Things began fairly early at the Moon Lake police department. Chief O'Hara had further phone contacts with Agent Theodore Green and the FBI concerning their hunt for Lionel Ulysses, and the Police chief did agree to dispatch an officer to Seattle to assist in the arrest and capture of the criminal wererat. Their main mission, however, remained with the security issues that presently revolved around the coming Harper/Jenkins wedding on Halloween, which had the police in fairly close cooperation with Tachibana Industries Security personnel.
"So, your grandmother thinks we can keep things calm?" Chief O'Hara asked to the black suited Japanese American man seated across from him.
"Yes, though the idea wasn't exactly my grandmother's," Yamato Tachibana spoke, "From what I was told, it originated from Jennifer Harper, wanting to play her role in our defense as well."
Chief O'Hara blinked and then nodded. He remembered reading the reports that came in during the hunt for Yvette Smith that reported that the rogue werefox had clawed Jennifer Harper in the hopes of distracting the police or the Skulk. It was a less than desired way to join were society and one of the things that Moon Lake always wanted to be avoided, as incidents like that fed many of the old folklore tales of were-beasts being either blood thirsty savages or pure lust driven rapists. He also knew that legally speaking, Jennifer Harper would be well within her legal rights to bring a massive civil lawsuit against Moon Lake for not only keeping the secret but for failing to protect her as well. Thankfully, it seemed as though she was not only adjusting well but was embracing that she was a were now, herself.
"Well, that is some good news," Chief O'Hara commented, "do you think the idea will work?"
"I would think that it will," Yamato nodded, "we know that our dead John Doe was in fact alone and that Dieter Wilhelm has no other contacts in the area..."
"He wouldn't have sent the guy here if he already had a spy here," Chief O'Hara commented, "and while he may be a big fish in his part of Alabama... I've seen nothing about him on any national level, so its even less likely that there would be anyone here in Washington State that owes him favors."
Yamato nodded, "Which then makes it likely Mr. Wilhelm is expecting some contact with his agent at some point. We have his phone and it did take us some time, but we were able to get through what security encryption in it... and that means we could be able to put together a text message that could give Mr. Wilhelm the impression that whatever plans he has are functioning perfectly..."
"Which would keep things calm and in control until the wedding," Chief O'Hara finished, "I can understand that."
"The real question," Yamato spoke in a very serious tone, "is on whether or not we can legally do so."
Chief O'Hara nodded and knew that that would be an issue. In a way, doing so would be fraudulent, and they didn't have enough legal probable cause regarding a bigger criminal action on Dieter Wilhelm's part to justify it easily. It was a possibility, based on what had been reported on Jennifer Harper's family and connections to Alabama, but there wasn't enough say that they could do it as a sting operation, at least with regard to an actual legal issues. The issues in doing so was more with regard to Moon Lake's security and the personal threats Dieter Wilhelm posed to Jennifer Harper. If they could keep the legal jurisdiction limited to Moon Lake, that'd work out, but that would a difficult thing since Moon Lake was in Washington State and Dieter Wilhelm was in Alabama.
"In terms of the pure letter of the law... it'll be difficult, if not impossible," Chief O'Hara commented, "we don't have enough probable cause to assume that Mr. Wilhelm would commit a major crime to justify such an action. We know that he may want to disrupt the wedding, but we can't know for sure that he would want to commit a crime..."
"His agent would sure give some probable cause, I would think," Yamato commented.
"Some, but not enough," Chief O'Hara pointed out, "I did some checking... is that while your assessment of his past and family history is correct, he isn't wanted for any crimes at present in Alabama. Therefore, to undertake such measures here based on what Jennifer Harper fears could be taken as profiling. As for all we know, our John Doe was simply a poor choice and Mr. Wilhelm didn't know about his agent's criminal behavior."
Yamato sighed and nodded, though there was something else in the police chief's voice that hinted at something more than what was said. He remained quiet for the moment and let the Police Chief continue.
"However, we still have Moon Lake's security to take things into account and the potential that would come potential mess that could come out of a major interruption of the ceremonies," Chief O'Hara said with a heavy sigh, "We can assume that Mr. Wilhelm won't be accepting of Jennifer Harper choosing someone other than himself... So, I will okay the deception on the grounds of probable cause based on what we've uncovered already and the need to make sure that we can't have any civil unpleasantness lead to our secrets being exposed."
Chief O'Hara had some concerns on the issue of trying to catch Lionel Ulysses as well, but for the moment, that wasn't the major issue yet. The main issue for the moment was still keeping things calm for the wedding and pretty much closing up the issues that related to it. Yamato nodded in acceptance of the command. There were good reasons behind the Police Chief's concerns with regard to the law and why they made him somewhat hesitant with regard the deception.
"If things come down to it and you can't get easy jurisdictional issues, you can claim that our security services acted independently and without full knowledge on the jurisdictional issues," Yamato answered, "less embarrassing for you if things go south."
Chief O'Hara blinked and then nodded.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Meanwhile in Alabama, Dieter Wilhelm calmly went through a number of the power reports. His family had benefited from winning the lottery for their wealth, but they weren't in a massive mansion. The house was large when compared to the others in the area, but it wasn't a major mansion. They largely lived on the salary of owning the power company which helped keep them balanced and created a look of being beneficial to the people as a whole. His primary concern, though, was with regard to his desire to Jennifer Harper. She was a fairly cute woman who came from a family he knew he could control and knew tried to be controlling over her and her siblings. That was all part of the attraction, and the fact that she was blond haired and blue eyed didn't hurt things either.
Of course, there were some issues that he had to deal with with regard to the Harpers. Jenny and James Jr. were both somewhat rebellious with regard to their father, and Jenny especially so. Dieter remembered the pain of blow that Jenny had delivered to his nuts in the past. Her father's comment of playing hard to get made some sense to Dieter, but that didn't make the blow hurt less. This meant that he would need to play all his cards carefully. Jenny might still be playing coy and hard to get and James Jr. was more likely to block his father's actions even if it meant blocking what Dieter wanted. He couldn't play things directly, which was why he sent his agent, Mark Wilson in the first place.
Wilson was supposed to commit the crime and get away, or at least keep enough tabs on Jenny so that Dieter would know how to handle the situation when he and the family arrived. They expected to arrive either late the night before the wedding or in the morning of the day of the wedding. If Wilson had managed to kill this Harry Jenkins, Dieter could then play the role of the hero and "rescue" Jenny from his own henchmen, which Jenny of course wouldn't know about. If he was only able to get information, Dieter might be able to persuade James Sr. that the man was definitely taking advantage of Jenny and stealing her from her family. It might not win him points with Jenny directly, but James Sr. would surely thank him anything that James Jr. did to protect Jenny would be irrelevant.
However, he hadn't heard from Mark Wilson in a while and was beginning to wonder how his agent was fairing. At one point he even worried that the people in this "Moon Lake" were paying fairly decent attention and caught the man, which would be trouble as he wouldn't have the info needed to secure Jenny for himself. He did his best not to let his concerns distract him from his main job, but there were times when he had to go back and refile something on his desk as he waited for a call in from his agent. Some of this had him fairly tense and when his cellphone did ring, he actually jumped in surprise.
"Finally," Dieter said calmly, set down the papers he'd been looking at and picked up his phone.
He found that it wasn't a direct call but a text message, though it did come from Mark Wilson. It read: "Things going as planned, but town is has good cops. Can only observe 4 now. Will have full report to send via email l8r."
Dieter mentally shrugged and hit the reply button on his phone, "Very well. Make sure it's sent before the family and I leave, as originally planned. I need all I can get to make her mine."
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
"It looks like Mr. Wilhelm did have some arrangement with our John Doe," Yamato commented as Dieter's reply came in, "I can't be sure on what exactly... beyond the most likely being information gathering, but it would imply that there was some plan in the works."
"We'd need to get Wilhelm to actually confess to a conspiracy before we can anything legally," Chief O'Hara commented, "which isn't our mission here."
"Yes," Yamato nodded, "We'll try to have a draft of this report that Mr. Wilhelm wants by Thursday and will send it early Friday morning."
Chief O'Hara nodded at that.