Otter Under Fire (16 page)

“It’s hard to get life insurance when you have cancer.”

“He had it before, a long time before, a few policies he had put away.”

“And you can’t cash them if you’ve committed suicide.”

“I know and he knew that. That’s one of the many reasons he wouldn’t have done this. He had a policy on himself made payable to his wife, each of his kids and me. He wouldn’t have done this to them.”

“What did you know about the Christ’s Sword project?”

Jeremy shook his head. “I thought he was crazy to be messing with other people’s lives, but he said he had a good reason. I didn’t understand it and he said that Tonya didn’t understand it either. He said he was fixing something with it. I don’t know what that could have been. So you got the box ok then?”

“What box,” Otter asked sharply.

“The box I left on your porch. Uncle Clark gave it to me for safekeeping and gave me your address. He said that if anything happened to him to give it to you.”

“I have no idea what to do with it,” Otter said, a little regretfully. “Do you know what was in it?”

“You know, I don’t.” He shrugged. “He never told me and I never opened the box.”

“There was a dragon and a laptop in it.”

“Ah, ok. What does that mean?”

“And I’m supposed to know this because…?”

“I assumed you knew. He talked about it like you would know what to do. He said you were the only one bright enough to figure it out other than Michael the owner. He didn’t want Michael to know anything about this until you got it fixed.”

“I’m afraid I’m not a lot of help. Listen, Jeremy, I didn’t get along with your uncle all that well. I didn’t understand him much of the time. He exasperated me more often than not.”

“I know,” Jeremy said smiling and the smile reached his eyes, “Uncle Clark got on people’s nerves. He knew it, he thought of it as his talent.”

“He was a total pain in the ass.”

“You need to understand something, though. Uncle Clark was on a mission to remove evil of some kind. He thought there was evil here and he was working on eradicating it. In some ways he was a difficult person, but in others he was extremely meticulous and exacting. He had a way to get under people’s skin and piss them off, but he wasn’t a deliberately cruel man. And he was extremely loyal to Michael. He wouldn’t have done anything to hurt Michael or his business.”

“You should have been the one to do his eulogy.”

Jeremy outright grinned and the effect on his features was brilliant. “I wanted to, but then I would have said he was murdered and caused all kinds of trouble. I think Tonya knows that.”

“Well I have a copy of his list right here,” Otter admitted. I was looking at it when you came in.”

Jeremy came into the room and looked at her screen.

“Yes, that’s it. Exactly like the one I have. There must be something in the list that gives you information. Something only you or Michael would understand.”

“Well the list was originally alphabetical. That didn’t do anything for me.” Otter said, “And then I did it chronologically, but that didn’t make any sense to me either.”

“It can’t be that easy. Otherwise the wrong person would be able to figure it out.” Jeremy said reasonably. “And Uncle Clark liked to work with puzzles.”

“That’s true,” Otter said. “I’ll work on it some today, I promise. If I can’t figure it out, I’ll take it to some friends and we will figure it out together.”

Jeremy left his contact information with her this time and as she watched his retreating back, she wondered why she immediately thought of Joel and his two crazy friends to help her work on the puzzle. She went back to her monitor and looked at the list again. What did she and Michael know that not everyone in the shop knew? They both had degrees in engineering and metallurgy. He had way more knowledge and education than she did, but that was something they definitely had that very few other people at AzTech could claim.

She looked at the column heads, the first one was names, and she already admitted there was no luck there. The last one was the dates, which were a dead end as well. She looked at the other column headings. One was place of occurrence, but most said Arizona so that could hardly be illuminating. Another was offense which wasn’t filled out on every line and then there was a heading that was abbreviated, it said “lmntl”. She wondered what it meant. “Illuminati” hardly made sense. She played with it in her mind like it was a vanity license plate on the highway. Lmnteel, l-m-n-t-l, elementel, elemental…and as she said the word she looked up on her wall at the poster of the periodic table on her wall.

“Elemental, elements,” she murmured to herself. Was Clark that clever? She scanned the pointer down the list and the formula bar sprang to life at each click. Hydrogen gas, Hydrogen metal, Ag-silver, Fe-iron, that’s what she and Michael had in common--metallurgy and alloys. She spent the rest of the morning and part of the afternoon putting them in order exactly like the periodic table. She had to correct silver, Clark had gotten that wrong, he had silver as 30 and it was supposed to be 47. After she put all 118 elements in order—plus the extra hydrogen metal-- she was left with quite few more, but most of them said “none” and they had a weight of 0. There was one other one that stood out by itself with an atomic weight of 119. As far as she knew, there wasn’t an element discovered yet of 119. When she clicked on that box, the formula bar said “Tra-traitorium”. An obviously made up element, first of all she couldn’t think of any that would have three letters, and secondly it looked like it meant traitor. On that line was the name “Jameson Pennell.” She stared at it in wonder.

Who the heck was that?

“Thanks for letting me tag along today,” Tempest said to Susan as she scratched Duke around his ears. Since Duke was wearing his collar with his badge on it, he sat patiently, public servant interacting with a citizen.

“I’m glad to have you along, Tempest. I hope you don’t get bored.”

“I can write on my laptop if there are long boring stretches. What’s wrong with Duke? He acts like he doesn’t know me.”

“He’s funny that way. When he’s in his police officer mode, he turns into a different dog. More aloof and professional, I think. It’s like he knows he’s on duty.”

“I’ve known humans who wouldn’t do that and they should have known better.”

“He’s a great partner,” Susan said, opening the back of the vehicle for Duke to jump up inside. Once he was settled, she gestured Tempest into the front seat.

“So why do you want to roam around with me on this fine Saturday?” Susan asked as she fastened her seatbelt and checked her electronics.

“I thought I might do a blog on the city’s law enforcement, how it directly relates to the business owner. I want to do something about our men and women in blue and tan who are there to protect our lives and livelihoods, and what to do if you want to avoid trouble.”

“Sounds like quite an article. The publicity doesn’t hurt either.”

“It’s good for the businesses of any city to know that they have resources against crime.”

“Sure, if you like we can come to one of your trade meetings and talk about basic security and block watches for businesses.” Susan said as she started her vehicle.

“That would be great. I’ll check our calendar and you tell me who to get in touch with to arrange that.”

“I need to remind you that I am on duty,” Susan said. “If we have any altercations you absolutely must stay in the vehicle and obey my orders, do you understand?”

“Yes I do, and I understood it when your commander said this to me yesterday.”

“Good, just have to warn you formally.” She put her car into gear and pulled out on the street.

“Every time I drive with you,” Tempest said, “I am amazed at how few crazy drivers I see. I could drive this same stretch of road by myself and see all kinds of scary shit, but with you it’s like Disneyland.”

Susan gave a short laugh. “Have ticket book, will travel, will bring teeth,” Susan said waving back toward Duke. “I had to stop three very drunk guys on the highway once,” Susan scanned the area as they drove. “There were three of them and one of me. Duke and I had all three of them spread against the hood of my car and Duke jumped up on the hood and divided himself up between each of the men—giving them the evil eye with a theatric growl now and then.”

Tempest grinned, picturing it.

“My backup didn’t take very long and they hauled them up and away. These were big guys mind you, two of them had peed their pants.”

“I don’t blame them, what about the third guy?”

“He was so close to passing out; I think he thought Duke was a hallucination. That guy had such a high blood alcohol level, I’m surprised he was alive. Of course, he was the one driving.”

“Of course,” Tempest said, making herself comfortable and pulling out her laptop. “That would be a great way to start my blog.”

“Now that I know there was a code in the list, there are a lot of things on here.” Otter said peering at the copy she brought home.

“Like what?” Tempest asked narrowing her eyes at an identical copy. She came home and brought Susan with her after shift when Otter texted her that she had something interesting to show them.

“I told you that I recognized some of the guys names on the list.”

“Yeah, you did.” Susan picked up her copy.

“I said that the other names were probably from his church or his neighbors.”

“They’re not?” Susan asked.

“Well, a lot of these names that I didn’t recognize are actually anagrams of names of the people in the shop.”

“Now that’s cool,” Susan said.

“I don’t see what you mean,” Tempest said, feeling that if she stared at it hard enough, she would see the secrets that Otter had figured out.

“Ok, look at number 82, Pb-lead. He has Chuck Nolan on that line. Under his misdeed was written ‘unauthorized weapon’ and the consequence was ‘confiscation’. He’s the one I gave his knife back.”

“That’s easy enough to see,”

“All right, but I’m thinking that he was making a comment about something when he assigned an element to a person. I don’t think it’s random. He didn’t think much of Nolan and thought he was dead weight, like a piece of lead.”

Duke sprawled under the kitchen table started to snore lightly.

“That makes sense,” Tempest agreed.

“Now here’s this line,” Otter said, “Is my boss Michael’s name in an anagram. It says C-carbon. That makes sense as carbon is something we use all the time at AzTech.”

“What is carbon’s function? If you said that someone was made of carbon, what would that say about him?” Susan asked.

“That he was a burned out shell.” Tempest said, thinking of charcoal.

“Or that you are essential for life,” Otter said. “Michael gave him a chance at life. A lot of heat and pressure—and what else is this insane business, but heat and pressure—and you get diamond.”

“Rather metaphysical for science,” Susan said.

“The more I read this, the more I think I should make a deck of cards out of this for some kind of game,” Tempest said.

“Oh, I think I found my dad’s name.” Susan said excitedly. “He’s Co-cobalt. What would that mean?”

“Well he’s in fabrication, he works with a lot of metals that have cobalt in them—but if I wanted to be metaphysical, the first thing that comes to me is blue. Cobalt blue would be a true blue. Clark must have liked Jay, but then most all of us do.”

“Ron Defray is Pu-plutonium.” Otter burst out laughing. “God he really hated that guy.”

“And this looks like Annie,” Tempest said. “He has her under neon.”

“What else? Bright colors, isn’t reactive.”

“Where is gold?” Tempest wanted to know, “Who does he have under gold?”

Otter ran her finger to 79 Au-gold. She studied it for a minute. “It looks like the anagram for his wife.”

“An ‘I love you’ from the grave,” Susan said.

“I think I have chills,” Tempest said, rubbing her arms.

“Yeah, and it looks like I owe him an apology. Not a really big one, as he was still manipulating quite a few of these people. Some for what he thought was wrong, but to get information.”

“Who are you looking for now?”

“Greg, our IT guys, Clark has him under Hg--mercury. It used to be called quicksilver,” Otter laughed again, “Cornering Greg is like nailing Jell-O to the wall. He figured out that Greg was giving him fake information.”

“So we need to find you,” Tempest said. “What he says about you.”

“I’m under number 40,” Otter said. “Zr-zirconium.”

“A gem,” Susan said, “Often a substitute for diamond.”

“Jeremy said that Clark knew that only Michael and I could solve the code because we were both well versed in the same field. Clark wanted me to figure everything out because he didn’t want to Michael to know about this before it was fixed.” Otter said.

“Who is Jeremy?” Susan wanted to know.

“He is an adopted nephew of Clark’s. He also doesn’t think Clark committed suicide—Clark promised to be around to help him through college. I met him at Clark’s funeral. Today, he came by work to see if I’d worked out the puzzle. He was disappointed that I didn’t have the thing solved by now. He wasn’t too happy I gave some of the papers to the police. But we did agree that Clark was a bit of a challenge.”

“Are you sorry the police are involved?” Susan asked.

“Heck no,” Otter said. “I think there was a murder committed. I want the police to be involved. I’m not arrogant enough to think I can do it without you guys.”

“Why is Hydrogen on here twice?” Tempest asked.

“It used to be that way on the older Periodic tables.” Otter explained, “Hydrogen was on both sides of the chart. On one side, it was a gas and on the other side, it was a metal.”

“How could hydrogen be a metal?” Susan asked, intrigued.

“It’s because of gas giant planets like Jupiter. Under intense pressure, like the core of Jupiter or Saturn, hydrogen acts like a metal. That is why Jupiter has such a strong magnetic field. The hydrogen in its core is giving it that magnetic field. It’s debated quite a bit in scientific circles whether it is a true metal or not, but for theoretical purposes and for the purpose of Clark, it looks like we will have to use it that way.”

“But look, the names next to both H-Hydrogen designations are the same.” Tempest said.

Both of them were the name Cal de Lemn.

“I don’t know that guy, the name isn’t familiar.”

“Are you going to take this to Detective Addison?” Susan asked.

“Eventually,” Otter said, “I don’t know what I have yet. I don’t need to hear the derision in his voice when he says ‘The Periodic Table Miss Ottenberger? You think you can prove murder by science geek jokes about your coworkers written with the symbols of the elements?’”

“Ooh, that’s harsh,” Susan winced.

“Don’t get me started about secret codes and tratorium.”

“OK, OK, I get it.” Susan laughed.

She rose to go, but Otter stopped her.

“If you don’t mind, I wanted to ask you about something else.”

“I figured,” Susan sighed, “You want to ask about Joel.”

“I figure you know him from the army.”

“I told him that he shouldn’t date you or get to know you while he was on a mission. I told him you would figure things out way faster than he would expect. I think that made him want to meet you more.”

“What kind of mission is he on?”

“I don’t know, and that’s the truth. He couldn’t tell me and wouldn’t anyway.”

“Well, what can you tell me?”

“I can tell you he’s one of the best at what he does, if not the best. I can’t hold a candle to him, and I’m good.”

“That’s impressive.” Tempest said.

“I can also tell you he is a really good guy, and he likes you a lot. He isn’t going to lie to you. If he and his friends like you, it opens all kinds of doors.”

“She can open her own doors, thank-you-very-much,” Tempest said.

“And he’s a gentleman. Listen, trust me and don’t worry about it. I’m not out to get you hurt or killed. Where would I go for brunch?”

“That’s an excellent point,” Otter said, “but you had all kinds of nice things to say about the dog trainer and he was slime.”

“Yeah, but he was just a joke, Otter. I was just having a bit of fun to get you out of yourself. I thought you’d realize I was kidding.”

“But you…”

Susan rose to leave. “Let it go Otter. There is nothing you can do about that anyway.” Duke jumped up from a sound sleep to leave with her and Stella said good-bye by jumping his tail as he walked past.

“Right,” Otter said. She would let it go…for now.

The warehouse was enormous. Set on several hundred acres a few miles outside of Black Canyon City, it looked like a huge industrial concern. Except it was deserted with just a few cars in the parking lot and no visible signage anywhere to tell her any information about where she was.

Odd.

She stood on the asphalt and looked around her. It was still mostly dark and she wondered at the wisdom of coming along.

“Did you eat anything yet,” Joel asked her as they approached the entrance.

“I had a breakfast shake at about five this morning.”

“That should be ok. It’s best not to ride these things with a full stomach. All the jostling can make people puke.”

“Gee, nice to know.”
What kind of guy takes someone on a date with the purpose of making them puke
? She asked herself.

“I didn’t say you would, I said it was a possibility,” Joel said as if he read her mind. He used a key card in the entrance slot. The door unlatched and they walked into a simple office with a desk and display cases with more key cards and regular keys sets hanging in them. Joel used his card in one of the locks and took a set of keys. He opened a drawer and took a short turquoise lanyard out of it and fitted it with a card and a key. He opened another drawer and got out a plain white card that said “visitor—civilian” on it and printed “Otter” on it. He took a sticker out of another drawer and put it on the name tag. It was a small black ribbon.

“The card is for the women’s john, the key is for a locker in the adjoining locker room. The locker number is stamped on the key. Put your purse, jewelry anything you don’t want flying off your body while you’d driving around. Your watch is fine, but the jacket will be kind of hot after a while. Take the backing off the ID card and put it on your upper right chest.”

“Do many women come here?” Otter asked with a half grin.

“Quite a few old army buddies, Susan comes up once in a while. At first we didn’t have facilities, but as more females started coming over—first as dates and then as comrades—we built the amenities for them.”