The Crafty Teddy

by John J. Lamb

  “Linda moved out last night because she half suspected that her husband killed Merrit. Jeff came looking for her and apparently thought I was one of her lovers.”

  “It’s a natural mistake, but could he have killed Merrit?”

  Deciding that this wasn’t the best time to try and defend Linda’s honor, I said, “He says no, but I have to check out his alibi. Jeff claims he was in bed with one of his employees at her house at about the same time the murder went down.”

  “These people are amazing. And so you get to talk to another bimbo?”

  “And then go up to that winery in Barboursville to check out the other part of his story. After that, I’ll head right home. Promise.”

  “Okay and, Brad honey, you know why I get so upset. Bad things just seem to happen to you.”

  “Good things too. You happened to me. I’ll see you in a couple of hours, my love.”

  I went to the SUV, checked the map book for Pantops Drive, and then drove eastward across town. The headquarters for JRI Homes was located in a large business park and Linda was correct; the building was ugly. With its slanted, gray cement walls and narrow, mirrored windows that were evocative of machine-gun slits, the place looked like a bunker. If this was any evidence of JRI’s architectural designs, I wondered if their housing developments looked like the Maginot Line. I parked the truck and went inside.

  I asked for Jeanette Sleeman at the reception desk and was told she worked as a clerk in the legal department. It was lunchtime, but the receptionist said that she’d check to see if Jeannette was still in the building. A few minutes later, Jeanette came into the lobby. She was a thirty-something redhead with a gravity-defying bust, too much makeup, and a smudge of what looked like peanut butter in the corner of her mouth. I told her that Jeff had asked me to talk to her, but neglected to mention that he was currently in jail. She agreed and we went outside.

  It wasn’t a long chat and I tried not to focus on the bobbing dab of peanut butter as she spoke. Jeanette confirmed that Jeff had been at her house on Saturday morning and that they’d had lunch at the Barboursville Winery. Upon further questioning, she told me she smoked Salem cigarettes and backed up Jeff’s statement that he didn’t smoke. When we finished I told her about the peanut butter and suggested that the JRI legal department might want to get to work on posting Jeff’s bond.

  Although I dislike fast food, there wasn’t time to stop for a proper lunch, so I hit a drive-through to pick up a box of chicken fingers and a soda. I ate as I drove up to the small town of Barboursville. The winery and restaurant were closed on Mondays, but I was in luck. Several members of the staff, including the maitre d’, were in the restaurant for a meeting to plan menus for the next week. The maitre d’ verified that Jeff and Jeanette had been at the restaurant on Saturday. So, what had originally seemed a promising lead had petered out faster than the Teddy Ruxpin robotic teddy bear craze of the mid-eighties. It was time to go home.

  I was westbound on U.S. Route 33 and had just crossed over the Blue Ridge Mountains, when I passed a green pickup truck coming in the opposite direction. Hunting is a popular pastime around here, and there are lots of green trucks in the Shenandoah Valley, so the odds against me spotting the suspect vehicle were probably a thousand to one. But, Ash is right. Things do just happen to me. The truck was a decommissioned military pickup—you could see where the U.S. Army stencil and numbers had been covered with black spray paint—and the driver was a white guy wearing a baseball cap. There was no time to drive to one of the turnarounds, so I hit the brakes and made a U-turn across the grass median. By the time I was headed eastbound, the truck was turning left onto Callison Lane. I accelerated and fumbled with my phone to call Ash. But again, things happen to me. There was no cell service because I was too close to the mountains. Prudence said to go and get some backup, but we might never find the truck again in the wilderness that bordered Shenandoah National Park. So I turned left too, and followed the truck while trying to figure out how I was going to explain this to Ash.

  Seventeen

  The lonely two-lane road followed a lazy and meandering course northward through dense forest along the base of the Blue Ridge Mountains. It was beautiful country, wild yet mellow, verdant, and basically unchanged from the time when the Shawnee lived here. However, I really wasn’t in the proper frame of mind to appreciate the scenery, because there was no sign of the Ford. I sped up, but couldn’t go too fast, in case the truck had turned on to one of the unpaved driveways that occasionally intersected with the highway. Glancing at my cell phone, I saw that I still didn’t have any service.

  I drove across a creek on a narrow bridge and soon came to a fork in the road. On the left side, the trees gave way to a dead cornfield and this gave me an unobstructed view of the lane for a couple of hundred yards to the west. The truck wasn’t visible, so I had to assume the man had turned right and followed the road farther back into the hills. I swung the Xterra to the east and slammed my foot down on the accelerator, choosing speed over caution.

  The road became increasingly serpentine and I couldn’t always see very far ahead. I was traveling way too fast and this fact was driven home a second later when, while rounding a tight curve, I almost smashed into the rear of the Ford as it poked along the road. I slammed on the brakes and slued to a stop, while the guy in the pickup truck looked at me in his rearview mirror. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get a good look at him due to the GUN CONTROL MEANS HITTING WHAT YOU AIM AT and PETA—PEOPLE EATING TASTY ANIMALS bumper stickers on the truck’s back window. Talk about botching a rolling stakeout. I could have given the FBI lessons.

  The standard operating procedure for a mobile surveillance is that if your target has burned you, you’re supposed to go past him and pretend he doesn’t exist. That tactic might work well in an urban setting with a full surveillance team, but it’s pretty much useless on narrow roads in a rural environment and when you’re working solo. My options were limited, so I remained behind the Ford as it made its leisurely way down the road. Then, after about three hundred yards with the right turn indicator on, the truck turned east onto a rutted dirt track that led up a hill.

  I drove past the turnoff and made a big production out of stomping on the gas, in the hope I’d convince the truck driver that I’d been frustrated by the delay. Continuing about a quarter-mile farther down the road, I made a U-turn and went back to where the Ford had gone up the hill. I pulled over to the side of the road and checked the phone again, but it still couldn’t find a cell signal. The smart thing would have been to withdraw and return with Tina, some deputies, and maybe even Sergeant Preston of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and his dog, Yukon King, because the terrain looked pretty damn rugged. But there was no guarantee that this was a driveway and if it was an old road, it might come out anywhere. The bottom line was that being cautious could mean losing a potential investigation lead. I slipped the Xterra’s transmission into four-wheel drive mode and slowly drove up the hill.

  Pine trees and fallen logs hemmed the road. It looped around the hill and started upwards at a more acute angle and I wondered if I wasn’t already inside the National Park. I crested the steep ridge and had to stop. The Ford was parked directly in my path and there was no way around it, due to the boulders and dense foliage. Furthermore, there was no safe way to back down the hill. Then the driver stepped out from behind a pine tree and I saw he was brandishing an old baseball bat. Can anybody say, “Ambush?” And I’d driven right into it.

  Now that he was no longer in the vehicle, I could see the man was in his late fifties and big and burly—like a Coke machine with arms. He had thick salt-and-pepper hair with a curly mullet, a bushy gray moustache stained yellow in places from cigarette tar, and he wore a blue ball cap with a Colt Firearms logo above the black silhouette of an M-16 rifle. Approaching the driver’s side of the SUV, he casually swung the bat and smashed out my left headlight. It was a big bat, and I suddenly wondered if we’d jumped the gun in identifying the ha
mmer as the weapon that had killed Merrit.

  He yelled, “You been following me since the highway and I want to know why.”

  I realized that if I tried to back up and escape, he’d simply pulverize the driver window and I’d probably lose control of the vehicle and hit a tree. Then the real fun would begin. I was frantically trying to assess the situation and realized that something just didn’t make any sense. If this were the man who’d killed Merrit, the most natural course for him to follow now would be to kill me. After all, we were in the middle of nowhere, there were no witnesses, he had to know that I couldn’t call for help, and it might be months or even years before anyone found my body or the truck.

  Yet, it was clear he wanted to interrogate me and I hoped that meant I could talk my way out of this situation. There was no point in denying I’d been tailing him and it didn’t seem likely that admitting I worked for the sheriff was going to impress him. But, I suddenly thought of something that might. Ash’s ancestors helped settle the Shenandoah Valley and the Remmelkemp clan was large and enormously respected among the local population, so I decided to employ some emergency name-dropping.

  So, I lowered the window, shut the engine off, and called out the window, “Now, do you really want to start a feud with the Remmelkemps?”

  “What about the Remmelkemps?” The man squinted at me, slightly uncertain now. He was close enough for me to see the bat was a “Harmon Killebrew” autographed model. Imagine a caveman’s club and you’ll have the general idea.

  “Do you know them?”

  “I do and you ain’t one of them.”

  “But I’m married to one.”

  “Who?”

  “Ashleigh Remmelkemp. Her dad is Lolly and her mom is Irene.”

  “You’re married to Josh’s sister? I went to school with him.” The man lowered the bat perhaps an inch.

  Ash’s younger brother had just turned thirty-seven two months ago, so the news that this powerful yet aging hulk of a mountain man had been Josh’s schoolmate was a shock. Usually, I’m pretty good at estimating ages, but this guy was twenty years younger than he looked.

  Trying to keep the conversation flowing in a direction that didn’t involve blunt force trauma, I said, “Josh is a good man. He and his wife and kids were over at our house last weekend. When was the last time you saw him?”

  “Been a while. You still ain’t told me why you’re following me.”

  I decided it was better to share the truth now rather than later. “Because I’m helping the sheriff with a murder investigation.”

  “Is this Frank Merrit’s killing you’re looking into?”

  “Yeah, did you know him?”

  “Uh-huh. The no-good little snake was married to my sister and dyin’ was the best thing he could have done by her.”

  “You’re Marie’s brother?” I feigned nonchalance, but was instantly on guard again.

  “Yep. I’m Sheldon Shaw.” He didn’t offer his right hand, keeping it gripped on the baseball bat.

  “And my name is Brad Lyon.”

  “You got a gun?”

  “If I did, don’t you think I’d have been busting some caps at you?”

  Sheldon thought about that for a second and then gave a humorless chuckle. “I reckon. So, what’s Frank’s murder got to do with me?”

  “Can I get out of the truck so we can talk?”

  “Sure, but do it slow, cause I still don’t know if I trust you.”

  “No problem, because I couldn’t get out of this thing quickly if my life depended on it.” I slowly climbed from the SUV and held my cane up. “I hope I can keep this.”

  “Something wrong with your legs?”

  “I got shot in the left shin when I was a cop in California.” Somewhere off in the distance and to the left I heard the maniacal laugh of a pileated woodpecker, sometimes known as the “Oh, my God” bird due to its impressive size. Sheldon and I both turned to look for it. When the sound died, I said, “Mr. Shaw, I’m not sure I can trust you either, but I’m going to be up front with you. Your truck is pretty distinctive and it was seen at the museum on the morning that Frank was murdered. That’s one of the reasons why I need to talk to you.”

  “So, you was shadowing me because you done thought I killed him, right?” There was a flinty tone to his voice.

  “I’d have been a moron if I’d ignored the possibility.”

  “It ain’t right to judge a man before you speak to him.”

  “Or smash his headlight out with a ball bat.”

  Sheldon looked a little sheepish. “I reckon. You said that me being at the museum was one of the reasons. What’s the other?”

  I leaned against the Xterra. “You were also seen dumping Frank’s smashed-up computer at the trash transfer station in Elkton.”

  “Since when is it against the law to throw away garbage?”

  “Well, I think the issue is how the computer, which belonged to Massanutten County and was issued to Frank, by the way, became garbage. It looked like somebody beat it with a hammer.”

  “I didn’t see how that happened.”

  I thought: That may technically be the truth, but I’ll bet you know how it happened. I said, “And then there’s the problem of Marie lying to the sheriff and me about the computer. When we went to her house on Saturday afternoon to make the death notification and talk to her, she told us that Frank never had a county computer at home. Unfortunately, we knew otherwise.”

  Sheldon studied the barrel of the baseball bat. “Which means you’d like to know where I got it. That’s easy. I found it.”

  I sighed. “Sheldon, you seem like a decent guy and I’d hate to see you do something for family and end up getting yourself in a world of hurt. Can I share some information and then offer you some advice?”

  “I reckon.”

  “Almost nobody knows this, but Frank was beat to death with a hammer. It might even have been the same hammer used to smash the computer that you found. Then there are the FBI agents who are prepared to testify they saw you drive up to the museum and do a turnaround.”

  “FBI?” Sheldon involuntarily looked down the rutted track for Jimmy Stewart and Efrem Zimbalist Jr. Then he gave me a cagey look. “You had me going there for a moment. Now, why would the FBI be in Remmelkemp Mill?”

  “I know it’s hard to believe, but they were there tailing that orange Hummer you saw.”

  “Oh Lord.”

  “So, you were at the museum. Add that to the fact that Frank and Marie were having marital problems and that you probably made no secret of how much you disliked your brother-in-law. Now what do you think a jury would make of all that?”

  Sheldon propped the bat between his legs and dug a package of Camel nonfilters and a disposable lighter from his shirt pocket. Lighting up a cigarette, he said, “I didn’t kill Frank.”

  “I believe you; but it looks as if you’ve been left holding the bag.”

  It took a second or two for him to understand what I was inferring. “By Marie?”

  “Sorry, but that’s sure how it appears to me.”

  “But she’s my sister.”

  “And family has screwed-over family ever since Adam ate the apple and blamed Eve.”

  “Did Marie tell you about me? Is that how you found me?”

  “No, but she sure didn’t go out of her way to protect you either. Why did you go to the museum?”

  “I was going to kick Frank’s ass, but I wasn’t going to kill him.” Sheldon sucked deeply on the cancer stick and blew out a furious stream of smoke. “Marie done called me on Saturday morning all crying and mad. She said that Frank just told her he was moving out that day after he finished up at the museum.”

  “Do you know if there was any advance warning that this was going to happen?”

  “Back in the winter, Marie told me that she thought Frank was stepping out on her. But she didn’t think he had the guts to leave.”

  “But when he decided to, you were furious.”
/>
  “Nobody does that to my sister.”

  “Did she say anything else?”

  “She needed my help. Marie told me Frank was writing a book on that computer and she’d be damned if he sold it and spent the money on his girlfriend.”

  I swatted at a big horsefly that was buzzing around my face. “And so she took a hammer to the machine.”

  “I don’t know what she hit it with.”

  “But she hoped that smashing it would destroy the computer file for the manuscript? That’s stupid. Even if she’d somehow ruined the hard drive, didn’t she figure that Frank would have saved a backup copy of his work someplace else?”

  “I don’t know nothing about computers and I didn’t have to ask Marie why she done it. That was obvious. She was madder than hell.”

  “And you agreed to dispose of the computer.”

  “Yeah, she asked me to get rid of it.”

  “Which wasn’t bright, and not only because it was a county computer. Besides, Marie probably would’ve been entitled to half of whatever Frank made if he sold the book.”

  Sheldon tossed the cigarette butt to the ground and crushed it beneath his boot heel. “Maybe so, but all my sister was thinking about was how bad Frank would feel when he found out that his book was gone for good.”

  “So, why didn’t she take it to the dump?”

  “She was worried that someone would get the license number of her truck.”

  “Yet you ran the risk of being identified as an accessory to felony vandalism by taking it to the trash station. That doesn’t make any sense. Why not just dump it by the side of the road or bring it up here?”

  Sheldon gave me an aggrieved look. “I’d never do that. There’s all sorts of stuff in those computers that’ll ruin the land and get into the water. Ain’t there already enough rubbish been dumped in the Valley?”

  “I agree,” I said, wondering if Sheldon was even marginally aware that he’d littered only a few seconds earlier, when he’d thrown his cigarette on the ground.