The False-Hearted Teddy

by John J. Lamb

  “Does he know you found this?”

  “I don’t think so. I told Oleszak about it in the corridor because I figured you wouldn’t want the guy to know.”

  “Good work. Did the detectives let Swift use the bathroom?”

  “I…uh, I don’t know.”

  “We’ve got to get up there before he cleans his hands. Come on, Delcambre.” Mulvaney turned and jogged for the exit with her partner and the tech hard on her heels as they cut a path through the crowds of teddy bear collectors.

  As Ash and I watched the cops leave, I shouted, “We accept your apology.”

  Eight

  Can you please explain something to me? I was a cop most of my adult life, I’ve always been a law-abiding citizen, I’m crippled, I’ve never cut off one of those menacing DO NOT REMOVE UNDER PENALTY OF LAW tags from a new pillow, and I’m of a mature enough age to remember when Woody Allen’s comedy films were funny. Add those elements together and I think it’s pretty clear I don’t fit the criminal profile. So why is it that over the past nine months, I’ve been threatened with jail so many times that you’d have thought I was Robert Downey Jr.?

  And make no mistake; if that evidence tech hadn’t shown up with the inhaler, Lieutenant Mulvaney would have arrested us for something, just to show us that she was the boss. The formal charge against us would probably have been that we’d interfered with a homicide investigation—which of course, we hadn’t—but we had committed the grave and unofficial crime of “contempt of cop” by our refusal to grovel before the detective as if she were a demigod.

  “What in the name of God is wrong with that woman?” Although the cops were gone, Ash continued to glare in the direction in which they’d departed.

  “An acute case of being badge-heavy. She’s in a hurry to pit someone for this homicide and viewed our lack of cooperation as a deliberate challenge to her authority.”

  “But how can she solve the case if she randomly accuses people of murder?”

  “Unfortunately, it wasn’t a random accusation. It’s obvious that Tony did a first-rate job of twisting the circumstances to make it look as if I might have killed Jennifer.”

  “To cover his own guilt for the murder of his wife.” Ash shook her head and sighed. “What a scumbag.”

  “Agreed, he’s a scumbag, but I’m not so certain he killed Jennifer.”

  “Huh?” Ash turned to look at me. “Sweetheart, less than an hour ago you were explaining to me in detail why Tony was the prime suspect.”

  “I know, but something doesn’t make sense. Let’s go sit down and I’ll explain.” I nodded in the direction of our table.

  “Your leg is hurting, isn’t it?”

  “A little. I’ve been on my feet a lot this morning.” I lowered myself onto a folding chair with a tiny moan.

  Ash got the black leather satchel we use to carry our sales receipt books, business cards, sewing kit, and other miscellanies we need at a teddy bear show, which unfortunately also includes painkillers. Unzipping the bag, she said, “Ibuprofen?”

  “Please.”

  She handed me three white pills and I took them with a swallow of bottled water. But before I could begin my explanation we had some potential customers visit the table. Ash chatted with the women, one of whom was admiring Suzy Cinnamon Streusel. Suzy was one of Ash’s masterpieces: a bear wearing an amazing realistic coffee cake costume that included drizzled white icing made from melted silicon. After a few minutes of conversation, the lady put Suzy down and said she’d be back after she’d seen the rest of the show.

  That meant one of two things: either the woman wasn’t interested in Suzy and was lying to us to be courteous or she was a teddy bear show rookie and didn’t yet understand that if a bear really calls to you, that you should buy it now instead of later. Wait, and the odds are good that the bear will be gone when you come back. Teddy bear shows are a lot like life and finding true love; you have to be a little adventurous.

  Once the women were out of earshot, Ash said, “Okay, so why isn’t Tony the killer?”

  “I’m not completely eliminating him from consideration, but think about it: if he was smart and cunning enough to come up with the idea of using superglue as a toxin and altering the inhaler like that, then why was the inhaler found in his hotel room? That should have been the very last place on the planet we’d expect to find it.”

  Ash’s eyes widened. “I see what you mean. He would have had a plan to dispose of it someplace else.”

  “Right. He had plenty of time and a thousand opportunities to ditch the thing in a restroom wastebasket, along the road as he drove to the hospital, or even in the bay. Yet it was found in his room.”

  “Maybe he wasn’t expecting us to get involved and when we did, he panicked. I mean, what’s the likelihood that there was going to be a retired homicide inspector attending a teddy bear artisan breakfast?”

  “He knew I’d been a cop. I told him.”

  “But not a detective.”

  “I suppose…but hold it right there. Are you suggesting that manly-men don’t attend teddy bear shows?” I pretended to be offended.

  Ash leaned over to kiss my cheek. “My manly-man does, but not many others do. You being there could have derailed Tony’s plans.”

  “Possibly, but it doesn’t change the fact that he’d have known that once the cops realized Jennifer had been poisoned, they’d begin their search for evidence in his room.”

  “Why?”

  “Because his priors for DV would make him an immediate and obvious suspect.”

  “True.”

  “Furthermore, it just doesn’t make any sense that Tony would run the risk of being seen by a hundred witnesses as he picked the inhaler up from the floor, only to take it to his room. That’s felony-stupid.”

  “I agree, but how do you explain the glue they said was on his hands?”

  “Again, if he went to all the trouble of developing this James Bond-quality plan, don’t you think he’d have worn gloves while sabotaging the inhaler? Besides, just before things went to hell, I overheard him telling someone that he’d repaired a broken plastic teddy bear stand earlier this morning.”

  “Convenient. Maybe he was trying to establish an alibi.”

  “Honey, I’m troubled by your distrustful view of your fellow creatures. Wherever could you have picked up such a deplorable tendency?”

  Ash smiled sweetly. “Why, I have no idea.”

  “However, I like the fact you’re thinking like a homicide detective. Mulvaney could take lessons from you.”

  “Thank you.”

  “But how he got glue on his hands isn’t nearly as important as this question: would Tony give Mulvaney permission to search his room if he’d just hidden the inhaler there?”

  “No. That would be suicidal.”

  “Exactly.”

  “So, he didn’t know it was there?”

  “And following the progression of logic, that means the real killer planted it in his room to frame him for first-degree murder. Considering he tried to do precisely the same thing to me, I find it deliciously ironic.”

  “But what are you going to do about it?”

  “Nothing.”

  “What do you mean ‘nothing’?”

  “Just what I said, sweetheart. Nothing, nada, zilch, zip, not happening. I have no desire to see the inside of the Baltimore City Jail and if I start meddling in this investigation, and Lieutenant BOTOX finds out, that’s exactly where I’ll end up.”

  Ash frowned. “But an innocent man is going to jail for a murder he didn’t commit.”

  “An innocent man who threatened to assault me yesterday, who’s also a convicted felon, and who smashed his wife up so badly that she was in the hospital for a week. Sorry, honey, but I won’t be real upset if Tony spends a couple of days in the slammer until the Baltimore cops decide he isn’t the killer. Besides which, it’s out of our control because I’m not a cop anymore.”

  “I suppose you’re
right.” She pretended to watch the teddy bear aficionados as they strolled by, but only a second or two passed before she turned back to me and said, “So, who’s the real killer?”

  “Beats me.”

  “And you aren’t even interested?”

  “I won’t go so far as to say that.”

  “And you don’t think you’d enjoy identifying the real killer before Mulvaney even knows that she’s arrested the wrong person?”

  “Get thee behind me, Satan.”

  “You would. Don’t deny it.”

  “Okay, I’ll admit it would give me a great deal of unsavory pleasure to rub her nose in it by solving the case, if you’ll explain to me why you’re egging me on.”

  “Because she treated us like dirt in front of everyone and all but accused you of murder. That was flat wrong and I think she needs to be taken down a peg or two.” You can always tell when Ash is genuinely angry because her normally dormant Shenandoah Valley accent becomes more pronounced.

  “No argument it was wrong, but there’s nothing we can do about it unless…no! You aren’t suggesting I—”

  “Conduct your own homicide investigation.”

  “Danger, danger, Will Robinson!” I waved my arms spasmodically like the robot from Lost In Space. “Honey, let me preface this by saying I love you more than life, but at what point this morning did you lose your mind? Just think of how many teddy bears you’d have to sell to post my bail.”

  “Mulvaney would have to catch you first and she won’t even be here if she’s at the police station questioning Tony.”

  “There’ll still be a platoon of cops and evidence techs here.”

  “Looking in the wrong places.”

  I covered my ears. “La, la, la, la, la! I’m not listening.”

  “Think of the unhappy expression on Mulvaney’s face when you solve the case.”

  “We wouldn’t be able to tell what she felt, because her face is paralyzed.”

  Ash gave me a grave look. “Okay, what if I asked you to find the real killer because you and I both know it’s the right thing to do?”

  I was going to offer another feeble protest, but stifled it because she was absolutely correct. Whatever Jennifer Swift’s faults were, she didn’t deserve to be murdered, much less spend her final moments of life in a tortured gagging panic, trying to force her inoperative lungs to work. It was a hellish way to die. During my career as a homicide inspector I’d investigated over a thousand murders and this one belonged in the top tier—or bottom, depending on how you looked at it—for sheer, cool, premeditated cruelty. So, regardless of the fact I was no longer a peace officer, I felt I had a moral duty to help identify and capture the killer, especially if the police had arrested the wrong person for murder.

  At the same time, my motivation wasn’t entirely altruistic. I was fascinated by the prospect of investigating one of the most rare forms of homicide, a poisoning murder, and I craved the excitement of going monster hunting again. Furthermore, the murder had been committed in my presence and, rightly or wrongly, I viewed that as a personal challenge. Most of all, I wanted revenge on Mulvaney for abusing Ash and me in front of our teddy bear artisan peers. The best way to do that was to identify the killer and withhold the information from the egomaniacal lieutenant until she’d made a groveling apology. As you’ll have gathered by now, “forgive and forget” isn’t one of my maxims.

  At last, I said, “Does it ever bother you that you’re always right?”

  She pretended to be lost in thought for a moment. “No, not really. So, where are you going to begin?”

  “By trying to figure out all the angles associated with the inhaler. It tells us an awful lot about the murderer, such as it was someone that understood what the superglue fumes would do to Jennifer’s lungs.”

  “And it also has to be someone that was well acquainted with Jennifer, since the suspect had to know she used an inhaler. That means Todd or Donna.”

  “As far as we know right now, although I’d have to imagine that some of the other teddy bear artists would have known Jennifer was an asthmatic.”

  “But how many of them would have wanted her dead?”

  “None, and I can’t figure Todd as the killer either. Yeah, he’d poison Tony, but not Jennifer.”

  “Then my money is on Donna. She knew Jennifer and obviously hated her.” Ash inhaled sharply. “You don’t think that confrontation this morning at breakfast…?”

  “Was deliberately intended to provoke an asthma attack that would cause Jennifer to use the inhaler? It’s an interesting idea, but why make it so complicated? It’s too much like a bad episode of Murder, She Wrote. Real killings aren’t like that.”

  “Hey! I liked Jessica Fletcher.”

  “I know, and if you ever wonder how much I love you, think back on all those Sunday nights when I sat watching with you, resisting the urge to tell you all the different ways it went wrong.”

  Ash’s eyes bulged out. “Honey, who the heck do you think you’re kidding? Half the time I couldn’t hear the dialogue over your running commentary on the show’s faults.”

  “I may have made an occasional critical observation,” I said sheepishly.

  “And conducted the occasional crime reconstruction using the kids and sometimes the dog to illustrate how something couldn’t happen the way Jessica said it did.”

  “I don’t remember that.” My cheeks began to grow warm.

  With a gleeful grin, Ash whipped the wireless phone from the satchel. “How about I call Heather and Chris right now to see if they remember?”

  “All right, I’ll admit it: I was a colossal pain in the butt. I’m sorry. Can we get back to discussing the actual murder?”

  “If the present topic is embarrassing, of course, darling.”

  “The bottom line is that there’s no point in speculating until we do two things: We’ve got to learn as much as we can about everyone involved, including Jennifer, and then figure out how the suspect entered their room twice without being noticed.”

  “Todd was Jennifer and Tony’s partner. He might’ve needed access to the room, so couldn’t he have been issued a key?”

  “Considering how jealous Tony is, that’s about as likely as The Beatles getting back together. Still, I’ll have to check that out. Speaking of The Beatles, do you know what John Lennon would say right now if he were alive?”

  “No, what?”

  “Let me out of this coffin!” I half-shouted while frantically shoving my hands upward against an invisible and closed casket lid.

  A trio of women, each carrying teddy bears, paused in front of our table to peer at me in consternation. Then, muttering amongst themselves, they continued down the aisle. Ash gave me an I-can’t-believe-you-said-that-in-front-of-normal-people look and I made a quick mental note to myself to reserve my dead Beatle jokes for venues other than teddy bear shows.

  At last she said, “So, tell me, since we don’t have any access to the police computer system, how are you going to do the background checks?”

  “I’ll start by going up to our room and using the laptop to Google everyone involved. It’s a long shot, but maybe I’ll find something useful. After that, I’ll do some discreet witness canvassing back down here in the hall and hope the cops don’t notice.”

  Ash squeezed my hand and stood up. “Well, I’ll leave you to brainstorm, because I’m going to find the woman that Mulvaney chased off. She liked Brenda Brownie, and more importantly, we don’t need her wandering the exhibition hall telling everyone that we were arrested. Then, when I get back, you can start investigating.”

  Once Ash was gone, I reached into the satchel, pulled out a steno pad and began making some notes. It was a little difficult to concentrate because the exhibit hall was growing crowded and very noisy. I looked up periodically from my notebook to check out the passing crowds, and saw Sergeant Delcambre approaching our table. I snapped the steno pad shut and slid it into the satchel. The very last thing I wanted to adve
rtise was the fact I was conducting my own investigation.

  Delcambre heaved a sigh that was a mixture of frustration and exhaustion. “Hey, before we go back to headquarters, I want to apologize to you for my boss’s behavior.”

  “It wasn’t your fault, but thanks. It must be difficult working with someone who’s perpetually going off halfcocked.”

  “It’s…challenging.”

  “Yeah, I’ll bet. If you don’t mind me asking, just what is her major malfunction?”

  “You ever see the old movie, Sunset Boulevard?” Delcambre jutted his chin out and did a fairly credible job of mimicking Gloria Swanson’s imperious tone, “I’m ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille.”

  “So, she’s Norma Desmond, huh?”

  “And sometimes I envy Bill Holden at the bottom of the swimming pool.” He glanced down the aisle and lowered his voice. “From the outset, she was always a marginal detective, but not long after she was promoted to investigations she worked a couple of slam-dunk, smoking-gun homicides. For instance, one of them was the murder of a pawn shop clerk where the crook left his freaking ID on the counter.”

  “Call Sherlock Holmes and the Baker Street Irregulars.”

  “Exactly. But the media made a huge deal out of it because she was one of the first female homicide investigators on the department. They created a monster.”

  “You have my sympathies. So, what’s up with Tony?”

  “Mulvaney arrested him. He’s being transported to police headquarters for questioning.”

  “You think he did it?”

  “The murder weapon was in his room, so there’s probable cause to make the arrest.”

  Noticing the oblique answer, I said, “Yeah, I don’t think he did it either.”

  “Let’s just say, I have questions.”

  “Such as why he took the inhaler back up to his room and then gave you consent to search.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You know, Mulvaney was so focused on browbeating us that she missed the chance to pick up some pretty important information. You interested?”

  Delcambre pulled his notepad and pen from his jacket pocket. “Of course.”