The Crafty Teddy (22 page)

“What do we know about her…other than the fact that we’ve been allowing a crook into our house for months?”

Tina said, “Widowed—her husband died in an industrial accident—and she has two kids at the middle school. She works at some veterinary office in Harrisonburg and supplements her income by making quilts, or at least that’s what she says. No criminal record.”

“And there’s one other thing we know about her.” Ash threw the teddy bear down. “She used the guild classes to learn how to make counterfeit teddy bears. I can’t believe she sat here, week after week, Little-Miss-Meek-and-Mildoh-Ashleigh-thank-you-for-being-my-friend, and all the while she was conning us.”

“Where does she live?” I asked.

Tina said, “Across the river, at that little trailer park on Rocky Bar Road.”

Ash punched her open hand. “And I can’t wait to talk to her. When do we go?”

“I hate to disappoint you, honey, but she’s probably still at work, so it’ll have to be later. What’s our next move, Tina?”

“Why not go over to the vet’s office and question her right now?”

“Talking to her is important, but we also want to schmooze our way into her house to see if there are any signs of the counterfeiting operation in plain sight.”

Tina nodded. “And if we make contact with Holly at work, she’ll deny knowing anything. Then, once we’re gone, she could call and have her partner-in-crime, or maybe even her kids, go and remove the evidence.”

“Precisely. So, what’s our next move, Tina?”

“I really think we need to talk to Marie.”

“I agree. Holly may be producing fake antiques, but there’s nothing to connect her with the murder…yet.”

“So, do we go back out to her house?” The look of dismay Tina wore told me that she wasn’t looking forward to another visit to the pigpen.

“No, she probably wouldn’t let us in. Besides, we need to lure her out of her safety zone.”

“But how? I don’t think she’ll come to the station voluntarily.”

“No, but what if the county risk management supervisor called the grieving widow and said he was going to recommend the insurance company pay off on Frank’s policy and asked her to come to his office and sign some forms?”

“But the board of supervisors hasn’t made a decision on that yet.”

“Never let the facts interfere with a useful story. You know she’ll break a land speed record getting to his office and we’ll be there, waiting for her.”

“But…”

“What’s the problem?”

Tina looked uncomfortable. “This may sound ridiculous, but we’d be lying. I don’t know if I want to do that, considering how corrupt the sheriff’s department was before I took office.”

From my point of view, it
did
sound ridiculous; I wasn’t suggesting anything illegal or even that uncommon in law enforcement practice. But I didn’t say so, because I also understood what was troubling her. Tina was acutely aware that she represented law and order in a county where, until recently, the cops had been as crooked as a mountain switchback road.

Still, I said, “Tina, it’s your investigation, and I’ll abide by your instructions. But as your consultant, I have to tell you that making a decoy call like that is perfectly lawful. Every court in the land has ruled that it’s okay to use a ruse to catch a crook.”

“I suppose.” Tina heaved a huge sigh. “But I don’t like doing it.”

“Well, God help me, I do. But then again, you’re a much better person than I am. You want me to call risk management?”

“No, I’ll do it. Can I borrow your phone?”

While Tina made the call, I took some ibuprofen for my leg and assured Ash that Sheldon Shaw was going to pay for the damage to the Xterra.

Tina hung up the phone. “He agreed to do it. He’ll call Marie now and ask her to come to his office at four. If she falls for it, he’ll call us right back.”

“Then I guess we’d better put Kitch in his crate and turn the TV on,” I said.

“Does that mean I’m coming along?” Ash had been looking downcast until that moment.

I caressed her chin. “Hey, you’re my partner. Let’s get ready to roll.”

The phone rang and Tina answered it. After a few moments of conversation, she hung up and said, “She bought it. She’ll be at the office in a half hour.”

“That’s a good sign. It probably means Sheldon hasn’t called to warn her that we’re looking at her as a suspect. But before we go, where is Saturday’s newspaper?”

“Out in the recycling box in the shed,” said Ash as she ushered Kitch into his crate.

“Can you grab it for me?”

“Sure, but why?”

“It might be useful when Marie starts lying to us.”

Ash got the paper and then we all got into Tina’s patrol car and sped into town. Tina parked the car in the sheriff’s station’s parking lot, where it wouldn’t be noticed, and we walked over to the old brick courthouse, which also housed the county’s administrative headquarters. The risk manager’s office was on the second floor. His name was Wilfred Hughes and he surrendered his gloomy wood-paneled office while repeatedly telling Tina that he hoped she understood that
he
wasn’t responsible if anything went wrong. Bureaucrats…it’s a shame there isn’t an official season to hunt them.

Tina sat down behind Hughes’s desk, while I took the other office chair and Ash remained standing, leaning against a filing cabinet.

“If you think I’ve missed something, please jump in,” said Tina.

“I won’t have to, if you get a twist on her and don’t let go.”

“But…I’m not…”

“A cruel and manipulative ogre like me?”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“But it’s true. Despite appearances, I’m probably more of a grizzly than a teddy bear, which works out fine for cop work. You want me to give her a taste of the wild kingdom?”

Before Tina could answer, there were two tiny raps on the door and it slowly swung open. It was Marie Merrit and she was dressed in what I guess was intended to be a casual mourning ensemble of baggy black pants, a black pullover T-shirt, and ugly black shoes. Still, she didn’t look sad so much as anxious and fatigued.

When she saw who was waiting for her, Marie said, “What the hell is going on here?”

“We really need to talk to you again, Mrs. Merrit,” said Tina.

“I can’t believe you tricked me into coming here. Don’t you people have any compassion? I just lost my husband.”

“And we need to talk about that. Please, sit down.”

“So you can try to twist my words around again? I’m going home.”

Tina shot me a look that said:
You can let that grizzly out of his cage any time now.

“Oh, spare us the moral outrage. It’s like a slaughterhouse worker complaining about his steak.” I stood up and shoved the chair over. “Have a seat.”

“Are you deaf? I’ve got nothing to say.”

“Wrong. You’re going to tell us the truth and you know why? You want the money, but you’ve screwed yourself.”

“What are you talking about?” There was a flicker of uncertainty in Marie’s eyes.

“I’m happy to explain. Life insurance companies live for the opportunity to deny a payoff on a policy and you’ve provided them with the best excuse in the world.”

“Really? What’s that?”

“You’ve given us deliberately false statements and we can prove it. Once the insurance investigator reads that in the crime report, he’ll tell his company that you might very well be the primary suspect in Frank’s murder. You can kiss the money good-bye.”

“I didn’t kill him!”

“Maybe, but you did lie to us. Was that to protect the real killer?”

Marie’s chin fell. “I didn’t know it was going to happen.”

I gently tapped the side of the chair with my cane. “Sit down, Marie. You and I both know you want the money, and for people like you, betrayal never tastes as bad as you think it will.”

Nineteen

Marie stood in the doorway, white-faced with anger. Based on everything I’d observed and what Linda Ingersoll had told me, Marie was an archetypal bully and Frank had been the classic wishy-washy enabler. Therefore, it wasn’t likely she was accustomed to direct confrontation and my aggressive stance was intended to exploit that potential weakness. But the longer she stood there, with an invisible comic-strip thought-bubble above her head that clearly said, “Pound it up your ass,” the more I worried that I’d miscalculated. She wasn’t under arrest, so we couldn’t stop her from leaving, yet I knew our only chance to get the truth was by surreptitiously bullying the bully, so I continued to look at her with an expression of bored contempt. Finally, Marie closed the office door and sat down stiffly in the chair.

I folded my arms. “Okay, let’s establish the ground rules right now. You lied to us during the first interview and you aren’t going to waste our time again. You’ll answer all my questions honestly and completely. If you get stupid and start to lie, the interview is over and you don’t get the money. Understood?”

“Are you enjoying this?”

“As a matter of fact, I am. Do you understand?”

“Yes.” Marie spat the word out and then noticed Ash. “Who is she?”

“That’s my wife, and she’s played a major role in helping us investigate your husband’s murder.” I perched myself on the edge of the desk so that she would have to look up at me. “And now that we’ve all been properly introduced, who killed Frank?”

She devoted almost three seconds to pondering the ethics of shivving a family member in the back before saying, “I don’t know for certain, but I think it was my brother, Sheldon.”

Not wanting her to know that I’d already spoken with Sheldon, I asked, “What’s his last name?”

“Shaw.”

“And where does he live?”

“On Old Forge Road in Furnace.”

“Do you know if he has a history of physical violence?”

“He’s never been arrested for anything like that…that I know of.”

Talk about damning with faint praise,
I thought, while trying to look thoughtful. “And why do you think he did it?”

“I love Shel, but he has a hair-trigger temper and he was madder than a hornet at Frank.”

“Over?”

“On account of Frank leaving me for another woman. On Saturday morning, Frank told me he was moving out and wanted a divorce. He said he’d be back for his things after work.” Marie looked at the floor. “I was so hurt. I couldn’t understand what I’d done.”

“Hurt, or upset the gravy train was pulling out and you weren’t on board?”

“What the hell do you mean by that?”

I shrugged. “Just that Frank was working two jobs, while you played couch potato, shoveled down cookies, and let your house turn into the residential equivalent of a landfill. When he said adios, that was all going to change.”

“I’m not lazy. I told you that I suffer from severe chronic fatigue syndrome.”

“Yeah, but the strange thing about
your
illness is that it’s conveniently selective. You’re too fatigued to do housework, but you weren’t too tired to go to yard sales or rush over here to collect a life insurance check.”

Marie bristled. “Oh, so just because I wasn’t chained to a vacuum cleaner, that gave him the right to abandon me?”

“Abandon? It looks to me like you drove him out,” Tina interjected.

“That isn’t true. I loved him.”

I said, “Well, you’ve got a damn funny way of showing it. Why didn’t you tell us about Frank saying he was moving out, when we were there on Saturday afternoon?”

“Because…”

“You would have had to tell the rest of the story and implicate your brother, right?”

She looked up at me searching for some sign of empathy. “Yes.”

I kept my face stern. “That’s understandable and maybe even admirable, but we’ve got to have the entire truth now.”

“I know.”

“So, let’s begin with the other woman. Do you know who she was?”

She folded her arms. “No.”

The body language told me she was lying, so I made a game show buzzer sound and stood up. “You lose. I told you what would happen if you lied to me. What, did you think I was kidding?”

“But—”

Turning to Tina, I said, “Come on, let’s go.”

“All right, I knew about her!”

“Too late. Oh, and by the way, do you want to know how I know you’re lying? I talked to Sheldon just a little while ago.”

Marie looked panicked. “Please! Give me one more chance.”

“Why? So you can ask for
another
chance the next time I catch you lying?” I leaned close to her. “Here’s a major news alert: I’m not flexible and forgiving Frank. I’m Attila the freaking Hun. Maybe all the men in your life have been spineless wonders, but you’re not going to manipulate me like you did them. Try it again and the least of your concerns will be losing out on the money.”

“If you’ve already talked to Sheldon, why are you bothering me? Why didn’t you just put him in jail?” Marie grumbled.

“Because I don’t think he killed Frank and, just for the record, he was a hell of a lot more forthcoming than you are.” I settled back on to the desk again. “Tell me about the other woman.”

“Her name is Linda Ingersoll and she’s a professor at UVA. Frank started acting sneaky back in November, right after coming home from a conference at William and Mary. I assume that’s when he met her.”

“How do you know who she is?”

“I followed Frank one day when he said he was going to the UVA library to do some research. Instead, he went to a motel in Ruckersville. A woman showed up a little later and went into the room.” Marie looked at Tina. “I got the license plate of her car and had one of your deputies check it through the DMV for me.”

It was one of those intellectual long-expired-date-on-the-milk-carton moments. You know it’s going to smell awful, but you still open it and take a whiff. I said, “Accessing a law enforcement database for personal use is against the law. Why would a deputy do that for you?”

“Because we’re very close old friends.” Marie tried to sound innocently kittenish, but the statement came out as a smirk.

I glanced at Ash, who gave me a cross-eyed look of disgust.

Meanwhile, Tina was tight-jawed. “Which one of my deputies?”

Marie said, “Ron Mooney. Gee, I hope I haven’t gotten him into trouble.”