him in any way did you?”
“Hell no, I did my job and reported to him. I gave him some shit because Mackenzie got Clark’s computer after he died, but that’s about it.”
“Maybe that was enough.” Addison said.
It must have been the stress, Otter thought to herself that made her start giggling. She envisioned a warning sign in the break room that announced that if you made the boss mad he would kidnap you, strip you naked and keep you in a cage. She had to bite the inside of her mouth to keep from laughing out loud.
“Well I wondered how long it would be before my wife or my co-workers would notice I was gone. I’ll bet Mackenzie or Michael are the ones at work who noticed I was missing.”
Yeah, Otter thought, after a couple of days I finally figured it out, brilliant me.
“Why do you think that is?”
“Because Mackenzie always knows who doesn’t come in. She checks every day to make sure everyone is there. She would know it was weird if I didn’t come in.”
“If you had a chance to see her, what would you tell her?”
“I’d tell her that those fucking bras are fucking uncomfortable and I don’t understand how chicks like her can stand to wear them.”
“I suppose it was too much to hope that is attitude would change for very long,” Otter said to Joel. “I supposed that’s a good sign that he’s back to normal.”
“I suppose so.” Joel said. “It looks like Addison is going over this all again and it will be a few hours. Do you want to stay or would you like me to take you home?”
“I think I’m ready to go home,” Otter said. “I’m so relieved he’s alive that I just need to sit and think for a while.”
“I can understand that,” Joel said as they walked through the station to the street. He had parked on a parking ramp a few blocks away.
“This just doesn’t feel right, there’s something missing.” Otter said as they walked toward Joel’s car.
“Like what?”
“I keep saying this, but Mitch didn’t seem like a killer. I’m having a hard time believing he killed all those people including Clark.”
“A lot of killers don’t look like they are,” Joel said. “They often fool everyone around them for years.”
“So what if he did kill his sister, then what?”
“We’ll try to find her body. Maybe the police will try to bargain with him for the location so we know where she is.”
“If he didn’t kill her, where would she go?”
“It sounds like she’s been a captive for a long time,” Joel said, “she’d be best going to relatives and getting some counseling. If she’s alive she can testify against Charlotte.”
“Wow this would make her a captive for twenty-two years.”
“Yeah, that’s a long time.”
“Hopefully she doesn’t have Stockholm’s Syndrome and refuses to testify.”
“Well we’ll know when we find her.” They reached his car and he opened the door for her.
“Where do you live, Joel? You’ve never said.”
“We have a house over on Cactus and 59th.”
“Who are ‘we’?”
“Troy, Graham and I, we’re renting it together.”
“Don’t they have girlfriends or wives? They always seem to be on the job.”
“Well, they’re a gay couple, so I don’t think they’re interested in girlfriends or wives--at least not for them.”
“Ah, ok—that changes a few things and it makes other things make sense.”
“I thought with your keen powers of observation tha
t you would have figured that out.”
“I’ve been busy,” Otter muttered. “It’s a little unusual that both your best friends are gay.”
“They’ve saved my life more than once. Why should it matter?”
“I don’t suppose it does.”
“I’ve known them forever,” Joel said. “That’s just the way they came.”
“That makes sense.” Otter said. “But you’re not gay, are you?”
Joel laughed out loud. “It would hardly make sense to date you if I were, would it?”
“Well you’d need to get information.”
Joel sighed. “Yes, knowing you was important to this case, but I would have gotten a lot of the information without you--eventually. Knowing you has made it much easier, though.
“I am not gay. Not even a little bit. I’ve wanted to get to know you since the first time I saw you and I’ve been determined to make it happen for some time now.”
“When was the first time you saw me then?”
“Can we talk about this later? There’s a lot to it and it would take more time than we have right now.”
“I suppose.”
“Thank you. And here you are safely home. It looks like Tempest is waiting for you.”
“She probably wants to know what happened.”
Joel came around and opened the door for her. It was a little weird, Otter thought, but nice. When she got out of the car he kissed her goodnight, saw her to her door, watched her open the door and kissed her again.
“Be safe,” he said and got in his car. He waited until the garage door shut before he backed out of the driveway.
“And she finally comes home,” Tempest said. “I was waiting up for you so I could make some milkshakes for us both.”
“Now that is a good idea.”
“So what happened?”
Otter told her about the interview with Ron Defray.
“It’s just weird Tempest, it doesn’t make any sense.” Otter said when she finished.
“What doesn’t?”
“That he would kidnap Defray and keep him in his basement. Why would he do that?”
“Maybe he did it because he’s crazy.”
“And he tried to make it look like Defray was stealing equipment that Mitch wanted himself.”
“Well that makes sense.” Tempest said as she scooped ice cream.
“But why keep him alive and humiliate him then? Nothing is adding up.”
“I don’t know, maybe he will tell you some day.” Tempest turned on the blender and they had to be quiet for a moment.
“There are just too many unanswered questions.” Otter said when the appliance had stopped. “It doesn’t feel right and I’m uneasy.”
“Like what, for instance?”
“I worked in highly stressful conditions with Mitch for years; he never struck me as crazy. I talked to him and his wife, she never seemed like she was in distress or being held captive. The facts are not fitting what we think we know.”
“What do you want to do about it?” Tempest asked watching the cats come running into the kitchen sensing food. It only took moments before the puppies started whining.
“I don’t know that I can do anything,” Otter said. “It’s up to the officials. I doubt they’d let me talk to Mitch.”
“Maybe Joel will pull some strings for you.”
“You know, I’m almost to the point I want to call in tomorrow. I need to just get my head on straight about all this.”
“You never call in.”
“I know, that should tell you how unsettled I am.”
“Relax; you’ve had a crazy few weeks.” Tempest said, handing Otter a thick chocolate malted milkshake.
“Be still my heart.” Otter said. She took a glorious sip and savored the taste.
Chapter 16
Tempest was worried. She was sure that Otter paced around her half of the house most of the night and then left early for work. She knew from experience that if Otter was that worried, there was something wrong. She almost stopped her friend from going in to work that morning, and keep her safely at home.
After Otter left, Tempest wandered around the house wondering what to do. Between the two of them, they made the cats and the puppies nervous. Otter could take care of herself in most situations, but it was always that odd and crazy thing that caught most folks unaware. The more she thought things over the more concerned she became. Finally she pulled out her cell phone. She would call everyone she could think of and they could worry with her. There was no point in anyone else sleeping if she was wide awake.
Annie had told Otter that she was coming in late that morning, so Otter drove to work ahead of schedule and alone. Oddly enough, there were plenty of cars on the road so early in the morning. The snowbirds were coming back into town and clogging up the streets again. She wondered where they were all going at that hour.
She unlocked the gate and let herself in, then locked it behind her. It was too early to leave it open it yet. She walked to the side of the building and let herself in the door that led to her office. She put her purse and her lunch away and took a walk around the plant.
Third shift was winding down and would go home in a couple of hours. A few would stay behind to make sure they passed on information to the first shift coming in. The shop was never quiet, even when empty, it was like the machines and the furnaces muttered to each other when all the people were gone.
Otter liked getting in at this time of day once in a while. She said hello to the night crew and checked on her projects. Forklifts sat like sentries all around shipping, only a few employees using them at night. She went back into her office and pulled out paperwork and travelers that she needed to work on and kept herself absorbed in the work for at least an hour.
She was disturbed in her work when the power went out and the office went completely black. Otter swore to herself and waited for the backup generator to kick in. It took about five minutes and the overhead lights came on. The furnace alarms buzzed and warning alarms rang all over the plant. She jumped off her chair and started out the door, but was stopped abruptly.
Victoria was standing in her office doorway holding a gun. Otter realized how much Victoria looked like Mitch. Standing there in her blond hair she looked just like him wearing a wig. She was a little smaller but people must have mistaken them for twins more than once. Odd, she had never noticed that before. She looked into her visitor’s face –Victoria was smiling--and her eyes were two deep, dark pools of hell.
Otter had spent a lot of her childhood looking into eyes like that and she knew what hadn’t felt right. Everyone had made a terrible mistake.
“You ruined everything, you Bitch,” Victoria said and raised the gun.
Suddenly, without warning Otter was six years old again. She was looking into her mother’s eyes with that same, mad unreasonable expression. She knew that nothing she could do or say would get her out of trouble if she addressed her mother directly. But she had special tools for survival.
It was weird to realize that all the images, voices and impressions only took seconds in her brain. It seemed like it should have taken longer to run everything through her mind. Otter did what she often did as a little girl; she dropped to the floor and made a smaller target. The gun went off and blew a hole through her office wall.
Otter’s psyche flew through calculations as she decided on her next move. If Victoria was anything like her mother, she would stand and stare at the gun for a moment as if she was shocked it had gone off. Her mother had never tried to shoot her, thank goodness, but she had been no less dangerous.
She pushed past Victoria, thrust upward with her fist and knocked the gun from Victoria’s hand. Knowing it would take too long to stop and pick it up; she chose to kick it into the shadows down the hall from her office. The firearm flipped into Michael’s engineering projects stacked in a darkened corner. It would take her assailant some time to find her gun in there, but she probably had a spare. Ott
er ran for the door to the shop and a bullet whizzed by as she pulled it open. She was right; Victoria came with more than one firearm.
Otter reached the shipping area and she had to decide which way to run. The shop was dim with emergency lights and alarms were screaming all over the complex. But the parking lot and roadway between the buildings were fully lit. She had to keep the gun away from the endothermic units toward the east. A stray bullet would level the whole block if it hit the gas lines with all that fire shooting around them.
She also had to stay away from welding and the storage tanks for the same reason and ditto for most of fabrication. She worked out her plan quickly and she knew the best place to go. Adjacent to fabrication was a smaller building that had a few multi-ton presses in it. The machines were heavy and dense and had a huge footprint. She could hide in there in the dark and the killer wouldn’t find her right away. The worst her assailant could do to the machines in that room would be to shoot out a hydraulic line and have Dan the supervisor swearing later on when the machine didn’t work.
In the dim light Otter made her way partially by feel to Dan’s work station and grabbed a spray can of penetrating oil he always had on his desk. She also grabbed his bar of one and a half inch diameter steel--honed on one end-- that he used to lever parts and components into the perfect position.
It didn’t take long for her assailant to catch up to her. Otter had no more than ducked behind the 30 ton press when she saw Victoria silhouetted in the door way by the parking lot lights behind her.
“I know you’re in here Bitch, and I’ll find you,” Victoria said angrily.
She aimed her gun in front of her and shot into the darkness. It ricocheted off a press and into the wall. Slowly, Victoria advanced into the room, step by step into the dimness. Otter kept quiet and held tight to her improvised weapon, trying not to breathe in any way that Victoria would hear her. Her heart was pounding and her lungs wanted her to gasp for air from the run across the complex. She concentrated on calming herself down as she watched for her assailant.
“Come out, come out where ever you are,” Victoria said in a high sing song voice. She giggled a nasty little giggle that made Otter’s skin crawl. She waited to see which way Victoria was coming around the machine and backed toward the opposite direction. She raised the tool over her head and as soon as she could see the whiteness of the hand holding the gun, she slammed the bar down with all her strength which made an excruciating crunching sound. The gun shattered and judging by the sound, she had broken some bones in Victoria’s hand. Victoria screamed and Otter ran back around the press and took off in the opposite direction.
Otter Under Fire Page 27