The Treacherous Teddy

by John J. Lamb

  “I will, though I’m sorry you feel that way. But nobody is accusing you of murder.” I kept my voice calm, while taking note of how quickly and thoroughly Wade was losing his temper.

  “Yet. And ain’t it amazing? That greedy bastard stole my water and the sheriff’s office couldn’t spare me the time of day! Civil problem, they said. Can’t do nothing. But, you sons of bitches pull out all the stops when a rich man stubs his freaking toe!”

  “He didn’t stub his toe, Mr. Tice. He was ambushed and shot in the chest with a hunting arrow.” I turned as if to go back to the Aztek and then paused to add, “And come to think of it, the other thing I’ve heard is that you’re an expert bow hunter. A regular William Tell. Do you mind if I look at your bow and arrows?”

  Wade Tice’s face was white with fury. “Screw you!”

  “Ouch, that hurt,” I sneered. “What happened, Mr. Tice? Couldn’t you stand the fact that Mr. Rawlins had mortified you in front of everyone in the Food Lion? Is that why you put a big hunting arrow in his chest?”

  “I told you, get off my land! And don’t come back!” Wade bent to snatch up the screwdriver.

  Even though Tice had armed himself, I made no move to grab my gun. It’s a little-known fact, but edged weapons, and that includes screwdrivers, are far more lethal than firearms at distances of less than fifteen feet. If Wade decided to, he could stab me eleven or twelve times before I got the pistol from its holster. I decided not to do anything to further escalate the situation.

  “I’m going, but let me offer a word to the wise,” I said, my voice suddenly deadly earnest. “At some point I will be back, and you don’t want to have that big old screwdriver in your hand when I arrive.”

  Nine

  I deliberately turned my back on the enraged farmer and limped to the Aztek. That was probably a stupid thing to do, considering that Wade Tice’s temper tantrum had just turned him into the prime suspect in Everett Rawlins’s murder. However, my pride took precedence over caution. I would rather have died than let Tice know he’d spooked me.

  When I got to the car, I found Kitch lying on the backseat with his head between his front paws. He’d been frightened by the shouting, but he perked up when he saw me. By the time I was behind the wheel, Tice was gone, and I assumed he’d gone into the house to call his wife. He and Marilyn needed to get their stories straight before I could arrive to interview her.

  However, there was a tiny chance that Tice wouldn’t be able to contact his wife immediately. The couple was obviously in dire financial straits, which might mean they couldn’t afford the additional expense of a cell phone. If so, Tice would have to telephone the hotel housekeeping supervisor and request that a message be passed along to his wife for her to call him back ASAP. That would take time, and I could be at the Massanutten Crest Lodge in less than ten minutes if I ignored the posted speed limits like everyone else around here. I started the Aztek and roared from the farm.

  As I drove, I asked Kitch, “So, what do you think, pal? Do we have enough information to get a search warrant for Wade Tice’s property?”

  Kitch began to pant.

  “You’re right. Of course we don’t,” I said. “There’s no way to link those muddy tracks to the ATV, because yours truly screwed up and got us thrown off the property before I could get a closer look at the tires. And we both know that his being a bow hunter doesn’t translate into a reasonable suspicion that he’s the one who fired the arrow.”

  Kitch yawned and rested his moist chin on my shoulder.

  “I agree. Wade did lie about his relationship with Everett, but that still isn’t enough to get us a search warrant. And it keeps getting better and better.”

  Kitch smacked his lips.

  “How? Well, while I rush over to interview a wife who’s undoubtedly going to tell me to go to hell, Wade is probably getting rid of his bow and arrows somewhere on the mountain.”

  A minute or so later, I was speeding northbound on the Stonewall Jackson Highway and soon approached the turnoff that would take me through Remmelkemp Mill and on to the hotel. However, as I made the left turn, I heard the yelp of a police siren. Glancing at the rearview mirror, I saw the flashing blue lights and muttered a curse. A state police car was behind me, and the trooper wanted me to stop.

  I pulled over to the side of the road, shut off the engine, and put my hands on the steering wheel so that they’d be visible. Looking into the side mirror, I watched the trooper get out of her car and slowly approach the Aztek. She was young, but her alert demeanor and officer safety tactics told me that she knew how to conduct a traffic stop. The trooper placed herself just behind the doorpost, so that I had to look over my left shoulder to see her.

  “Good morning, sir. I’m Trooper Fuller and I’ve pulled you over for speeding. I want your driver’s . . .” The young cop suddenly paused to take a deep and prolonged sniff of the air coming from inside the Aztek. Then she said, “Sir, just how much marijuana do you have in this vehicle?”

  “None. Look, I can explain. I’m a civilian investigator for the Massanutten County Sheriff’s Office.”

  “Riding around with your sheepdog and a load of weed. Right.” She was extremely suspicious, and I couldn’t blame her. Marijuana cultivators seldom look like Cheech and Chong anymore.

  “Yeah, I know it looks strange, but let me show you my department ID.” I began to reach for my badge case inside my jacket.

  “Keep your hands where I can see them,” Fuller commanded.

  “Yes, ma’am.” There was no need to see the trooper’s gun to know it was pointed at my head. I inclined my head slightly toward the walkie-talkie that stood in the center console drink grommet. “I can prove I’m with the sheriff’s office. That’s a police radio.”

  “Or a scanner. Every dope dealer I’ve arrested had one. Now, I want you to get out of the car very slowly.”

  I grimaced. “Which brings up something else I probably should’ve mentioned right away. I’m carrying a . . . gun.”

  Faster than you can say The French Connection, I was disarmed and facing the back of the Aztek with my arms outstretched and my legs spread. I told Fuller that my leg really was injured, but she didn’t believe me and ordered me to stand still. Again, I couldn’t blame her for distrusting me. It’s a common ploy for crooks to pretend to be injured. Meanwhile, Kitch jumped into the rear cargo compartment and pressed his nose and slobbery muzzle against the back window to watch the fun.

  The cop had radioed for backup and removed my badge case from my jacket when I heard the sound of a big diesel pickup truck slowly pass. The vehicle then pulled over to the side of the road in front of the Aztek. A moment later, I heard a voice I recognized. It was a man with a cultured British Oxbridge accent, and he sounded positively tickled as he said, “Trooper Fuller, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart. You’ve given me a moment that I shall treasure for many years to come.”

  It was ironic that Tina had been worried about me teasing Sergei about the forthcoming trip to Disney World. He was as committed to MAD—mutually assured derision—as I was. Although I couldn’t see my smart-mouthed friend, it was easy to envision him with his twinkling blue eyes, steel-gray handlebar moustache, and a wicked grin of delight.

  “I need you to stay back, Mr. Zubatov. This man could be dangerous,” said the cop.

  “Sergei!” I shouted over my shoulder. “You tell this officer who I am or, I swear to God, you will never get Ash’s white chocolate truffle and Amaretto cake recipe!”

  “Steady on, Bradley. Threats like that will only cause me to dessert you.”

  “Do you know this guy?” the trooper asked Sergei.

  There was a slight pause, and I knew that Sergei was weighing the loss of a great recipe against a few more moments of devilish amusement. Finally, he said, “Yes, I do. He’s Bradley Lyon and he works for Sheriff Barron. I stopped to tell you that . . . and to take a couple of photographs that we can chuckle over later. Right, Bradley?”


  “Oh, the fun we’ll have,” I grumbled. Then I said to the trooper, “May I please stop assuming the position?”

  “Yes, of course, and I’m sorry, sir,” said Fuller. “I just transferred here from Richmond last month, so I’m still getting to know the local cops.”

  “And you’ve met the local greasy-spoon operator,” I said as I turned around and rested my butt against the bumper to take the weight off my left shin.

  “Yes, sir, I eat at Mr. Zubatov’s place a couple times a week.” Fuller bit her lip as I rotated my left ankle and gritted my teeth. She said, “Your leg really is hurt.”

  “Yep.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “No need to be.” I cautiously stood up. “The car does reek of dope and I was speeding. I was on my way to the Massanutten Crest Lodge to chase down a hot lead on a potential homicide I’m working.”

  Fuller radioed her dispatcher to cancel her backup and then handed my badge case and pistol back to me. “Here. No hard feelings?”

  “About you drawing down on me? None. If I were in your place, I’d have done exactly the same thing.” I turned to Sergei as I slipped the gun back into my shoulder holster. “You, however . . . And what exactly did you mean when you said you were taking pictures?”

  Sergei held up his cell phone, and his grin grew even broader. “What I wouldn’t have given for a tiny telephone that doubled as a camera back during the old days. And just wait until you see the photos. You have this exquisite woebegone look.”

  “I’m glad I was able to brighten your day and I’d love to hang around and let you torment me some more, but I’ve got to run,” I said, limping toward the driver’s door of the Aztek. “I’ll see you later tonight.”

  “Good, but until then, give this some thought: Where can I put a poster-sized framed copy of that picture?” Sergei asked merrily as he followed me.

  “Actually, I know the perfect place you can put it. But don’t get a frame with glass. It’ll just hurt that much more.” I shut the car door and resumed my journey to the lodge.

  Driving through town, I passed the Remmelkemp Mill Apostolic Assembly, where I saw that the pastor, Terry Richert, and another guy had just finished hanging a banner above the church community center’s door. The sign read, TEDDY BEAR SHOW, SATURDAY, 9 A.M.-4 P.M. I honked and waved, while making a mental note that I had to finish Bear-atio’s trousers sometime tonight.

  The Massanutten Crest Lodge is about five miles west of town and stands high on the east side of the mountain. It’s located in an alpine landscape, which is why I guess the resort consortium modeled the place after King Ludwig II of Austria’s famous fairytale-like Neuschwanstein Castle. Tourist guidebooks describe the large hotel as looking imposing, but I think the kitschy Sleeping Beauty castle looks as out of place in the Virginia mountains as an ashtray in a hospital room.

  The oval-shaped driveway in front of the faux barbican entrance to the hotel was gridlocked with luxury cars and even a couple of limos. Then I remembered it was Friday and the weekend guests were arriving. That likely meant I’d wait for God knows how long for someone to find the hotel’s security director for me, and I was already racing the clock to contact Marilyn Tice. Fortunately, I noticed a road sign that read EMPLOYEE SERVICES with an arrow pointing left. I made a left turn and followed the road around the side of the building.

  The employee administration offices were located at the back corner of the hotel. I parked the car, and as I got out, Kitch began to jump up and down and whine, indicating that he had to make a potty call. There was no telling how long I’d be in the hotel, so I hooked the leash to his collar and let him out of the car. I figured I’d come back for the police radio, so I grabbed my cane and led Kitch toward a grassy and wooded embankment behind the hotel. There were brown piles of leaves scattered on the slope, and it looked as if the hotel gardeners had been tidying the grounds in the wake of the rain.

  I don’t know why, but Kitch is pretty particular about where he goes to the bathroom. He wanted to smell every tree and bush, and before long, we were behind the hotel. As Kitch snuffled at one of the piles of leaves, I glanced over at the loading docks. That’s when I saw the late-1970s black Dodge pickup truck parked near a short flight of steps that led to a door. I squinted to see the license plate and recognized the alphanumeric sequence from the wanted flyer that hung on the bulletin board at the sheriff’s office. It was Chet Lincoln’s truck.

  There was no time to ponder why Chet was there, because at that same moment, the door opened and a bald-headed man emerged from the building. He was looking downward at something he held together in his hands at about chest height. I couldn’t be certain, but the man’s posture suggested he was counting currency.

  Game Warden Randy Kent was right. Chet did look a lot like the cartoon mascot Mr. Clean, but there were a couple of major differences. The poacher wasn’t wearing a big gold hoop earring, and instead of Mr. Clean’s sparkling white togs, Chet was dressed in grungy jeans and a black sweat-shirt that bore the message GOT AMMO? stenciled across his chest in white letters.

  When Chet reached the top of the stairs, he finally looked up. That’s when he noticed me. We stared at each other for a second or so, and even though I leaned on a cane and had Kitch, I could tell that he somehow knew I was the law. Maybe all those years of hunting had imparted in Chet an instinctive awareness of a fellow predator. And now, recognizing that he was the prey, he darted down the stairs toward the pickup.

  I shouted, “Hold it right there, Mr. Lincoln! We need to talk!”

  By then, Chet had already thrown the truck door open and dived behind the wheel. I knew there was no way I could get to the truck before it took off, and pulling my gun wasn’t an option either. Chet hadn’t attacked me, and technically the only reason he was wanted was for a poaching warrant, which wasn’t a violent crime . . . at least as far as humans were concerned. The best thing I could do was immediately contact the sheriff’s department and get a patrol car rolling in this direction. However, I’d brilliantly left the police radio in the car.

  Chet was just firing up the Dodge’s engine as I jammed my right hand into my coat pocket to retrieve the cell phone. With any luck, the day-shift dispatcher wasn’t a fan of crossword puzzles and she’d answer the phone quickly. Then things got really interesting. Oblivious to the drama unfolding before him, Kitch had finally selected the piece of greenery he wanted to irrigate. He lunged for the tree just as I began to pull the phone out. Unfortunately, I had the dog leash looped around my right wrist and the sudden jerk caused the phone to catapult from my hand. I watched it sail end over end and disappear into the large mound of leaves.

  The Dodge roared away from the loading dock and headed toward the highway at a breakneck speed. Meanwhile, I’d let go of the leash and was on my hands and knees, frantically searching through the wet and slimy leaves for the freaking phone. By the time I found it and called the sheriff’s department, Chet was long gone. It was galling. This was the second time in less than twenty-four hours that a member of the Lyon family had allowed a criminal to escape.

  All in all, it hadn’t been a great moment with Mr. Lincoln.

  Ten

  I took Kitch back to the Aztek and dried his paws with some fast-food-joint napkins I’d found in the glove compartment. Then backup arrived in the form of a humming white golf cart with a flashing yellow light on its roof. The lodge’s security director, Leonard “Linny” Owen, was behind the wheel.

  I’d met Linny more than a year earlier while giving his personnel some training on identity theft prevention. Since then, I’d come to both mildly like and pity him. He was the nephew of the hotel’s owner and basically a clueless and somewhat rotund nice guy trying to masquerade as a dynamic and hard-nosed security boss. However, the charade wasn’t fooling his employees, as evidenced by the nickname they’d given him. Linny thought it was an affectionate diminutive of Leonard, but one of the guards had told me the name in fact derived from Linny the Guinea P
ig, a plump, talking rodent from some kids’ animated TV series called The Wonder Pets.

  Linny clambered from the cart. “Hey, Brad, did you see a big black pickup truck speeding through the lot?”

  “Yeah, the truck belongs to a guy named Chester Lincoln. He knew that I knew that he has an arrest warrant, so he took off.”

  “What the heck was he doing here?”

  “That’s an excellent question, Linny. The truck was parked next to the loading docks and I saw Chet come out the back door.”

  “His last name is Lincoln? It doesn’t ring any bells, but I’ll check the employee roster to see if he has any relatives working here. Count on it, I’ll get some answers,” said Linny as he slammed his fist into the palm of his other hand and jutted his fleshy jaw out, reminding me of an oversized guinea pig Il Duce.

  I bit my lip to stifle a smile. At the same time, I realized that Linny’s idea was a wise one and told him so.

  He said, “So, did you come up here about the Saab being stolen? Have you found it? Ms. Driggs is very upset.”

  “No, we haven’t. Sorry. And hey, what was this I heard about the lightning frying your security cameras?”

  Even though we were alone, Linny furtively glanced back and forth. “I’d really appreciate it if you kept that under your hat. We lost sixteen cameras, and I don’t have the spare twelve grand in my security budget to replace them and all the wiring.”

  “So ask your manager for some extra money.”

  “I would, but, well . . . back when I had this new surveillance system installed, he suggested that I add lightning arresters and surge protectors. But that was expensive, and I’d already told my uncle that I was going to come in under budget. So . . .”

  “You didn’t follow the manager’s advice, and you don’t want to let him know that.”