The False-Hearted Teddy (19 page)

156

John J. Lamb

“I see what you mean.”

The verbal dispute in the interview room was growing louder by the second and then the door swung open with such force that it slammed against the wall.

“I am not going on TV and committing career suicide!

We’re in this together!” Mulvaney yelled over her shoulder as she stormed past the cubicle.

“
We
? Do you have a mouse in your pocket?
We
did not arrest the wrong man!
You
did! And if you think I’m gonna fall on my sword for you, you’ve been smoking crack!” Delcambre shouted back.

“Hang on for a second, sweetheart.” I put my hand over the phone’s mouthpiece. “Hey, can you kids keep it down? Dad’s on the phone.”

Delcambre paused to look over the cubicle wall and give me a frosty look that clearly told me I was pushing my luck.

Uncovering the phone, I said, “I’ll call you back in just a bit, honey. We’ve got a little crisis here and Mr. Empa-thy is needed.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever met him,” Ash said sweetly.

“I happen to know that you sleep with him.”

“Nope, still doesn’t ring a bell. Why were you elected peacemaker?”

“Because I caused the argument.”

“Gosh, what were the odds of
that
? When can you come back here?”

“Very soon, I hope. First, we have to figure this thing out, because if Donna didn’t try to frame me . . .”

“Then we’re back to Tony being the main suspect.”

“Except he couldn’t have planted the evidence in our room, because he’s been in custody.”

There was a thump and then a crash from the far corner of the room that sounded suspiciously like someone kicking a chair over. Then the argument flared up again.

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“Look, I’ve really got to go. They’re starting to break things. I love you, sweetheart, and one other thing: we aren’t coming back to this teddy bear show next year.”

“I love you, too. Is there really any point in me telling you to be careful?” Ash tried to sound light-spirited, but there was an undertone of wistfulness.

“I like hearing it . . . and I do listen. It’s just that things seem to happen to me.”

“I’ve noticed.”

“And I hope you’ve also noticed how much I love you.

Now, go back downstairs to the teddy bear show.”

“But the reporters—”

“Are going to be leaving there very shortly to come here for a press conference. Promise me that you’ll try to relax and enjoy yourself with all the bears.”

“And you’ll be here as quickly as possible?”

“Just as soon as I can get a talking Pomeranian to come here to take over the case.”

Hanging up, I hobbled along the aisle between the desks to a cramped office where Mulvaney and Delcambre were working themselves into a fairly credible imitation of the Battle of Guadalcanal. A black plastic nameplate on the door said it was Mulvaney’s workplace and the first thing I noticed was the small and lovely Tiffany-style leaded-glass lamp on the desk. The lamp shade was a rich mosaic of pastel-colored wildflower bouquets and looked as out of place on the stark and utilitarian desk as a DVD

player in a hearse.

Next, I looked at the wall to my immediate right, where about a dozen framed color photographs were hanging. All the images featured Mulvaney posing or shaking hands with a bunch of other anonymous people. If my life depended upon it, I couldn’t have identified any of the other folks and that included the guy wearing the Baltimore Ori-oles baseball team uniform. My guess was that the other 158

John J. Lamb

people were minor politicians, obscure entertainers, and local TV newscasters—the archetypal big fish in the small ponds. Suddenly, I felt a small spark of pity for the lieutenant, because the pictures told me that she was so inse-cure and felt so inconsequential that she’d plastered her wall with photos of her brief encounters with a bunch of nonentities, in order to be “somebody.” It also explained why she so desperately craved the spotlight.

Somebody once wrote that “To know all is to forgive all.” I think that’s mostly nonsense; however, now that I had some notion of what made Mulvaney behave the way she did, I couldn’t find it in my heart to continue to ridicule her. It was like making fun of a cripple—and being a fellow cripple, I know how that feels. At the same time, I don’t want to give you the idea that I was ready to sit around a campfire with her, eating s’mores and singing “Kumbuya.” She’d behaved recklessly by arrest-ing me and committed the unforgivable sin of threatening my wife. I didn’t like Mulvaney and never would, but as long as she believed I was intent on destroying her career—and therefore, her life—we wouldn’t get anywhere.

I guess I’d been gathering wool, because I realized that the argument had stopped and Mulvaney and Delcambre were watching me. I said, “I know things are a mess, but what do you do when life hands you lemons?”

“The only thing I hate more than lemonade is advice from get-well cards,” Mulvaney said sourly.

“I’m not talking about making lemonade. You permanently stop the flow of lemons by getting a backhoe and digging the tree up by the roots.”

“What are you getting at?”

“Look, we got off to a bad start, but that doesn’t mean it has to continue that way. There are three of us. We’re all good homicide detectives. Let’s get some lunch in here and sit down and solve this murder.”

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“But the press conference . . .”

“Call it, but they can wait in the lobby until you’re ready to talk to them. In fact, it might work to our advan-tage if the real killer thinks I’m still under arrest.”

“The real killer? You told us it was Donna,” said Delcambre.

“Yeah, and up until I talked with my wife, I thought so, too. Hey, is there anyplace to get decent Chinese takeout here? I love living in the Shenandoah Valley, but it isn’t exactly famous for its Szechuan cuisine.”

“Chin’s has pretty good food,” Mulvaney offered in a cautiously friendly voice. “It’s just down the street.”

“And if this is a real detective bureau, I’ll bet you have their menu and one from every takeout and delivery restaurant in a five-mile radius.”

“They’re tacked to a bulletin board in the squad room.”

“Then let’s eat and get to work.”

Mulvaney telephoned the BCPD’s Public Information Officer to announce the impending news conference to the media outlets, while Delcambre went to get lunch. Thirty-five minutes later we were seated around Mulvaney’s desk and the air was redolent with the aroma of spicy food. Mulvaney and Delcambre were eating with plastic forks while I used chopsticks for the first time since leaving San Francisco. The food was excellent and hot enough to be considered a violation of the Geneva Convention rules prohibiting chemical assault, which is exactly the way I love it. As we ate, I brought them up to speed on what Donna had told me. When I got to the part about Jennifer stealing the teddy bears and selling them at a craft fair, both detectives gaped at me in disbelief.

Delcambre dropped his fork into the cardboard box containing shrimp lo mein. “That’s so sick, I just lost my appetite.”

“Yeah, and isn’t it funny that Tony didn’t mention
that
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part of the story? The only thing he told us was that Donna broke off her friendship with Jennifer because she was envious of how well they were doing with the angel bears,” said Mulvaney.

“What else did he say?” I speared a chunk of Szechuan shredded beef and popped it in my mouth.

“Not much. He lawyered up right after we found the sabotaged inhaler in his room. But you don’t think he’s the killer, do you?”

“You talked with him. Unless the guy is periodically channeling the spirit of Albert Einstein, does he impress you as being bright enough to have come up with such a sophisticated murder weapon?”

“No. What made you believe Donna might have done it?”

“Because she was in the Swifts’ room last night during the cocktail reception.” I wiped some perspiration from my scalp and snared another piece of blistering-hot meat.

“God, this food is great.”

“I’ll take your word for it, because it’s making my eyes water just being in the same room with that stuff. So, what made you change your mind about Donna?” said Mulvaney.

“Part of that’s going to depend on what your evidence people found in the Swifts’ room. Did it look like the maid had cleaned before you guys got there?”

“No.”

“Then they should have found a color picture of Donna’s little boy. More than likely, it was in the trash.”

“The CSI team is still there. I’ll call and see.” Delcambre grabbed the phone and began pressing numbers.

I used the chopsticks to push some steamed rice into the fiery sauce and braced myself for another bite. “By the way, where is Donna?”

Mulvaney grimaced. “At the hospital. She started hyperventilating so badly that she got chest pains and The False-Hearted Teddy

161

someone decided she was having a heart attack. I’ve got no idea of when they’re going to release her.”

“The same hospital where they took Jennifer?”

“Yeah. It’s ironic, now that you mention it.”

“And for sheer weirdness, how about this: ‘breathe,’

which Jen couldn’t do and Donna is having trouble doing, is an anagram for ‘the bear.’ ”

Mulvaney looked over at me with arched eyebrows.

“You’re a very strange guy.”

“It’s been remarked.”

After about a half-minute of conversation, Delcambre hung up. “There was a photo in the waste basket that’d been torn up into little pieces, but it looks as if it was a picture of a young boy.”

“And that’s why I don’t think it was Donna. She told me she went into the room to drop off that picture to remind Jen that her success was the result of having betrayed a friend and committing the next best thing to grave robbery. The photo corroborates her story.”

“Because if her actual purpose was to sabotage Jennifer’s inhaler, the last thing she’d do is leave a piece of evidence that would lead the cops directly to her,” said Delcambre.

“Precisely.”

“So if it wasn’t Tony or Donna . . . or you”—Mulvaney paused to give me a faint sardonic grin—“we’re back to square one.”

“Which is your star witness, Todd Litten,” I said.

Realizing her partner had told me about the police interview with Todd, Mulvaney shot Delcambre a hard look and then said, “Why him?”

“I’d love to pretend I’m being brilliant, but it’s simply because we’re running out of innocent people to suspect.”

I gave her a crooked smile. “But the question of Todd brings us to one of the lynchpins of this case: Access to the hotel rooms—first, the Swifts’ room to sabotage the 162

John J. Lamb

inhaler and plant the evidence and then, later, ours. Now, we know that there were a total of three card keys issued for room seven-forty-six.”

The forkful of tangerine chicken stopped just short of Mulvaney’s mouth. “We knew that. How did
you
?”

“As long as we’re getting along so well, I suppose it’s time to tell you that I kind of falsely identified myself as a Baltimore PD homicide detective to the hotel clerk. I had to find out if and when another card key was issued and that’s what led me to Donna.”

Delcambre chuckled. “
Now
it makes sense. The desk clerk copped a major attitude and told us that she’d already given the information to another detective. We were wondering who the hell Detective Callahan was.”

“That’d be me.”

“As in ‘Dirty Harry’ Callahan?”

“It seemed cute at the time.”

Mulvaney slowly put the food in her mouth, carefully chewed it, and swallowed. Delcambre and I waited for the explosion, but it didn’t come. She carefully dabbed her lips with a paper napkin and then said, “You were telling us about the card keys.”

“There were three issued. Donna said she threw hers away last night, which means some lucky cops get to search the hotel dumpsters in the rain. In the meantime, can we account for the other two key cards?”

Mulvaney and Delcambre stared at each other and I could see that they were silently asking each other if they could remember whether they’d seen the key cards.

“Let me go back to the holding cell and get Tony’s property envelope,” said Delcambre, standing up and heading for the door.

“Jennifer’s purse was still in the room. And I’ll get a squad car to bring it over here from the hotel,” said Mulvaney, grabbing for the phone.

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“And I hate to be a pest, but can they bring my cane, too, please?”

“Who’re you kidding, Lyon? I’ve known you less than half a day and I can tell that you love being a pest,” Delcambre called as he left the office.

“You really shouldn’t believe everything my wife says about me.”

I gathered up the food containers and looked for a trash can.

Mulvaney said, “For God’s sake, please take that stuff out of here. The fumes from your lunch are like being pepper-sprayed.”

There was a break room just across the corridor. I dumped the rubbish there and went back to the office.

Delcambre returned a couple of minutes later with a large and slightly bulging manila envelope. He dumped the contents onto the desktop. There were car keys, a cell phone, a handful of coins, emergency provisions in the way of a bag of peanut butter M&M’s, and an overstuffed and shabby-looking gray nylon wallet.

Delcambre opened the billfold and removed the paper currency. “Just so there aren’t any questions later on, I see a total of one, two . . . nine whole dollars.”

“Yeah, he and Bill Gates were going to have dinner together later tonight,” I said.

“And we have a driver’s license and a credit card, and a credit card, and a credit card.” Delcambre tossed each item onto the table as he spoke. “And a credit card, and a health insurance card, a gym ID card, another credit card, and I believe this is what we’re looking for: a Maritime Inn card key.”

Mulvaney took the card and put it into a separate evidence envelope. “There’s the first one.”