Otter Under Fire (14 page)

“Did you have a relationship with Mr. McCartney outside of work?”

“No, I thought he was a pompous, self-satisfied jerk. That is also the reason I didn’t think he killed himself. He thought too highly of himself and killing himself would have made him look weak.”

“I see,”

“Since I know about the blackmail and how he was pressuring my other co-workers, I’ve come to like him less than that even. I wish he were alive so he could face some kind of punishment.”

“Then why do you care that he was ruled a suicide?”

“Because there are four fatherless children now, there is a young man he promised to help, send to college who now doesn’t have those resources and there is a deeply religious family who think their family member killed himself when he may not have. I don’t know a lot about the Mormon faith, but I think that means there’s a big black check mark next to the family name in some kind of celestial book of records.”

“OK,”

“And a decent man in Michigan may also have been murdered for the same reason.”

“What about you?”

“I’m trying not to think about it too much, but I’m worried about my own safety as well. If other people have been killed, I could be a target.”

“Why do you think that would be?”

“Because I was the last person to talk to him before he went to Michigan. At least that’s what his wife thinks. I also got his computer and papers so if there is anything else in there, I could be in the killer’s sights.”

“Anything else?”

“Someone trashed my office over the weekend. They dug through my files and the box that came from Clark’s office.”

“And you don’t know who did it?”

“No,”

“No security cameras?”

“The offices have just been remodeled. They haven’t been connected yet.”

“Have you been blackmailed by the deceased?”

“No, and neither have any of the managers.”

“What do you think about that?”

“I think it’s strange, I would think management would be his main target. I don’t think he’d go for Michael, the owner. Michael would toss him out on the street. That man has no fear, blackmail or not.”

“Do you know of anyone who would want to cause Clark harm?”

“Clark wasn’t a popular guy, detective. I would imagine a lot of people wanted to cause him harm. He had a way about him.”

“So you think the list is long?”

“I think he was killed by someone he tried to blackmail. He stepped into something way over his head. I don’t know which person on that list it would be, but he had a way of pissing people off.

“I also mentioned to the widow that maybe Clark was sick. He took a year off with lung cancer and was in remission, I suspect that something metastasized in his brain and he became delusional—calling himself Christ’s Sword and thinking he was doing all of this for everyone’s good.”

“You’re certainly put a lot of time into thinking about this.”

“It keeps coming up. It shows up in my office at work, it shows up on my porch at home. I can’t leave it be, someone wants me to think about it.”

“I may have to interview a few people at your place of employment,” Detective Addison said.

“Mitch, our general manager may freak out,” Otter said, “He hates disruption to the shop, but Michael the owner will be ok with it. He wants to see this all put right.”

Just then the doorbell rang.

“Excuse me a minute,” Otter said as she got up and walked to the front door. She looked outside to see Joel on her front porch.

“What are you doing here?”

“I thought we were supposed to have dinner tonight.”

“Uh, no, you never said what day. You just gave me directions.” She opened the door for him. “I’m busy right now.”

“So I see,” He strode across the room with his hand out, “Hello Addison, it’s good to see you.”

“Joel Buchanan, I didn’t expect to see you here. Do you know this young lady?”

“We’re friends,” Joel said easily, “And we have plans to go out for dinner tonight. I didn’t realize you would be here.”

“I decided to look into this case and I needed to question Miss Ottenberger in order to make an informed decision.”

“I’m glad someone’s looking into it,” Joel said. We were beginning to worry about Miss Ottenberger’s safety.”

“There is certainly some suspicious activity,” Addison said.

“I can go hang out by the pool,” Joel said, “I don’t want to interfere.”

“No, that’s ok. I think we’re done for now,” the detective said. “If I have any further questions, I will contact you, Miss Ottenberger.”

“Thank you,” Otter said and saw him out.

She turned and walked back into the living room. “You knew he was here, we didn’t have plans for dinner.”

“We could have had plans,” he said with a grin, “You may have just forgotten.”

“Don’t bullshit me Joel.”

“OK, yes I knew he was here and I came deliberately so he would know that I know you. There, happy?”

“Why would you do that?

“I was just giving you a little leverage, in case there is any reason to doubt you.”

“Why would he doubt me? I’m about a credible as they come. I hope you didn’t piss him off by showing up here.”

“Nope, Chris is very even tempered. He’ll be on your side, even if it doesn’t look like it now.”

“Ok,” Otter shrugged. “You made me forget something I was about to mention to him when you rang the doorbell.”

“What was that?”

“We need to find out how Clark worked. Did he put someone on the list before or after he contacted them? Better yet are some of these people potentials or did he talk to everyone?”

“Why would that make a difference?”

“Because if he upset someone who killed him, it would either be the last entry on his list or he has the files somewhere to put together all his evidence. I’m betting that the person we’re looking for isn’t on the master list yet.”

“It’s so good to see you again, Tempest,” James Lawson said when she walked into the front door.

“Of course, it is,” she said. She was glad she wore the rose silk with the matching champagne jacket. It hinted at money and wealth.

“I miss you every day,” James said earnestly, “you still are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”

“I just came for the papers,” Tempest reminded him. She might have believed him if there wasn’t evidence that he had had female company the night before. James sleeping with someone else didn’t bother her so much, but the idea that a strange woman might be petting her dogs bothered her a lot.

“Right, right,” he said giving her one more admiring glance. “They’re in my office, give me just a minute.”

“I need to freshen up, if you don’t mind,” she called after him, “I came here right after my flight.”

“Sure, help yourself,” his voice drifted from the other side of the huge house.

She went down the hall to the large master bedroom that had once been hers. She used the facilities and patted herself down with a damp towel and re-applied her makeup. Coming out of the master bathroom, she glanced around the ruthlessly organized bedroom. She saw his favorite pair of running shoes just inside his closet. Glancing around to make sure she wasn’t seen, she took one shoe and put it in her cavernous handbag. She took another shoe out of her purse and put it under the bed on what used to be her side and made her way back out to the main part of the house.

Tempest straightened her clothing while she waited for him to come back. James never said anything, but she suspected the continued movement of his belongings was chipping away at his sanity.

“Here you go,” he said bringing out a manila envelope. “We could make this all easier and just get back together.”

“If it didn’t work the first time, what makes you think it would work if I came back?”

“I don’t know, I just wish it would.”

“You treated me like I was a thing, a personal possession,” she said taking the envelope. “And by the puzzled look in your eyes you still don’t know what I’m talking about.”

“I don’t understand. You had everything you wanted.”

“Not everything, James, and that’s why I left. Can I see my puppies before I go?”

“They’re at the groomers,” James said apologetically, “I didn’t know you would be here until an hour ago. Otherwise they would have been here too.”

The puppies, two 3 year old golden retrievers were her dogs she acquired during their marriage. They had joint custody since the divorce.

“I will pick them up next week.”

“You know I’m not comfortable with them staying at your place.”

“We’ve been through this before.”

“Yes, but you let them run around that back yard unsupervised by a professional. They jump in the pool with that, that police dog.”

“He’s a purebred.”

“Still, who knows where he’s been and what he’s been touching. And then they come into the house with cats. No respectable dog hangs around with cats.”

“Yeah, I see your point, cats might teach them to smoke and drink.”

“I just don’t want them to grow up to be pussies.”

Tempest felt a headache coming on. If she could, she would take him to divorce court all over again just to emphasize how much she didn’t want to be married to him.

“I’ll be back a week from Tuesday to pick them up. Five o’clock sharp.” She said. She walked to the front door and left. She should have put a hole in his socks while she was at it.

“I’m glad you came to dinner with me anyway,” Joel said as they took their seats, “Even though we didn’t have plans.”

“I told you it’s been a while since I’ve had Chinese food, and this place is supposed to be very good.

“So tell me about yourself.” He said with a charming smile. “How did you and Tempest meet?”

“We were in middle school together. A teacher put us together to do a science project together and we hit it off.”

“She’s not home tonight?”

“She’s on another business trip. She’s supposed to be back tonight, after she stops off at her ex-husband’s.”

“She reminds me a lot of my ex-wife.” He laughed to himself, “We didn’t get along very well.”

“I see,”

“Only took a few weeks of being married to find out we really weren’t suited to each other. We ended up hating each other.”

“That’s too bad.”

“Listening to you talk about Tempest and seeing the two of you talk to each other makes me understand why things went so wrong with Candace—my ex. Hindsight is always 20/20, but I’ve realized that we weren’t even a little bit compatible.”

“I’m sorry.”

“What about you?” he asked.

The appetizers came to the table, so Otter helped herself to a crab angel and dipped it in sweet and sour sauce.

“What about me, what?”

“Have you been married?”

“Once,”

“Let me guess, you had a nasty divorce when you found out he couldn’t do long division properly.”

“No, he was killed in Afghanistan.”

“Ah, I am sorry.”

“Me too,”

“How long has it been?”

“About eleven years now.”

“You were young.” He took a spring roll and dipped it in sauce. “That must have been very hard.”

Otter shrugged. “I doubt it’s easy at any age.”

Sensing a wall, Joel tried another tactic. “So tell me about Tempest’s divorce. That sounds like it could be an interesting story.”

“In some ways it is. Tempest married a really rich guy.” She said, taking another crab angel, “Generational money and he’s now the head of the family corporations and trust. He’s about twelve years older than her, I think. At first he jokingly called her his trophy wife. I hate that term. Like she was an award for something he did.”

“Some women are flattered when they are called trophy wives.”

“Yeah, well, it takes all kinds.”

“You wouldn’t want to be a trophy wife if you married again?”

“I’d rather be an accomplished wife. Whoever I marry had better appreciate me as someone with brains and achievements of my own.”

“Well said.”

“It didn’t take long for Tempest to realize that ‘trophy wife’ was her title and he called her that all the time. Treated her like she was a possession to be shined and polished when he took her out to show her off. He wasn’t interested in her opinion or thoughts. He just gave her money when she complained.

“She finally threw a fit and told him he had to call her by name, no more of the cute nickname. So he started calling her ‘Temp’. A week of that and she filed for divorce and left him.

“I had just ended my relationship with my boyfriend at the time—he had left for parts unknown—and I had a few weeks to find a new place. Tempest and I decided to pool our resources and buy the duplex we live in now. It had been repossessed by the bank which was one of the many corporations her husband controlled. He actually helped us get it, really decent loans and all.”

“That’s unusual.”

“He kept thinking she would get it out of her system and go back to him. I think he still thinks that.”

“Susan said you totally renovated the house.” Joel prompted.

“It was a mess when we took possession. Tempest’s creativity had been repressed for a number of years and I’m always thinking up ideas. We planned and we schemed over the scaled drawings. We had so much fun.”

“You did a good job on it.”

“Thank you, we think so. Tempest started her marketing business back up, but she had been out of it for years so she’s had to bust her butt to get her business off the ground.”

“And more power to her.”

“She does pretty well. I expect in about ten years she will be quite wealthy.”

“You might be right. It seems like she’s on her way.”

“I think so.”

Joel cleared his throat, “Asking you to dinner was a ruse, there was actually something I wanted to talk to you about.”

“What would that be?”

“There is this big October dance in a couple weeks.”

“Yeah, I’m going. I already have a date.”

“You do?” Joel looked so shocked, she had to laugh. She wondered if she should find it amusing or be insulted that he would think she couldn’t get a date before he showed up.

“Yes, one of my customers,” Otter said, “he and I go dancing together once in a while.”

“I’m disappointed,” he said, “How did you get tickets?”

“One of the manufacturing associations my company belongs to is a sponsor. Clark got 10 sets of tickets to distribute. Michael and his wife, Mitch and his wife, I--and I was supposed to bring a date. I got a pair for Tempest since she wouldn’t forgive me if I didn’t get her in, Clark had a pair and Michael gave the rest out to some high muckity-mucks at some other companies. Arizona Techno-Thermal will be well represented.”

“Then we’ll see you there.”

“We?”

“Graham and Troy will be there too.”

“And how did you all get tickets? None of you are in manufacturing.”

“Troy has connections. He could get tickets to an orgy at the Governor’s mansion if he wanted to.”

“Gee, what fun that would be.” Otter rolled her eyes.

“Might be interesting, you never know who you’ll meet at an event like that.”

“Be hard to hide a camera or a cell phone.”

“I am so disappointed in you,” Joel said, shaking his head sadly, “I thought you had more imagination than that.”

“Of all the things I never want to see, a bunch of naked politicians is right at the top of my list,” Otter said.

“That’s good to know,” Joel said, munching on his spring roll.

“What that I don’t go to orgies?”

“Well that too.”

“So how long were you in the army?”

“Close to 20 years.” He narrowed his eyes; he hadn’t told her he’d been in the service.

“So are you going to tell me what’s up?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Of your two best friends, one is a crazy engineer with an abundance of manic energy.”

“Good assessment.”

“He looks like he should have pointed ears.”

Joel laughed out loud.

“Yes, I supposed he does.”

“Troy is quieter, but he has a look about him. There is a little wickedness there too.”

“True.”

“I know that look; I have a crazy guy a lot like him at work. He’s got to be your IT guy or computer hacker. If he can get tickets to anything, I’m thinking he does well with a keyboard and mouse.”

Joel was watching her carefully now, but he was still smiling.

“Go on,” he said.

“You are athletic, well all three of you are—more than most thirty somethings--but you must be the muscle. Not Army Ranger muscle, I don’t see you living on roots and bugs out in the wilderness.”

“No, that didn’t appeal to me,” he murmured.

“I’m thinking more like the guy who can kill a room full of people with a spoon kind of muscle, more martial arts type of thing.”

“The problem with spoons like this,” Joel said holding up the ceramic soup spoon shaped like a ladle, “is that it’s hard to kill with. You really need the steel ones they have at most banquets.”

“You aren’t planning to kill anyone at the ball, are you?”

“As long as everyone uses the right fork and spoon, I’ll be ok. I hate to see flatware misused.”

“You’re laughing at me.”

“Because you’re amusing,”

“And you handle yourself well in strange situations. You have an ease with body language and dealing with people, a lot like a project coordinator, and you’ve been following me.”

“You can’t prove that.”

“This isn’t a court of law,” Otter said easily, “there is no judge here, but I know about algorithms and how nobody really has privacy any more. It would be no problem for anyone who really knew their shit to find out what I would be doing at any given time. They would also be able to figure out what restaurant I’m likely to go to when I’ve had a long day and Tempest isn’t home. Or follow Tempest’s blog and Twitter account to see which of her events I will be attending as her assistant. They would even be able to make a fake 911 call to get me out of a fetish ball so they didn’t have to come inside and find me.

“I also know by watching the three of you relate to each other that you very well could have been boyhood friends years ago, but you are more like a team right now. I suspect that when I had dinner with the three of you, it was more like an interview.”

“And yet you aren’t running for the exit.”

Otter shrugged and took a sip of her soup. “Susan said she’s known you for years, so you must have been in the army together-- she hasn’t been out of the military for very long. As far as I know, she’s my friend, so I’m laboring under the assumption that she wouldn’t set me up with someone who meant me harm. But I could be wrong there.”