“Somehow, I don’t see those three mobsters as teddy bear collectors.” Then a far more obvious theory occurred to me and my jaw sagged. “But, what if some other Japanese collector, who wasn’t too particular about legalities, hired the Yakuza to come here to get a Michtom and a Bruin bear—”
“And they stole the originals and replaced them with fakes.” Ash cut in. “But Merrit saw them and tried to interfere and they killed him.”
“However, that presumes the Yakuza were able to enter the museum carrying two good-sized counterfeit teddy bears without Merrit noticing.” I glanced from the body toward the doorway leading to the foyer. “That’s possible, but not real probable.”
“Okay then, maybe they came here to steal the bears but realized they were phony.”
“How could they tell a counterfeit antique teddy bear from the genuine article? I spend more time around teddy bears than most guys and I sure couldn’t.”
Ash shrugged. “I don’t know, but we might learn a little more if I could handle them.”
“Let me take some pictures of them and the mantle and then you can examine them.” I leaned over to kiss her on the cheek. “Hey beautiful, you’re turning into one heck of a homicide detective.”
“That’s because I have an excellent instructor.”
I took some overview photos of the bears and then dragged a Shaker-style wooden chair over to the fireplace, intending to stand on it to snap some overhead shots. Or at least that was my objective, but with my bum leg you’d have thought I was making the final ascent of the Matterhorn while suffering from an acute case of vertigo. I finally had to swallow my pride and ask Ash to climb up on the chair and take the photos, which she did while I held a small flashlight at an oblique angle to bring out the marks in the dust.
Afterwards, she hopped from the chair, handed the camera back to me, and grabbed the Michtom teddy with her gloved hands. I kept quiet as she scrutinized the bear’s face and then slowly turned it to examine the seams. Next, she squeezed the teddy’s torso fairly hard and lifted the bear to sniff its tummy.
Her nose wrinkled and she said, “This is a first-class reproduction. Whoever made this did a great job artificially aging it, but there’s something you just can’t fake.”
“What’s that?”
“The smell. Most of the early teddy bears were stuffed with excelsior.”
“Sort of a wood fiber, right?”
“Right.” She sniffed the bear again. “Old excelsior stuffing gives antique bears a very distinctive aroma and this one doesn’t smell as it should.”
“Well, of course not. It has an embroidered nose, so it doesn’t have any nostrils. It can’t smell at all.”
“Brad.”
“Okay, I’m focusing. That one doesn’t smell like an old bear.”
“No. As a matter of fact, it doesn’t really have an odor at all, which tells me the artist used new excelsior.” She handed me the bear. “See?”
I’d just buried my nose in the bear’s torso to take a big sniff when Tina came back into the museum, carrying the new broom and dustpan.
Cocking an eyebrow at me, Tina said, “I’m not interrupting anything here, am I?”
“Behave. This may look strange—”
“Just a little.”
“But it’s actually vital to the investigation.”
“If you say so.”
“Really, Tina, this is very important.” Ash took the Bruin bear down from the mantle and gave it a sniff. “I’m pretty certain both these bears are counterfeit. One of the best ways you can tell is by the smell.”
“Counterfeit teddy bears? You’re kidding.”
I said, “Nope. Antiques are big money and crooks will counterfeit anything these days, including toys.”
“But what does this have to do with the murder?”
“Maybe nothing,” said Ash. “But somebody did move them recently and a fanatical bear collector would pay a lot of money for these teddies.”
“So it’s possible the Yakuza were hired to come here to steal them.” I added. “Merrit objected and he ended up dead. It isn’t a perfect theory, but it’s the only motive we’ve got for now.”
“But if the bears are fakes, how’d they end up in the museum?”
“I don’t know, and we can’t ask him.” I glanced over my shoulder at Merrit. “So, that’s something we’re going to have to look for in the acquisition records when we search Merrit’s office, which is our next stop once we finish here.”
“Well, I hope you have better luck in there than I just had with the FBI.”
“Trouble with the vaunted Bureau? I’m utterly shocked.” Like most street cops, I consider the only thing more useless than the FBI is the inflatable life vest tucked beneath a jet airliner’s seat. “Did you know the initials stand for Famous But Incompetent?”
“I didn’t, but I do now.” Tina was simmering. “I spoke with the regional duty agent, who talked to me as if I was retarded and suggested I was overreacting. He told me to call back on Monday.”
“Your tax dollars at work. Any luck with customs?”
“I left a message, but haven’t heard anything back yet.”
“And Olympus?”
“Same thing. I’m waiting for a callback from someone in their legal department.”
“You knew that was coming. Has Allsop collected that cigarette butt yet?”
“Just a minute ago.”
“Did he notice the brand?”
“Winston. Is that important?”
“It might be, at some point.”
Tina held out the broom and dustpan. “You wanted these?”
“Thanks. If you’ll help Ash collect these bears and the quilt as evidence, I’ll start sweeping up the broken glass and china.”
It didn’t take long to sweep up most of the debris and pour it into an evidence bag. However, I made no effort to collect the glass shards and pieces of broken dishes that lay scattered on Merrit’s body. That stuff would go into the body bag with the corpse. I’d just begun dusting the cupboard for fingerprints when the ME’s transportation team arrived with a metal gurney. Five minutes later, they and the body were on their way to Roanoke.
Ash came into the dining room and watched for a moment as I moved the fingerprint brush in a swirling motion. She asked, “Anything?”
“Nah, all I’m doing is making a mess. Between the old furniture oil and dust, you couldn’t find King Kong’s latents. Where’d Tina go?”
“Out to check on the deputies and to make sure the county is sending out a truck to pick up the cupboard.”
“Excellent. By the way, you and I aren’t loading this freaking thing into a vehicle. That’s why God created young cops.”
“Thank goodness. We’ve got the bears and quilt packaged, but we left the hammer for you to collect. Are you going to try to fingerprint it also?”
“No, there’s too great a chance that we’d lose trace evidence such as blood. I’ll let the lab process it for prints. And this,” I said, tossing the now gummy print brush into the plastic box, “is becoming an exercise in futility. Let me sweep up the rest of the debris and then I’ll get the hammer.”
Tina came back into the museum as I was sliding the hammer into an evidence sack. She grumbled, “The lawyer from Olympus says that he’d
love
to help, but we need a search warrant before they’ll tell us where the Hummer is. That’s going to take forever.”
“Not necessarily. I’ve got a boilerplate, fill-in-the-blanks version of that kind of search warrant affidavit on one of my computer discs at home. If Ash doesn’t mind, she can go and get it while we go to Merrit’s house and make the death notification.” I gave Ash a sidelong glance. “That is, unless you want to come with us.”
“And witness a wife being told that her husband is dead? No, thanks, but that’s just a little too close to home.” Ash touched my arm. “I’ll get the disc and also let Kitchener out to go to the bathroom.”
I stuck the bag containing the hammer into a large cardboard box loaded with the other evidence. “Tina, are you comfortable enough with how Allsop is working to let him finish with photographing the inside of the museum?”
“He seems to be doing a great job.”
“Okay, let’s do a quick search of the office and go talk to Mrs. Merrit. Maybe she’ll be able to tell us something about the bears.”
We filed into the small office and I took some photos before we disturbed anything. My leg was aching, so I assigned myself the task of searching Merrit’s desk, which meant I could sit down. Ash began searching the four-drawer filing cabinet while Tina checked some document-filled cardboard boxes in the corner of the room.
The computer on the desk looked like it was in “stand by” mode, but I wasn’t going to mess with it other than to turn it off. There might be other important information in the computer’s files, such as emails or the documents we were seeking, but I’d leave their recovery to the cyber specialists at the crime lab. I opened the top desk drawer, but found nothing of evidentiary value; just pens, paper clips, and a bunch of rolled up little candy wrappers that told me Merrit was addicted to Werther’s toffees.
Tina held up a sheet of paper. “Here’s something interesting. This form says that Merrit was issued a personal computer so that he could work from home.”
“Different from this one here?”
“What brand is that one?”
I bent over to look at the logo on the computer tower. “A Compaq.”
“No, this says it was a Gateway. The other one must be at his house.”
“We’ll want both of them for the crime lab.”
Going back to work, I came upon a thick folder labeled “Equipment Inventory Forms” in the bottom drawer. However, the folder was packed with something other than museum documents. There were maybe twenty love letters and romantic cards addressed to Merrit and all were signed, “With All My Love, Linda.” I pulled all the amorous correspondence from the file and piled it on the desk.
I said, “We might want to bring these along when we go to make the death notification to Merrit’s widow. They might provide her some comfort.”
Tina picked up a card, read the sentiment, and looked thoughtful. “Actually, I don’t think she’ll want them.”
“Why not?” Ash asked.
“Because Merrit’s wife isn’t named Linda. Her name is Marie.”
Nine
As far as I’m concerned, one of the most consistently wretched things about investigating a homicide is uncovering the tawdry little secrets of murder victims. However, it’s unavoidable. Understanding the victim’s background and behavior are vitally important, because that information can tell us much about the killer. So, we peek into the dark recesses of people’s lives and often discover unsavory things that may have nothing to do with their murder, but must be explored until they’ve been eliminated as a causative factor. Sometimes you can mercifully keep the truth from the victim’s family and save them some additional pain, but I didn’t think that was an option this time. While it was true there was some compelling circumstantial evidence pointing to the Yakuza as Merrit’s killers, we could no longer focus solely on them. Marital infidelity was also an excellent and eternally popular motive for murder.
“He was cheating on his wife?” Ash said distastefully. She picked up one of the letters and began to read it.
“That’s sure how it looks, but we don’t want to jump to conclusions,” I said.
Ash’s cheeks turned pink and she stared in disbelief at the lilac-colored stationery. “We can go ahead and jump to this conclusion. This Linda is certainly very…descriptive.”
Tina looked over Ash’s shoulder and after a moment inhaled sharply. “Oh my God, I see what you mean.”
“And it gets worse,” said Ash.
“Really? Let’s see.” I reached for the letter.
Ash folded the papers and quickly scooped up the rest of the cards and letters. “Honey, I don’t think you need to waste your time reading this stuff.”
“But it’s evidence.”
“And mostly pornographic. Tina and I will review the letters while you keep looking for the paperwork on the bears.”
I resumed my search for the acquisition documents for the antique bears while Ash and Tina plowed—as it were—through the torrid correspondence. In the end, none of us came up with anything useful. There was no paperwork for the bears and no indication from the letters that Merrit’s love affair with Linda was in trouble or had been discovered. Then something else occurred to me. Opening my notebook, I turned to the page where Ash had written down the numbers of the incoming and outgoing calls.
I pulled my cell phone from my pocket and as I pressed the telephone number with the “434” area code, Ash asked, “Who are you calling?”
“Linda, I hope.” I punched the button to put the phone on speaker mode.
“While we were in here earlier, we checked the incoming and outgoing phone numbers,” Ash explained to Tina. “There were calls last night and this morning to the same number.”
The phone rang three times and then rolled over to the voice mail salutation. It was a woman’s voice: “Hello, you’ve reached the office of Professor Linda Ingersoll of the University of Virginia. I’m not available to take your call, but please leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”
I disconnected from the call. “We’re going to want to talk to her at some point, so I don’t think I’ll leave a message that her secret lover is now flatter than Kansas.”
“A professor? What do you suppose she teaches, Advanced Motel Gymnastics?” Ash rolled her eyes. “So, what now?”
“I think we’re done here. Let’s take those steamy letters as evidence and tell Allsop that when he finishes up, to seize Merrit’s computer too.”
“And then I guess it’s time to drive over to Merrit’s house and make the death notification. I’m not looking forward to that,” Tina said.
I heaved a huge sigh. “No, it’s never fun…unless you tell the family by turning it into a game of charades.”
Tina tried not to chuckle as Ash gave me her patented withering I-can’t-believe-you-just-said-that look. We went outside where it was still very hot and muggy, but I saw we had weather coming. The western horizon was a solid wall of whitish-gray thunderheads and the freshening breeze told me the front was headed in this direction. It was a good thing that Ash was heading home, because you can add thunderstorms to the long list of things that terrify Kitchener, not that I thought less of him for this particular phobia. Thankfully, we don’t often see tornadoes, but Shenandoah Valley thunderstorms are noisier than an artillery barrage, generate lots of lightning, and can pack some pretty powerful winds.