So... William is okay with us...?" Nellie asked as softly as possible as Martha went about looking the clothing she'd need for the school's gym class.
"Yes," Martha answered back, "we have a rather open marriage now. I needed it to become a werecat. Is John okay with this?"
"Heh," Nellie gave a chuckle, "we had an open marriage before we left Minnesota."
Martha only gave a small chuckle at that.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Meanwhile, at City Hall, there were more frustrating issues at hand. Most of this related to the planned Harper/Jenkins wedding and the various side issues that came along with it. The prime thing being that a rich man in Alabama that had had something of a odd crush and fixation on Jenny seemed to be stalking her with agents likely in Moon Lake to murder Jenny's fiancee, Harry. Everyone in the room knew that Jenny's family had the potential to be difficult, but they also had the sense that Dieter Wilhelm was far worse.
The problem was that they had no evidence that would hold up in a court of law. They had evidence that the first agent had the potential to be violent based on his activity and the fact that his own transportation wasn't from Alabama or Washington State, but that was only with the first agent. They had nothing on the second agent or on Dieter Wilhelm beyond base suspicion based on what Jenny had told them. That wouldn't be enough to bring the second agent in for even questioning. He might be bad, but for the moment they had no proof that would hold up in court.
"Is there any way we could remove this second agent?" Akane asked to Chief O'Hara, "Deceive the agent?"
"We have the technology to do so, but I'd say we're on thin ice with regard to legal issues and the potential other consequences even they are legal..."
"Because the original agent is dead," Akane said slowly.
"We'd be on thin ice legally?" Katherine Chambers, Moon Lake's Deputy Mayor asked.
"The evidence we have that Dieter Wilhelm is trouble is limited to miss Harper's word against his, not solid evidence," Chief O'Hara answered, "we might be able to claim that based on the actions of the first agent, but the evidence we have there that links him and thus this second agent to Wilhelm is again miss Harper's word, which Wilhelm can deny and unless we get the FBI helping us or cooperation from local police units in Alabama we can't cross reference the numbers we've gotten from miss Harper and from the first agent's phone with records that can be confirmed as Wilhelm's number."
"Couldn't we check a phone book or an online directory?" Samantha asked.
"That might confirm the number, but that's first assuming that his number is listed," Chief O'Hara answered, "and if his company or his home that is listed uses a land line, we have no way confirming that the calls come from Wilhelm himself or from an employee and without the proof, we can't justify a sting operation with the second agent on it."
The sighs given by the people in the room were heard by all that were there, but the serious look on Chief O'Hara's face did not fade. Samantha noticed and knew that that meant there was more.
"There is also the potential that playing games with a DEAD man's phone could also raise eyebrows, especially without additional evidence we do not have," Chief O'Hara continued, "and I'm not sure the law would even approve of the first effort to try and deceive Wilhelm with the phone."
"That was when we thought he might contently sit by and wait until the day he and the Harpers are expected to come up for the wedding," Akane commented, "and was thought would give us peace and protect our secrecy..."
"And prevent more meetings like this, I know," Chief O'Hara nodded, "I understand that. But it would seem that things have come back with tougher than expected consequences. And if this second agent wants to physically meet the first, it's not as if the deception plan can fully work. The first agent is dead and we have no man that looks like him... and even if we did, we still have him as a John Doe. We have no idea who he is or how he thinks."
"Which this second agent would surely know," Akane sighed heavily and idly tapped her fingers on the table top.
"Perhaps a different form of deception might work," Yamato offered.
The others looked up to the male werefox. Once he was assured that he had their full attention he began to explain.
"Instead of luring him to somewhere and trying to engineer conditions that he could be arrested on, perhaps it would do better to make the man think it is too dangerous to do anything," Yamato spoke, "say to make him think that Chief O'Hara's presence is larger than what he would expect and that undercover officers are heavily monitoring him. Chief O'Hara could keep one officer assigned to watch him and keep tabs on him as needed, but he would think that practically anyone or everyone near him is either one of our Security Services or the town's police."
"Make him too nervous to actually do anything?" Chief O'Hara asked.
"Yes," Yamato nodded, "this guy may find such an action surprising and will probably report it to Wilhelm, but he may be concerned enough that he wait until Wilhelm actually arrives here where he will inevitably walk into the teeth of the security we've laid around the wedding."
There were a few nods that showed agreement with Yamato's idea, though there would certainly be other pressures to handle. Samantha soon brought that up.
"What of Harry and Jenny?" Samantha asked, "even if we can be sure that this agent won't try anything violent while he thinks he could be near an undercover cop, we can be sure that he will try to spy on Jenny or Harry."
"If this Wilhelm guy wants Jenny as his," Katherine Chambers commented slowly, "than the only one who is truly in mortal danger is young Mr. Jenkins. He won't try to grab Jenny Harper, because that would mean needing to subdue an unwilling victim that could lead to a fight he cannot win. But if he's to kill Harry Jenkins... he can just do a quick drive by... pull the trigger to kill him and drive off before we could initiate pursuit. Keeping him safe and secure until the wedding would be our best option. It'd also serve to really counter this agent's mission. He can drive around Moon Lake as much as he pleases, but if he can't find or get at Harry... his role has failed."
"He'd fail... but people, were or normal, generally prefer their freedom," Chief O'Hara said slowly, "and with a young pair in love... it'd be hard to keep them separate from each other for the rest of the week."
"Could we not try to bait this new agent into attempting to assault a "fake" Harry the way we did with the first?" Katherine Chambers wondered.
"That would only work if we know where he is going and can set the stage for it to minimize potential damage caused," Yamato commented, "I've discussed this with the Tachibana Security Office leaders and privately with Daisuke... and we agreed to wait until we got more information on this new agent through observation. As... he could be the sort to fire first and confirm things later."
"A smart move," Chief O'Hara commented, "though, I'd assume that this conversation was had BEFORE you found out that this new agent is texting our dead John Doe."
Yamato nodded.
"Then for the moment, let's move with a pattern of observation on this new agent," Chief O'Hara spoke, "Yamato can send the text to make him think that we're the capital for undercover cops and that a face to face meeting would be too risky and we can continue to observe him and see what his patterns are. If he stays around town or goes camping somewhere... or goes looking for where our John Doe camped, we can keep eyes on him and hopefully ears. Once we get a pattern we can try a fact finding mission with our decoy Jenny Harper to see what this guy is up to. If he gets hostile or reveals the full extent of his job in plain language we can move into a sting... but for the moment observations and information gathering will be the best bet."
"I'll also get in touch with the College and see if they can get in touch with Harry and Jenny," Samantha commented, "see if Harry has any place safe that isn't connected to his family that he could go and stay at until the wedding."
There were plenty of nods of agreement, but it was also clear that there would be much to do on this front that would be difficult. Especially with the issues in Seattle still hanging over them.