THE TREACHEROUS TEDDY
Bear Collector Mystery #5

Chapter One

       I like the gentle patter of raindrops against the window.  The sound is soothing, but tonight it made me edgy.

       It was early evening on a Thursday in the first week of November, and after nearly three weeks of unseasonably warm and dry weather in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, a light rain had begun to fall.  I was upstairs in our workroom, putting the finishing touches on my newest teddy bear, while unsuccessfully trying to keep my mind off the fact that the first few hours of a rainstorm turns the roads as slick as a politician’s answer to an unwelcome question.  Ordinarily, I don’t worry about highway conditions while sitting at home, but tonight my wife, Ashleigh, was out in a patrol car, working as an auxiliary deputy for the Massanutten County Sheriff’s Office.

       I glanced at the police scanner on the shelf above the big worktable.  The device had been quiet for about the past ten minutes, but I knew the silence couldn’t last.  Gene Kelly sang in the rain, but folks around here speed in the rain, and it’s the rare storm that doesn’t produce at least one horrific traffic collision that looks as if a tactical nuclear weapon caused the damage.  As a consequence, I knew it was merely a matter of time until the sheriff’s dispatcher sent Ash out to a major crash scene.  Then, I’d have something new to fret about.

       I forced myself to concentrate on the Bernina sewing machine and the small pieces of black fabric that I was stitching together to create a miniature sports jacket for Bear-atio Caine, my teddy bear incarnation of the crime lab lieutenant played by David Caruso in the television program, CSI: Miami.  Back when I first started creating stuffed animals, I came up with the somewhat quirky idea of making bears modeled after characters from TV cop shows and movies.  I never expected there’d be a huge demand for my “Claw and Order Collection,” and I was right. Still, I was having fun and my bears had found a very modest following among collectors who were either married to cops or worked in law enforcement.

       Made from reddish-orange mohair and standing twenty-inches tall, Bear-atio Caine was the most challenging bear I’d ever undertaken to create.  It was my first effort using a lock line mechanism.  It was essentially a plastic skeleton, which allowed greater freedom in posing a teddy bear, especially the head.  This extra flexibility was vital.  When playing the sad-eyed detective on television, one of Caruso’s signature stylistic touches is to tilt his head at a variety of peculiar angles.  I wanted Bear-atio to be capable of this same macaw-like suppleness.

       I finished sewing the jacket pieces together, carefully folded the collar and lapels into their proper positions, and put the tiny garment on the bear.  Even by my own harsh standards, I had to admit the jacket looked pretty good.  All I had left to do was make some miniature black slacks, affix a pair of tiny sunglasses on the bear’s muzzle, and then pose Bear-atio with his paws on his hips—another delicious Caruso acting tic.

       The scanner emitted the tiny bleep that signaled the beginning of a radio transmission.  It was Ash, though the device’s small speaker made her voice sound tinny.  She said, “Mike-Eleven to dispatch.”

v“Go ahead,” said the dispatcher, sounding bored.  I knew the dispatcher’s name was Gloria, and she liked to spend her shifts doing crossword puzzles.

       “I’m making a traffic stop on a red Nissan Sentra.”  Ash read off the Nissan’s license plate and said her location was on Port Republic Road, about a half-mile east of Doe Hill Road.

       Our Old English sheepdog, Kitchener, was lying at my feet. He’d become so accustomed to hearing Ash’s disembodied voice coming from the little box that he didn’t even bother to lift his head to look at the scanner any more.  I envied his laid-back attitude.  Then again, maybe he’d have been more attentive if he knew how many accounts of cop killings begin with the words, ‘the officer was making a routine traffic stop’.

       After a few seconds of silence, Gloria came on the air and said, “Dispatch to Mike-Eleven, I need you to clear your stop.  We have a priority call.”

       “Will do.  Go ahead with the information,” said Ash.

       “Negative.  Give me a call on your cell phone and I’ll explain.”

       “Affirmative.”

       “Now, that’s interesting, Kitch,” I said, reaching down to scratch him behind his ear.  “Usually, the only reason you dispatch a call over the phone is because you think a suspect is monitoring the police radio and you don’t want to let him know the cops are on the way to his location.”

       Kitch cocked his head and gave me a questioning look.  It was obvious he’d picked up on my fresh surge of uneasiness.  It’s been my experience that the kind of crook who eavesdrops on police radio frequencies is also a prime candidate to resist or flee the cops.  My first instinct was to warn Ash of the potential danger, so I sat up and reached for the portable telephone on the table.  Then, I withdrew my hand, suddenly feeling chastened.  If I called Ash to kibitz about how she approached the call, it would say that I didn’t trust her abilities, which I did.  My wife was a good cop and I realized it would probably be best if I turned the scanner off and stopped obsessing over her safety.

       Yet, I could no more do that than dance a Highland fling, so I returned my attention to Bear-atio, who still needed a pair of pants.  Using the fabric tape measure, I confirmed that my mohair sleuth’s waist size was twelve inches and that trouser length would be about ten inches.  Meanwhile, the scanner remained silent and I had to assume that Ash had received her instructions and was on her way to the call.

       I unfolded some more of the same black fabric from which I’d made the bear’s jacket and smoothed it out before laying down the first of two pieces of tissue-paper clothing pattern.  Once the pattern was pinned to the fabric, I used one of our pairs of razor-sharp scissors to begin cutting out the piece.  That’s when the radio emitted a bleep.

       A man’s voice said, “Game Warden Unit Five-Seventy-Eight to Mike-Eleven, the poaching suspect just spotted me and he’s rabbiting.”

       Ash replied, “Copy and I’m in the vicinity.  Where do you want me?”

       “The track he’s on comes out right where Kobler Hollow Road loops back against the base of the mountain.  Can you intercept?”

       “Affirmative.  Confirming the suspect vehicle is a black, older-model Dodge pick-up truck?  Anything else I should know?”

       “At least one gun in the truck, but Chet is peaceable.”

       ”Nice to know.  I’m just coming up on Kobler Hollow Road now.  ETA is less than two minutes.”  Ash sounded as if she was enjoying herself.

       “Which means she’ll get to the road before you do, Chet.”  The game warden was now obviously talking to the fleeing hunter.  “I know you’re listening to us, so do yourself a favor.  Shut it down when you get to the road.  You’ve got a load of trouble as it is.”

       I allowed myself to relax a tiny bit, now that I knew the nature of Ash’s mysterious call.  While it was true the poacher was armed, I knew the chances were effectively nil that he’d violently resist the cops.  There was no reason to.  Hunting is an integral part of the culture around here, so local juries seldom convict anyone for poaching.  I involuntarily glanced toward the east-facing window.  Kobler Hollow was across the river and about three miles away, at the base of the Blue Ridge Mountains.  It was a tiny agricultural community that, despite its proximity to the busy U.S. Highway 340 and Remmelkemp Mill, felt isolated.

       The scanner chirruped and then I sat bolt upright in the chair as Ash half-shouted, “Mike-Eleven to dispatch, my car was just sideswiped!”