by John J. Lamb
Garza looked doubtful. “An expert in what?”
“Teddy bears. You’ve got a teddy bear that might be connected to the crime and I’m the closest thing you’ve got to an expert on stuffed animals. I make them for a living now and know an awful lot about the major manufacturers and artists. Hell, I’m even kind of a teddy bear history buff.”
“I don’t know . . .”
“And as part of my duties as a civilian investigative consultant for the Massanutten County Sheriff’s Office, I worked a couple of major felony cases that—believe it or not—involved the theft of teddy bears.” I hoped my voice didn’t betray how close I was to shameless begging.
“A teddy bear expert,” Garza said musingly and then grinned. “I love it. Have Inspector Lyon sign the entry log, get him some gloves, and let’s get to work.”
Even though my shin was beginning to ache a little, I felt like dancing a victory jig. A moment later, we passed beneath the yellow plastic tape and approached the motel. We paused as one of the crime scene photographers took some orientation photos of the exterior of the building. Then, accompanied by an evidence tech, I went over to check out the teddy bear next to the car while the rest of the investigators went to Room Four.
The sedan was a mid-eighties Chevrolet Celebrity with expired California plates. As it turned out, the car was actually beige, which just goes to show how sodium lights can alter a witness’s perception of colors. The tech took some overview pictures of the car and then of the teddy bear, which was lying on the pavement halfway beneath the Celebrity and near the right rear tire. Once he finished, I borrowed the tech’s flashlight and slowly knelt down on the still-warm asphalt to take a better look. The EOD sergeant was correct. This was no Teddy Ruxpin.
The toy bear lay facedown, and I could see why the bomb squad had been called. There was a hinged door on the bear’s back and it was open, revealing a mass of the sort of electronic circuitry and wiring you’d expect to find inside a computer. The hardware wouldn’t have looked so menacing if it hadn’t been for the tiny red LED light on a circuit board. It was flashing on and off rhythmically as if signaling some sort of countdown. This was a visual clue you’d have to be felony stupid to ignore, since the toy was large enough to contain several sticks of dynamite.
The bear was about twenty-four inches tall and made from ivory-colored plush fur tipped with a hint of silver. It also seemed to have an awfully inflexible posture. This suggested a substantial framework beneath the fur. Another peculiar thing caught my eye. Ordinarily, a teddy bear’s footpads are made of fabric or leather, but this bear’s feet were oblong-shaped, with what looked like hard brown plastic soles, which had inset horizontal treads.
I was puzzled. The only reason you’d build a bear with strong sturdy legs and soles designed for traction was if you expected it to be able to walk. I was aware that robotic teddy bears were in use as experimental patient monitors at some hospitals, but so far as I knew, they weren’t ambulatory. If this thing could actually walk, it belonged to the next generation of interactive toys and was worth a potential fortune. Which naturally led me to the question, what the hell was it doing here?
I had the tech take some close-up photos of the bear and then I picked it up. It was a lot heavier than I’d expected. I scrutinized the hardware for any sign of the manufacturer, but came up empty. Then I turned the bear around to examine its face. I couldn’t be absolutely certain, but I didn’t think the facial design was similar to any of the mechanized bears I’d seen pictured in a recent magazine article. This bear’s visage was evocative of Knut, the famous polar bear cub from the Berlin Zoo who had stolen the world’s heart back in 2006. The toy bear had friendly blue eyes and a hinged open-mouth apparatus.
“He’s got power, so I wonder how you turn him on?” I asked meditatively.
Without warning, the bear’s eyes lit up and it cheerfully replied in a young man’s voice, “Hi, my name is Patrick Polar Bear and I’m your friend.”
“Whoa. That look is so real, it’s downright spooky,” said the tech.
“Yeah, and the power source must be voice-activated by certain words.”
It was irrational, but I had the uncanny feeling the bear was looking at me. It said, “What’s your name?”
“Um, Brad.”
“Hi Brad! Do you want to sing a song?”
“How about ‘Driving That Train’ by the Grateful Dead?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t know that song. Would you like to teach it to me?”
It would have been interesting to see just how interactive the bear was, but this wasn’t the time or place for experiments. Uncertain of how to deactivate the toy, I decided to inquire of the one source that might know. “Patrick, how do I turn you off?”
“Just say ‘good night’ and we can play when I wake up.” I knew it was merely a product of its programming, but the bear genuinely sounded sad.
“Good night, Patrick.”
“Good night, Brad. I’ll see you in my dreams,” said the bear as the light slowly died in its eyes.
I handed the bear to the evidence tech. “You need to bag this. It’s definitely evidence.”
“How can you tell?”
“For starters, this thing was dropped and abandoned, which doesn’t make any sense. This bear is probably worth at least several grand.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope. It’s a cutting-edge robot.”
“So, how’d it end up here?”
I glanced in the direction of the motel room where the body was. “I don’t know, but we have to assume that the bear is somehow connected with the homicide.”
“So, this is a grizzly murder,” the tech deadpanned.
“Hey, you’re stealing my material.” I picked up the flashlight. “Secure Patrick in the evidence van while I check to make sure that nothing broke off the bear when it hit the pavement.”
The secret to conducting a successful crime scene search is to take your time and avoid preconceived notions about what might be important. Think of a homicide in terms of a crossword puzzle. The clues are often obscure and misleading. Although I couldn’t locate any debris from the bear, there was no mistaking the importance of what I soon found: a smear of fresh blood and some dark blue-colored fiber transfers on the asphalt, about five feet away from where the bear had fallen. It wasn’t difficult to reconstruct what had happened. Whoever had run away had tripped, fallen, and skinned some clothed part of their body on the pavement. When the evidence tech returned, I showed him the blood stain, which he photographed, measured for the crime scene diagram, and then collected.
Using my cane as a brace, I stood up and looked at the license plate of the car. “Did you run this yet?”
“I’m about to do it now,” said the tech.
I shined the flashlight’s beam into the Chevy. There was a crumpled fast-food bag and empty soda cup with a protruding straw on the passenger-side floorboard and an improperly folded road map of the Bay Area on the front seat. Shifting the light to the backseat, I found something else that unquestionably qualified as evidence. It was the furry brown bear head and the rest of the costume worn by the guy who’d leveled me at the teddy bear show earlier this morning.
Glancing toward the motel room where the dead man lay, I suddenly had a bad feeling that maybe Merv Bronsey and his costumed partner had found Kyle Vandenbosch.
Five
I scanned the car’s interior again, looking for Lauren’s cashbox, but didn’t see it. However, that didn’t mean anything. It might have been under the wadded-up costume or in the trunk or, more likely, the suspect had gotten rid of it after taking the money. Meanwhile, I was trying to figure out the connection between the costume and the mechanized bear.
One possibility was that the crook had stolen the robot from one of the exhibitors at the bear show. However, I had to toss that theory out almost immediately. Ash and I kept up with the teddy bear community news and there wasn’t even a whisper of an artist unv
eiling a mechanized bear at the Sonoma show. But even if such an amazing bear had been on display in the Plaza, it meant that the guy in the costume had somehow stolen it without anyone noticing—which I couldn’t believe—and then elected to run the risk of discovery and capture by also robbing Lauren of some small amount of cash. Crooks don’t behave that way. They make fast tracks after stealing something.
Furthermore, if Bronsey really did have Lycaon as a client, he’d want to make them repeat customers. That meant impressing them with a clean operation and quick results. Merv’s mission was to terrorize Lauren so that she’d rat out her son, so it didn’t make sense that he’d risk the success of the operation by allowing his furry accomplice to steal from someone else at the show.
The evidence tech said, “The vehicle comes back no wants and registered to a Darryl Wu out of San Leandro, with a release of liability.”
“So, we still don’t know who owns it, because whoever bought this car from Mr. Wu never took it to the DMV to reregister it.”
“Do you think the Chevy is connected to the murder?”
“There’s a good chance. You see that?” I pointed to the wadded-up costume. “Believe it or not, a suspect wore that thing to commit a robbery in Sonoma this morning.”
“And then it shows up outside a motel room where a One-Eighty-Seven went down? The violence is escalating, so the guy must be—”
“Furry-ous. And if you try to work fur-ensic in, he won’t be the only one demonstrating a proclivity for violence.”
The tech smiled placidly. “I’ll get some photos.”
“Of all the cars in the lot.”
“Yes, sir.”
Speculating that shots might have also been fired outside the room, I checked the front of the Chevy for bullet holes, but couldn’t find any. Glancing to my left, I saw the door to Room Seven opened a crack and the silhouette of someone’s head peeking around the edge of the door.
Then a woman half-whispered, “Detective Lyon, is that you?”
“In the flesh. Who’s there?”
“It’s Kimberly.” She poked her head out a little. “You remember me, don’t you?”
In Victorian-era parlance, Kimberly Fleming was a “soiled dove.” However, being a hooker didn’t make her a bad person. Indeed, one of the things I’d always liked about most prostitutes was that they were usually bluntly honest about the fact that they sold themselves to strangers, unlike so-called respectable people, such as politicians. In contrast to most of the other cops she’d met, I’d treated her as a lady and she’d proved a valuable street informant. Once upon a time Kim had been a pretty girl. But the combination of meth, poor nutrition, and the nightly anxiety of wondering if her next customer was going to be Norman Bates had quickly taken its toll.
“Of course, I remember you, Ms. Fleming.” Realizing that she wasn’t going to leave the room, I walked over to her. “How are you tonight?”
“Okay, I guess. I saw you through the window and couldn’t decide if it was you or not.”
“Understandable. I look a lot older than I did.”
“And the cane. I heard you got shot.”
“That’s true, but I’m back now.” I decided I wouldn’t complicate matters by adding that I wasn’t a homicide inspector anymore. “Would you feel safer if I came in there to talk?”
She glanced at one of the uniformed cops standing near the crime scene tape. “Yes, please.”
Kim held the door open for me. The shabby motel room smelled of marijuana, Mexican food, and a cinnamon-based perfume so strong I could almost taste it. Once we were in better light, I could see that she’d aged even more than I had in the past few years. Her features were haggard and her eyes as dull as a John Tesh album.
Pushing the door shut, I asked, “Has anyone talked to you?”
“No, sir. I mean, the cops knocked on my door . . .”
“And you didn’t answer because you have an arrest warrant for prostitution, right?”
She nodded glumly.
“Don’t worry about that. I’m just interested in knowing what happened tonight. Where were you when the shooting started?”
“Here.”
“That must have been scary.”
“Tell me about it. We’re talking and suddenly—boom, boom, boom—it’s like a war movie. I hid in the bathtub.”
“So, you were with a customer?”
“Yeah. We were still discussing price.”
“And I imagine he bailed when the gunfire stopped.”
“Him and half the other people in the motel.” Kim shook her head in disbelief. “Man, I never thought she actually meant it.”
“She?” I tried to keep my voice casual.
“Some chick. I think she was the wife of the guy in the room.”
“Do me a favor, Ms. Fleming. Back up and start at the beginning.”
“I was on the stroll out on the sidewalk.” She pointed toward Lombard Street. “On the stroll” was a euphemism for standing by a roadway to solicit johns.
“And how long was that before the shooting began?”
“I don’t know. Maybe ten minutes. It wasn’t a long time.”
“Did you see where the woman came from?”
“No. In fact, I didn’t even notice her until she started banging the hell out of the door.”
“What did she look like?”
“White, I think. She sounded white. Nice figure, from what I could see.” Kim thought for a second. “Kind of long dark hair, jeans, and maybe a brown jacket.”
“Young? Old?”
“Youngish. Maybe in her twenties. I didn’t want to get that close, Mr. Lyon. She was really pissed off and crying—not that I blame her. There’s too many married guys out here screwing around when they should be home.”
I nodded in sad agreement. “Could you identify this woman if you saw her again?”
“I don’t think so.”
“What happened next?”
“Like I said, she was banging on the door and yelling about how she knew he was in there, and that she couldn’t believe how he’d betrayed her,” Kim said.
“Did she ever mention the guy’s name?”
“Not that I remember.”
“And the guy never answered the door?”
“No. I felt so bad for her.”
“Did she say anything else?”
“Oh, yeah. Right before she took off, she shouted that he was going pay for what he’d done to her. Pay with blood. She was screaming that at the top of her lungs.” Kim looked away from me and I suspected she was suddenly sorry she’d implicated the other woman.
“Which way did she go when she left?”
She pointed eastward. “She walked away.”
“Did you see if she had a car?”
“No.”
“Did you ever see or hear the woman again?”
“No.”
Kim’s answers were becoming monosyllabic and I knew she was anxious to end the interview. She was on the clock, and also frightened that her pimp would find out she’d been talking to a cop. Unfortunately for her, I wanted some more answers. I asked, “Was anyone arguing or shouting right before the shooting began?”
Kim shook her head.
“Look, I know you want to wrap this up, but I have just a few more questions and I want you to think very carefully about this next one. You said she was pounding on the door. Did she do anything else, like try to push it open?”
Her eyes became slightly unfocused as she recalled the scene. “Yeah. Yeah, there was a point when she had both hands pressed against the door while she was crying.”
“Like this?” I held both my hands up, palms outward and fingers spread.
“Uh-huh.”
“And was that car we were looking at already parked there when the woman was pounding on the door?”
She went over to the window and pulled the curtains aside to take another look at the Chevrolet. “No. It must have pulled in after I came inside.”
> “Any idea whose car it is?”
“No, sir.”
“I promise this is the last question. I’m assuming you know Mervin Bronsey, who used to work the vice squad. Have you seen him around here tonight?”
Kim’s eye’s widened with alarm. “No, thank God. He’s a sicko.”
“Yeah, I got that memo a while ago. Thank you, Ms. Fleming. You’ve been very helpful and I just wonder if you could you do me one more favor?”
“What’s that?” she asked with a slightly resentful sigh.
“If you can’t get out of this line of work . . .” I gestured toward the unmade bed, “promise me that you’ll be very careful. I’d hate to see something bad happen to you.”
Sometimes an unexpected word of compassion can be as surprising and painful as a sudden slap to the face. Kim looked as if she was going to cry. “See you around, Detective Lyon.”
“I hope so. You take care, Kim.” I gently shut the door behind me.
The tech did a double take when he saw me come from the motel room. “So, that’s where you went. One minute you were here and the next, I turn around and you’re gone.”
“One of my old informants wanted to talk to me. Did you find anything in any of the other cars that’s worth following up on?”
“Nothing.”
“Then keep an eye on that Chevy while I get down to Room Four. I’ve got some important information for the detectives.”
A few moments later, I stood outside the murder scene and noted that there were no signs of forced entry on the door or its frame. Inside, a man was lying faceup in a small pool of blood on the stained industrial carpeting, which meant the medical examiner must have turned the victim over. I didn’t recognize the dead guy, whose peroxide blond hair looked as if it had been styled with a weed-whacker. He wore a baggy pair of arctic camouflage military fatigue pants and a black T-shirt that bore the charming message: I MAY NOT BE MISTER RIGHT, BUT I’LL SCREW YOU UNTIL HE GETS HERE.
