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Chapter 45 - Crime and Punishment

The call Tamara and Peter were waiting for came about 2:30 p.m.; the little two-way radio Ron had given them beeped and she answered.

“Bogey at ten o’clock,” came Ron’s tinny voice, then he laughed. “A guest heard the drone’s buzz coming from the west-northwest. Around campsites 15 to 20.”

“On it,” Tamara replied and she hopped into the golf cart Ron had lent them.

Peter got behind the wheel.

“Let’s set up on The Meadow to the east of number 20,” she told him. “That’s far enough away from any campers. I didn’t see anybody around there earlier, though; that’s kinda strange.”

She pulled the device out of her backpack and got the umbrella ready.

“When I get out, pull back about 50 feet,” she told Peter. “No point in damaging the golf cart, Ron’s radio, or your phone. But stay close enough to video the thing; keeping back 50 feet should be safe.”

She hopped out and popped open the umbrella as the drone’s sound got louder; then it appeared flying low over the trees to the west. As it flew past the tree line and headed over The Meadow, it turned and lined up for flying over the pool. As it turned, Tamara pointed her device at it and triggered it. She increased the power a bit and the drone wobbled and stopped its forward movement and turned slightly to the north. She gave the drone another EMP jolt and with that, it lost a bit of altitude and turned back the other way. Then it recovered and resumed its travel toward the pool. She hit it with another burst of pulses and the drone staggered in the air, dropped a few feet and turned about 90 degrees to the south, but then it recovered again and turned back toward the pool area. Each time the drone seemed to recover, she shot another burst of pulses at it. She kept it flying over The Meadow, wandering around in circles as it wobbled and rocked in the air.

Now it began trying to stay pointed almost due west, seemingly in an attempt to head back to where it had come from, as if the operator knew it was in trouble and was trying to recall it. But Tamara, operating from her cover under the umbrella, kept giving the drone bursts of pulses every time it leveled out, but each time it lost altitude as she allowed it to get closer to the line of trees to the west. Now it was clearly flying below treetop level. Each time the drone began to increase its altitude, Tamara fired more bursts, repeatedly making the device stagger and turn off course. Like a drunken sailor, the drone rocked, twisted, jerked, and pitched, all the while trying to travel west while its altitude relentlessly kept dropping. Tamara followed behind it, hitting it with pulses whenever it seemed to recover.

This thing has some pretty damned good electronics, she mused. Well, time for the coup de grace.

She increased the power output of her EMP device to 30 percent and triggered it as the drone, now only about 20 feet off the ground, approached the trees and she heard its blades shriek as the drone made a valiant attempt to gain altitude. Another EMP shot and the drone pitched forward, increasing its forward speed instead of increasing its altitude, and it struck the lowest branches on a nearby tree. The drone dropped twelve feet to the ground.

Peter raced in with the cart as Tamara ran up to where the drone lay.

“Fantastic job, sweetie! I’m gonna look for an SD card or whatever the photos are stored on; hang on,” Peter told her as he pulled on a pair of nitrile gloves.

Tamara looked at the device. Its only apparent damage appeared to be the two forward rotors and the rotors looked like they could be easily replaced.

“The thing’s turned itself off. Must be a safety when it hit the tree,” Peter said. “Ah, it’s got a micro-SD card. Let me call Ron... oh, here he comes.”

Ron pulled up in a UTV utility vehicle.

“Great job, Tamara,” he called as he and Vicki got out of it.

“Ron, let’s see what the memory card’s got recorded,” Peter said. “It’s on a micro-SD.”

“Sure, let’s get back to the office; I can copy the card to the computer there. Vicki, can you stay and watch? Make sure no one disturbs the thing. I assume you want to see what’s on there too, Tamara?”

“Oh yeah.”

“Climb in and let’s go. I’ll also call Gary and tell him ‘the Eagle has landed,’” Ron smirked.

“Funny guy,” Tamara said.

“Not,” Peter said.

Back in the office, when they examined the contents of the memory card, Ron almost went ballistic.

“Shit,” he exclaimed. “He still has stuff on here from last week, looks like, and shots from over the pool, look, he got a number of kids in there. On The Meadow, kids playing, in the playground too. Damn. I’m gonna nail his ass...”

“We gotta make sure that the card is tied to the drone,” Peter mused. “Oh, I know. Let’s see if there’s any metadata stored with the images... okay, it is, good. See, this ‘EXIF’ tag? It shows the drone camera model was used to take the shots and the dates. GPS data too. So this card is tied to the drone and the resort’s location. Let’s copy this onto a memory stick and give it to Sarge Gary and I’ll put the card back. I have the video I took of the drone crashing and I kept Tamara out of view.”

“Good,” Ron said. “You want to go through with the plan of sticking it up in a nearby tree?”

“Sure. Make him work for it. And have Gary here when he finds it and have him confirm ownership. How about Gary hauling him away sans clothes too?”

“I love it,” Ron smiled.

“Hey Ron, how come there wasn’t anyone around the area when we did our thing?” Tamara asked. “I would have thought we’d have a crowd watching.”

Ron laughed. “Think you’re the only bright one around? I didn’t want any witnesses, so I had spread the word that we’d have free food at the lunch stand and free video games for the kids all afternoon, with prizes for the highest scores. You saw the big crowd when we got back to the office?”

“Sure. I was wondering what was up,” she said. “Very clever.”

Ron made his call to Lynch and then told the couple, “Take the UTV. I’ll get the truck with the ladder. We’ll head back and stage the drone crash into a tree.”

Once they put the memory card back into the drone and got the drone about twenty feet up in the tree, they scattered the pieces of the broken rotors on the ground below it together with a couple of broken-off small branches and a bunch of leaves. Then they all returned to the office.

They were surprised when instead of a visit from the drone’s owner, the office received a phone call. Vicki answered the phone when the call came in, forty minutes after they had stuck the captured drone in the tree.

“Arundel Nature Society, how can I help you?”

“...”

“A guest heard it buzzing around and told us about it. Listen, sir, this is private property and it’s posted with ‘no drone’ signs. We want you to stop overflying us.”

“...”

“I see. No, the guest heard it flying over the trees somewhere near the river.”

“...”

“If it came down, none of our guests have reported seeing it.”

“...”

“The only legal entrance to our property is through our gate. If you come onto our property any other way, it’s criminal trespass and we prosecute offenders, sir. If you want access to the grounds to search, you’ll need to come in the legal way, on our entrance road, and check in at the office.”

“...”

“No, it’s not our responsibility to hunt for your device. You flew it to our property and if it didn’t come back to you, then finding it is your problem, not ours.”

“...”

“Oh, you will? Be my guest. I doubt that they will help you.”

She hung up.

“Now that was interesting,” Vicki said. “He told me that it flew off course and he tried following it but lost radio contact. He wanted to come in through the woods to look for it; you heard what I told him then. Next, he claimed we had to look for it and return it; if we didn’t, it was theft, and he’d go to the police and they’d make us search for it.”

“Yeah, right,” Ron said. “Well, change of plan. If he doesn’t call the police, we still have a phone number they can trace.”

“Was there any damage that your ray gun did that can be found when he gets it?” Vicki asked Tamara.

“I strongly doubt it,” Tamara answered. “The memory card, that’s where the photos were stored, is semiconductor memory and that’s pretty sensitive to EMP damage. We could read the card with no problems.”

Just then a few guests came into the office to check their account balances. Vicki looked up their accounts and printed statements for them. They thanked her and left.

“I guess I’ll call Gary and give him the latest news,” Ron said. “I wonder...”

The phone rang again and Vicki looked at the caller ID.

“Same number,” she said, and this time she put the speaker on.

“Arundel Nature Society, how can I help you?”

“This is the drone’s owner. Listen, if you don’t find it and return it, I’ll take you to court.”

Vicki grinned. “Go right ahead. Is it weatherproof? You might get a court date in three to six months. What happens to it if it gets wet? Also, can you prove to a judge that we are preventing you from searching for it? You said you were calling the police. Why don’t you do that?”

“I called. They said that finding lost property is not their job,” he replied.

“I see. Well, neither is it ours,” Vicki retorted. “You have two choices then. Search for it yourself or do nothing and take the loss. Your choice.”

“Are you kidding?” the guy screamed. “That drone cost 2500 bucks!”

“And how much do you think a lawyer will cost if you try to sue us? You’re looking at 300 to 400 bucks an hour, buddy, plus court costs and filing fees. I wouldn’t waste the money if it were me. Do you have anything more or are you done?”

“Um, well, can I come in to search for it?” he asked.

“Absolutely. If you plan to come yet today, you’ll have to leave at sunset, though, unless you want to camp overnight. But we have a rule about single men here. For singles who are unknown to us, like yourself, you can only enter as a couple—if you’re married, that needs to be your wife.”

“You can’t do that!” he screamed.

“This is a private resort and we certainly can make the rules about who is entitled to come onto our grounds. Again, your choice. Will you be coming today?” she asked sweetly.

“Um, no, I gotta... Listen, I’ll call tomorrow.”

He hung up.

“Okay, let’s move this along,” Ron said. “We stopped the drone; many thanks, Tamara.”

She nodded.

“I’ll call Gary and give him the guy’s phone number and the drone registration number. That number was barely legible, but at least he had it registered.”

Meanwhile Peter and Tamara were talking.

“One sec,” Peter said. “Before you call, Tamara and I had a thought. He had photos of kids and there’s no knowing yet if he did anything with them. So the kids here are his victims, even though we can’t identify any of them; the drone was too far for that. We have a strong feeling that he’s married and his wife doesn’t know about his voyeurism hobby. What about doing this? Make these conditions the requirements for his searching. First: He’s required to be present on the grounds during the hunt. Second: He has to have the kids here do the searching and it will cost him 20 bucks for each kid who joins in, per day. The one who finds it gets 40 bucks reward. Third: He cannot interact with the kids at all; his wife must be the intermediary. He can’t be allowed to get close to them, either, Make him sit on a chair on The Meadow and have the kids stay away. Fourth: If he doesn’t agree to this, then we tell him that we’ll report him to the FAA and show him that he’s risking incurring their civil penalties—that’s as much as $27,500. And their criminal penalties come with fines up to $250,000 and jail time. And fifth: The resort dress code applies to both of them.”

“Wow, that’s nasty,” Ron grinned. “I like that idea, especially letting the kids get some money from their hunting.”

“There’s more,” Peter said, grinning. “About your criminal complaint. Tell him that you’ll drop it if he does two things. Gets the photos removed from that website and if he sent the kids’ pictures anywhere, get them removed. The second is to compensate you for lost business. You can claim that your season’s unrented cabins and sites were a result of potential guests not coming because of the voyeuristic photos. Come up with a reasonable loss amount. If he balks, then tell him that if he’s found guilty of the charges in your complaint, he could be found guilty of a crime which could label him as a sex offender.”

“Yeah, that sounds good. Let me check this out with Gary and see if he thinks it’ll work from the police angle. It might look pretty close to something bad, like extortion.”

“Good point,” Peter said.

“Now I also got to get things ready for the Polynesian evening and the bands coming in later.” Ron sighed. “Really didn’t need this sideshow.”

“And there’s the 5-k race tomorrow too,” Peter said.

“I haven’t forgotten,” Ron sighed, shaking his head.

~~~~

That evening, the resort put on a luau, complete with a roasted pig—except it was roasted in a big barbeque trailer, not in a pit in the ground—and there were two bands present, with two separate dance floors, giving plenty of dancing space. Tamara discovered that nudists like to dress up in costumes, but lots of them seemed to believe that the costumes should be as revealing as possible. There were two body-painting artists present who decorated the kids before dinner, and after dinner, used glow paint to decorate the adults. Later, after dark, the UV lights over the dance areas made the scene and the dancers look surreal.

~~~~

The nude 5-k run was scheduled for Sunday morning and the resort had arranged for a race timing company to do much of the organization. An existing and well marked race route had been used for this race in previous years. Resort personnel took care of the participants’ registrations and fees and the timing company people did the rest. The race would be timed using special disposable RFID chips which were affixed to the runners’ number bibs, while established runners could get their personal race chips registered in the timing system.

While the race entrants were going through the registration tables and Ron was overseeing the operation, a call from the drone operator came in and Ron took the call, which had been transferred to his cell phone.

After he answered, the guy said that he’d be arriving there at 10:30.

“I’m sorry, but this morning isn’t possible. We’re hosting a 5-k race this morning and everyone at the resort is tied up with that. There will be runners on the grounds, roads, and trails, so I’m afraid that we can’t have non-race personnel anywhere on the race course. We can let you come in at 1:00 p.m.”

The guy started to make a fuss about that, so Ron told him, “Listen, buddy. We’re trying to work with you but you’re not making it easy, okay? You can go a long way getting things done by following the rules. You haven’t done such a good job about that, have you? I’ll see you about 1 o’clock.”

He hung up without waiting for a response.

Peter and Tamara had come to the registration table while Ron was talking.

“The drone guy is still being a jerk?” Tamara asked.

Ron nodded, “Yeah. I’m gonna put him through the wringer on this.”

“Talk to Gary about him?” Peter asked.

“Yep. He said not to do anything that looks like we’re suggesting an agreement or compromise. He told me that if we’re considering that, we should get a lawyer’s opinion.”

“Oh well, thought it was a good idea,” Peter replied.

“It still could be; we’ll see. He also suggested just letting the guy come in to search today—not involving the kids at first. Let him search where he thinks it crashed for today. After today, maybe use your idea. Anyway, you guys signing up to run?” Ron asked.

“Sure. Some of my cousins are running too. They should be along anytime now.”

Tamara and Peter got registered for the run and got their number bibs. Peter told her about the race bib.

“Usually you pin them to your shirt, but we don’t have shirts,” Peter remarked. “Some runners tie a cord to the top corners and loop it behind the neck and loop another cord around their back, attached to the bottom corners. But when I tried that once, it was really uncomfortable. And there’s always a joker around who complains that being naked, there’s nowhere to pin the bib,” Peter chuckled. “But a couple years ago, one dude clipped the bib to his nipple rings.”

Tamara shuddered at that.

“I’m gonna wear that brief sports bra,” Tamara said. “I could pin the bib to that, but it’ll flop around in my face. So what do we do about the bib numbers?”

“We write the numbers with a marker on your skin. We need to find the person doing the marking... oh, over there,” Peter pointed.

They got on the little line of waiting runners and when their turn came, the woman used a marker to write their bib numbers on their hips.

“Now carefully pull off that sensing tag from the bib and I’ll show you how to thread it through your shoe laces so the readers can record you when you go by.”

“Okay,” Tamara said. “Cool, it’s another RFID chip. Those things are useful. Except how they did it in Florida—now that was useless,” she laughed.

They did the race but in running it, Peter and Tamara decided not to push their pace very hard—they weren’t trying for a top finish, just a respectable time. Tamara finished with a 21:19 time, but with a kilometer to go, Peter decided to sprint for the remaining distance, so his time was about 30 seconds faster. They both finished in the top ten overall. But JoAnne came in first in the under-twenty group, and second overall, male and female, with an outstanding 17:44 time.

Tamara was very impressed and mentioned it to Peter.

“Oh, I guess you didn’t know. JoAnne’s a track star. She won her high school cross-country state title last season. She also holds her school and division records for the cross-country, indoor 3000 meter, and 5000 meter events.”

“Wow, cool. No wonder she takes off like that when we run together. A sub-six mile, jeez. Okay, we need to freshen up in case drone guy decides to come.”

He did. He called the office just before 1 o’clock, saying that he was on his way. He got to the office about 20 minutes later and a woman was with him. She looked very unhappy. Vicki greeted him as Peter and Tamara waited just outside the office door leading into the clubhouse.

“All right; you’re the owner of that drone,” Vicki began. “You can search for it on our property but need to follow all of our rules.” She handed him a flyer. “Basically, we require that everyone, with very limited exceptions, remains nude on our property and that no electronics capable of taking photographs be in anyone’s possession while in community areas.”

“What are those exceptions?” the guy grumbled.

“Law enforcement or other government people on official business. Service people hired to do repairs. Those are examples; trust me, you don’t qualify. Now, do you want to stay to do the search?”

He agreed and she told him the grounds fee and then said, “Okay, now I’ll need to get your picture ID—a driver’s license—for both of you.”

“Why do you need our IDs? We’re not...”

Vicki put up her hand, sighing. “Listen. If you’re going to fight us over every single resort rule, then you might as well just leave. You’ve violated the privacy of our guests with your drone...”

He began to object.

“... let me finish. A few people told us about seeing aerial pictures of our resort on a website and your drone is the only device that’s flown over our property. We could legally ban you from entry, you know. You also may have violated Maryland’s laws. So, can I get your ID?”

He grudgingly handed over his license and the woman did as well as she looked at the man and angrily said, “What’s that website pictures business that she said all about?”

He responded, whispering, “I don’t know, I’ll find out later.”

Vicki scanned the licenses and noted that they had the same last name. Rodney and Janice Sommers. He also handed her the cash to pay the grounds fee.

“Thank you,” Vicki said as she handed the IDs back. “We have some restrictions for your visit while you look for your drone because of your antisocial, voyeuristic behavior. We’re limiting where you can go on our grounds to where you think your device may have crashed.”

She pulled out a map of the resort.

“Show me where your drone flew onto our property and where its last position was recorded.”

He marked the drone’s line of flight from the trees to over the resort’s Meadow and his information agreed with Peter’s sighting.

“But after it got about here,” Sommers said, marking a spot, “the transmissions began to cut out and I started to lose the video feed. I sent the recall signal but the drone kept cutting out. The last video I saw was the trees around here.”

He pointed to an area further to the north of where the drone had actually came down.

“All right then,” Vicki said, “We’ll limit you to that area at first. Now you’ll need to disrobe; we have guest lockers if you wish.”

With much grumbling, the two followed Vicki to the locker room where she left them.

“When you’re ready, somebody will show you where to go.”

Tamara and Peter were the designated chaperones and they had gotten “dressed” for the job; Peter wore shorts and Tamara wore a pareo.

When Sommers and his wife came out, Peter told them, “Follow me; I’ll show you where to go.”

“How come you’re dressed?” Sommers challenged.

“Law-enforcement duties,” Peter replied. “Chaperoning a law-breaker, as far as I’m concerned.”

The Sommers followed Peter out of the clubhouse, trying to hold their hands to shield their privates and looking all around them to see if anyone was watching. He brought them out to The Meadow and pointed.

“The area you think the drone came down is along the trees directly ahead, over there. You can go straight there and begin your search. I’ll be keeping an eye on you to be sure that you don’t bother any of our guests. And before you ask, none of our guests saw it go down; we’ve already checked.”

As the couple walked off toward the treeline, arguing, Tamara drove the golf cart up to meet Peter. He had shown her how easy it was to drive the thing. Between Tamara and Peter and several other volunteers, they kept the Sommers under observation until after dinner, when they gave up and returned to the clubhouse, tired and bodies scratched from pushing through the underbrush. They told Ron that they would return on Monday.

~~~~

Monday morning, the Sommers returned and Ron, with Sergeant Lynch’s approval, had decided to let the kids help, with two modifications being made to Tamara’s and Peter’s plan. To avoid injury, the kids had to be dressed and Sommers would be allowed to interact with them. Ron had found seven kids who said that they would help.

Ron spoke to Sommers after he arrived, had paid his fee, and stripped.

“You didn’t get far yesterday and there’s a lot of territory back there to search. I can’t have this going on indefinitely; it’s disrupting to have you in here searching. We have a bunch of kids who said that they’ll help you but it’ll cost you twenty dollars per kid and we have seven signed up. They’ll spend the day looking and before you object, that’s way below minimum wage. And the other part is that the finder gets a fifty-buck reward. Those are the rules. You can go with the kids to direct them to likely spots but you have to stay on The Meadow. Is that understood?”

Sommers agreed but said he didn’t have the cash with him.

“There’s an ATM in the clubhouse. It’s linked to all the banks in the area. Use it. And I suggest having the kids spread out to cover all the areas where your drone may have entered our property.”

Vicki took the Sommers out to the Pavilion where the kids were assembling. Several minutes later, Tamara and Peter came to the office.

“So I see that operation ‘Find the Eagle’ is underway,” Tamara chuckled.

“Yeah. Gary called earlier; said to stop playing the fighting fish and to just reel it in. Their lab looked at the photo metadata on the flash drive and at the on-line photo metadata too and they match; the same camera was used. There’s a serial number in the metadata and it’s the same in each image. They called the manufacturer who confirmed that the serials are unique by camera. Gary also got an agent with the FAA’s Law Enforcement Assistance Program involved. Sent him the images and the agent agreed that Sommers broke some rules. But he said that the FAA prefers that local law enforcement handle this case since there was no injury or property damage.”

“So what happens when Sommers gets his drone?” Peter asked.

“Watch to see when the kids start looking in the right place,” Ron said. “Then I’ll call Gary. They’ll find it pretty quick. Sommers will have to come back here to get help; it needs a ladder to reach it. By the time I get the truck and tie the ladder onto it, Gary should be here. Then he’ll run the show.”

This time the planning went as expected. After a search of the northwest treeline was unsuccessful, Sommers pointed toward the trees to the west and the seven kids fanned out and began hunting there. After about twenty minutes, Ron’s group, watching from the other end of The Meadow, heard joyful kids’ shouts. Ron had already called Gary.

“Hey, Tamara,” Ron spoke. “Gary suggests that we get Sommers to test the thing to be sure it wasn’t permanently damaged. That way he can’t claim that we caused the damage.”

“Good idea. But the rotors were broken.”

Peter spoke, “He can power it up and see if the electronics goes live. I looked up that model. The power goes off if a rotor hits something. Also, when there’s no command for five minutes, there’s an auto-power off. So the battery should have some charge left.”

A few minutes later, Sommers came chugging up to them.

“The kids found it, so thanks for the suggestion. But it’s about twenty feet up in a tree...”

“All right,” Ron said. “Let me get a ladder. Go back to where they found it—it’s where all the kids are standing?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll bring a ladder over there.”

In about a half hour, Sommers had the drone and was carefully carrying it back to the clubhouse. He had already paid out the reward. The Sommers began heading for the locker room when Ron stopped them.

“I want you to show me if the drone has any damage, apart from those rotors. That way you won’t be able to claim that we at the resort damaged it somehow,” Ron told him.

Sommers was too happy to object.

“I have the control console in my car. Also spare rotors; they break away to protect their motors.”

He ran out to the parking area with the drone and rapidly took off the broken rotor hubs and fastened the new rotors on. Then he took out the control panel, reset the drone’s power switch, and started the motors. The rotors spun to life and Sommers eased back the joystick to have the drone climb. With a loud buzzing sound, the device rocked for a second and then lifted off the ground and hovered at about ten feet off the ground.

“Video works too,” Sommers told them.

While Sommers was working on the drone, Lynch’s car had pulled into the area and he got out and walked over to the watching group. He watched as the drone was tested and nodded and winked at Tamara. Then Sommers moved the controls and the drone settled back to the earth.

“So you agree that the drone had no damage other than those rotors?” Ron confirmed.

“Sure. It looks like everything works normally,” Sommers said as he went to pick it up.

Then Lynch stepped closer and spoke. “You identify this drone as your property, which you have just recovered from where it was found on the grounds of Arundel Nature Society?”

Sommers looked at him, confused. “Um, sure. Yes, it’s mine.”

“Then in the name of the people of Anne Arundel County, state of Maryland, Mr Rodney Sommers, I have a warrant for your arrest for visual surveillance with prurient intent, five counts. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you if you so desire. If you choose to answer questions now without a lawyer present, you have the right to stop answering at any time,” Lynch recited.

Sommers stood there in shock, his mouth open, as Mrs Sommers gasped.

“What do you mean, ‘visual surveillance’?” she asked.

“It means taking photos of people without their consent,” Lynch told her. “It’s Maryland’s ‘peeping tom’ law. Mr Sommers used the drone to photograph people here at the resort and posted the pictures he captured with it on a sexually oriented website.”

She turned to her husband. “You didn’t tell me that! You said that thing flew off course!”

“It did! It did! I don’t know what he’s talking about!” Sommers objected.

Lynch took out handcuffs and cuffed Sommers.

“Mr Allerman?” Lynch asked Ron. “I deputize you to escort Mr Sommers to the office while I get my laptop. Mr Sommers, you will go with Mr Allerman now. And Peter?” Lynch said.

“Yes, sir?”

“Please pick up the drone and take it to the office. I’ll be right there.”

Lynch went back to his car and grabbed a computer bag; inside the office he took out a laptop and a small video camera. He gave Ron the video camera, turned it on, and stood in front of it.

“Mr Allerman, I further deputize you to make a video recording of my search of this drone device, identified by its owner as being the property of Mr Rodney Sommers, arrested by me on this date at Arundel Nature Society. Mr Allerman, please record my search as it progresses.

“I have a search warrant for your drone, also your vehicle, and your home. If you want to see them, then ask,” Lynch told Sommers.

While Ron operated the video camera, Lynch removed the drone’s SD card and inserted it into his laptop.

Two uniformed police came in then, a man and a woman. Lynch told the female officer to take Mrs Sommers to get dressed.

Then Lynch looked through the contents of the SD card; it matched what he recalled seeing on the memory stick.

“The photos and videos on this memory storage device confirm that it was used to violate the privacy of numerous people at this site. These photos were captured last week,” Lynch stated to the video recording. “They prove that this drone overflew the resort and circled over groups of people, including children. These photos are also similar to photos we were alerted about that were found on a voyeur website. Mr Sommers, I will allow you to get dressed, even though I can take you in dressed as you are, so I suggest that you cooperate or I’ll change my mind. Billy, take him to the locker room to get his clothes; you know where that is. Um, I hesitate to uncuff him...”

Peter spoke up. “Sarge Gary, Billy and I can handle him. Ah, here’s Rosie. All three of us will go with him.”

“Good. If he resists, then don’t damage my arrestee too badly, you hear? All right, Mrs Sommers. You’re not mentioned in the arrest warrant but be prepared for what you’ll find at your home. When the officers have finished searching your vehicle, you may use it. And a search warrant is being executed right about now at your home and they will be looking for any electronic and hard copy images your husband might have, related to this complaint, plus evidence of his use of websites where he might have submitted his photos. You may leave now. If you have an attorney, I suggest contacting him or her very soon. Do you want to see a copy of the search warrants?”

“No!” she said angrily and went stomping out of the office and then rushed to her car; two officers were just finishing their search of it. Several minutes later, the officers and Peter came back in, escorting a clothed, cuffed, frightened Sommers.

Lynch had to get another trash bag from Ron to put the drone into, commenting, “You guys are killing me, two weeks in a row. I’m gonna have to start carrying jumbo evidence bags to handle your cases.”

They all left then, taking Sommers along.

Tamara turned to Peter with a smile.

“You did tell me that everyone at the resort has a good time, remember?” she asked him. “You didn’t say it would be an exciting adventure too.”

Peter just shrugged. “What can I say?” he sighed.

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