Hi Mum, It's Sammy (Clone 63 - Part 12)

The next morning was just as hard to drag myself out of the our lovely warm bed as ever. I would be jealous of leaving Jericho sleeping peacefully but I do know he's up a couple of times a night to check on the toddlers. Even though the cribs are in our room, and we'd know if one of them was fussy, Jer still checks on them every few hours.

In spite of that, I still managed to get to the station in time. I was rather surprised to see Chuck at the front desk.

"Chuck? How did I do? Did I pass the test?"

"Sam, they sent your results. Congratulations, you had 78%. A good solid pass." He smiled, "Not high enough that I'll promote you extra fast but enough that I can feel confident about the fact that you do know the law as well as any cop should."



Chuck reached under the desk and then slid a new uniform toward me. "I'll let you go on patrol today. I'll man this desk. Tomorrow we'll start the rotation. You and Jared will do more desk duty than Felipe since he is the most experienced officer in this town."

I headed for the john to put on the uniform. When I came out, I felt like a changed man. "Chuck, I can't tell you what it means to finally be on patrol," I actually wanted to make a rude gesture to the desk but decided that I could be a bit more mature than that.

Chuck shrugged his shoulders. "Well, it is a foot patrol, don't get too excited, Sam."

"Right now, I don't care. At least I don't have to be in here all day."

"Ok, time to hit the street, Officer Grant." Chuck gave me a small salute to send me on my way.

I can't claim my first day of patrol was brilliant. I got to meet some more people but the most important thing I managed to do all morning was help a couple of visitors to town get to their destinations.

At noon, I was wondering about lunch when Felipe rang. "We had results, Sam. Rex isn't home."

"I'll be there as quickly as my feet can get me there. I hope one of Howie's cameras caught something we can use."

It was only a few minutes before I arrived at the Marshall house. He greeted me at the door, his toddler held close. "I hope to hell we caught something on tape. Because we have to get Rex back, I kind of ... forgot... to tell my wife about the plan."

I did a bit of tisk tisk at Felipe. "You do know you should have told your wife."

He did one of those little 'you just don't understand' smiles. "You must not be married yet. It can be easier just not to tell the wife some things."

"Well, I'm engaged. And I'm finding it difficult to hide things from my fiance.” Mentioning the engagement will at least make sense to Felipe. The Strider bonding really has tied us together in ways that marriage won't but trying to explain it to someone else just...I just don't know how to do it. Striders are almost unheard of, Strider customs even less so. And the bonding means it's unusually difficult to hide something from your partner.

Felipe just shook his head. "With practice, you'll be hiding stuff like a champion." We walked inside to review the recordings from the morning. "We won't have to look too far back," said Felipe. "I checked his food and water this morning before work, he was there at 8."

"I hope we can figure out how to work the box. I'd hate to have to ring Howie to ask."

As it turned out, any idiot could work the box and we managed to get the hang of it fairly quickly. We rewound the recordings to 8 in the morning. Howie had set up the playback so all four camera views were on screen at once.

We left the machine on fast forward. From 8 until nearly 10, dog got up from time to time, paced around, then laid back down. It was about 10 minutes to 10 when the recording showed the dog getting up, he started to bark and suddenly started to stumble around. He was back on the ground soon after.

I set the machine to real time. It was only a few minutes after Rex was down again that a hefty bloke came within camera range. "Look at the size of him," I whistled softly.

"Junior Notorious. Well, now that makes sense. Whenever there's trouble in town, Junior is never far away." We watched as Notorious loaded the dog into a pet traveling cage. "And there's our answers for who and how." Notorious lifted the cage and one camera angle showed the edge of a plain white van parked a little down the street.

"So, where?" I asked.

"The first place to check is that place up the dirt road. It's far enough from any other buildings so animal noises are very unlikely to be heard. I know where Notorious lives but it's too close to other houses to be safe for keeping the pets."

"How do you want to handle it?"

"Have a bite to eat first, then meet up with Jared at the bottom of the road. Notorious may be there but I doubt we'll have to fight our way through a gang. Just one or two at best," Felipe replied. I nodded and started typing a text message to Jared to meet us at 1 pm at the base of the dirt road.

We raided Felipe's fridge for left-overs and then headed on out. Felipe drove the police car to the foot of the long drive. Jared was just arriving on foot.

"I'm here. But Sam was a little short on the details of why I'd want to be here." Jared shook his head. “I like details.”

"As your senior officer, I've requested both of you to accompany me on a raid. I have information that leads me to believe that the missing pets may be held here and I want you as back up." We nodded at Felipe.

We started walking up the drive. At first we tried to move quietly but the further we walked the less care we took. We knew from the howls, yowls, barks and meows that we were in the right place. Only a registered boarding kennel should have nearly as many animals as we could hear. The building we were headed to was no boarding kennel. And the racket the animals were putting up meant that we wouldn't be heard at all.

"I wonder how many they have up here?" Jared asked.

Felipe shrugged, “More than enough to find some of our stolen pets.”

We finally arrived at the building and I was immediately sent around to cover the back. There weren't any doors on this end of the building but there were a couple of windows. I sent "Ok" as a text when I was in position.

I heard Felipe and Jared kick in the door. I felt a surge of adrenaline but it looked as though all was going to go quietly for me. That was until I heard a window slide open.

"Hold it right there. I'm arresting you." My speech stopped when the person turned to face me and it was Cami House. "Wait, you?"

She tried batting her pretty eyes at me. "Officer, I was just trying to find my beagle. I heard rumours…”

Unfortunately for Ms House, I wasn’t going to pay much attention to those eyes, or anything else she felt like offering. “And when the police came, you got confused and left from the back? Sorry Ms House. I'm not buying that. Come with me."

I lead her around to the front of the building. Jared was standing there with Junior Notorious. It was obvious from the way Junior looked at her that he knew perfectly well who she was and why she was there. "I caught the accomplice."

“So, Mr Notorious, do you have anything you wish to say before we take you in?” asked Jared.

“That chick had nothing to do with it. I wanted cash and taking people’s precious prize pets seemed like a good way to do it. Cash in on rewards the pet owners wanted to offer.”

I shook my head. “Ms House was exiting the building from the rear. And I’ll bet anything that one pet safely at home is her beagle.”

“That seems to wrap things up here.” Felipe nodded. He and Jared put our two suspects into the car to take them to the station.

Before he left, Felipe set me to the task of ringing the pet owners to tell them where to pick up their animals. All the crates had the owner's number and address written on masking tape along the top of the crate. I was happy to ring Merlot and Thea about their cats, and Kalee about her dog.

Once the phone calls were over, I had the pleasant job for the next hour of watching pets and owners being reunited. I asked the owner’s name and then take them to the pet crate. Not that there were that many, but there were still 6 dogs and 4 cats left after Felipe took Rex away.

The first to arrive was Kalee Koko. Her big black dog was quite happy to see his owner again.

Thea Gem-Raas and her lovely little cat where the last to leave. Once the pets were gone, there was little option. I was going to have to go in and face Chuck. First official day as a cop and it might just be my last.

----
Thanks to seaweedy who unknowingly donated Junior Notorious to be this story's villain.
And apologies to Cami whose simself had a brief interest in Junior which sparked her appearance here.


Bonus pics

The boys and their toddlers

Sammy is taking a suspect in for questioning. She's too adorable to be innocent.


The four 'camera' angles

1

2

3

4
Hmm, should have been a bit more fish-eye and less wide angle.

TV wasn't even on.