Otter Under Fire (28 page)

“I just don’t understand any of this. He made this so difficult; he was always making things more difficult.”

“I know what you mean,” Otter said. “But I think this may help some.” She sat the lap top on the coffee table in front of Tonya.

“That looks like the computer that belonged to our son, Zachariah,” Tonya said.

“Yes, it has an interesting bit of software on it. It’s kind of Clark’s last will and testament.” Otter said. “You might want to play it after we leave, I have a feeling there’s personal stuff on there meant only for you.”

“How did you get this?”

“Clark left it for me with Jeremy Redding, he told him to give it to me if anything happened to him.”

“But why you,” Tonya asked, “Why didn’t he leave it with me or someone in our family?”

“I don’t know,” Otter said truthfully, “He left me a complicated puzzle to figure out.”

“Did you solve it?”

“Most of it, Mitch is in jail anyway.” Otter said, “But we don’t know where Ron Defray or Mitch’s wife are.”

“Funny you should say that,” Tonya said. “Clark mentioned to me once that he thought that Mitch kept his wife as a prisoner in her own home. He even mentioned a cage once.”

“We didn’t find anything like that when we searched his apartment,” Graham said.

Otter and Tonya looked at Graham.

“Apartment?” They said in unison.

“You should have told me he had a house.” Joel said as Graham drove.

“I didn’t know you didn’t know,” Otter said. “I assumed that’s where you went when you searched his property.”

“His official address is an apartment in central Phoenix, one of the apartment buildings downtown.”

“Nope,” Otter said, “He had a few parties and invited some of us from the shop. It was at a big house near 43
rd
and Cactus. It’s a two story with a pool.”

Troy was pounding on his keyboard as the SUV sped across town. “Addison is going to meet us there with a warrant. I got the address. It belongs to Mihaita and Vicky Balan.”

“I’m sure you didn’t pronounce that right,” Graham said.

“Nobody could pronounce it right,” Otter said, “That’s why he told us to call him Mitch, because it was difficult to pronounce.”

“You have to admit, Charlotte was good at the role she chose.” Joel said.

“If Clark hadn’t gotten involved, none of us would have known any of this.” Otter said.

“I thought Michael said he was a little iffy on the metallurgy,” Tempest said.

“Mitch was a good worker and a good general manger; a few slips wouldn’t have cost him his job necessarily—unless he screwed up an order making a poor judgement call.”

“Makes sense, I guess,” Tempest shrugged.

“Addison says they are at the house now,” Troy said. “They’re setting up a perimeter, even though it looks like nobody’s home.”

“I hope he didn’t kill them,” Joel said. “They would be the only people living that could testify against him.”

“That would be a good reason, then, wouldn’t it?” Tempest said.

Otter didn’t say anything. Her world was turning upside down and she had no idea what to do about it. So far three of her closest co-workers were out of the picture and she wondered how AzTech would survive.

“The cops are in the house but nobody seems to be home.” He paused a moment, “They’ve cleared the front room and the kitchen. A team went upstairs to check out the bedrooms.”

“Wasn’t much of a clue we gave you,” Otter said ruefully to Joel. “Looks like nobody’s home.”

“But we may find valuable evidence,” Joel said, “something that will lead us to the missing people.”

“They’re doing a methodical search now,” Troy reported. “They’re looking though drawers and closets, chances are good they’ll find something interesting.”

Everyone went quiet, as the car sped toward their destination.

“One of the closets off the kitchen leads to a basement.” Troy reported. “Who has a basement in Phoenix?”

“Apparently Mitch does,” Otter said. “It doesn’t sound like anyone told him about hardpan.”
[12]

“I imagine he found out about it quickly enough,” Tempest said, “I’m wondering how he got that thing built with nobody knowing about it.”

“Years ago some homebuilders in this area offered half basements for an extra cost,” Graham said. “However not many homebuyers could afford it so there are very few houses that have them. There are a few, though.”

“Hold on,” Troy said. “It looks like they found something.”

“Don’t leave us in suspense,” Otter said leaning forward. “Tell us.”

“They found a large cage, a lot like a jail cell. It looks like she was keeping someone in it.”

“Dammit Troy, if you don’t tell us…”

“They found him—Ron Defray.”

“Is he alive?”

“Yeah, he’s alive and very pissed.”

“Pissed, why would he be pissed?”

Troy choked out a laugh. “Because he’s wearing hot pink panties and a bra and the words ‘woman hater’ is printed across his forehead in black marker.”

It was actually a pretty clever set-up, Otter thought, if you needed to imprison a human being. Two sides of the cage were concrete walls set underground and two sides were iron bars set in concrete. One of the walls had a door in it that led to a small bathroom without any access to the outside. It had a shower, a toilet and a sink. The door to the cage could be locked and there was a slot built in the door to pass things through such as food and water. A twin sized bed with bedding and a chair and a television completed the little room.

Ron Defray was allowed to get dressed in his own clothes. His uniform had been hanging neatly right across from his prison so he could see it every day.

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.”