The Clockwork Teddy

by John J. Lamb

  Susie wrinkled her nose. “Eww. I only met him once, but he made my flesh crawl.”

  “No kidding,” grumbled Ash.

  “And from what I’ve heard, he’s a none-too-successful PI,” Gregg said with a contented chuckle. “Most of his business is collecting overdue bills for those loan-until-payday places. What the heck was he doing at a teddy bear show?”

  “Intimidating one of the bear artists for his client, Lycaon Software.”

  “The computer game company?” Gregg gave a low and admiring whistle. “I guess things are looking up for him.”

  “No matter how much money he makes, he’s still a loser.”

  “But why would Lycaon hire him to harass a teddy bear artist?” Susie asked.

  I briefly recounted the circumstances of the robbery and what Lauren had told me afterwards. When I finished, Greg said pensively, “I can’t say I like the idea of some big company sending out their mercenaries to push people around.”

  “Me, either, but it’s as American as deep-fried Twinkies.”

  Then our dinners arrived and I suddenly realized how hungry I was and how much I’d been looking forward to this particular meal. It had been three years since I’d had one of my favorite foods of all time: the San Francisco version of cioppino, a hearty Italian seafood stew, served with warm and crusty bread. Now, you can get fine seafood in Virginia restaurants and sometimes you’ll even find a dish optimistically listed on the menu as cioppino, but it can’t hold a candle to the genuine article. So I didn’t waste any time digging in, as Ash ate her linguini with lobster sauce, and Gregg and Susie split a surf-and-turf platter of behemoth proportions.

  We’d finished dinner and were fighting the temptation of the dessert menu when Gregg’s phone rang. He squinted at the phone’s tiny screen, frowned, and answered it. It was a short conversation. Gregg tried to tell the caller that he wasn’t on the call-out roster for this evening, but he was cut off in midsentence. He listened, sighed, and concluded the call by saying he’d be en route once he’d taken his wife home.

  Shoving the phone in his jacket pocket he said, “As if you hadn’t already figured it out, that was the dispatch center and I’m being called into work.”

  “But you were gone all last weekend,” said Susie.

  “Sorry, love, but we just had our third One-Eighty-Seven of the evening and the night is still young. They’re calling out half the homicide bureau.”

  It felt like the time when I was a kid and got sick the day my Cub Scout pack went to see Willie Mays and the Giants at Candlestick Park. Trying not to sound too disappointed, I asked, “So, where are you going?”

  “One of your all-time favorite places.” Then, in a gravelly baritone, Gregg sang the first line of the theme song from a TV western that had been off the air for over forty years, “Have gun—will travel, says the card of a man.”

  “The Paladin Motel? I can’t believe that pesthole is still open.”

  “Yeah, and it’s just as charming as ever. Hey, how’d you like to come out to the scene for a little while? I’ll bet the old-timers would love to see you.”

  “I’d like that, but . . .” I gave Ash an imploring look.

  She took my hand. “Go ahead, honey. I’ll drive Susie home.”

  “And we’ll have a girl’s night. Margaritas and chick flicks,” Susie added.

  “You’re sure? I know this wasn’t what you had in mind for tonight.”

  Ash leaned over to give me a slow kiss. “Yes, I’m sure. Go play with your friends. What I had in mind for tonight can wait until you get back.”

  My cheeks must have turned beet red, because Susie started giggling. Gregg corralled the waiter, asked for the bill, and threatened to beat me with my own cane if I so much as even thought about paying for dinner. A few minutes later, we kissed our wives good-bye and climbed into Gregg’s unmarked cop car, a blue Chevrolet Impala.

  He fired the engine up and then tossed me the car’s radio microphone. “Put us in service and let’s see if anyone recognizes your voice.”

  “The same call sign?”

  “The same.”

  It was stupid, but I had to swallow hard before I could key the microphone and say, “Two-Henry-Sixteen is Ten-Eight en route to the Paladin Motel.”

  There were a few moments of dead air and then the scanner picked up a transmission from one of the ancillary police radio frequencies that cops use to talk car-to-car. An older male voice said, “Yo, Lyon, when you get done there, you can finish the shift with me. I’ll put my rookie in the backseat so he can watch how two real cops work.”

  I don’t regret my new life as a journeyman teddy bear artist, but it felt as if I’d come home.

  It was dark now, and as we crossed the Golden Gate Bridge, I could see the lights of a big ship heading out into the Pacific. We passed the Presidio and wove through the parklands of the Golden Gate Recreational Area and then the road transitioned into Lombard Street.

  When the travel magazines mention San Francisco’s “old world” charm, you can take it to the bank that they’re not talking about this portion of Lombard Street. Admittedly, the famous flower-bedecked and serpentine section of the road that ran down Russian Hill is pretty, but farther west it’s your typical busy American commercial thorough-fare lined with neon-lit businesses, motels, and restaurants. It’s also where Lombard Street merges with Highway 101, so the traffic is often bumper-to-bumper in both directions. Tonight the eastbound traffic was in absolute gridlock.

  “Road’s probably blocked with emergency vehicles at the Paladin,” said Gregg as he flipped on the flashing red-and-blue emergency lights at the top of the Impala’s windshield.

  “I’ve turned into a coward in my old age. Please don’t drive on the sidewalk.”

  “But there’s less traffic there.”

  Gregg carefully rolled the vehicle’s right side tires up onto the curb so that he could pass the stopped cars. A few turns later, we pulled up approximately thirty yards from the front of the Paladin Motel. We couldn’t get any closer because a solid wall of emergency service vehicles blocked the roadway. There were fire trucks, a paramedic rig, police cars, and motorcycles, as well as a vehicle I always hated to see at a crime scene—the big, dark blue Freightliner van that bore the gold-lettered legend SFPD EXPLOSIVE ORDNANCE DISPOSAL UNIT.

  I radioed dispatch to let them know we’d arrived and then joined Gregg on the sidewalk, which was crowded with tipsy bystanders eager to spice up their weekend festivities with a little secondhand tragedy. On the other side of the street, the driver of a news van from one of the local TV stations did a perfect job of parallel parking next to a fire hydrant. Meanwhile, some of the drivers stalled in the eastbound traffic began to honk their horns, while others cranked up the volume on their CD players so that there were five or six different varieties of music—heavy metal, golden oldies, reggae, hip-hop, and even the theme song to Raiders of the Lost Ark—all simultaneously blowing my eardrums out. It was a typical late-summer Saturday night in San Francisco.

  Gregg pointed at the bomb squad vehicle. “Man, I hope we don’t have a victim who’s been turned into a jigsaw puzzle.”

  “Especially after you had that big chunk of rare and juicy New York steak.”

  “Like I needed to be reminded of that.” He switched his gold seven-pointed badge from his belt to his sports jacket pocket and handed me his department ID card. “Clip that on, just in case we run into some rookie who doesn’t know you.”

  We pushed our way through the crowd and headed toward the motel with its flickering pink neon sign featuring a knight chess piece. As we neared the yellow crime scene tape barrier, I noticed a tall young woman with metallic blue spiked hair, silver inverted pentacle earrings, and an ankle-length leather coat. It wasn’t her appearance that attracted my attention. It’s Halloween every night in San Francisco. The reason was that she seemed to be eyeballing me. That was very odd, because let’s face facts: The only time I draw stares from strange wom
en these days is when I’m knocked on my butt by a berserk teddy bear. Then again, I might have been mistaken about the young woman’s interest. Her blue wraparound sunglasses made it hard to tell precisely what she was looking at.

  A second later, the penny dropped and I stopped so fast I had to use my cane to maintain my balance. I think I can be forgiven for not immediately recognizing my daughter, considering she looked like an extra from some post-apocalyptic sci-fi film.

  Pointing an accusing finger at her, I said with mock severity, “Young lady, I thought we both understood that you were grounded.”

  Heather’s face broke into a huge grin. “Daddy!”

  She rushed into my arms and as I hugged her I was glad to feel that she was wearing a ballistic vest. I said, “Heather, honey, I’m so proud of you, but your mother is going to have a freaking coronary when she sees how you look.”

  “She already knows. We were worried about you. Where is Mama?”

  “Staying with Susie while I take a limp down memory lane.” I released her from the hug but held on to her hand. “So, what are you doing here?”

  “We were working a buy-bust operation a couple blocks up when we heard the gunfire. My partner and I ran over, but by the time we got here, everyone except the WMA vic was GOA,” she replied, using the cop acronyms for White Male Adult and Gone On Arrival.

  It was both strange and profoundly satisfying to hear the little girl I’d dressed in pink bunny pajamas talking like the street cop she was.

  Gregg asked, “Just so we’re clear on this, our victim was shot, right?”

  It was another very gratifying moment. Although Heather had known “Uncle Gregg” most of her life, she automatically slipped into report mode, saying, “The victim was shot once in the back and sustained an apparent coup de grace to the head. He was dead when we got to the room. There’s an auto-pistol on the floor next to him.”

  “So, why is the bomb squad here?”

  Heather shrugged. “I don’t know for sure. Someone said that one of the responding uniforms found a possible IED in the motel parking lot.”

  As anyone who follows the news from the Middle East knows, an IED is an Improvised Explosive Device.

  “Recognize the victim?” Gregg shouted to be heard over the warning beeps sounding from a fire truck that was backing up.

  “He’s laying facedown, so I didn’t get a look at him.”

  “Any street buzz as to what happened?”

  “No, sir, but if we hear anything I’ll include it in our report.”

  “Call me first. Oh, and Detective Lyon . . . good job.”

  As Gregg and Heather conversed, I spotted a tall muscular guy with a shaved skull, a grizzly Karl Marx beard, and kitted out in the outlaw biker’s standard uniform of denim and leather. He was patiently waiting to be noticed. I nodded in his direction and Heather gave me a shy smile before waving him over.

  Oh-oh, I thought, hoping I’d imagined the sudden warm luster in my daughter’s eyes.

  “Daddy, I want you to meet my partner, Detective Colin Sinclair.”

  He stepped forward, and as we shook hands, he gravely said, “It’s a great honor to meet you, sir. You’re a department legend.”

  “I think you could probably find some brass who’d disagree with that assessment, but thanks.”

  Gregg said, “Sorry to interrupt, but it looks like the bomb squad is about to clear the scene. We need to touch base with the lieutenant and get to work.”

  As I gave Heather a farewell hug, she whispered, “I’ll see you tomorrow. If it’s all right, I’d like to bring Colin to brunch tomorrow.”

  “Does your mom know about . . . ?”

  She realized I knew. “No, not yet.”

  I looked at those same bright blue eyes that had peered up at me from the baby crib and I suddenly realized that I was about to lose my daughter to another man. I nodded and told her not to worry and that we’d see them both tomorrow. As Heather and Colin moved back into the crowd, I found myself wondering how I was going to break the news to Ash and whether the fact that we were going to be in a chichi restaurant would prevent her from continuing an old Remmelkemp Family tradition. The first time I’d met Ash’s mother, Irene, she’d waited until we were alone, pointed to a butcher knife, and then threatened to skin me alive if I ever hurt her daughter. I took Irene at her word and knew that if Ash passed a similar message along to Colin, he’d believe it, too.

  Four

  Gregg and I headed toward a cluster of detectives and uniformed cops who were using a bus stop kiosk as an impromptu command post. I didn’t recognize as many people as I thought I would; however, I knew Gregg’s boss, Lieutenant Bobbie Jo Garza. I’d been her first training officer when she’d graduated from the police academy back in 1987. Looking up from her iPhone, she saw me approaching and smiled.

  Garza said, “Coming out to check on me?”

  “No need to. My rookies all either mastered the job or quit and I never had any doubts about how you’d do. How are you, Bobbie?” I shook her hand.

  “Great, but a little busy trying to make some sense out of this chaos.”

  “Then I’ll stay out of your way. I hope there isn’t any problem with me tagging along out here with Gregg.”

  “None whatsoever. It’s wonderful to see you.” Her portable radio squawked her call sign as a cop trotted up to tell Garza that the medical examiner had arrived. She gave me an apologetic look that said we’d talk later.

  Meanwhile, Danny Aafedt had arrived and was exchanging information with Gregg. Although he had a Norwegian name, Aafedt wasn’t your archetypal blond Scandinavian. He had black hair, a dark full moustache, and a perpetual five o’clock shadow. We exchanged waves of greeting, but I didn’t move closer to join the conversation, knowing that I was only there as an observer. Suddenly, I felt as out of place as . . . well . . . a handicapped teddy bear artist at a homicide investigation. I wondered if I’d made a huge mistake by coming.

  I looked toward the Paladin, which was a classic early 1960s small motel: single-storied and flat-roofed, L-shaped, with pale green stucco walls. The soda machine looked to be as old as the structure and I wondered if it contained bottles of Royal Crown Cola for a dime. My guess was that the only modifications made to the building since it was built were the wrought-iron security bars on the windows.

  There were a few vehicles in the small parking lot and I saw a figure in a bulky bomb-protection suit kneeling beside an older midsized sedan that could have been any color from gray to salmon under the saffron glare of the overhead sodium lights. Then the bomb tech stood up, pulled his padded helmet off, and trudged toward the command post. Everyone gathered around to listen as the gray-haired Emergency Ordnance Disposal Unit sergeant made his report to Lieutenant Garza.

  Tossing the heavy helmet onto the bus bench, the bomb guy said, “The scene is safe. It’s not a bomb, but whoever found it made the right decision to call us.”

  “Why?” asked Garza

  “The FBI has been worried about terrorists disguising bombs as toys, and what we’ve got here is a big teddy bear packed with electronic equipment and circuitry, hooked up to some sort of battery I’ve never seen before.”

  “They called out the bomb squad for a Teddy Ruxpin?” someone on the periphery of the group said with a scornful laugh.

  He was referring to a primitive robotic teddy bear with a built-in audiocassette tape player that had been briefly yet insanely popular back in the mid-1980s, and which had recently made a tepid comeback.

  “That isn’t a Teddy Ruxpin and here’s a news flash, smart guy: A bomb isn’t black and round with a hissing fuse. But hey, if you’re set on having a closed-coffin funeral, feel free to assume that things like that are safe to handle.” The EOD sergeant grabbed his helmet and then addressed Garza. “We’re gonna head back to headquarters and you’ll have my report by Monday.”

  Once the bomb squad man was gone, Garza said, “Okay, everyone, before we go in, gather round
and I’ll tell you what we know. At twenty-twenty-two hours, dispatch received the first of several nine-one-one calls reporting multiple shots fired at the motel. Patrol and vice units arrived on-scene and found our victim in Room Four. He’s an unidentified WMA and, big shock, there’s a gun on the floor next to him. Considering this is the Paladin, we all know what that might mean.”

  “A dope rip,” said Aafedt. “Any suspect description?”

  Garza shook her head. “Again, since this is the Paladin, the other room occupants naturally didn’t see or hear anything. The only bit of information we have, and even that’s iffy, is of a dark-colored sedan fleeing the scene southbound on Pierce Street.”

  “Hey, I know,” said Gregg. “Let’s put that info into one of those cool computers like they have on CSI: Miami. I’ll bet it’ll tell us the license plate, make, model, the suspect’s name, his mom’s address, and even when he last changed the car’s oil.”

  Everyone chuckled bitterly. The only reason real cops watch supposedly authentic TV shows such as CSI: Miami is to poke merciless fun at them for their largely bogus portrayals of forensic technology. The programs take place in a magical land where DNA test results are available in minutes instead of the customary weeks; where there are machines that not only analyze and identify chemical compounds but can also tell you amazingly arcane things such as where a certain rare tree can be found; and where the investigators carry every imaginable piece of ultramodern crime fighting gear, except handcuffs. Real life is very different.

  Garza gave out job assignments next. Gregg and Aafedt were named case agents and the techs were assigned specific functions. The medical examiner arrived and I got ready to cool my heels while everyone went to work.

  Gregg cleared his throat. “LT, I wonder if Brad could come in with us.”

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t see how. The defense could claim we compromised the integrity of the crime scene by letting a sightseer in.”

  Although I knew that Garza hadn’t intended it as an insult, it stung that she’d called me a sightseer—even if it was essentially true. Suddenly I wanted to go beyond that yellow crime scene tape more than almost anything in the world. My mind racing, I said, “But you wouldn’t be compromising the scene if you let an expert in.”