Death of a Six-Foot Teddy Bear (17 page)

He grabbed her again and squeezed, igniting the nerve endings in her arm muscles. “Please, I really need your help.”

Ginger’s fear calibrator moved up the scale. “We’ll talk pottery some other time.” She wrenched away from him.

He stood, hands at his sides. She waited for him to lurch toward her. He didn’t move. Okay, so he wasn’t dangerous. She’d let her imagination go into overdrive again.

“You have a good day, Mr. Simpson.” She turned to leave, her back to him. She’d taken two steps when a tug on the shoulder of her shirt stopped her. Fabric ripped. He twisted her around to face him.

She clamped a hand on the torn shoulder seam. “Why are you doing this?”

He latched on to her shirt collar with both hands and pulled her face very close to his. “You haven’t gone to the police yet, have you?”

Though she tilted her head back, she could feel his breath on her face. What was he talking about? It took only a second of staring into his wide eyes for her to process what he was saying. “It was you. You hit me on the head.” No wonder he was surprised when he saw her. He thought he had gotten rid of her.

Like a searchlight moving across a landscape, a flicker in Mr. Simpson’s expression, a momentary illumination, told Ginger she was right. She opened her mouth to protest.

He grabbed her by both arms, spun her around, and pushed her toward the open door of a trailer.

Kindra stared at the stack of papers Gloria Clydell had pulled out of her dead ex-husbands desk drawer. The task before her suddenly seemed daunting. “Maybe this isn’t the best way to go about things.”

“You said yourself figuring out who is chasing Xabier would be the fastest way to make it safe for him to come out into the open.” Gloria patted Kindra’s back. “Come on, Tiffany has been nice enough to let us in here. We’ll work on this together, and then I can see my son again.”

“He would have gone straight to you, Gloria. He was afraid the men might hurt you if they found out you were at the hotel.”

The older woman divided the stack of papers. “Here, you take half, and I’ll take half. You said he thought it had the word
eternal
or
infinite
on it?”

Kindra nodded. She flipped through the first six pieces of paper, all repair bills for the hotel. This seemed like a lot of work that the police could be doing. “What’s his problem with the police, anyway?”

The stack of papers Gloria held fell to floor. She kneeled to pick them up. Kindra situated herself on the carpet. “Let me help you.”

Gloria gathered a stack of papers into her hands, then let them slip to the floor again. She touched Kindra’s knee and studied her for a moment. “Sorry, mothers guilt is getting the best of me.” She sat cross-legged on the carpet. “I got sick shortly after Dustin left us. The scleroderma had spread to my lungs. I had to go to the emergency room. Xabier had gone to a park to play.” Gloria shook her head. “It was a new town. He didn’t know his way around, couldn’t remember our phone number. He found a policeman like I had taught him. The policeman told him to wait on the bench and that he would be back with help. He never came back. The next morning when I got out of the hospital, I found my little boy sitting at our kitchen table. He’d had to find his own way home.” She put her hand over her mouth. “He looked so vulnerable. He had on this little red jacket he always wore, and his hands were folded in his lap.”

“He must have been afraid when he got home and you weren’t there.”

“Xabier tried so hard to be a good boy. I don’t know why the policeman didn’t come back. Maybe he got caught up in some crime, maybe he sent someone and they never went. I’ll never know.”

“I guess I understand why he doesn’t trust the police … but that was so long ago.”

“He was only nine years old. Everyone he trusted abandoned him. I tried, but I was so sick and so torn up about the divorce.” Her voice trembled. “I abandoned him too.” She shuffled through the stack of papers, moving them from one pile to the next so quickly that she couldn’t be reading them.

Kindra had opened an old wound. Time to change the subject. “You don’t seem to be angry at Tiffany. When she let us in, you were kind to her.”

“I was married to Dustin. I feel sorry for her.”

“She’s still mad at him, and he’s dead.” Kindra propped herself on the huge wooden desk.

Gloria laughed and shook her head. “Anger is the flip side of love.”

“You don’t think she, you know …”

“I understand the rage she must have felt.” She rose to her feet with the papers in her hand. “He was still playing her when he died.”

“She told me she thought she was going to get the hotel.”

Gloria turned over another piece of paper. “I’m not seeing anything here with the words
eternal
or
infinite
. Do you think Xabier was mistaken?”

“Your voice gets all warm when you say his name.”

“Yours does too.” Gloria tapped the stack of papers on the desk to straighten them. “You like my son.”

Kindra’s cheeks warmed. “He seems nice. We haven’t had much of a chance to talk. Right at the first, when they said that a guy in a bear costume died and I thought it was Xabier, I realized how much I liked him. We had this instant connection.” Kindra pushed the papers aside. She leaned back, lacing her fingers around a knee. “But I have my checklist, and I have to finish college first.”

“Your checklist?”

“I haven’t dated much. I spend most of my life with my face in a book. Ginger and the girls helped me put it together. It’s the list of things I want in a spouse. Top of the list is that he must be a Christian.”

Gloria pressed her lips together. “I tried to raise my son so he would comprehend God’s love, but it all got so tainted by the things that Dustin wanted to do in God’s name. Then I got sick.” She rubbed her thumb over a section of the desk. “I’m afraid it’s left a bitter taste in Xabier’s mouth.”

Kindra shook her head. “What your husband did doesn’t change who God is.”

“When you’re young and impressionable, it gets all mixed up in your head. Xabier and I sort of became props for Dustin, the supportive wife and the cute son of the businessman who was building a business for the Lord.” Her tone was mocking, and then she seemed to collapse in the chair, spine bending, shoulders drooping. “He forgot that we were people who needed him.”

“I’m sorry to hear that Xabier’s faith is shaky.”
More than sorry—devastated
. “Maybe he’ll come around.”

“That’s the prayer I repeat every day.” Gloria rolled the office chair away from the desk and stared at the ceiling. “I don’t think there’s anything here that’s going to help us. Maybe Tiffany would let us go through his personal desk in his apartment.”

Jacobson and Mallory made their way across the street to the first parking lot that contained one part of the World’s Largest Garage Sale. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to the way people had set up their booths, no clear lines or aisles. People had just squatted wherever they felt like it.

“We’ve been operating under a false assumption.” Mallory crossed her arms over her stomach. “We assumed that because the thefts stopped the night Dustin died that he was the culprit.”

“But there were two victims that night.”

“And who planted the false assumption in our heads?”

“Tiffany Rosemond,” Jacobson said.

“It was bad police work on my part.” Mallory tugged at the placket of her size-too-small blazer, hoping the buttons would reach the buttonholes. “I’m not supposed to be swayed by the suggestions of others.” The jacket had fit her fine six months ago.

“Yeah, but what detective would think ‘hey, maybe the squirrel is the thief?”

“Jacobson, you made a joke.”

“Yeah, so I did. That’s usually your department.” Jacobson beamed from the compliment. “You don’t need to beat yourself up over this. I think your police work is always really solid.”

“We got this parking lot and five or six more.” She scanned the lot. The booth in front of her specialized in vintage clothing and stuffed animals. It would take a million years to find Simpson in that maze. If he was even still out there like Hillstrong said. Plus, there were several more parking lots. “I say we just wait until he gets tired of shopping. We can put an officer in the lobby and one by his room door. Then we’ll pick him up for questioning, get a warrant to search his room, and dump out a few ice buckets.”

“So do you think Miss Rosemond planted that suggestion to distract us from the possibility that she was a suspect?”

“That’s one motive; the other possibility is that she really believed that Clydell was stealing. His note to her said he was about to come into a lot of money. Say he had been stockpiling the jewelry and he had found a buyer. Simpson might have been the buyer or had lined up a buyer for a cut.”

“The jewelry wasn’t in Clydell’s office or private residence.”

“This is a big hotel. We won’t know anything until we find Simpson.” Mallory patted Jacobson’s back. “Let’s go inside and wait for Mr. Simpson to come to us.”

Mr. Simpson pushed Ginger
against the table in the tiny trailer. He scanned the room and pulled a knife out of the butcher block on the counter.

Her back pressed into the table. “What … what are you going to do?”

“Just don’t go to the police.” He waved the knife like a baton.

“Why did you hit me on the head and put me in a boat?”

He touched his free hand to his chest. “Those jewels were mine.”

Mentally, Ginger scanned her clue cards. The jewels had been in Dustin’s bear suit. “He figured out you were stealing?” She pushed herself off the table. “So you … killed him.”

Mr. Simpson took a step back. “No.” He glanced around the room and ran his fingers through his spongy hair. The knife blade reflected glints of light as a makeshift clothesline above their heads caught his attention. “Get back over there.” He sliced through the thin rope then jabbed the knife at her as an afterthought.

Ginger’s heart skipped into double time, but she planted her feet. Mr. Simpson wasn’t a big man, and he didn’t act like he knew how to use that knife.

“I said to get back on that couch.” His voice lacked conviction.

He sounded as afraid as she was. She eyed the door. Once she was tied up, there would be no chance of escaping him.

Now or never. Ginger
.

She dove toward the door. Simpson groaned in protest. Cold metal grazed her skin; pain threaded up her arm. She clamped a hand over the cut. He had more gumption than she would have predicted.

Her hand touched the cold steel of the door handle. When she pushed it up, the door didn’t budge. Darn. One of those tricky handles that took a second to figure out, a second she didn’t have.

He yanked her by her hair. Her scalp burned. She had underestimated him. Her escape attempt seemed to fuel his anger. She twisted her body. They both fell backward with Ginger falling on top of her assailant. She rolled to one side and scrambled to her feet. Mr. Simpson stared at her, eyes wide, chest heaving. She stumbled the two steps to the door and pushed the handle up and then down. Down worked. That was the trick. The door swung open.

Ginger froze.

Earl stood at the bottom of the stairs. His hand hung in the air as though he had just reached for the door handle.

“I saw you from a ways away. Something didn’t look right. Took me a minute to figure out where he had taken you.”

Ginger collapsed into her husband’s arms. His voice, the strength of his arms around her … she never wanted to lose that. She was shaking, gulping in air, and crying.

“You’re okay now. You’re safe.” He whispered in her ear, pulling her closer, stroking her hair. “I am so sorry. You were right.”

She pulled back from the hug so she could look at her husband. There was so much to say, so much to share. But now was not the time. “He’s still inside, Earl. We have to call the police.”

Earl pulled his cell phone out of his belt. He put one foot on the metal stairs and flipped his phone open. He glanced inside the trailer and then leaned in even farther. “Ginger, he’s not in here.”

“He has to be.” Her heart still pounded erratically from the adrenaline overload. She struggled for breath. “He must be hiding.”

“Or he slipped out that window.” Earl pointed with his phone.

A muscular man with long hair and tattoos covering his arms stalked toward them. “Hey, what are you guys doing in my trailer?”

Ginger and Earl backed away from the trailer. “Were sorry. A man pushed me in here.” She pointed with trembling fingers. “We think he might still be hiding in there.”

The trailer owner stepped up the metal step. “Gee whiz, it’s a mess in here.”

“I’m sorry.” Her legs had turned into wet noodles. Her hands were almost vibrating. “I’ll … I’ll pay for the damages.”

The man looked her up and down. “That’s all right. It looks like you’ve been through enough. If he is hiding anywhere …” He stepped into the trailer.

Ginger poked her head through the open door. Earl’s hand rested on her back.

The man lifted a seat cushion by the table and then removed the plywood lid. He shook his head.

Ginger stepped back into the trailer. “Could he get out some way other than the door?”

“Was he a big guy?”

“No,” said Ginger.

The man made the entire trailer shake as he sauntered across the floor. “Looks like my screen has been pushed off.”

Ginger bolted out of the camper. Simpson couldn’t have gotten far in such a short time. She scanned the crowd, the salespeople, the displays, racks of clothes, and piles of boxes. About forty yards from her, Mr. Simpson grabbed a bicycle with a
For Sale
sign on it. This guy was not going to get away. Not on her watch. Ginger ran toward the bicycles. Her cross-trainers pounded the pavement.

She grabbed a bike and checked the sign in front. Twenty-five dollars. A little pricey for a garage sale. Up ahead, Mr. Simpson navigated through the clutter of the garage sales toward the open street. An older man with a brown apron tied around his waist walked toward her, increasing his pace.

Ginger swung her leg over the bike and yelled back at Earl. “Pay the man.” Rather than follow Mr. Simpson’s poorly planned path, she assessed the quickest way through the maze of merchandise, riding in a somewhat parallel path to Mr. Simpson, about twenty yards behind him.

Earl had just shaken the hand of the bicycle salesman when Ginger pressed hard on the pedal. She sped forward twenty yards, swerved around an antique lamp, and pumped her legs. Mr. Simpson had been slowed by a labyrinth of blankets containing china and other kitchen items.

He glanced over at her.

She slammed into an old couch. The impact jarred her; her teeth clacked. She hadn’t been going fast enough for it to throw her off. With this level of inert traffic she had to navigate around, it would just be easier to push the thing until she got out into the open street.

She leapt off and wrapped her hands around the handlebars. A crowd swarmed toward her, gravitating in the direction of a table with Christmas items. She angled away. Metal clanged on the old bike.

Mr. Simpson had moved some twenty yards from her but had stalled out as he searched for a way through a series of tables. She couldn’t get a straight path to him, too many people were in the way.

At best, the paths between merchandise were short and disconnected. She focused on getting to the street. If she got there first, she could simply ride up and down the edge of the parking lot until he emerged. That is, if he didn’t see her out there. If he did see her, he might plunge back into the muddle of the garage sales and slip out somewhere else on a different side of the lot or simply melt into the jungle of people and merchandise.

She pushed past a group of people who had become fascinated by stuffed animals and posters of Scott Baio and the A-Team. A fairly long display of clothes hung on racks; two rusting antique car bodies provided shelter from view. She could peek through the clothes, lift her head up over the cars, and keep a bead on Simpson.

Sweat trickled down her back. The air smelled of cotton candy and popcorn as she neared the edge of the lots where the food venders had set up shop. Her mouth went dry. She had maybe ten yards until she would be back in view. Right before the last clothing rack, she slowed. A woman running with a bike would call attention to herself. If she went slow enough, she was more likely to blend in. Just a sweet senior citizen pushing the bike she bought. A crowd gathered around the pizza by the slice stand.

“’Scuse me.” She pushed her way through. She veered toward a cluster of people, then stood on tiptoe, scanning the lot. Glints of metal. His fuzzy hair. Rapid movement. Something that would distinguish him. No Mr. Simpson.

The crowd around her flowed in different directions leaving her exposed. She pushed the bike the last ten yards to the curb and hopped on, ready to take off. This side of the lot ran parallel to the hotels and stretched for a good three hundred yards. She had a clear view of the entire length of the lot, the empty street, and a portion of the other side of the lot.

She waited, rocking her bike. She should have told Earl to call the police. Maybe he would think of it on his own. No sign of Mr. Simpson. No sign of Earl.

Ginger pedaled twenty yards and stopped.

“Little hot for a bike ride, isn’t it?” The ice cream vendor was a skinny man with a gift for stating the obvious. His red hair curved up like wings on either side of his paper hat. “You look like you could use a refreshingly cool treat.”

Ginger read the man’s price board. An expensive refreshingly cool treat. She swallowed to produce some moisture in her mouth. No luck there. Her throat was drier than Death Valley. “Do you have any water?”

The man shook his head.

Sometimes overpriced things were worth the money. She fingered the two dollars in her pants pocket while she glanced up and down the street. She didn’t have a purse. “How about one of those lemon-lime ICEE things, small?”

She slapped her two bucks on the counter while he poured the slushy ice from the dispenser into the paper cup. She watched the road the whole time.

Ginger relished the coolness of the cup and brushed it over her forehead before she took a drink. She sucked the liquid through the straw.
That hit the spot
. Her straw had just made that slurping, desperately-seeking-some-liquids sound when Mr. Simpson emerged from the fray of the garage sale mania and pedaled down the road.