The Crafty Teddy

by John J. Lamb

  The agent sat up straight. “How do you know about that?”

  “Because we just got done talking to Mr. Ota.”

  A man’s voice came from the van’s passenger compartment. “What’s going on up there, Wadsworth?”

  Wadsworth called over his shoulder, “Uh, sir, we have some local law enforcement here and they’ve…uh, apparently been talking with our…um, target.”

  “What? Tell them to come around to the other side of the van.”

  As we walked around, we heard the side sliding door open. Inside, there were two men. We didn’t get a very good look at one, because he was operating a video camera that was pointed at the front of the barn. The other guy looked tired and wired, like a seven-year-old who’d been Halloween trick-or-treating way past his bedtime but was still riding a major league sugar buzz.

  “I’m Special Agent In Charge John Bartle and, pardon my French, but what the hell is going on here?”

  “I’m Sheriff Barron and I might ask you the same question,” said Tina. “You were operating in my county yesterday and didn’t bother to let anybody know.”

  Bartle tried to suppress a snort of amusement. “Sorry, Sheriff, but we’ve been through a lot of jurisdictions and it’s been our experience that…well, don’t take this wrong, but the locals sometimes get in the way.”

  Tina put a hand out to lean casually on the side of the van. “Well, then I reckon this time the locals are really going to get in the way. We had a murder at our museum, right about the time it was surrounded by FBI agents.”

  “What?”

  Before she could continue, Tina’s mobile phone trilled. Pulling it from her belt, she looked at the screen, and frowned. “It’s the chairman of the county board of supervisors and it says nine-one-one. I’ve got to take this call. Brad, can you carry on until I finish?”

  “My pleasure.”

  “And who are you two?” Bartle asked.

  I flipped my badge case open. “Bradley and Ashleigh Lyon. We’re investigative consultants for Massanutten County.”

  Bartle looked from my ID card to my cane and then to Ash’s new teddy bear. “And precisely what qualifications do you need for that job?”

  “Check the badge out, G-man.” I love using that expression because most feds hate it. “I’m a retired San Francisco PD homicide inspector and I’d also advise you to stop looking down your nose at my wife, because she’s got more natural investigative ability than a dozen FBI agents. Not that that’s anything to brag about.”

  “Hey, I didn’t mean anything.”

  “Of course not. Look, I’ll keep this short and sweet. The museum director was found murdered not long after the Yakuza and your road show left there. Mr. Ota says that you can confirm our victim was alive when he and his kobun left the museum. Is that true?”

  “Mr. Lyon, I’m sorry, but this is a confidential investigation and I’m not prepared to be interrogated over what we might or might not have seen.” Bartle folded his arms, a nonverbal cue that he considered our conversation finished.

  “Fair enough. Ash, could I borrow the phone for a second?” She handed it to me and I pressed the long-distance directory assistance number for New York City. When the operator answered the phone and asked whose number I wanted, I said, “The Columbia Broadcasting System.”

  Bartle’s face went white. “Who are you calling?”

  I held my hand for silence, covered the phone’s mouthpiece with my thumb, and whispered, “Sixty Minutes. I’ll be with you in a minute.”

  “Who do you think you’re kidding? It’s Sunday. There’s nobody there.”

  “Yeah, but when I leave a message offering to share the unsavory story about how the FBI sat outside a museum while a murder went down and then told the investigating cops to pound sand, I’ll bet I hear back from them.”

  “You’re a devious son of a bitch.”

  “Ouch. Nobody’s ever called me that before. So, will you talk to me or Lesley Stahl?”

  “Hang up and I’ll tell you what you want to know.”

  I disconnected from the call. “What time did you guys arrive at the museum?”

  Bartle grabbed a clipboard and flipped through a couple of pages. “It was ten-fifty-seven.”

  “Was there anybody else there?”

  “No. There was only one car in the lot: a Toyota registered to a Franklin Merrit. Was he the victim?”

  “Yep. How long did the Yakuza stay there?”

  Tina snapped her cell phone shut and rejoined us.

  Bartle said, “They left the museum at eleven-eleven hours. When the Yakuza came out, there was a Caucasian male following them. He stayed on the porch and waited until the Hummer was gone.”

  I said, “Lucky for the FBI, that means the victim was alive when your surveillance targets left. Did any of your people go inside the museum to find out why Ota went there?”

  “No, we figured we’d follow up on that later.”

  Tina nodded in the direction of the video camera. “I’m assuming all of this was videotaped.”

  “Yeah.”

  “We’ll be sending you a formal request for a copy. During the time you were there, did anyone else come to the museum?” asked Tina.

  “Not to the museum, but a truck pulled into the driveway and then did a turnaround and left.”

  “What kind of truck?”

  Bartle looked at the clipboard again. “A beat-to-crap older model Ford pickup, green in color. It looked like a decommissioned army truck and it was occupied by a white male adult.”

  “Did you get the license plate?” I asked.

  “There wasn’t one. It had ‘Farm Use’ placards. We figured some local farmer used the driveway instead of making a U-turn on the road.”

  It was getting hotter and hotter as we stood there on the asphalt. Wiping some sweat from my upper lip, I said, “After the Yakuza finished at the museum, Mr. Ota said they went out to Shefford Gap. Is that correct?”

  “Yeah, and then they went to a teddy bear shop in Leesburg.” Bartle rubbed his eyes wearily. “Now we’re here. It’s the damndest rolling stakeout I’ve ever seen. What’s with the friggin’ bears?”

  “Mr. Ota collects them.”

  “How about a little more information sharing? Can you tell me anything about the murder?”

  I looked at Tina, who gave the agent an icy smile and said, “I’d really like to, but…well, don’t take this wrong, sometimes the FBI gets in the way. We’ll be in touch.”

  As we walked across the parking lot to Tina’s patrol car, I said, “That’s going to leave a mark. Where did you learn to be so sarcastic?”

  “Oh, I wonder,” said Tina with a humorless chuckle.

  Ash took my hand. “She’s been hanging around you too much.”

  “So, what did Captain Queeg want?” I asked, using our private nickname for County Board of Supervisor Chairman and resident megalomaniac, Kelvin Stieg.

  Tina unlocked the doors to the cruiser. “It seems that Marie Merrit has been calling members of the county board of supervisors all morning. She wants to know when she’ll receive the payout on Frank’s county employee life insurance policy.”

  Ash narrowed her eyes. “My God, what kind of wife would do that? Her husband has been dead for less than twenty-four hours.”

  Getting into the car, I said, “If she knew about those steamy letters in Merrit’s desk, maybe she’s the kind of wife that figured she’d better get the money now, before Linda Ingersoll makes a claim.”

  Tina said, “Or maybe she found out about the affair and killed him. In light of this news and the fact that she’s deliberately withholding information, I think we have to strongly focus on her as a possible suspect.”

  “Absolutely. But before we approach the grieving widow again, we need to learn more about Merrit’s relationship with Ingersoll.”

  “And find out whether she has a husband who might have objected to her teaching Sex Ed classes in local motels,” Ash said.

>   “Or if she killed him because he wouldn’t leave Marie,” said Tina.

  “Both excellent points. So, let’s head back. We’re back to square one and we’ve got a lot of work to do.”

  As we headed southward, I telephoned OnStar to advise them that they no longer needed to track the Hummer. It took about three hours to get back to Remmelkemp Mill. Along the way, I finally convinced Ash that it was necessary for me to read the love letters before we contacted Linda Ingersoll, which we planned to do on Monday.

  As we came into town, Tina said, “Is it okay if we stop at the station for a moment, before we go home? I’m briefing Supervisor Stieg a little later and I need to pick up some paperwork.”

  “No problem,” I said.

  We went into the station and as we filed along the hallway behind Tina, she stopped suddenly and darted into the tiny report writing room. When I got to the doorway, I understood why. The battered remains of a personal computer and monitor stood on the table and it looked as if the machine had been used for batting practice. The metal body of the CPU had more dents than a bumper car and there was a large jagged hole in the glass monitor screen. A deputy sat next to the computer, filling out a crime report.

  “A Gateway?” I asked.

  Tina tilted the CPU to look at the back. “Yes, and it has Massanutten County identification stickers.”

  “Is that the computer that was supposed to be at Merrit’s house?” said Ash.

  “I’d be willing to bet a year’s worth of retirement checks it is. Isn’t it interesting how it looks like someone worked it over with a hammer…just like its former owner?”

  Tina turned to the deputy. “Where did this come from?”

  “The trash transfer station. It was one of the calls holding from yesterday,” the cop said.

  Tina massaged her forehead. “Jeez, that was the call I told dispatch to hold yesterday afternoon.”

  “Hey, you had no way of knowing,” I said.

  “I don’t understand, Sheriff. This is just an unlawful dumping case,” said the deputy.

  “No, Tommy, that may be homicide evidence,” said Tina. “What happened at the trash station?”

  The deputy stared at the broken computer in awe and then replied, “Yesterday morning, the guy running the trash compressor saw a man dumping this stuff in the big trailer they have for metal items.”

  “And that isn’t an authorized dump site for electronic equipment like this.”

  “That’s what the sanitation supervisor told me. By the time the worker got free, the guy had already driven off.”

  “What time did this happen?”

  “Sometime around nine-thirty.”

  “Did you get a description of the man and the vehicle?”

  “Not a very good one.” The deputy sounded sheepish and I suspected it was because he’d done a slapdash job on what he’d considered an inconsequential report.

  Tina impatiently waved for him to continue.

  The deputy said, “He was a white male adult driving a full-sized green pickup truck, unknown make, with a black spot on the driver’s door. Oh, and it had ‘Farm Use’ placards.”

  Fourteen

  “The same truck the FBI saw at the museum?” Ash asked.

  “So, whoever this guy was, he wasn’t just doing a turnaround in the driveway,” said Tina.

  I said, “No, he went there to see Merrit, but was scared off when he saw there were other people at the museum.”

  “Which means he didn’t want any witnesses when he met Merrit.”

  “You usually don’t want folks watching when you’re planning to turn someone’s skull into a scale model of that meteor crater in Arizona.”

  Ash winced at the imagery. “Do you think he went back later?”

  “Until we know more, we have to assume he did.”

  Tina turned to the deputy. “I want you to put this stuff with the other homicide evidence and write a full report. Understood?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Ash pointed at the wrecked equipment. “Is this the personal computer issued to Merrit that Marie Merrit said she didn’t have?”

  “Yep,” I said.

  “So, if the man in the pickup truck was seen at the dump throwing this away and then later at the museum, there’s a good chance he’s connected with Marie.”

  “Probably. But, until we identify the guy and establish a relationship, Marie will claim she doesn’t know him and we can’t prove otherwise,” I said to Tina. “What are the chances we can ID the vehicle?”

  Tina frowned. “Not good. We’ve got hundreds of farms and probably just as many unlicensed farm vehicles in this county alone.”

  “And with the hue and cry over the murder, that truck will stay hidden. So nothing has really changed. We have to interview Linda Ingersoll tomorrow.”

  Ash said, “And while you’re in Charlottesville, it occurred to me that there is something else I could do to help.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I really want to examine those counterfeit teddies before you send them to the crime lab. Correct me if I’m wrong, but at best, all they’ll be able to establish is who manufactured the mohair and stuffing and confirm whether it’s new.”

  “And maybe identify what was used to artificially age the bears.” Suddenly, I understood what Ash was about to suggest. “But a teddy bear expert could potentially tell us a lot more.”

  “I’m not an expert,” Ash said hurriedly.

  “As far as a judge would be concerned, you are. The legal definition of an expert is simply an individual who knows more about a certain subject than the average person. That qualifies you as a bona fide fur-ensic expert.”

  “I knew that was coming,” groaned Tina. “What do you think you could find out from examining the bears?”

  Ash said, “The needlework, fabric piecing, and how the eyes are attached all might give me an idea of who made them. Bear artists usually have a distinctive sewing style. I know most of the teddy bear makers around here and I’m pretty good at recognizing their work.”

  “Even if the bears are supposed to look like someone else made them?” Tina asked.

  “Hopefully, that’s only on the outside. The artist—and whoever it was is an artist—might not have been so careful with what he or she did on the inside.”

  “It’s hard to imagine that someone from around here made those bears.”

  I said, “I know, but the suspect’s mailing address is in Shefford Gap. So, the counterfeiter has to live close enough to mail packages from the post office there and pick up the incoming checks.”

  Tina took her key ring from the clip on her gun belt. “Okay, you’ve convinced me. Before we leave, I’ll get the bears out of evidence and you can sign for them.”

  “But I want you to understand that all I’d be offering is an opinion as to who made them.” Ash looked a little apprehensive.

  I patted her on the shoulder. “Anything you can tell us will help, because we’re pretty much dead in the water right now, love.”

  Tina said, “And as far as talking to Ingersoll tomorrow is concerned, I just thought of something: It’s summer. She’s probably not going to be at the university.”

  “But the fact Merrit called her yesterday shows that she’s still in Charlottesville. We’ll have to call her. I know you’ve been busy, but did you run a driver’s license check on her?”

  “It’s in my office.”

  We followed Tina down the hallway to her office. After a few seconds sorting through the stack of papers on her desk, she produced a sheet with Ingersoll’s driver’s license information and a small digital photo. The face in the picture didn’t fit my image of a sexually adventuress home-wrecker. Curiously, although Ingersoll looked to only be in her midthirties, she wore the oversized eyeglasses with rectangular frames that were popular in the 1970s and a hairstyle that was vaguely reminiscent of the Princess-Leia-dual-mounted-cinnamon-bun look. Then again, she was a history professor and perh
aps her area of specialization was the wonderful decade that gave us Watergate, disco, and that modern “Chariot of Fire,” the famously flammable Ford Pinto.

  “She looks basically harmless,” I observed.

  “And she’s going to look basically armless if she offers you some private tutoring,” warned Ash.

  Meanwhile, Tina pulled a Charlottesville phone book from her desk drawer. After a few moments of flipping pages, she looked up from the book and said, “Believe it or not, we finally caught a break. She’s got a listed number and a husband. His name is Jeffrey.”

  I perched myself on the desk to give my leg a rest. “Not good. If we call and he’s there, she’s going to deny knowing anything.”

  “I know, so I guess I’ll call her office number at UVA and hope she’s checking voice mail for a message from Merrit.”

  “That sounds best.”

  Tina made the call, left a brief message requesting a callback on her cell number, and then retrieved the two counterfeit bears from the evidence room. Then she took us to her house, where we picked up the Xterra and Kitch. It was after six P.M. when we finally got home. I fed Kitch and then made a gin and tonic for Ash, while she sautéed some hamburger and salsa to make tacos. I’d just opened a cold bottle of Indian Pale Ale and was grating the Monterey pepper jack cheese when the phone rang.

  It was Tina, who said, “I just talked to Ingersoll, and we’re scheduled to meet her tomorrow at nine A.M. in her office at UVA.”

  “Did you tell her that Merrit is dead?”

  “Yeah, and she didn’t take the news very well. She broke down completely.”

  “Did she say why he called her yesterday morning?”

  “I asked, but she was crying so hard, she couldn’t answer.”

  I took a sip of beer. “Do you think it was genuine or was she blowing smoke?”

  Tina was silent for a second and then said, “Maybe I’m easily fooled, but if that was a performance, she’s the greatest actress of our time.”

  “Anything else?”

  “She asked if we could keep a low profile, so I agreed to come in plainclothes.”