The Crafty Teddy (31 page)

“Yes.”

“I’m assuming you somehow got ahold of Mumford’s driver’s license.”

“Yeah, I’ve had it awhile.”

“And you’re aware that possessing stolen property and identity theft are both felonies, right?”

“Yes. I’ll accept my punishment, so long as I can clear my name of a murder I didn’t commit.”

I threw an arm over the back of my chair. “Good, then let’s move on to some more felonious behavior. Tell me about the counterfeit bear and quilt scam.”

“That was something I began talking about with Neil Gage just before everything fell apart in October. I had no idea how valuable antique teddy bears were until I began making the arrangements to auction that Mourning Bear. And quilts? Americana is hot right now.” Poole’s voice grew unintentionally enthusiastic.

The bear Poole was referring to was from an extremely limited edition of Steiff teddies made in 1912 to commemorate the victims of the sinking of the
Titanic.
Back in 2003, one of the black bears had been sold for a cool $165,000 at a London auction. And he was also on the mark about the skyrocketing value of antique quilts.

I asked, “Whose idea was it to make counterfeits?”

“Gage’s. I had no money, so I just planned to steal the stuff and split half of whatever I made with him.”

“But?”

“But then he suggested combining his access to the bears with my information on the antique bear market.”

“By producing bogus antiques. And did Frank Merrit know about this scam?”

Poole shook his head. “No, he would never have gone along with the deal.”

I gave him a bland smile. “How old-fashioned. Apparently he thought the Eighth Commandment actually meant something.”

“I’m not proud of what I did, but I was out of options. I didn’t have any money.”

Resisting the urge to say,
Yeah, you’re a real victim of circumstance,
I said: “Okay, so you and Gage decided to go into business making counterfeit antiques, yet you waited until March to begin production. Why?”

“The original plan was that Gage was going to use some old lady in Pineville to make the bears and quilts.” Poole sighed wearily. “But in December she had a stroke and couldn’t sew anymore.”

The self-pity was too much and this time I couldn’t rein in my smart mouth. “Wow. How inconvenient for
you
.”

He glowered at me.

“So, Gage had to find a new seamstress?”

“Yes, and it took him until February.”

“Did you ever meet her?”

“I was outside her house once. We never spoke.”

“Her name is Holly Reuss, by the way, and she’s a nice, if overly-naive, lady. Were you worried that she’d recognize you?”

“No. One of the first things Gage found out when he met her at that quilt show was that she attended church in Grottoes.”

“Who came up with the cover story that she was making the bears for the museum gift shop?”

“Gage. Did she actually believe that?” Poole sounded slightly amused.

“Yeah. Hilarious, huh? She also thought Gage was in love with her.”

“I don’t know anything about that.”

“Of course not. Hey, just to satisfy my curiosity, whatever happened to the antique bears that Gage boosted from the museum?”

“Once the seamstress—Holly, I guess—had learned to copy them, we sold them.”

“Do you remember who bought them?”

Poole gave me an annoyed look. “No. It’s not like I was keeping business records.”

“Just thought I’d ask. Okay, so Holly started making bears while you pretended to be a representative from the Massanutten Museum of History and searched for potential victims on the Internet. How’d you go about doing that?”

“Online auctions and contacts through some of the collector bulletin board sites.”

“And you began selling the counterfeits. How much did you get per bear?”

“Usually around three-thousand. Sometimes a little less.”

“Sweet. Factoring the split with Gage, the pittance you gave to Holly, and the cost of materials, that left you with what? Twelve-hundred for each bear sold?”

“At first, but then the prices began to go down.”

“Because you got greedy and created a glut in the market.”

Poole nodded glumly.

Suddenly, another piece of the puzzle slipped into place. “Is that one of the reasons you burglarized our house? To steal the Farnell Alpha bear?”

“I didn’t break—”

“Whoa there! Before you finish that lie, remember the crime lab is going to match the bullets in that revolver of yours to the slug recovered from our house.”

Poole snapped his teeth together in frustration. “All right, I broke into your house. We needed a new collectible and I remembered Ashleigh showing me that bear not long after you’d moved here from San Francisco.”

“And she undoubtedly told you it was an anniversary gift from me. That must have made the notion of stealing it that much more delicious, right?”

Knowing it could never be perceived on an audiotape, he gave me a malicious smile. “I didn’t know anything about that.”

Keeping my voice benign, I said, “That isn’t a very clever lie. Your motive wasn’t simple theft; otherwise you wouldn’t have destroyed those other bears. That was nothing but a little payback.”

Poole’s eyes lit up with anger. “So, you lost a couple of your precious teddy bears. You wrecked my entire life!”

“You’d already done that, long before we ever arrived on the scene. In fact, you’re still evolving as a criminal.”

“What are you talking about?”

“In less than a year, you’ve moved from being a fence for stolen property to a home intrusion robber and maybe even a murderer. Were you hoping to kill me when you fired that shot?”

“That was just a warning shot.” Poole leaned across the table and waggled a finger at me. “You’d have been dead if I’d really meant to kill you.”

“Kind of like what happened to Merrit?”

“I don’t have anything to do with his murder.”

I noticed the statement was phrased in the present tense, which told me he wasn’t talking about his past actions, but rather how he felt at this very moment. Technically, it was a truthful answer, yet Poole had deflected the question. I said, “Which brings us to Saturday morning. Now, we know you were at the museum, because we have an independent witness that saw your Mountaineer. But where were you before that, when Merrit called Gage?”

Poole sat back in his chair. “I was at Gage’s house. I made the money drops on Saturday mornings.”

“So, what happened?”

“Merrit was screaming about Japanese gangsters coming to the museum and it was obvious he’d figured out that we’d replaced the original antique bears with fakes. He was going to call the law, but Gage managed to convince him to wait until he could come over to the museum and explain.”

“How’d he do that?”

“A variation on the museum gift shop story. He told Merrit that he’d thought of a way to save the museum, but wanted to make sure it would really work before sharing the plan.”

“And Merrit obviously bought it, because he didn’t call the sheriff. That being the case, why did you go there too?”

“Gage was scared,” Poole said scornfully. “And we both knew that the gift shop story was only a stopgap measure. Merrit would figure that out soon enough.”

“So, did you go there to kill him or try to buy him off?”

“To offer him a full cut in the operation. There was still plenty of money to be made.”

“What happened when you got to the museum?”

“I followed Gage over to the museum and we tried to talk to Merrit, but he got mad because Gage had sold the real bears. He started yelling about it being wrong to sell local historical artifacts.”

“Imagine someone being concerned about that. So, Merrit was flamed. What did you do?”

Poole put two fingers against the side of his nose and in doing so, partially covered his mouth. “He said he was going to call the sheriff immediately, so I got out of there.”

“Where’d this conversation take place?”

“In that little office of his behind the admission desk.”

“Did you ever go anyplace else in the museum?”

“No.”

“Did you see Gage kill Merrit?”

“No, of course not! Look, I may have made some big mistakes in my life, but I wouldn’t have allowed such a thing to happen.”

I nodded in agreement. “So, if you didn’t see the crime, why do you think
he
did it?”

“He was still there at the museum when I left. They were arguing and Gage was yelling about how he wasn’t going to go to jail.” Poole locked eyes with me, hoping to convince me that he was telling the truth. “He must have killed Merrit sometime after that.”

“But you weren’t there to see it?”

“I told you that once already.”

“So you did.” I pretended to mull that over and said, “Do you know how Merrit was killed?”

“No.”

“His skull was smashed in with a big freaking hammer. Do you know what happened after that?”

“No. What?”

“The suspect dumped a huge wooden china cupboard on Merrit. There was broken glass everywhere. It was in the old dining room, so you probably never saw it.”

Poole folded his arms across his chest. “No, I told you I wasn’t there when Merrit was killed.”

“And good thing for you that you weren’t, or you’d have trace evidence on your boots. Why don’t you go ahead and take them off now.”

“Why?”

“Because we’re going to send them to the crime lab along with all of Gage’s shoes. You see, whoever killed Merrit is going to have microscopic fragments of broken antique glass and ceramics embedded in the soles of their shoes.” I sat back, gave him a placid smile, and decided to spring the trap. “So, go ahead and kick your boots off.”

Poole’s face began to go pale. “You son of a bitch.”

“I don’t know what you’re so upset about. You told me you didn’t kill Merrit, and if you have a clean sole—get it?—that’ll prove you’re telling the truth. Unless…”

“All right, I’m sorry for lying! I was scared, because I knew you wouldn’t believe me.”

“Believe what?”

“I-I was defending myself.”

“Right. From a man six inches shorter than you, who had his back turned when he was walloped on the head with a hammer. And then had six hundred pounds of furniture dumped on him! Oh dear, poor Pastor Poole is a victim again. I imagine the jury is going to snicker at that story just like I am right now. Take off your boots.”

“You think you’re
so
frigging smart.”

“Fooling you doesn’t qualify as smart. Take off your boots.”

“Hell, as long as I’m going to prison, why don’t you come over here and get them?” Poole started to rise from his chair.

“Oh, I’ve been sitting here hoping you’d say that.”

I’d been waiting nine months for what happened next. He managed to clip me on the side of the head with a decent right hook as I waded inside and began punching. By the time Bressler got into the interview room, Poole was on the floor and unconscious.

Massaging my sore knuckles, I glanced at my watch and then spoke into the tape recorder, “Time is fourteen-twenty-three hours. Suspect Poole declined to surrender homicide evidence and was physically subdued. End of interview.”

Bressler said, “What do we do with him?”

“Handcuff him, takes his boots off, and book him for the murder of Franklin Merrit.”

Twenty-six

Later that evening at home, Ash and I cuddled on the couch and decompressed with the assistance of some weapons-grade margaritas.

Resting her head on my left shoulder, Ash studied the knuckles on my right hand. “They’re all bruised.”

“That’s what happens when you’re stupid and punch someone in the head with your fist.” I swallowed a big dose of Aztec anesthesia.

“You must have done something right. Tina said you knocked Poole out.” She kissed my knuckles one at a time. “I wish I could have seen that.”

“You’ll have more fun watching him sentenced to prison.”

“You don’t think he’ll get the death penalty?”

“No. We just can’t prove any premeditation. Still, when you add up all the other felony charges he’s got pending, not to mention the outstanding crimes from last year, Poole is looking at decades behind bars before he’s even eligible for parole.”

“And all because of the great job you did.”

“The great job
we
did.” I stroked her hair. “If it weren’t for you noticing that the bears were fake and then identifying who’d made them, we’d never have broken this case. You’re one heck of an investigator.”

“Thank you.”

“So, when did you talk to Tina?”

“She called for a second while you were outside with Kitch.” Ash took a sip from her drink and then gave me a smile of self-satisfaction. “Do you know what’s happening at her house right now?”

“While the kids are still awake? Whoa. You go, Sergei.”

“No, and you have got a dirty mind.”

“It’s one of the things you like best about me.”

“That’s true.”

I leaned over to kiss her. “So, what
is
happening at Tina’s right now?”

“Sergei is making dinner for Tina and her kids. It’s sweet. In fact, he said that he’d take care of all the meals until Tina gets the soft casts off. And you know what else?”

“What’s that?”

“He actually asked her to go out on a date.”

“The daredevil. I guess that means I’d better finish up on that bear he wants to give her.”

Ash studied her empty glass and smacked her lips delicately. “Is there any more of this in the blender?”

“Yeah, let me get it.”

I disentangled myself from her and carried both of our glasses into the kitchen. As I poured us fresh drinks, I noticed an ominous-looking envelope in the stack of mail. It’s almost never good news when it’s correspondence from an attorney’s firm. I brought the letter back over to the sofa with the margaritas.

“What’s that?” Ash asked, taking her drink.

“I don’t know. It came in the mail today.” I put my glass down on the coffee table and opened the letter. After a while, I said, “Well, you’ll never guess where
we’re
going in September.”