The Treacherous Teddy (15 page)

“And it’s Friday, so you’re going to be packed tonight. I understand. Could I come back tomorrow, maybe?”

“Weekends are problematic. How about Monday? Oh . . . but then some of the people who were working today will be off.” Thalia gave me a bright smile. “Maybe it would be best if you came back
next
Friday.”

Thalia was obviously a student of Miss Manners. She’d just very nicely told me to go to hell. It was clear that she didn’t want me talking to her kitchen staff, and I knew that come next Friday, she’d have some other reason why I couldn’t interview them. Naturally, that made me suspicious, which is exactly what I didn’t need: another mental ball to juggle when my brain was already as busy as O’Hare Airport the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. I thanked Thalia for her time, and she slipped back into the Rathskeller.

Before I left, I reopened the menu and flipped back to the page that had the list of exotic entrées. It could be that I just have plebeian tastes, but it seemed to me that you’d order most of those unusual dishes to brag about them afterward, not because they sounded tasty. There was spicy alligator with tabbouleh, kangaroo strips in a chili and black bean sauce, and grilled rattlesnake Dijon. Then a couple of more regional entrées caught my eye. The Rathskeller also offered fresh venison filet mignon—AKA Bambi—and something called savory bear meatballs with mashed Yukon gold potatoes.

Suddenly, I was no longer hungry for lunch.

Twelve

“
Bear
meatballs?” Ash demanded.

“The game warden told me there isn’t any law against serving it, so long as the meat is obtained legally,” I replied.

“Which we know it isn’t.”

“We
suspect
it isn’t. We can’t show that Thalia even knows Chet, much less that she’s buying poached game from him. And it isn’t our job to prove that anyway. We’ve got a murder to solve.”

“I know, but . . . bear meatballs. There’s just something wrong about that.”

“Look, I share your disgust, but we’re also being a little hypocritical. We don’t object to eating other kinds of meat.” I held up my turkey sandwich to illustrate the point. “What’s more, I’ll bet when your ancestors first settled in the valley,
they
probably ate bear.”

“Because it was either that or go hungry.” Ash crunched hard on a tortilla chip. “That’s a whole lot different than some rich tourist at a snooty restaurant eating it for no other reason than it’s expensive and he’s never had it before.”

“You’re preaching to the choir, honey.”

It was almost three-thirty and we sat in our kitchen eating a light and overdue lunch. Ash had picked up Martha Burch from the airport and managed to escape the D.C. metro region before the onset of the early Friday afternoon commuter gridlock. She’d dropped Martha off at the church community center so that the artist could set up her bears for the following day’s show. Other out-of-town teddy artists had already arrived at the church, and Martha had thoughtfully arranged to catch a ride to the motel with one of them so that Ash didn’t need to make another trip.

As we ate, I’d brought Ash up to speed on everything I’d learned. Unfortunately, she couldn’t make any more sense of the divergent bits of information than I could.

She asked, “So you talked to Randy. Is he going to keep an eye on that restaurant at the lodge?”

“Yeah, but I have a feeling Chet isn’t going to be going back there anytime soon. Thalia will tell him that his presence is
problematic
. Please slap me if I ever begin to talk that way.”

“I promise.”

“So, getting back to Wade Tice. Did you know him back when you were growing up?”

“Not really. He was a kind of a loner and got into lots of fights.”

“Whoa. There’s a big shock.”

“And if I remember correctly, he dropped out of school after ninth grade to work on his dad’s farm.”

“And that’s the same farm where he lives now?”

Ash nodded. “The Tice family has owned that land since before the American Revolution.”

“Even if Wade isn’t good for the murder, he might be the last Tice to live there. The place had foreclosure written all over it.”

“Did you get the chance to tell Tina all this?”

“She didn’t have much time to talk.” I picked up my plate and hobbled over to put it in the dishwasher. “The moment she got back from Roanoke, the commonwealth’s attorney called her in for a closed-door meeting. She said she’d meet us at the Brick Pit around six to debrief.”

“Which will leave us plenty of time to make a final inspection of that property for the teddy bear museum and decide on an offer price. It’s a big place and I think the location is perfect, but the asking price is way too much.” Ash joined me by the sink.

“Especially considering the amount of refurbishing we’re going to have to do, and that’s just based on the stuff we know about. I say we offer two-thirds, take it or leave it.”

“That low? Roger is going to balk,” said Ash, referring to Roger Prufrock, the real estate agent listing the house.

“Only because it’s a smaller commission for him. But it’s time he and the seller got real. It’s a buyer’s market. That house has been for sale since we moved here over two years ago.”

“That’s true. And speaking of that, why do you suppose Roger won’t tell us who the seller is? He acts as if it’s top secret.”

“Beats me. But if you’re really interested, we can swing by the county offices and look at the tax assessor’s files,” I replied.

“I’m not
that
interested, but whoever it is should be ashamed of letting that house go to seed.”

“That just gives us more bargaining leverage, my love.”

Ash took my hand. “I still can’t believe we’re doing this.”

“Same here. Our own teddy bear shop and museum; it’s an awfully big step.”

“Does that scare you?”

“Not much.” I leaned over to kiss her on the forehead. “You see, I’m married to this lovely woman who has a talent for making good dreams come true.”

Ash glanced at the microwave clock. “Pastor Terry left a message on the answering machine that we could pick up the key to the church community center this afternoon.”

I asked, “When are you going set up our display?”

“If I have the key, I can go back later tonight,” said Ash.

“We can go over together later. I like watching you set up the bears.”

She gave me a shrewd look. “You just like watching me bend over in tight jeans.”

“That too.”

“Can we stop there before we meet Roger?”

“Of course. I’ll get the key from Terry, while you concentrate on your actual reason for wanting to go over now.”

“And what’s that, Mr. Smarty Pants?”

“You want a sneak peek at the teddies to see if you want to add any to our collection. That’s okay. So would I.”

Kitch galloped to the door, ready to resume his duties as an unofficial police canine, and was obviously disappointed when I put him in his crate. We got into the Xterra and drove into town, where Ash parked behind the church community center near the open back doors. There were about a dozen other cars in the parking lot, several of which had out-of-state plates. Our attending bear artists were getting an early start on setting up their furry wares.

The jubilee was set to commence at nine o’clock tomorrow morning, which wouldn’t leave much time for prep work tomorrow. As a bear exhibitor, you must have your display finished before the show begins. The attendees who wait in line for the doors to open are always the most avid collectors, and you want to be ready for them.

As we crossed the parking lot, we bumped into our friend Ginger Brame, a popular teddy crafter who specialized in making palm-sized bears. I stood in awe of her talent. Now that I was a bear artist myself, I understood that creating a three-inch-tall and fully jointed teddy was exponentially more difficult than making a large one. Merely
thinking
about the precise hand stitching necessary to make one of those tiny bears made my fingers hurt. Ginger had just driven up from North Carolina and expressed excitement over the upcoming show.

Then we paused in the doorway of the community center, delightfully taken aback by the scene. The L-shaped room ordinarily looked ruthlessly utilitarian, but the combination of teddy bears and the decorating job done by the women’s church auxiliary had transformed the church hall into a fall-themed furryland. Just as important, there was that joyous energy in the atmosphere that teddy bears usually seem to generate.

As always, I was humbled when we walked down the main exhibitor aisle. I call myself a teddy bear artist, but the unvarnished truth is that I’m perhaps a competent craftsman. Ash and the people who made these astonishing bears were genuine artists.

As we walked hand in hand, old friends greeted us. We paused to examine the array of sweet bears on MaryAnn Wills’s table and then crossed to the other side of the aisle to admire Pat Berkowitch’s collection of mohair treasures. Then we came to a dead stop in front of Martha Burch’s display and stared at the centerpiece.

“As if I weren’t already suffering from an inferiority complex,” I said. “That bear is freaking amazing.”

“God, he’s gorgeous,” Ash murmured.

The cinnamon-colored teddy was about twenty inches tall and attired in a robe, a voluminous cloak, and a wizard’s peaked hat. Martha had used an opulent yet subtle brown-and-gold variegated fabric for the garments and hat and then lavishly decorated them all with artificial autumnal foliage. And if that weren’t enough, the bear held a long wooden staff that had a quartz crystal attached to the top, and he also had an accompanying small and winged fall fairy bear sitting on his shoulder. The bear was such a masterpiece I found it intimidating.

Martha appeared from behind the table. “Hi, you guys! He’s the Forest Wizard. Do you like him?”

Ash reached out to lovingly stroke the wizard’s cloak. “How do you come up with these ideas? He’s just exquisite.”

“Yeah, and a reminder that I have no business exhibiting my teddies in the same room where this sort of work is on display,” I added.

“Oh, BS, Brad,” said Martha. “I like your bears. Ash was telling me about Gil Grizzly, so I don’t want to hear any questions about where I get
my
ideas.”

Martha was referring to my bear inspired by the character of Gil Grissom, the ironic and introverted crime scene investigator played by actor William Petersen in the original
CSI
TV show. Gil Grizzly was made from silvery-gray mohair, most of which I’d shaved from the bear’s upper face with electric clippers to recreate the short beard and moustache that Peterson had sported throughout part of the series. I’d dressed the bear in slacks, a white short-sleeved sport shirt, and a replica of the black Las Vegas PD vest Grissom customarily wore at crime scenes. However, Grizzly’s legs were the most authentic and hard-to-achieve element of the entire project. The bear was as bow-legged as the actor.

“Maybe so, but just once I’d like to have an idea like
that
.” I inclined my head toward the Forest Wizard. Then, noticing that Ash was still staring in rapture at the bear, I said, “And I’ve seen this look often enough to know that you might as well go ahead and put a SOLD sign on it right now.”

“But, honey—” Ash began a halfhearted protest.

I cut her off. “Sweetheart, you love that bear and I don’t want to put you on suicide watch if we come back tomorrow and it has already been bought by someone else.”

“But where will we put him? We’re running out of room.”

She had a point, but I also knew how much she wanted the bear. For that matter, so did I. Thinking quickly, I said, “He can go into the museum portion of the shop.”

Suddenly convinced, Ash kissed me on the cheek. “Thank you, honey.”

Then Martha and Ash exchanged hugs and we moved on to the back of the room, where the community center’s kitchen was located in a large alcove. Pastor Terry Richert was there and undergoing a Get-thee-behind-me-Satan moment as a church auxiliary lady tempted him with a piece of apple pie. It was a small sample from the array of goodies assembled for the church bake sale, which would run concurrent with the event.

Although Ash had organized the Teddy Jubilee, Richert’s Apostolic Assembly was the official sponsor of the event. The women’s church auxiliary would run the show, and any profits would be used to help fund the community food bank. Pastor Terry gave Ash the key to the community center and told us that everything was ready. It was clear that he was enthused about the jubilee, too. As we returned to the truck, I reminded myself that I had to find some time tonight to finish Bear-atio’s pants.

We drove eastward and over the South Fork of the Shenandoah River. The house we were interested in was located just out of town, near where Remmelkemp Mill’s main street ended at a T intersection with the Stonewall Jackson Highway. With the national park to the east and Massanutten Mountain to the west, it was an ideal location for a business intended to serve both local residents and tourists. We arrived before the real estate agent did, which gave us a final opportunity to walk the grounds and examine the exterior of the building.

The sales literature that Roger Prufrock had given us said that the house reflected the Victorian “Second Empire” style, but considering the shape the place was in, I wondered if the author had been referring to the Holy Roman Empire. The gray three-story house was boxy with a wide front porch, a slate mansard roof, and almost no gingerbread. Even with the fresh light blue paint that Ash envisioned and bright flower baskets hanging from the porch roof, it would never be a cute Victorian home.

However, the property did have some pluses. The electrical wiring was, surprisingly enough, up to code; the oil furnace was in good shape; and the hardwood floors wouldn’t require too much restoration work. Another advantage was that the second floor would become the new home of the local teddy bear guild, which met monthly and had nearly outgrown our living room. Furthermore, the yard was big enough to convert a portion of it into customer parking.