The Mournful Teddy (2 page)

John J. Lamb

accompanied by a rising swell of violins, but it also happens to be true. In her youth, Ashleigh was a knockout and she still draws ill-concealed and admiring stares from men.

Her strawberry blonde hair is long and wavy; her skin is flawless, like a porcelain doll’s, and her eyes are an almost incandescent bluish-green that reminds me of the Pacific Ocean on a sunny summer afternoon. She’s got a Junoesque figure, which, as far as I’m concerned, is how a real woman looks. Those anorexic TV actresses and fashion models that are supposed to be the epitome of modern feminine beauty look like androgynous famine victims to me.

Finally I said, “Good morning, my love.”

Ashleigh looked up and showed her sweet smile that never fails to make my heart skip a beat. “Morning, sweetheart. How are you?”

“Wonderful.” I hobbled over, kissed her on the forehead, and did my best not to inhale the steam rising from her mug of cocoa. “How long have you been down here?”

“Since about three-fifteen. I woke up and just couldn’t go back to sleep.”

“Excited?”

“Nervous. Almost every major teddy bear collector and manufacturer in the world is going to be there today.”

“For the auction of that
Titanic
bear, right?”

“The Mourning Bear.” Ash made a frustrated sound and untied the fabric bow.

I remembered her telling me about the Mourning Bear almost a month earlier when the news first broke that one was going to be auctioned for charity at the teddy bear show. The black mohair bear was produced in 1912 by the German toymaker Steiff to commemorate the sinking of the
Titanic
and there were only 655 ever made. It was one of the most rare and valuable stuffed animals on the The Mournful Teddy

7

globe and that meant collectors from all over the world would be at the bear show.

“And they really think the thing is going to go for over one-hundred-and-fifty-thousand?”

“Oh, easily more.” Ash carefully retied the bow. “Three years ago, a Mourning Bear was auctioned in England and sold for ninety-four thousand pounds.”

“That’s . . .” I tried to do the math in my head. The last time I looked at the newspaper, the exchange rate was right around a dollar seventy-nine to the British pound.

Then I gave it up and pulled the calculator from a kitchen drawer. A moment later I whistled and said, “That’s over one-hundred-and-sixty-eight-thousand dollars. Honey, you just keep right on making those teddy bears.”

She smiled and held up the bear so that I could examine the bow tie. “Does this look okay?”

I peered at the knot and decided it looked fine and told her so—but then again, I thought the first bow had looked fine too. However, I also knew that, regardless of my answer, she was going to keep retying the bow until she was completely satisfied that it was perfect.

Ash put the bear down and went into the kitchen. “Can I make you some coffee?”

“That’d be nice. Where’s Kitchener?” I asked, referring to our Old English sheepdog.

“Outside exploring.”

“You mean outside searching for something dead to eat. The Shenandoah Valley has turned our dog into a ghoul.”

This was new behavior for our dog—not that he’d ever encountered any carrion in our boxing ring–size backyard in San Francisco. But now Kitch had three acres to wander in a place teeming with wildlife. Two weeks earlier, I’d interrupted him before he could dine
al fresco
on a dead groundhog and a few days after that he’d proudly 8

John J. Lamb

trotted into the kitchen with a headless goldfinch in his mouth. Ash was horrified and I—the hard-boiled former homicide detective—was queasy over handling a dead bird.

Once the coffee was brewing, Ash asked, “You need some ibuprofen?”

“No. Sometimes it’s just a little tweaky in the morning. Maybe it’s the dampness.”

“Are you going to be okay today? I mean, if you want to stay here, I’ll understand.”

“Are you kidding me?” I took her hand. “I wouldn’t miss our first teddy bear show for the world. Besides, if I don’t go, who’s going to take the pictures of you when Miss Susannah wins first prize?”

“You really think we have a chance?” Ash sounded cautiously hopeful.

“Better than just a chance. That bear is flat out the best thing you’ve ever done and it’s not just because it’s technically perfect . . . there’s something about her that looks as if you had the time of your life creating her.”

“It wasn’t just me. You helped make her.”

“Honey, ramming polyester stuffing inside Susannah hardly constitutes helping.”

“I disagree. And you were also right about her eyes.

They
were
too close to each other at first.” The coffeemaker began to gurgle and Ash opened the cupboard to get a mug. “In fact, you had some pretty good ideas.

Maybe I’ll let you make the next one.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, but I’m not ready for that. I’m afraid any bears that I made would look like furry mutants,” I said dismissively. Yet I had to silently admit I was more than a little intrigued at the thought of making a teddy bear. I hadn’t done anything really creative in nearly thirty years and I was surprised that the bears fired my imagination. But in order to make one, I’d The Mournful Teddy

9

have to learn to operate Ash’s high-tech sewing machine, a task I dreaded. With its LED display, glowing lights, and touch-pad controls, the machine looked only slightly less difficult to run than a nuclear accelerator.

Ash poured the coffee. “Oh, I think you’re selling yourself a little short.”

I took the mug and raised it high. “I’d like to offer a toast to Susannah, the cutest teddy bear in the Western Hemisphere.”

Ash grabbed her cup of cocoa and tapped it against the mug. “To Susannah. She
is
perfect, isn’t she?”

“Just like her maker,” I said and kissed her on the cheek. “I’m going to take my coffee outside. Want to join me?”

Ash glanced at the bears and then turned imploring eyes on me. “I just need to double-check them one more time and then I’ll be right out.”

“Take your time.”

“Thank you, honey.”

I grabbed a ragged old towel from the mudroom and went outside. The sky was growing brighter as the fog began to dissipate, but the forested ramparts of the Blue Ridge Mountains were still invisible, although they were less than three miles away. A thick mist persisted just above the swiftly flowing river, which was about sixty yards wide and as muddy as a candidate’s answer at a presidential debate. Although the water had receded somewhat overnight, the Shenandoah was still well above its normal level. The remnants of Hurricane Jeanne had rumbled through Virginia two days earlier, dropping over four inches of rain in less than twenty-four hours. We’d had a few tense hours when the river briefly overflowed its banks, but our house was never in any danger.

I wiped down the wooden slats of the bench in our front yard, sat down, and took a sip of coffee. The air seemed 10

John J. Lamb

to be full of swallows gracefully dipping and soaring through the sky in search of insects. An enormous century-old Chinquapin oak stood between our house and the river and from its upper branches I heard the harsh challenging call of a blue jay. I looked for Kitchener and finally located him near the riverbank beneath a sycamore tree. When he saw me, he ambled over for his morning scratch behind the ears and when he discovered I didn’t have any dog biscuits he wandered back to his original position near the water.

Sipping my coffee, I found myself once more reflecting on the painful odyssey that eventually led us to this rural village in Virginia. The orthopedic surgeons operated on my shin twice after the shooting but the damage was just too severe. I should have been overjoyed with what the doctors accomplished because I could walk with the assistance of a cane long before anyone anticipated, but that wasn’t enough. My police career was on the line because I knew what would happen if my doctor categorized my injury as “permanent and stable”—the city would medically retire me, something I dreaded.

But as the weeks passed it became clear that no matter how skilled the surgeons were and how hard I rehabbed, I was going to be crippled for the rest of my life. The city medically retired me and I’m not proud of what happened next. For several months I wallowed in bitter anger and depression. If Ash hadn’t been there, I don’t know what might have happened. All I can say is: Thank God she possessed the patience to endure my Mardi Gras of self-pity until I finally pulled my head out of my fundament.

To make a long story short, Ash wanted to move back to the Shenandoah Valley to be close to her family and I was excited with the idea of the change of scenery. We’d visited her folks several times on vacation and I’d always liked the central Shenandoah Valley. The region was The Mournful Teddy

11

primarily rural; yet there were decent-size towns nearby like Harrisonburg, Staunton, and Charlottesville with shopping centers and cultural activities. The pace of life was slow, people still had manners, and best of all, there wasn’t a Starbucks coffee shop on every street corner.

Country folks are often portrayed as being little better than cretins, but they’re smart enough not to pay three-ninetyfive for a cup of coffee.

When I finally came out of my reverie I noticed Kitch was still there by the river, looking down at something that I couldn’t see. I decided it might be a good idea to investigate, because the last thing we needed this morning was to have to bathe a hundred-pound sheepdog after he went swimming in the muddy river. So, I got up, walked over to Kitch, and looked down into the torrent of brown water.

Our dog had shown a remarkable ability to locate dead critters, but this time he’d completely outdone himself.

A man was floating face down in the river about twenty yards from the shore. His hips and legs were snagged on the thick branches of a huge fallen log. He rose and fell on the surging waters, yet I could see his arms bobbed lifelessly. Over the years I’d seen enough corpses fished from San Francisco Bay to know for a certainty he was dead.

For a second, I found myself wondering if this was a really bad joke. I’d retired from cop work, moved 2,700

miles, and was just beginning to enjoy the fact that stiffs were no longer an integral part of my life and what happens? One washes up in my front yard. What are the odds?

Then I looked down at Kitchener and asked, “Nice catch. What kind of bait were you using?”

Kitch just panted and looked proud. I took him by the collar and led him toward the house because things were about to get hectic in our front yard. Going into the house, 12

John J. Lamb

I called to Ash, who was worrying over another teddy bear. “Sweetheart, can you get me the phone?”

“Sure. Why?”

“Because we’ve got some guy named “Bob” out there in the river and he’s dead.”

My wife looked up in shock. “Oh, my God! Are you sure he’s dead? And how do you know his name is Bob?”

“Well, the two questions are kind of connected. I know his name and his condition because he’s
bob
-bing face down in the water.”

She grabbed the cordless phone, pressed 9-1-1, handed it to me, and then galloped up the stairs.

Realizing I was going to be on my feet for some time, I called upstairs, “Honey, please bring my cane when you come down.”

By the time I’d told the volunteer fire department dispatcher about the body and given my address, Ash was back downstairs, dressed in jeans, a long-sleeved tee-shirt, and tennis shoes. She handed me my cane and headed for the door at a dead run. I followed her across the yard and joined her a minute later on the riverbank.

Ashleigh peered at the body and then raised her hands in entreaty, palms upward. “What do we do?”

“Nothing. Even if he were alive we couldn’t risk going into that water. We don’t have the training or equipment.”

A moment or two later, we heard a siren start up from the direction of town and begin moving north on Cupp Road toward the gravel lane that led to our house. Then the Volunteer Fire Company River Rescue Team’s Ford F-350 appeared, its red lightbar flashing. The truck skidded to a halt and two firefighters jumped from the truck.

As they jogged toward us, I realized that this day was swiftly going from bad to worse because one of the volunteer firemen was Marcus Poole, the effervescent pastor of the Remmelkemp Mill Apostolic Assembly.

The Mournful Teddy

13

Although everyone else in town adored him, I was inclined to dislike Reverend Poole. He’d been a high-school classmate of Ashleigh’s that I suspected had never quite gotten over having a huge and unrequited crush on her. The first time he’d visited our new home, shortly after we’d moved in, Poole gave Ash a hug that—at least in my mind—didn’t look entirely as if it was an innocent expression of Christian love. Add the facts that he was three inches taller than me, not crippled, in superb physical condition, and his hair wasn’t the color of brushed aluminum, and—oh, all right—I’m a little bit jealous, which is ridiculous because I know Ash views Poole as nothing more than an old friend. But even if he hadn’t embraced my wife a little tighter than I thought appropriate, I would have been wary of the pastor because on some intangible level my inspector senses detected the submerged aroma of fraud. Poole was so perpetually cheerful, energetic, compassionate, and painfully earnest that the saintly behavior impressed me as a superb performance. I’m sorry, call me a cynic, but nobody is
that
consistently perfect and it left me wondering why he was playacting.

Poole was wearing heavy rubber boots, baggy yellow firefighting turnout pants with canvas-colored suspenders, and, despite the cool temperature a skintight white tee-shirt to show off his well-developed chest and abs and muscular arms.
Jeez, he looks pretty good,
I thought, with more than a trace of envy. He and his partner—a plump guy I’d seen around town but didn’t know by name—

stood and looked at the body for a moment while quietly conversing. Then, while the other fireman went to the back of the truck and began to screw the pieces of a long metal gaffing hook together, Poole came over to us and intoned: