THE CLOCKWORK TEDDY
Bear Collector’s Mystery #4

Sometimes you shouldn’t go home again.  Brad and Ash have returned to San Francisco for the first time since moving to the Shenandoah Valley and their visit has suddenly turned ugly.  While attending a teddy bear show, they witness a robbery and then have a menacing encounter with an ex-SFPD cop with an ax to grind against Brad.  That night, a man is murdered at a seedy motel and Brad’s former partner doesn’t quite know what to make of the unique teddy bear left at the scene.  Although they’re on vacation, Brad and Ash offer to share their fur-ensic expertise…especially since it will give them the opportunity to work with their daughter, Heather Lyon, an undercover detective on the force.

Coming on October 1, 2008 from Berkley Prime Crime

Excerpt:

     Our bodies were still on east coast time, so we woke up early.  The morning was foggy, but I knew from experience that the sky would be blue and clear by lunchtime.  There was no way I was going to last until noon without eating, so we partook of the motel’s free continental breakfast.  I was good, resisting the gut bombs—doughnuts—in favor of a bowl of blueberry yogurt mixed with low-fat granola.  Then we returned to our room to shower and dress for brunch.

     Being a guy, I was ready in less than forty-five minutes.  Ash took much longer but, as always, it was worth the wait.  I gave her an appreciative stare when she emerged from the bathroom in her tweed skirt and jacket ensemble with a crimson top and black suede boots.

     “How do I look?” she asked, while slowly pirouetting.

     “Beautiful enough to be worried that Colin might hit on you.”

     Ash smiled shyly and handed me her gold bracelet, which I put on her wrist.  Then she adjusted my tie and we were out the door.  We drove south toward the city and our destination of the luxurious Mark Hopkins Hotel on Nob Hill.  Sunday brunch in the hotel’s famous penthouse lounge, the Top of the Mark, was going to cost a king’s ransom, but I couldn’t think of a more romantic place to formally meet the man our daughter loved.  I was also relieved when Ash didn’t insist on stopping at the Macy’s to look at the cutlery.

     As we crossed the bridge, I realized that we’d be early and I began contemplating a brief detour.  I knew I had no business even considering chasing down leads in a murder investigation, but I felt a need to redeem myself after the previous night’s failures.  Besides, I wasn’t planning anything more than a quick rolling recon of Merv’s old stomping grounds.

     We took the same route along Lombard Street that Gregg had driven last night and passed the Paladin Motel.  The Chevrolet Celebrity had been towed away and the doorway to room four was blocked off with an oversized sheet of plywood.  A few minutes later, I turned right onto Van Ness Avenue.

     Ash noticed when I continued south.  “Weren’t we supposed to turn there?”

     “Yeah, but we’re way early and I just want to take a second and check something out.”

     “Where?”

     “In the Tenderloin District,” I mumbled.

     “Where all the prostitutes, drug dealers, and crazy street people are, right?”

     “It’s Sunday morning.  Maybe they’re in church.”

     Ash rolled her eyes.  “That would be my guess too.  Brad honey, what are we looking for?”

     “Merv the Perv’s pickup truck.”

     “Aren’t the police searching for it?”

     “Probably not.  There’s nothing solid to put Bronsey at the murder scene.  So there’d be no reasonable suspicion to issue a ‘stop and detain’ on Merv.”

     “Why do you expect to find him in the Tenderloin?”

     “You look for a hyena on the savannah.  This is his natural environment.”

     “And what are we going to do if we find his truck?”

     “Call Gregg.  Nothing more.  We won’t even get out of the car.”  We stopped for a red light and I looked at her.  “Or we can turn around and go back to the Mark Hopkins.”

     “This is absolutely crazy, you know.”  Ash fixed me with her deep blue eyes.  However, when she spoke again, there was no mistaking the faint trace of eagerness in her voice.  “What’s the description and license on the truck?”

     I leaned over and kissed her nose.  “I knew you’d be interested.”

     The Tenderloin District of San Francisco earned its name almost a century ago from the crooked policemen who worked its streets.  With its houses of prostitution, gambling dens, and saloons, the graft was so abundant that the old-time cops bragged that they could afford the finest cuts of beef, such as tenderloin.  I knew the cops were more honest in the Tenderloin District these days and there was some creeping gentrification, but little else had changed.  The streets were dirty and the atmosphere tinged with despair.  Fortunately, it was still early, so there weren’t many street people out.

     We’d been searching the neighborhood for about ten minutes when Ash spotted a big Sierra pickup truck parked in a narrow lot across the street from a topless bar.  I pulled into the lot and we confirmed it was Merv’s license plate.  It didn’t look as if the truck was occupied, but Ash jumped out to check before I could object.

     Climbing back into our van, she said, “Empty.”

     “Then Merv must be in there.”  I pointed toward the bar.

     “The Cask and Cleavage?”  Ash’s voice was equal parts astonishment and revulsion.

     “Hey, it says it’s a gentleman’s club, so it must be a classy place.” 

     I pulled the cell phone from my jacket pocket and hit the speed-dial code for Gregg’s home phone.  Susie answered and told me that her husband had already returned to work and was likely at the murder victim’s autopsy.  Next, I called Gregg’s work cell, but it immediately rolled over to voice mail.  That meant he’d turned his phone off during the postmortem.  I left a message about “accidentally” finding Merv’s truck on our way to brunch.

     Disconnecting from the call, I said, “I sure hope Gregg gets that message before Merv takes off.”

     “Just how important is it that somebody talks to him?”

     “Very.  But hey, I promised that all we’d do is check the area and call Gregg if we found anything.”

     Ash glanced at the dashboard clock and casually said, “We’ve got forty minutes before we’re supposed to be at the Mark and it’s only a few minutes away.  So…”

     “So, you want to go in and try to talk to Merv?  I don’t think that’s such a great idea, my love. That place is a freaking dive and there’s the possibility that Merv will behave like any other cornered animal.”

     “But there’s no way he could know that you were at the Paladin last night.  And we could call Heather and her partner to back us up, if you’re worried about it being dangerous.”

     “Which I am.  Tell me, why are you so set on me talking to Bronsey?”

     “Because you were the very best interviewer on SFPD and you can get the information from that creep.  Tell me I’m wrong.”  Ash jutted her jaw out defiantly.

     “Okay.”  I handed her the phone.  “But I’ll let you call our daughter and explain why we need backup.”