"Man... I forgot how early your days start," Moe yawned as he rode along in Daniel's car as he made a U turn to head back down the streets that made up the town's wagon wheel shape, "Why do you always take the day/morning shift again?"
"So I can have more time for Francine and Peter," Daniel answered, "It's why when we were in Brooklyn why we were able to come to many of your parties and get togethers."
Moe nodded as he thought of happier times, before some mobster thought it a good idea to bully him and his family to get at his daughter, especially after she said "no" and then chase him and his family around the country. Back when the biggest problem was making sure the produce was fresh and the oven hot. He was lost in that for a moment or two as he looked over to Daniel who managed a small but assuring smile.
"Don't worry we got good coffee and they'll share all you'd like," Daniel assured him as he pulled of the road and into a parking lot, making Moe blink a bit in surprise. As he looked out through the windshield he could see the sign on the building that Daniel had pulled up to. It read: Moon Lake Police Station. It made Moe blink hard as they'd barely driven much more than a block. They were next to one of the curving central roads and Moe glanced over his shoulder to see a nice looking city park, but he was still surprised at how close they were to the Moon Lake Police Station.
"But... we're only a block or so from your house," Moe stated slowly.
"Ha," Daniel laughed, "You sound as if you didn't expect it to be here. You drove past it yesterday."
Moe remembered the family's arrival in Moon Lake and meeting with Daniel again as part of the welcome and ultimately following Daniel to where their present home was. He had to admit that he really hadn't been looking around at the time, especially as he was trying to figure out what might "pop out of the woodwork" that could represent the Gambonis or some other mobster hopping out of the woodwork. He found that Daniel held no grudge against him and lead him into the station.
"Don't worry," Daniel kept his smile, "Lots of people tend to get turned around here... especially since it's been laid out like a wagon wheel. It was odd for me when I first moved in too."
"Why is it laid out that way?" Moe wondered.
"In a sense to let everyone bond with nature as it were," Daniel answered softly, "lets deer have places to live in town and giving predatory weres food to hunt if that is what they want to do."
"Weres hunt deer?" Moe asked as he followed him through the station.
"And we have a whole system worked out that keeps the population up," Daniel answered, "the manner is actually closer to ranching with deer as the animal being raised... but that's a different issue."
He then paused with a large rectangular room where there were a couple of other uniformed officers already there and Moe could smell coffee brewing in there. There were three round wood tables with chairs set around them on a tiled floor that had a few scuff marks on it, but Moe figured for guys putting their lives on the line every day, accidentally scuffing tile wasn't a big thing. Daniel gestured to room before he explained.
"This is the break room, if Tara isn't in you can wait here until she is in and she can look at your phone," Daniel explained and then stuck his head in and asked the officers that were already there, "Hey guys, is Tara in?"
"Not yet," came the answer, "who's your buddy? He looks a little lost."
At this point Daniel pulled him in before three male officers and one female officer. All looked as fit and as healthy as Daniel, and while the standard police uniform was not designed to draw attention to it, it was pretty clear that the female officer was well endowed. Moe guessed they were all weres.
"Guys, this Moe Charleston," Daniel introduced, "the fine restauranteur who's responsible for the best pizzas in New York City!"
That sort of made Moe blush a bit, though he also noted that all of them looked intrigued by what Daniel had said.
"This the guy who you said makes the best pizza?" the female officer asked with nods from the others.
"The one and only," Daniel answered, "but with the Gamboni crime family after him and his family... he hasn't been able to share his gift for pizza that much."
The growls were almost instinctive.
"No mobsters will pull that kinda crap here!" one of the male officers vowed with a clinched fist, "they're almost as bad a rogue were!"
Moe watched as the others nodded in agreement with some degree of surprise. He'd gotten some understanding that Moon Lake's weres wouldn't like it when a were went rogue. Daniel had something about a female werefox scratching a college professor and female college student as part of a borderline "rampage" that had seemed to only recently been solved, and that the town had been on edge with regard to the possibility of having to commit the entire town's population to hunt and kill the rogue were. That sort of thing would make some sense if they were trying to show that weres weren't like how they were in the movies, which for Moon Lake was something they would do.
However, the thing that surprised him was how much many of the others were willing to stand up to defend him. He had expected Daniel to want to protect him, as they had been friends for years. However, these officers were total strangers and they seemed more than willing to defend him and his family with the same ferocity as Moe expected from personal friends like Daniel. It was surprising, especially considering the sort of reputation that the Gambonis had for killing people when they had to. He stood there silent for a few moments and then looked to Daniel, who was still smiling.
"See... I toldya you'd be safe," Daniel gave a smile, "and if you make good pizza, you'll make a lot of money. Anyway... I gotta go on shift. You may have to wait here for a little while. Tara Strange is our tech officer and she is pretty good... Whatever Albert Gamboni did... she should at least be able to identify it... if not fix it completely and remove the bug. If she can't get it out but can identify it, she'll make a call for help with Stovall Systems. And they CAN handle just about anything tech related. And when all that's done, Tara can take you to our dispatch area and the dispatch officer will get you through to me and I'll be back to take you home. Sound good?"
"Sure, thanks," Moe answered slowly as Dan nodded and then headed out.
Moe eventually made his way to pour himself a cup of coffee. He had to settle for a Styrofoam cup, but he didn't mind and the present officers were also quite accepting of his presence. Another of the males patted Moe's shoulder while finishing his coffee and heading out as well.
"Don't worry, Daniel's reported to us on your situation and the Chief has briefed the department," the male officer assured him, "we'll be on alert for any sign of these Gambonis. And given their reputation, while we've had to make some emails, we do have photographs of them, so if any of them stumble in Moon Lake long enough to search... we will recognize them."
"And we won't let him hurt ya," the first male officer added his assurances as well.
"Thank you," Moe answered politely.
He was grateful for the promises of protection, and in a way he did feel assured by the fact that these officers were so openly willing to protect him and his family. It helped with some of the concerns over dealing with Moon Lake's were factor, but he also knew that the Gambonis were a different entity entirely and not one that Moe would even consider giving a chance. Other law enforcement agencies had offered protection and admittedly did try hard, but often couldn't get or keep the evidence needed to put any of the Gambonis in jail for more than a day or two. On officer in San Francisco had even been killed. His body had been found in the harbor area, and while there was some evidence of human involvement and thus murder, that had proved circumstantial and there were even some theories that the officer had been killed by a shark. The exact details, however, didn't matter to Moe. The fact remained that the Gambonis had been able to pursue him and his family.
"And hopefully you do get your pizza shop running," the female officer commented, "Moon Lake has a place... DiMaggio's... but even they can get swamped from time to time. Particularly at times when a lot of people are ordering a lot of pizza."
"Well... I was told Moon Lake was a college town," Moe managed a smile as he sat down and did his best to make small talk, "I figured college students would like pizza..."
"It's not just the college students," the female officer smiled, "with our high metabolisms, we weres can put away a lot of food and not gain weight. And that can mean that certain times of the year, like the Halloween... which is coming up... were there are more orders, that's when DiMaggio's gets overloaded on orders and their service slows. If your pizza is as good as Daniel has told us, having your pizza shop here will be good for everyone."
With that, she finished her coffee and made her way out, waving politely as she did so. That ultimately left Moe alone in the police station's break room. He sat quietly and sipped his coffee, knowing that Daniel had already told him that he might have to wait a bit for the tech officer, who he now knew was named "Tara Strange." The coffee wasn't too bad, though it did taste rather strong and far stronger than Moe normally took his coffee, but he wasn't going to complain about something he hadn't made and from equipment he didn't own.
After a few moments a blonde haired woman entered the break room, though Moe noticed a few things that stood out to him about her. First of all, she was an inch or two shorter than Nichole was. Second she wore glasses and unlike many of the women in Moon Lake that he'd met that happened to be weres, she lacked the well toned muscles, wide hips, and large bust line. In this, Moe got the sense that this officer wasn't a were, though he couldn't tell for sure. She wore the same blue uniform that the other Moon Lake officers did and he noticed the name "Strange" on a patch above one of her jacket pockets.
"Are you Tara Strange?" Moe ventured to ask as she made her way toward the coffee pot and winced when the woman jumped in surprise, "Sorry."
"No... it's my fault," the woman answered, "I didn't see you there. Yes, I'm officer Tara Strange, Moon Lake PD Technical Officer. You're... Moe Charleston, right?"
"How...?" Moe wondered.
"The entire department's been briefed on your family's situation and Officer Brooks was the one who's done a lot to get the department to get things ready," Tara answered, "so you could say we've all heard a lot about you... Though I didn't think I would actually be seeing you here today..."
"Well... I heard last night about some things..." Moe said slowly, "The Gambonis have figured out my family's here in Washington State but they don't know precisely where. Their tech guy... Albert Gamboni went snooping around Fort Wolfe and got himself arrested, where they confiscated items as part of the arrest that indicated they had somehow gotten a tracker on my phone."
"Or a bug that would serve the purpose," Tara nodded and poured herself a cup of coffee and doctored it with coffee-mate while Moe watched. She turned to him as she finished, "Come with me to my office and I'll take a look at your phone. Typical tracers can function in one of two ways. One, they've put a physical device IN the phone that sends out a traceable signal, on that they'd likely already know to look for, and in some phones, you'd actually be surprised at how much room is actually in them for the placing of such a device. The second, is to simply send an email with a specialized virus that would result in uploading a program into whatever device you answered the email on sending a report on your location... I'll need to look at your phone in order to figure out which is which."
Moe slowly nodded and followed Tara out of the break room. She lead him to a modest sized office with a wooden desk and a fairly modern looking computer, though what drew the most of Moe's attention were the boxes of anti-virus software and computer manuals that were on the shelves of the bookcases along one wall. A part of him figured it wouldn't be too far removed from a Best Buy store with all the stuff that was there. He was still looking at all this as he pulled his phone from his pocket and offered it to Tara.
"Ungh," Tara grunted as she looked at the phone and the company logo on the front as she accepted the phone, "You might want to just dump this phone regardless. The company your with doesn't get the best reception here, regardless of whatever the Gambonis did to your phone."
That pulled Moe's attention away from anti-virus boxes and computer manuals and back to Tara who was now looking over his phone. He had noticed reduced reception as his family had made their way into the Cascade Mountains on their way to Moon Lake. He watched quietly as she looked the phone over, and particularly looking at its sides and battery pack and charging openings. She gave a few "hmms" as she went along, which Moe figured was just part of the analysis.
"Well... I don't think they added anything physical to your phone," Tara said slowly when she looked up, "It is an older phone... and if the tech used was good enough, I'm sure there would be enough room to plant it... However, I can't see any sign of forced entry. Like that the phone was pried open at its joints or that the battery compartment was forcibly opened. Do you check your email on your phone?"
"From time to time... though I'd probably just delete it if Albert Gamboni sent it," Moe answered.
"That assumes you KNOW Albert Gamboni was the author of the email," Tara answered, "because computer hacking is just as illegal as many other crimes, it's more than likely that he's had multiple internet accounts in order to run that operation. In this he likely used an alias when he sent that message. Can you recall any odd emails? Anything from people you don't recognize. And would that email still be in your inbox?"
"There might have been one from awhile back... I think it was around the same time as when we started running from the Gambonis," Moe answered, "it offered some kind of advertising ideas..." He then paused to scratch his head before continuing, "and I figured in starting up again, at the time in Philadelphia and likely having a LOT of competition, I figured it was a company that did advertising, which I needed... However, their advice really wasn't beyond what I already knew."
Tara nodded, "is the email still in your inbox?"
"No, I delated when I found out it wasn't helpful," Moe sighed.
"Well, I'll say that I think there is the source of whatever tracking signal," Tara answered, "a computer virus that is designed to do that... Though until we hear from Fort Wolfe's MPs or some other federal agent, we won't be able to get any evidence that the Gambonis were behind the virus... though if they do have him, you can be assured that if his crimes are considered "Federal" for whatever reason, at least Albert Gamboni could be looking at real trouble. And you'll be lucky that the virus wouldn't be on any other computer device you use."
"That's good, I suppose," Moe gave a sigh, "can you remove the virus?"
"I might..." Tara said slowly and Moe could hear her fiddling with some wires on the other side of her desk, "but I'd need to diagnose it first... though, as I said, the company your using doesn't get good service here. You'd probably be better off getting a new phone and destroying this one."
"I may end up doing that... but that will take some time to work through, and until then... it's the best I have," Moe said weakly.
He continued to hear some sounds that sounded like Tara was fiddling with some equipment on the other side of her desk. Moe wasn't sure what it was, but he guessed it had to do with something that related to computers and computer safety. He wasn't super good on that sort of thing, so for the moment he stayed quiet. Eventually he noticed the screen on Tara's computer changed from showing Tara in uniform in front of a cabin with a very well muscled man and well muscled woman to a new picture of cartoon dog in a room that was on fire saying, "this is fine."
"What are you...?" Moe wondered, eventually losing out to his curiosity.
"Mostly setting up a diagnostic computer," Tara answered, "I keep all my anti-virus stuff up to date, but when checking to see if something has a computer virus in it, I want to make sure there is no important information that could be hacked. And my diagnostic computer has certain programming features that can let me identify the virus and how it works and how "strong" it is. If it's weak... I might be able to clean it out for you. If not... I'll have to call Stovall Systems as they're better with that sort of thing than I am."
"And if the supposed virus gets the diagnostic computer?" Moe wondered.
"I can get it to programmers that can remove the virus... and even if not, I wouldn't suffer any loss," Tara smirked, "One of the advantages of my position as a tech officer here with the Moon Lake PD."
Moe sort of stood by while Tara set to typing and working hooking his phone up to the "diagnostic computer" that she had. He didn't know much about computers and couldn't easily read the screen, but he figured that whatever progress she made would at least be progress in getting rid of the bug in his phone. That in the meantime allowed for him to come to a different question that was also related to his curiosity.
"This may be a bit personal... but are you...?" Moe began slowly, as he didn't want to come off as offensive.
"A were? No, I'm a normal human being," Tara smiled, "my parents moved here when I was three. My dad had got a job working for the county sheriff's office..."
"Sheriff's office?" Moe asked.
"They handle county affairs and highway patrol type duties," Tara answered, "Moon Lake is SMALL enough in population that they could petition for jurisdiction over the town, but Moon Lake has blocked them when they've tried..."
"To protect the town's secret," Moe figured, to which Tara nodded.
"Yes," Tara spoke, "but Moon Lake DOES have to get along with Snohomish County government and regulations as well as Washington State rules, and so on."
"Though you aren't the county seat..." Moe said slowly.
"Which means that my dad has had to travel a lot with regard to going to and from his duty station with the County Sheriff's office, but still he got the job with the county and picked Moon Lake to live in... But we have good roads and he's liked it. Anyway, I was only three when my parents moved in and settled into a cabin outside of town, but was technically on land the town owns and therefore counts as "city limits." As such because of how young I was, I couldn't be the family were and my parents took on the role and became werebears. They're both based off of some subspecies of Brown Bear, but I can never remember which is which..."
"Did you ever have any trouble?" Moe wondered, thinking on his own family's dealings with the present mandatory were law. And if the entire department was aware of his family's issues trying to get away from the Gambonis, Tara probably did understand a lot about that.
"With my parents?" Tara asked raising an eyebrow and looking to Moe, "I was three. I really don't remember all that much from back then. By the time I could start to remember things... I know I'd seen them in their fursonas and had heard them enjoying life as it were. A lot of that sort of things just seemed normal to me. And they'd never threatened me. They might be a bit more private than a lot of other weres, but they've never threatened me or anyone, and my dad has even won some awards for his service with the County Sheriff's office... and in a year I had a baby sister."
"What about outside your family, did anyone ever give you trouble because you weren't a were?" Moe wondered.
"Not really," Tara answered, "about anything that could be considered "negative," be it teasing over my glasses or my interest in both law enforcement and computer science has nothing to do with weres. In that I got to grow up with a fairly normal life and I was happy. I went through school, college, the Washington State Police Academy and requested assignment to the Moon Lake PD, which they accepted. Though since I'd been living in Moon Lake and both my parents were already weres, the mandatory were law was optional for me..."
"Would you...?" Moe asked, "No... that's to..."
"If I found the right man and he was a were, I'd join him," Tara smiled, "but as I said... my case is kinda special regarding those humans who were either born in Moon Lake or have grown up in Moon Lake. It's different from your case... but the threat losing who you are or being in danger from weres... it really isn't there. While there have been rogue weres from time to time, it's NEVER been what's seen in movies or folklore and the town will come down HARD on any were that remotely engages in that sort of behavior. So... a lot of the things you're worried about, really aren't things to be worried about."