The Crafty Teddy Read online

  Praise for the Bear Collector’s Mysteries

  The False-Hearted Teddy

  “With a quick-moving plot that’s neither too cozy nor too hard-boiled, a likable sleuth, and an original premise, Lamb has another honey of a mystery.”

  —Richmond Times-Dispatch

  “A fast-paced trip…Mystery fans will follow the twists and turns of this tightly woven tale with pleasure.”

  —Teddy Bear and Friends Magazine

  “A fast and fun romp into murder and mayhem…An enjoyable read.”

  —Armchair Interviews

  “Both story and dialogue are fast-paced…I finished The False-Hearted Teddy in one lazy afternoon because I couldn’t put it down.”

  —Cozy Library

  The Mournful Teddy

  “Once you start, you can’t bear to miss a teddy mystery.”

  —Rita Mae Brown, New York Times bestselling author of

  the Mrs. Murphy Mysteries

  “A smart debut.”

  —Mystery Scene

  “A fascinating look at teddy bears…[Lamb] provides readers with a delightful whodunit that more than just bear collectors will enjoy.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  “An exceptional mystery…Skillfully blends elements of the traditional cozy with the gritty instincts of a tough but tender ex-homicide detective…The Mournful Teddy is one teddy bear you won’t take for granted.”

  —Ellen Byerrum, author of

  the Crime of Fashion Mysteries

  “The Mournful Teddy is a cozy police procedural, an unusual but not unheard-of combination. The author has pulled it off well—and with subtle humor…[it’s] more than satisfying…I look forward to many more in the series.”

  —Mystery News

  “Entertaining…a fun romp…Fans will need to bear patiently the wait for the Lyons’ next outing.”

  —Richmond Times-Dispatch

  “The Mournful Teddy is a fur ball of fun. There’ll be no hibernating once you start reading it.”

  —Harrisburg (PA) Patriot-News

  “The unique mystery surrounding collectible teddy bears provides this cozy an element of fun that is hard to find.”

  —The Romance Readers Connection

  “True to his roots as an investigator, Lamb masterfully weaves reality with fiction in The Mournful Teddy.”

  —The Massanutten (VA) Villager

  “A wonderful entry in this new cozy series.”

  —Reviewing the Evidence

  Berkley Prime Crime Mysteries by John J. Lamb

  THE MOURNFUL TEDDY

  THE FALSE-HEARTED TEDDY

  THE CRAFTY TEDDY

  The Crafty Teddy

  John J. Lamb

  BERKLEY PRIME CRIME, NEW YORK

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.) Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.) Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.) Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  THE CRAFTY TEDDY

  A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the author

  Copyright © 2007 by John J. Lamb.

  The Edgar® name is a registered service mark of the Mystery Writers of America, Inc.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  ISBN: 1-4295-8785-7

  BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME

  Berkley Prime Crime Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  The name BERKLEY PRIME CRIME and the BERKLEY PRIME CRIME design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  For my beloved wife, Joyce,

  who showed me a previously unsuspected universe of

  love, joy, and teddy bears

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  A Teddy Bear Artisan Profile

  Afterword

  One

  I awakened to Kitchener, our Old English sheepdog, growling quietly as he lay on the floor by my side of the bed. Although he weighs in at over a hundred pounds and is named after a famous British army field marshal, our dog is an utter coward. Ironically, one of the things he’s most afraid of is sheep, the very creatures he was bred to herd. He’s also prone to nightmares, so at first I thought he was having a bad dream about commando sheep, rappelling on ropes from the roof and through our open bedroom windows, intent on baa-baric acts. Kitch has an overactive imagination.

  The growling stopped and I listened. It was a warm and still May night and the only sounds were the murmuring waters of the South Fork of the Shenandoah River, which runs in front of our house, and the desultory chirps of a couple of crickets. Then Kitch growled again. I leaned over to wake him up and froze. I heard soft footfalls outside on the gravel walkway leading to our front door downstairs. My first inclination was to dismiss the noise as an animal: a clumsy deer headed for the midnight buffet in our flower garden, or perhaps even a big raccoon. However, I had to abandon that comforting theory when someone—definitely human and wearing shoes—began slowly creeping across our wooden porch.

  Now it was my turn to feel a nasty little rush of fear, because I knew the front door was unlocked. People are friendly here in our country town of Remmelkemp Mill, Virginia, but they don’t come to visit in the middle of the night. I listened intently, but the only sound now was the gentle breathing of Ashleigh, my wife, asleep beside me.
Then I heard the squeak of the downstairs screen door being slowly opened.

  I glanced at the LCD display of the alarm clock on Ash’s nightstand. The orange numerals read 2:45 A.M. It’s a good thing I’m not superstitious, or I’d have viewed the time as an evil omen: Section 245 of the California Penal Code is the definition for Assault with a Deadly Weapon, a tidbit of information that comes from my quarter century as a San Francisco cop, the final fourteen years as an inspector in the Robbery Homicide Division. That was before I received a crippling gunshot wound to my left shin and was medically retired from the force.

  I’m not as old as I look. Really. The stress of getting shot and suddenly losing my very satisfying career in police work has savagely aged me. In fact, I think I look old enough to have voted for Nixon—when he ran against JFK in 1960. But even though my hair is the same shade of gray as the USS Missouri, the networks of creases on the sides of my eyes look like relief maps of the Ganges River delta, and I stump around with a blackthorn cane, I won’t be forty-eight until July.

  The only positive thing I can say about my physical appearance is that I weigh about fifteen pounds less than I did a couple of months ago. It was either drop some tonnage to reduce the pressure on the titanium hardware the doctors had used to rebuild my left shin or go shopping for one of those little electric carts for old folks that they advertise on daytime TV. The idea of accompanying a gorgeous woman like Ash out in public while riding in one of those powered go-carts was too disturbing for words, since strangers already automatically assume she’s my trophy wife. So, I began to eat less and exercise more and the pounds just melted away. And if you believe that, I’ve got some Pan American Airways stock for sale, cheap.

  Much as I wanted to leap into action like Errol Flynn, I had to proceed cautiously. There was something about lying in bed that often put my injured left leg to sleep. Slowly rolling myself into a sitting position, I flexed the muscles in my calf and gingerly rotated my ankle until the pins and needles began to go away. I got up from the bed and grabbed Kitch’s nylon collar, because I didn’t want to trip over him in the dark.

  Although I was trying to be quiet, Ash woke, sat up, and brushed some strands of golden hair from her eyes. In spite of the impeding emergency, I paused for a second to admire her in the dim orange glow of the alarm clock’s numerals. Ash has Delft China blue eyes, a sweet heart-shaped face, and a firm hourglass figure that never fails to command my complete attention. Tonight she was wearing a lilac-colored sheer nightgown inset with lace. If there hadn’t been a burglar downstairs, I would have crawled right back into bed with her.

  She sleepily asked, “What is it, honey?”

  “Don’t turn on the light. We’ve got a possible four-five-nine in progress downstairs,” I whispered, using the California Penal Code section for a burglary.

  “What?” Ash was instantly awake.

  Doing my best to creep around the bed on my bum leg, I found her hand in the dark and guided it to the dog collar. “Call nine-one-one and hang on to Kitch.”

  “Why? What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to hunt a wascally wabbit,” I said in my best Elmer Fudd voice as I opened my dresser’s sock drawer and grabbed the Glock .40-caliber semiautomatic pistol I’d carried for many years as a cop.

  Ash got Kitch to jump up on the bed and then jerked the cordless phone receiver from its base-station cradle. “Brad, honey, wouldn’t it be safer if you stayed up here?”

  I chambered a cartridge into the pistol. “Maybe, but I don’t feel like letting some lowlife maggot pillage our house during the fifteen minutes it will take for the deputy to get here from Mount Meridian or wherever. Now, call the sheriff and I promise I’ll be careful.”

  “You’d better be.”

  “Keep the door shut and don’t come out until I tell you it’s safe.” I did my best to limp stealthily toward the bedroom door, deciding to leave my cane behind. I’d want both hands free to handle the pistol, just in case things got even more interesting than they already were.

  “I will.” There was a faint boop-beep-beep as Ash pressed 911.

  I paused at the door to whisper, “And please tell the dispatcher to make sure the deputy understands that the guy in the turquoise nightshirt with the gun is the homeowner…although I hope they’ll send us a cop who can puzzle that out without our help.”

  Next month, we’ll have been married twenty-seven years and Ash knows I have a habit of making wisecracks when I’m nervous. “Don’t worry, I’ll tell them. I love you.”

  “Love you too, darling. I’ll be back in a minute.”

  As Ash began talking in hushed tones to the dispatcher, I slipped out the door and slowly pushed it shut behind me. The house was as dark as Rob Schneider’s chances of playing King Lear at London’s Olivier Theatre—or anywhere else, for that matter. But after nearly a year of living in the 130-year-old farmhouse, I was able to navigate the hallway via a combination of touch and memory to the stairwell that led downstairs. I paused there for a moment to squint downward into the darkness and listen. Although I couldn’t hear anything, I had to assume that, unless I’d made enough noise to spook the intruder, he was already in the house. I caught a momentary glimpse of pale reflected light, as if the burglar had just shone a small flashlight against a reflective surface. There was no doubt now, the guy was in the living room; yet I hesitated to start down the stairs.

  Why? Because I’d suddenly turned into the Cowardly Lion. Standing there in the dark, with my left shin aching and a trickle of sweat running down my brow, I was painfully aware that I had no business trying to tangle with a burglar who was probably half my age and likely amped to the gills on methamphetamine. Hell, even Clint Eastwood knew when it was time to pass on the role of the action hero, so what was I thinking? Rationalizing my fear as good sense, I was ready to sneak back down the hallway to the bedroom. It was the most shameful moment of my life, because there was no denying that I’d just shown the white feather.

  Then I heard what sounded like fabric being savagely torn. That’s when I got mad, because I realized the son of a bitch was vandalizing one of the teddy bears from our collection of more than five hundred stuffed animals. We cherish all of them, but the really special ones—the antiques, those we’d given each other as gifts, and the one-of-a-kind artisan bears—are on display in the living room. I consider those bears a mohair and plush fur shrine to my joyful life with Ash, and now someone was desecrating it. Recovering a little of my nerve, I slowly started down the stairs, holding the pistol at the ready.

  Three steps took me to a point where I could peek around the corner and down into the dark living room. I saw the silhouette of a man half-crouched near one of the tall glass and oak curio cabinets where we store some of our most valuable collectible bears. The crook’s clothing was all black, and though I couldn’t be certain, he seemed also to be wearing a dark-colored ski mask. This told me that the guy was probably a novice housebreaker. Professional “hot prowl” burglars almost never wear woolen masks, because they rely on speed, stealth, and an ability to hear whether they’ve awakened the victim homeowner. Anything that covers your ears also cuts down on your ability to hear, which explains why a crippled guy had managed to sneak up on this particular burglar in a house with hardwood floors.

  I gingerly lowered myself into a kneeling position, using the banister as cover, and raised my pistol. There’s an old-fashioned attitude where we live about the rights of decent folks to defend their homes and persons, so I was under no legal obligation to announce my presence or ask the burglar to surrender before giving him the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre treatment. Still, I was incapable of just capping the guy in the back. A quarter century of cop work and obedience to the laws pertaining to the use of deadly force had taught me that just because something is legal, it doesn’t necessarily make it right.

  So, taking a deep breath in the hope that my voice wouldn’t quaver, I said, “Gee, I guess I missed the doorbell. Now,
before you get any more stupid ideas tonight, take your filthy hands off our teddy bears and put them in the air where I can see them.”

  The intruder inhaled sharply and froze. So far, so good, I thought, but realized that I wasn’t quite certain what my next move was. Back when I was a cop and physically capable, I’d have gone over and hooked the guy up. But, along with lacking two good legs, I also didn’t have any handcuffs. However, the problem of how to proceed was rendered academic when the burglar suddenly pivoted. I thought he was going to rabbit for the door, but he did something else first.

  There was a blinding, yellowish-white muzzle flash, the deafening roar of a large caliber pistol being fired in our small living room, and the sound of the slug simultaneously slamming into the wall just a couple of inches from my head. Now, there was no question of what I should do. I threw myself backward onto my butt and out of the line of fire. For an instant, I considered sticking my gun around the corner and blindly shooting back at the crook, but the last thing I wanted was a prolonged gun battle in our house with Ash upstairs. Better the gunman should escape than a stray round go through the wooden ceiling and endanger my wife. Upstairs, Kitchener was barking like crazy. I heard the burglar run across the wooden living room floor and out the door.

  I pushed myself to my feet and had just started down the remaining steps when I realized that Ash was charging down the stairs. It being dark, she ran smack into my back and I clung to the banister rail with my left hand to prevent us both from falling down the stairs. Something hard whacked my right shoulder blade and I realized that she’d armed herself with my cane. I didn’t quite know how to feel: angry that she’d ignored my instructions to remain upstairs and out of harm’s way, or profoundly humbled that she was willing to take on a gunman, armed only with a stick, because she thought I was in danger.