Death of a Six-Foot Teddy Bear (14 page)

“They die so fast too.” Jacobson opened her foam container. “Nathan got me some for our anniversary. Two days later, they were dead.”

The swirl of oregano, basil, and pepper that rose up from Jacobsons takeout overwhelmed Detective Mallory. How could she eat Italian this early? Deep inside her, the voice of a plus-size gal, the one that didn’t care about silly things like heart attacks and diabetes and fitting into a size ten screamed, “Oh baby, get me some pasta now.”

Jacobson brought the plastic fork to her mouth. “Are you all right? You look a little pale.”

Mallory pictured a steak fried in butter and a salad with vinegar and oil dressing. On the protein diet, she could be bad in her own special way. “I’m fine. Lets make our list and check it twice.” Mallory pulled a laptop out of her briefcase.

Jacobson shoveled the lasagna into her mouth, in a delicate ladylike way, with one hand. With the other, she flipped open her notebook. She spoke between bites. “We have a missing squirrel who winds up being part of a crime. Do we know for sure if the squirrel is what killed Mr. Clydell?

“They x-rayed the squirrel. Lot of broken bones.” Mallory tapped under her eye. “Remember Clydell had some petechial hemorrhaging and bruises on his neck.”

“So our murderer strangles the victim.” Setting the takeout on the bench, Jacobson rose to her feet and paced. “Binky has the misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, gets crushed when Dustin falls. Our murderer stuffs the squirrel in Dustin’s mouth, out of anger or to throw us off. Then he seals the bear head on Dustin and hauls the bear and the squirrel to the boat.”

“Mr. Simpson seemed genuinely upset about the loss of his squirrel. The one anomaly in his room was an excessive amount of ice. Maybe the squirrel was at the scene by accident.” Mallory typed. “What’s your take on the woman who was with him, Martha Hillstrong?”

Jacobson shrugged. “If we get desperate, I suppose we can question her. We have jewelry thefts, mostly diamonds, according to Officer Spurgen’s report. The thefts stop after Dustin Clydell dies.” She sat back down on the bench. “His missing kid, Xabier Knight, will probably inherit the hotel. He’s got motive if he knew that. Father and son are seen fighting shortly before Dustin’s death. We have a second ex-wife who was told she was going to inherit. We have a ransacked room and a stolen bear suit.” Jacobson picked up her takeout box and fork.

“Dustin had appointments with Victoria Stone and somebody named Edward Mastive who nobody else seems to know. Victoria told us Dustin never showed. Gloria said Dustin never met her on the boardwalk. I wonder if he kept the appointment with this Mastive guy? We still don’t have a lead on who he is.” Mallory glanced up from her laptop. “Don’t forget the note ‘Walt Disney did it.’”

Jacobson pressed her lips together, then looked down, pushing the lasagna around in its container.

“You don’t think that should be on the list?”

“It just doesn’t seem important.”

“I don’t know if this makes any sense to you, but I just got a feeling when I saw that note.”

Jacobson scraped tomato sauce off a noodle. “Okay, we’ll leave it on the list.”

“But you don’t think it’s evidence?”

“You’re the senior detective.” Jacobson scratched foam with her fork.

Her partner thought she had gone off the deep end. Mallory decided to let it go. She had been able to solve more than one case by following up on a feeling. Jacobson could be a little too textbook and procedure sometimes.

“Forensics confirms your theory that the body was moved.” Jacobson closed her takeout container. “Whoever took him out to the boat was probably planning on dumping him in the middle of the lake. Maybe that’s why they put the head back on. For weight.”

“And the perpetrator got interrupted?”

“The convention floor and the connecting hallway were cleaned that night, but they don’t think it took place there.” Jacobson paused. “We combed the pier and didn’t find anything. It makes sense, though, that the murderer wouldn’t want to haul the body too far. Trying to find forensic evidence in an outdoor location can be tricky. Let’s assume he was killed somewhere outside.”

Mallory continued to type as she spoke. “People were milling around at that time of night, but maybe there was enough darkness to get to the boat undetected.”

“What do you have to do to make someone want to kill you in such a violent way? What fear, what threat would drive such an impulse?”

Mallory shrugged. “Loss of identity or fortune or both, revenge. I agree that this had to have been an impulse murder.” Mallory lifted her fingers from the keyboard. “So what’s next for us?”

“We still have to get the Salinskis in for questioning. If the Mrs. doesn’t surface soon we can press Earl Salinski. What if they’re jewel thieves? He stayed here to play the innocent while she takes off to find a fence for the stuff.”

“According to Tiffany, the thefts started before the Salinskis showed up. They would have to have an accomplice.”

A faint meow sounded in the garden, and a gray cat with white toes emerged from some rosebushes. The cat swept past Jacobson and rubbed against Mallory.

“She likes you.”

Mallory gathered the ball of fur into her arms. The cat purred and nestled against her. “I didn’t know they allowed cats up here.”

“I bet you she sneaked up.”

“No tag on her. She’s probably one of those alley cats down by the Dumpster that live on pizza and pasta.”

“Didn’t you say your dog ran away?”

“Just to the neighbor’s house. I thought dogs were supposed to be loyal.” The cat purred so intensely she was vibrating. It was nice to be liked and appreciated. The cat was well nourished. “Maybe I’ll take her home.” She nuzzled close to the cats face. “You deserve better than the alley, don’t you?”

“What are you going to call her?”

“I think I’ll call her Aunt Bee after my favorite Mayberry character. Just call her Beebe for short.” She stroked her new pet under the chin. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

Jacobson’s cell rang. She answered the call with a series of yeses and okays and a “How soon can you get it over to forensics?”

“I take it that wasn’t a personal call?”

“A little bit of a lead. An officer found the squirrel’s rolling ball tossed down a laundry chute. They’re going to see if there are any fingerprints on it. We need to figure out if the jewelry theft, the squirrel abduction, and Clydell’s death are connected or separate crimes.”

Mallory nodded. “True, we could be working this thing all wrong. Why don’t we break for a couple hours? You can go home so your kids and hubby don’t forget what you look like, and I’ll take my new friend home.”

Ginger stepped into the lobby of the Wind-Up Hotel. A cool and constant artificial breeze swirled around her. She scanned the lobby couches for Kindra’s blond head and then searched the area by the elevators and the slot machines. Tiffany stood behind the counter handing a key to a young couple. She would know if Kindra had been here.

Tiffany looked fresh and professional in her off-white sleeveless blouse. Her makeup was subdued. But the hair was as big as ever.

“Are you running the place now?”

Tiffany drew her eyebrows together, an instant darkening of mood. “I’m running it because nobody else seems to care about running it. Even the new owner, Dustin’s one and only child, hasn’t bothered to show up and claim his inheritance.”

Xabier inherited the hotel
. That was news. “What did Dustin leave you?”

Tiffany held up her hand, forming a big
O
with her fingers. “None of it is official; the lawyer’s secretary let it slip when I talked to her. Everything is stalled because of the investigation.” She blew a strand of curly hair out of her eyes. “I suppose I can still hope I’ll get something, but then I’d be thinking the same way I did when Dustin was alive.”

“So why are you still here?”

Tiffany stopped flipping the papers she had been sorting through. “’Cause I’m good at this, running the hotel. A murder could be a PR disaster. Yes, the Inventors Expo fell apart, but the hotel is almost totally full again because of the World’s Largest Garage Sale. The staff likes me. People are depending on this hotel continuing to run.” She shook her head and lowered her voice. “It should have been mine.”

“Have you seen Kindra? You know, the young blond who came in with me on Thursday.”

Tiffany shook her head. “She picked up a message just when I was getting on shift, read her message, and left.”

“Hmm.” It wasn’t like Kindra to miss a meeting. “Did my friends get another hotel room?”

“Let me check, sweetie.” Tiffany turned her attention to the computer.

On the other side of the lobby, the elevator doors opened. Victoria Stone stepped out.

Earl was behind her.

Ginger stared at her husband of thirty-nine years with the same mixture of anxiety and excitement she used to feel on a first date.

Like an approaching train,
the ringing of the phone grew louder, slowly penetrating the deep sleep Cynthia Mallory had fallen into. Beebe purred on her chest. She had never slept so well and so deeply in her life. Beebe was an all-natural sleeping pill, a nar
cat
ic. Mallory opened her eyes. She turned her head slightly, absorbing her surroundings. She’d fallen asleep on her couch. What else? The phone rang again. It was a normal ring, not her cell, which chimed the whistling theme from
Andy Griffith
.

Mallory twisted slightly and grabbed the cordless off the coffee table.

“‘Lo.” Mallory swallowed to produce some moisture in her mouth. Her voice creaked.

“I’m down at the lab.” Jacobson sounded downright chirpy.

“Weren’t you supposed to go home and reconnect with your family?”

“I did that, and then I came down to the lab to see what the results were on the squirrel ball. What did you do?”

The question implied that Mallory had made some brilliant leap forward with the case. She had in fact consumed half a bag of Famous Amos cookies, felt guilty about that for about ten minutes, and then fallen into a deep sleep thanks to her new pet. “I got a few things done around the house and then took a little nap. Anything good with the lab results?”

“Simpson’s prints are on it, no surprise there. And Martha Hill-strong’s are on it too.”

“Hillstrong and Simpson are acquaintances. It is entirely possible that Martha had a good reason to pick up the Binky ball.” Mallory planted her feet on the carpet. The half empty bag of store-bought cookies rested on the coffee table. Maybe they were placing too much importance on the squirrel-napping. Chances are it was just one of those weird, unconnected crimes. “Was Hillstrong in the system?”

“A minor assault a few years ago. A teenager was shooting a pellet gun at squirrels in the park. Hillstrong took offense.”

“From protecting squirrels to murder. That’s a leap. Plus, I really doubt a squirrel lover would use one as a weapon, even postmortem.” She pushed the bag of cookies to one side. So much of police work was finding answers for questions. That squirrel got out of the room somehow and for some reason. “For lack of a better lead, we might want to talk to her.” That was the problem. Until Xabier Knight and Mrs. Salinski surfaced, they didn’t have any strong leads. So they were killing time with this squirrel thing. “Mr. Salinski hasn’t checked out of the hotel, is that correct?”

“Last time I asked the front desk, he was still checked in.”

Mallory massaged the back of her neck. Beebe had made herself comfortable on her thigh. “Why don’t you meet me in the hotel lobby, say in an hour? I got to go down to the corner market and get some cat food.”

“Things are working out pretty good for you two?”

“Yeah, it’s nice to have somebody who actually likes me around. I went by the Dumpster to see if she wanted to stay there. She chose me over a lifetime supply of pasta and pizza. That made me feel good.” Mallory lifted the bag of cookies and sniffed, absorbing the lingering aroma. Her mouth watered. “Our missing bear suit was in the garbage.” She had forgotten about accidentally accomplishing that bit of police work.

“That might give us a lead,” said Jacobson.

“Maybe. I turned it into the lab. It was shredded with a scissors or knife and pretty contaminated.”

“Sounds like somebody was looking for something.”

A strong hand squeezed Ginger’s upper arm. Victoria had rushed over to greet her.

Ginger turned her attention away from Earl, who was doing his statue impersonation by the elevator. She’d been gone for a day and a night. Why didn’t he come over and give her a hug?

Victoria gripped her upper arm, smiling placidly. She was decked out in a lavender exercise suit. Except for the penciled brows, she wore no makeup.

“I’m on my way to do my workout and then spa. Fiona Truman and I have paid extra for privacy in the spa.” Victoria lifted her chin. “You can do that when you have celebrity status. I’ll wait for you, if you want to change into workout gear.”

“Thanks for the invitation.” Ginger veered her eyes toward Earl. “It’s not a good time.” Her husband still hadn’t moved. “How about a rain check? Tomorrow?”

“Sounds good.” Victoria performed a stretch that involved clasping her arms behind her back and swinging side to side. “What’s your room number?”

“I’m in 517.”

Earl took a single step in her direction.

“Are you feeling okay?” Victoria placed a hand on her hip and bent sideways, stretching her arm toward the ceiling. “You seem a bit distracted.”

She looked at the aging starlet. Victoria’s eyes were clear, her cheeks had a natural blush to them that suggested a high level of health. She’d been so fixated on Earl she’d almost missed the open door God had provided for her to share with a stranger. “I’ve just been through a life-changing event. I—”

Victoria squeezed Ginger’s shoulder. “How about I just meet you in the gym tomorrow, say eleven o’clock?”

That door slammed pretty fast. Apparently, life-changing events weren’t Victoria’s thing. “Okay, that sounds good.” Again, Ginger turned her attention to her husband.

Earl shook his head.

Victoria sauntered around the corner and out of view.

Husband and wife performed a strange choreography. She took a step toward him, and then he took a step toward her, until finally she was close enough to see the level of sadness in his eyes, the droopiness of his expression. What was going on here? Wasn’t he glad to see her?

He lifted and lowered his hands as if he didn’t quite know what to do with them. “I missed you. I was so … where did you go?”

I missed you too, my sweet man
. “So much has happened in such a short time.”

He stroked his widow’s peak. “A lot went on here too.” The pace of his head rubbing slowed, and he looked directly at her. “The detective said …” He stepped toward her. “Don’t you trust me?”

That was the last thing she had expected to come out of his mouth. “What are you talking about?”

“When we were being interviewed by that detective, she said you gave me a look.”

This was not how she imagined their conversation going. Disappointment pressed down on her like a lead shawl. “Earl, I saw you on the convention floor hours before Dustin was killed.”

“Do you think I had something to do with the murder?” His voice was almost a whisper. He leaned over, looking like he was about to crumple into a fetal position.

“Of course not. It’s just that …” She hadn’t meant to torment him, to plant such doubt, but she couldn’t deny what she had seen.

“Why didn’t you show up to the Shopping Channel audition? I needed you.” He bent his head and lowered his voice. “Have you lost faith in me?”

“No, Earl, that’s not it.” While her world had been coming together, his had been falling apart. “I’ve been worrying too much about money. I lost everything, and God took care of me—”

“I don’t know what I would do if you didn’t believe in me.”

“It’s just that you’ve become this different person. This goal of becoming a great inventor is consuming you, Earl, and it scares me.” She touched his upper arm. “Where’s the sweet man I married?”

“He’s still here, Ginger.” He held out his arms.

She stepped toward him, let his arms envelop her as she rested her cheek against his warm chest, melting into him. Yes, that was what she had missed.

He patted her back. “We just need to find a distributor, and then things will get back to normal.”

Ginger stiffened in his embrace. “You say that, Earl, but after that it will be some other thing connected with the invention.” She lifted her head off his chest. “I want to be supportive of you, I do, but something is out of whack.”

“Just help me out with this one thing, and then I promise. Fiona Truman from the Shopping Channel might have us on. I’m no good on TV, but you are; you’re a great salesperson.”

Ginger leaned back. “You haven’t heard a single word I said.”

Earl dug into his wallet. “She gave me her card and everything.” He waved the business card like a little boy with a new action figure.

They were two trains headed in opposite directions on different tracks. “It’s just that it seems like you don’t see people anymore.”

“We’ve staked so much financially on this.” He leaned a little closer to her. “I’m working hard. Isn’t that a good thing? Doesn’t God call us to excellence?”

“Not at the expense of everything else. There’s a fine line between striving for excellence and becoming a workaholic.”

His mouth opened slightly, and he shook his head.

She couldn’t make him understand. She stepped away from him. “I’m going to go find that Detective Mallory. I have important things to tell her.”

Hanging out in a discount bait shop wasn’t Kindra’s idea of a good time. But, at least, the place didn’t smell like fish as she had expected. It was more like the scent of fresh-cut wood.

While she had waited in the lobby for Ginger, she had checked the front desk for messages. Xabier wanted to see her again next door at the bait shop ASAP The guy really needed to invest in a cell phone. She’d made a spur of the moment decision, something she rarely did. Xabier needed her more than Ginger.

Kindra scanned the shop. No Xabier. Fishing flies held her interest for about ten seconds. She sauntered in the direction of attire, where she could watch the door in case Xabier came in. What did the well-dressed fisherman wear these days? Waders and flannel shirts were all the rage. Several patrons perused the store. One of them, an older man, engaged the clerk in a conversation about bobbers.

She stopped to examine an odd contraption, waders with a sort of inner tube around the top. What would a fashion show for fishermen be like? Half-starved models stalking down the runway in flotation devices complete with feet. The image made her smile.

A hand warmed her shoulder. She turned slowly and gazed at a man in a baseball hat and dirty T-shirt. Xabier was good at this disguise thing. She had looked at this man several times and dismissed him as a possibility. He had a potbelly and five o’clock shadow. Only the eyes gave him away this time. He’d opted not to use the colored contacts. Looking in those brown eyes was kind of nice.