Otter Under Fire (19 page)

She fired 2 people that week. One for stealing from everyone’s lunches in the lunch room refrigerator, one for stealing copper from the store room. She was indignant that they thought the company wouldn’t catch them and the good employees wouldn’t notice the theft and report it. The ex-employees were stupid to think she wouldn’t check the security cameras and see what they had done. It left her short four employees total, but she would worry about that later.

Otter finally got home Saturday morning after a grueling week. She was dirty, gritty and sweaty. She had moved mountains and performed miracles and the last thing she wanted to do was go to a ball and dance all night.

As tempting as it was to cancel, she couldn’t. Too many people were counting on her being there. She was supposed to give a speech for heaven’s sake. Just a short one on the importance of keeping manufacturing in the state, but it held no appeal right that minute. She staggered in the door of her side of the duplex, went into the master bathroom and ran herself a nice hot bath. She put in her favorite perfumed soap and sunk into the tub with a grateful sigh. She started to doze when the bedroom door slammed open and Tempest came barreling in.

“You know I was taking a bath in here,”

Tempest waved that away with her hand.

“I’ve seen you naked before, besides you have all those suds covering you.”

“I had privacy when I lived alone. I never had to worry about someone waltzing into my bathroom and bugging me.”

“Aren’t you lucky that things are different now?” Tempest said, making herself comfortable on a small chair.

“So what do you want?” Otter said grumpily.

“Let’s see, you come up with this really cool code on what you thought was a blackmail list. You go on a date with a new and mysterious guy and you are gone all day. You spend a ton of time at work and I haven’t seen you since last Saturday. I wondered if you were moving out.”

“No, I’m not moving out,” Otter sighed. “You’re right; I haven’t really let you know what is going on.”

“So tell me now,” Tempest said, “Judy won’t be by to do our hair for a couple of hours yet.”

“Let’s see, Joel took me to this really cool place up by Black Canyon City. It has this really innovative, all-terrain vehicle. Then they had an expertly laid course that is really awesome. The facility has an arena, a hangar, a pool and all sorts of war game rooms. It’s pretty exclusive to invited military people, retired and active. I can’t wait to go up there again and check stuff out. You would have hated it.”

“Interesting, I’ve never heard of it.”

“Yeah, it’s kind of secretive and they have beefed up security so they don’t get any unwanted visitors.”

“That’s interesting, don’t you think?”

“One mystery at a time,” Otter shifted in the water, “while I was there, Joel’s two buddies showed up and we had lunch together. We went over the list and Graham—the red haired engineer—grabbed some index cards and we made a deck of all the players.”

“You said it should be made into cards.”

“Once this is over I’m talking to your graphic artist and having playing cards made out of this. It would be very cool.”

“Anyway as you were saying…”

“Oh, right. There are two names on there I don’t know. Cal de Lemn and Jameson Pennell, none of us knows who the heck Cal de Lemn is, but Jamison Pennell might be the last part of the name of a killer who has disappeared.”

“Really…”

“Yes, her name is Charlotte Roberta Jameson Pennell and apparently Joel and his merry men are looking for her.”

“That’s even more interesting,”

“They say she disappeared some years ago, but they are looking for her now, because apparently she’s been seen again. Anyway they went through the shop files and she isn’t there. So that could be a coincidence.”

“I doubt that, I’m sure she fits in somewhere.”

“Well Michael and Ron Defray don’t know the names. So I have an appointment with the police detective on Monday to go over what I’ve found out, whatever that is.”

“Busy little bee, aren’t you?” Tempest said. “Well Susan and I have been busy too.”

“Oh and what have you been doing?”

“Well in our spare time we’ve been doing some internet searches, and we found that Charlotte Roberta Jameson Pennell you’re talking about. She and her sister both disappeared about ten years ago.”

“Joel didn’t say anything about a sister.”

“After their parents died in a mysterious fire on Charlotte’s graduation night, the sisters had no place to go. They said they were leaving to go stay with relatives. After they left town, the local officials discovered that the parents were murdered before the house fire. Once they figured that out they disinterred Charlotte’s boyfriend who was killed in a car crash and checked him out and realized he had been murdered as well.”

“Talk about a busy bee.”

“They disappeared the first time for some years, but re-emerged as the possible suspects in a string of murders up north. It was one or two bodies a year for a while, then about ten years ago, nothing. It’s been really quiet.”

“Maybe she found a place she liked and didn’t want to screw it up by killing someone and moving.”

“Maybe, could be,” Tempest shrugged. “And she could have died somewhere along the line, but if people are still looking for her, I don’t think so.”

“I don’t see why Clark would have her name on the list, unless it was an allegory to something else. He got a little clever with his clues.”

“Maybe too clever and she found out about it and killed him.”

“I’m not focused enough to think about this. What did Susan say?”

“She was going to tell Detective Addison what we found. She thought maybe he could do something with that information.”

“Maybe he could.”

“Oh, and the other name--that Cal le Lemn, we put that in the search engine too.”

“Oh really, and what did it say?”

“Apparently it’s a shopping site on the internet, lots of foreign language sites, but it means rocking horse.”

“Rocking horse, like a child’s toy? That doesn’t make any sense at all.”

“Just telling you what I found.”

“Thanks, saves me from doing it—and I had intended to, when I got the time.”

“Oh and my mother said to tell you hello. She texted me last night,”

“How is she doing?”

“She’s having a blast, but I think she’s about ready to come home. She says she’s bringing presents for everyone. She’s probably collecting napkins everywhere she goes so she can stash them when she gets here.” Tempest’s mother had an obsession with dinner napkins, it drove Tempest nuts.

“You will handle it as you always do,” Otter said. “Now you have to let me finish my bath so I can get ready to go.”

“So are you going to the ball with Joel?”

“No, I’m still going with Bob.”

“Really?”

“Yes, of course, I made the date with him a long time ago.”

“Does Joel know?”

“Yes, he does, I already told him.”

“What did he think of that?”

“Hopefully that I’m someone who keeps promises,” Otter said primly. “Now scat.”

Otter finished her bath and dried herself off. She blow dried her hair nice and straight in anticipation of the stylist. She powdered and perfumed and did her make-up. She pulled her dress out of the closet and held it up.

It really was pretty. It was soft and clingy but had a nice drape that would make it flare as she moved around the ballroom. It was a deep sapphire blue with what looked like silver fairy dust sprinkled over it. She put it on and smoothed it over her body. Under the dress she wore thin, tight bicycle shorts. Dancing would sometimes get vigorous and she was no fool. No point in flashing her bosses, the mayor and the governor. Otter was sure that wasn’t good protocol.

The stylist, another client of Tempest’s, did her hair up in pins and small flowers. She assured her that the style would withstand the most vigorous of dance moves.

It should, Otter thought, with the two gallons of hair spray Judy put on it. Once her hair was done, she put on her jewelry and her sparkling dancing shoes. She looked herself over in her full length mirror with satisfaction. She wouldn’t be as stupendous as Tempest, she knew, but she looked pretty damned stunning all the same.

Tempest surprised her in a simple, figure hugging little black dress. She wore a gold belt at her waist and gold jewelry and the heels of her black stilettoes were gold, but nothing flashy.

“I thought I’d go understated for a change,” Tempest said, seeing Otter’s look, “What do you think?”

“You’re still beautiful, maybe more so.”

“Just the look I was going for and you look radiant.”

“I feel radiant,”

“Then let’s go to the ball,” Tempest said dramatically.

Otter laughed just as Bob rang the doorbell to escort her to the party. He was looking pretty spiffy himself, Otter thought. Bob was tall and handsome and at one time they had dated. They had even tried the romance thing but agreed they did much better as friends. So if Bob wasn’t dating anyone and he needed a date for an event, Otter was his default. The same went for Otter if she needed a male partner for something. It worked well for both of them. They started dance lessons together a couple of years before so they could both expand their social horizons and they made a pretty decent dance team.

On the other side of town a man sat at a bar munching pretzels and drinking a cold beer. He looked around the room. He loved this bar, it was
his
bar, and one he’d been going to for years. Sometimes his buddies would meet him here and they would get a booth and eat snack food and bullshit for hours while watching the game on one of the large flat screen televisions placed all around the ceiling.

But today he wanted to be alone. The wife was pissed at him again. Probably on the rag, like she always was, and she was usually bitching about something. They were supposed to go to some fancy party that night. He would be damned if he would go anywhere with her when she was in that mood. He’d just stay there and have his beer and maybe go hang out at a buddy’s house for the night. He’d done it before when she threatened to throw him out of the house--his own house, and could you believe that?

The bartender knew him well enough to keep re-filling his beer and pretzels. He’d been there long enough to know the regulars. So the man kept brooding and drinking and watching the TV behind the bar.

A blond sat next to him and he glanced at her. Big girl, he thought. She looked a little familiar, but he was pleasantly buzzed and it didn’t really matter to him very much. She glanced at him and smiled.

“Buy you a drink?” She said pleasantly. She was certainly homely, but he wasn’t planning to fuck her so what did he care?

“Sure, but I’ve had a head start on you.”

“Then I’ll just have to catch up.” She nodded at the bartender and he brought them both a draft.

He thought it was pretty cool to have some chick buying him drinks. Why the hell not, he asked himself, he was a pretty fucking good catch. Maybe he should call his wife and remind her that there were a lot of women out there looking for a good man. She’d better be careful or she’d be the one out on her own looking for someone else to take her shit. The blond chick toasted him with her beer and smiled before taking a drink. It stirred a memory somewhere in the back of his mind, but he couldn’t gather his brain cells together enough to think about it.

“Haven’t I seen you before?” He said as he picked up his drink. “You look kind of familiar.”

“You’ve probably seen me around; I come to this bar all the time.”

“Yeah, that’s probably it,” he said agreeably but in the back of his mind he wasn’t satisfied with that.

“So,” she said putting her forearms on the bar and her hands around her glass, “what are you doing here all by yourself on a Saturday afternoon?”

“Aw the wife’s pissed at me, so I don’t really want to go home.”

“That’s tough,” she said and nodded in sympathy.

“It’s probably her time of the month,” he said, encouraged, “No offense, but you know how women can get at that time, all cranky and bloated and snotty. They look at you like you eat worms or something.”

“Sure,” the blond said easily, “I know how it can be.”

“And at work, there’s this woman there—most of the time I can work with her and I forget that she’s female and then she does or says something that reminds me and it just pisses me off. Then I can’t stand it; I have to say something to piss her off because she thinks she can do what she wants.”

“That’s a pain in the ass,” the blond smiled. “But you look like you could handle her.”

“You know it sister.” Yeah he could handle her. She was no big deal to him. He took another swig of beer and munched on a few more pretzels. It felt kind of nice to have someone to bitch to. Someone he wouldn’t ever see again and have to go through having to be polite and all that crap and pretend they’re friends. He took out his custom vape pen, carved to look like a civil war cannon and pressed the button to turn it on.