“What will happen to Todd?” Donna asked.
“Probably a plea bargain to the Maryland equivalent of voluntary manslaughter and then prison. It’s where he belongs.”
“That’s sad. He was one of Jen’s victims, too.”
“He chose to be a victim.”
Donna met my gaze and I think she understood the un-spoken part of my last statement. Then she looked away and said, “Ashleigh told me that you had something to do with Wintle Toys breaking their contract with Tony to make the Cheery Cherub Bears. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. However, Jeffrey Wintle asked me to pass this along to you with a message.” I handed Donna the business card. As she studied the engraved printing, I continued, “He said that he’d like to offer you the Cheery Cherub Bears licensing deal, and to call him. He’s still here in Baltimore if you’re interested.”
There was a small plastic waste receptacle attached to the bed’s safety rails. Donna tossed the card into it with the other trash. Then she pulled a tissue from a box sitting on the small table adjoining her bed.
Dabbing her eyes, she said, “No, I couldn’t do that. I made those cherub bears for
my
baby and it would dishonor his memory to see them turned into something tawdry.”
254
John J. Lamb
“That’s what I figured you’d say, but I at least wanted to give you the opportunity.” Then I leaned my cane against the bed and slowly reached out to touch her hand.
“But can I just give you something to think about before we go?”
“What?”
“You loved Benjamin more than anything and you’d have given up your life for him, wouldn’t you?”
Donna sniffled and nodded.
“How do you think he’d feel to know that the only thing he represents in your life now is a source of hurt and anger?”
Ash reached out to stroke Donna’s shoulder.
“This entire Cheery Cherub Bears torture session is over. You can make a fresh start. So, if you could give up your life for him, think about giving up the rage. You both deserve far better than that.”
Donna didn’t say anything else, so we sat there a little while longer in silence. When it came time to leave, Ash leaned over to give Donna a hug and a kiss on the cheek.
Then we drove back to the Maritime Inn.
Later that night, as we lay in bed in the hotel room, Ash said, “You’ve been very quiet.”
“Just thinking.”
“About Jen’s murder?”
“Hell, no. The last thing I want to do is give another second’s worth of thought to that sleazy mess. No, I was thinking about the next teddy bear I want to make.”
“Really?” Ash rolled over and snuggled up next to me.
“Tell me more.”
“Well, if you can have the Confection Collection, why can’t I start a line of fictional cop character bears? Dirty Beary was the first . . .” I leaned over to kiss her. “And the next one is going to be an authentic Sergeant Joe Fur-day from the original
Dragnet
series from the nineteen-fifties.
The False-Hearted Teddy
255
Thank you for showing me a new and wonderful life, my love.”
“My pleasure, Inspector Lyon.”
And so I lay there in the darkness, listening as Ashleigh’s breathing grew slower. Soon, she was asleep. But I was wide awake, wondering just how the hell I was going to make a Fedora hat for a teddy bear.
A TEDDY BEAR ARTISAN PROFILE
Dolores J. Austin
In Chapter Six, Brad Lyon meets a woman named Dolores Austin and tells her how much he admires her
Win-nie the Pooh
shadowbox tableau. The artist is a real person and my wife, Joyce, and I met her at a teddy bear show in Timonium, Maryland, in April 2005. Dolores’s
Pooh
creation won first prize in her judging category at the prestigious Teddy Bear Artist Invitational (TBAI) held in Binghamton, New York, in August 2005. It was one of the high points of her life as a teddy bear artist.
Dolores lives in Dunmore, in northeast Pennsylvania, and her passion for making stuffed animals evolved from a series of earlier artistic endeavors. Her first creations were Tole painted items that were so well received, one of her handmade ornaments hung on the White House Christmas tree during the Clinton presidency, while another piece is currently housed at the Smithsonian Institute. This led her to creating rag dolls with hand-painted faces and, finally, teddy bears in 1995.
“After that, I was hooked. I just
knew
that I was great 258
A Teddy Bear Artisan Pro file
at designing! But, yikes! Looking back, my first bear still scares me,” Dolores told me with a laugh.
That may be, but if so, the quality of her work improved both swiftly and tremendously, as is evidenced by her success at TBAI. She’s also won awards at many regional teddy bear shows and in 2005 her seventeen-inch bear, Madison T. Bera, was nominated for a Golden Teddy, one of the top artist awards in North America. Madison is a sweet little girl bear wearing white baby shoes, an infant’s short-sleeve shirt, and a diaper—one of Dolores’s signature items of ursine apparel for her “Bearied Trea-sure” editions of baby boy and girl bears. And the diapers have been known to provoke some interesting conversa-tions at teddy bear shows.
Dolores said, “Most people are surprised when they push the diaper down a little bit and see the bear has a belly button. Inevitably, someone will ask me if the bears are anatomically correct . . .”
With that said, you’ll have to hunt Dolores down at a bear show to get the answer.
As with most artists, Dolores thinks long and hard about how a bear will look before she even begins to draw the pattern. It has to literally “jump” from her head before she’s satisfied that the bear is ready to be “born.”
And she only creates a few at a time. Most of her bears are made as either one-of-a-kind or in extremely small editions. Along with creating bears from mohair, leather, and old fabric, Dolores also works in a medium known as needle-felting. This is a process by which large beds of steel needles are moved in and out through wool to create felt, fabric with designs, or three-dimensional shapes.
“It’s almost a lost art form,” said Dolores. “It’s time consuming, but you have the ability to add features to your sculpted bear that aren’t possible with other materials. Your creativity can
really
flow with felting!”
A Teddy Bear Artisan Pro file
259
However, her biggest joy is going to teddy bear events where she can show off her furry friends to collectors.
“That’s when the real fun begins,” Dolores said with a smile.
If you have any questions about Dolores’ wonderful bears or her schedule of appearances at events around the country, she can be contacted via e-mail at Dolores@
BearMaker.com.
Afterword
If you ever visit Baltimore, I heartily recommend that you explore Fell’s Point. I love the district and it’s worth noting that the bookshop visited by the fictional Lyons is a real place, a store called Mystery Loves Company. (However, don’t go looking for a
Pam and
Pom
mystery: the books exist only in my imagination . . . although I’m tempted to write one.) Similarly, while there is no Har-Bear Expo Teddy Bear Show, Maritime Inn, Basingstoke Township, Dumollard Ani-Media, or Wintle Toy Company, several of the teddy bear artists named in this book are real people: Cindy Malchoff, Marsha Friesen, Penny French, Anne Cranshaw, and Karen Rundlett, among others. Furthermore, the story of how a photograph of Brad holding one of Karen Rundlett’s bears ended up in
Smithsonian
magazine is taken from real life. It happened to me while my wife and I attended a San Diego teddy bear show in January 2002. The picture appeared in the August 2002 edition of the magazine.
Finally, the Teddy Bear Artist Invitational event mentioned in the book is a genuine event that teddy bear fans can attend. It’s a great show and the proceeds go to help save endangered species. In 2006, I was blessed with the opportunity to do the national launch 262
Afterword
for
The Mournful Teddy
at TBAI. The show featured a mystery theme (a teddy bear was kidnapped . . . or
cub
napped, I haven’t decided which yet) and I was invited to participate as the “Chief of Fur-ensics,” a position created by Penny French, one of the event’s organizers. The punning title was so deliciously awful, I was compelled to incorporate it into this book, but Penny deserves the credit . . . or blame.
The Invitational is held annually in mid-August in Binghamton, New York, and you can learn more about it by visiting the web site at www.tbai.org.
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