The False-Hearted Teddy (7 page)

“I’m ready.”

As I interlaced my fingers over Jennifer’s heart, Ash blew three rapid breaths into the woman’s mouth and I 50

John J. Lamb

saw her chest rise each time. That signified the airway was open. As she finished the sequence, Ash looked up at me and made a face as if she’d tasted something awful. However, there was no time to ask her about it, because it was now my turn. I’ll spare you a full description of the unpleasant details, but suffice it to say that delivering real chest compressions isn’t like what they show on television. If you’re doing it right, more often than not you fracture some of your patient’s ribs. I don’t know how long we were at it, but at last I felt a gentle tap on my shoulder.

Looking up, I saw a Baltimore City paramedic. She said, “Any response?”

“Nothing.”

“We’ll take over now. Good job.”

I pushed myself to my feet and someone handed me my cane. Ash moved out of the way as another paramedic slipped an oxygen mask over Jennifer’s nose and mouth.

Tony stood opposite us. His face was pale and his jaw slack, as he watched the paramedics attach the EKG sensor pads to his wife’s motionless chest. The diagnostic device’s tiny screen told the entire story: Jennifer was flatline. The medics tried to jump-start her once with the defibrillation paddles and when that didn’t work, they quickly loaded her onto a gurney.

Tony yelled, “Where are you taking her?”

“Mercy Medical Center.”

“I’m coming, too!”

“There’s no room for you in the ambulance. You’ll have to follow in your car,” the woman paramedic called over her shoulder as they began to push the gurney rapidly toward the door.

“But my car keys are upstairs and I can’t follow you!

How do I get there? I don’t know my way around Baltimore!”

I grabbed the big man’s wrist and was surprised he didn’t resist. I said, “They’ve got no time to talk. Go up The False-Hearted Teddy

51

and get your keys and I’m certain the hotel concierge can give you a map to the hospital.”

Tony watched the paramedics and gurney disappear around the corner and nodded. Then, he seemed to suddenly realize who I was and shook his hand free as his face contorted with rage. “You didn’t know what you were doing. If my wife dies, I’m going to sue you for every penny you own.”

I was about to tell him what part of my anatomy he could kiss when Ash pushed past me, her eyes incandes-cent with wrath. “You’re a
real
piece of manhood, Tony.

Your wife could be dying and you’re standing here trying to figure out a way to make some money from it? You have exactly five seconds to shut your cake-hole and get the hell out of this room before I do a clog dance on your skull. Now, git!”

Tony was about to deliver a spiteful reply when he saw something in Ash’s gaze that obviously caused him to conclude that discretion was indeed the better part of valor.

He turned and scuttled through the door. Meanwhile, the room was in an uproar and the old lady was at the podium frantically shouting into the microphone that everyone should calm down, but all she accomplished was adding one more amplified voice to the tumult.

Ash leaned close and whispered in a troubled voice,

“This is going to sound crazy, but I think Jennifer was . . .

oh, I don’t know. Never mind.”

“Does this have something to do with that face you made when you gave her the rescue breaths?”

Ash nodded. “I smelled the fumes of something coming out of her lungs and it definitely wasn’t medication.

Mama has asthma and I know what the inhaler stuff smells like.”

“So, what
did
it smell like?”

“I don’t know. It had a kind of weird chemical aroma . . . like solvent or something.”

52

John J. Lamb

“So what you started to say was, that you think Jennifer may have been poisoned.”

“Do I sound completely fifty-one fifty?” Ash asked, using the California cop slang she’d picked up from me over the years to describe someone crazy enough to be committed to a mental institution.

“No, and just to make certain, I think we’d better find the inhaler.”

We looked on the floor around the VIP table but couldn’t find the cylinder. Then, speculating that someone might have kicked the inhaler, we expanded our search area but still met with negative results. The inhaler was gone.

I went up to the podium and asked the old lady to give me a shot at restoring order. She gestured helplessly at the microphone as if to say, “It’s all yours.” It’s a paradox, but one of the ways to settle down a noisy crowd is to begin speaking in a low but authoritative tone, which is what I did. After only a few seconds, people began to quiet in order to hear what I had to say and once the room was silent, I said, “Folks, there’s been a medical emergency and we need to help the paramedics. We can’t find Jennifer’s inhaler and they’re going to need it at the hospital to figure out how best to treat her. Did anyone pick it up?”

I heard some scattered “no’s” and saw people shaking their heads. From the back I heard a woman ask, “Is Jennifer going to be all right?”

“We don’t know,” I replied, which was crowding the truth a bit. The fact was that unless they had some sort of miraculous “Lazarus-come-forth” quality treatment at Mercy Medical Center, Jennifer was going to be DOA.

However, no good could come from telling the crowd that and we needed to find a vital piece of potential evidence.

I continued, “That’s why this is so important. Did anyone see someone pick up the inhaler?”

Again, no one knew anything. I handed the microphone The False-Hearted Teddy

53

to the old lady and said, “Thanks. You can take it from here.”

The organizer told everyone to resume their seats so that breakfast could be served and many of the artisans complied. After all, as far as they knew, Jennifer had simply succumbed to a particularly violent asthma attack.

However, Ash and I strongly suspected otherwise.

I noticed the security guard standing near the door and waved him over. When he arrived, I pointed at the wireless phone in the pouch on his belt. “Do you have the number for the Baltimore City police preprogrammed into that thing?”

“Yeah.”

“Then press it and give me the phone.”

Five minutes later, a uniformed Baltimore cop arrived. Showing him my SFPD “retired” badge and giving him a very brief synopsis of what had just happened, I quietly told the officer that he needed to get some homicide detectives to the hotel and Mercy Medical Center immediately.

Six

I swear I wasn’t trying to get us involved in another murder investigation. The last time I’d done that, Ash and I had been almost killed twice in less than six hours, so I’d learned my lesson. I only wanted to discharge my citizen’s duty to make the Baltimore cops aware that this incident might deserve closer scrutiny . . . but at the same time, I’ll admit I was very intrigued by the possibility that Jennifer had been poisoned. It was only natural that I’d be interested; I’d spent most of my adult life investigating murders, and poisoning is an extremely unusual crime.

Most people are shot, stabbed, or bludgeoned to death.

During my career I’d only worked one killing caused by the deliberate use of a toxin, a case where a disgruntled wife mixed a massive dose of arsenic-laced grain into her philandering husband’s morning bowl of granola. His name was Jason and so, naturally, I christened the investigation, “Arsenic and Cold Jace.”

Like most homicide detectives, I embraced gallows humor as an emotional defense mechanism to cope with The False-Hearted Teddy

55

the hideous things I saw on pretty much a daily basis.

That’s how I came to give my homicide cases droll and, some might even say, macabre names. It was a harmless pastime—none of the murder victims ever complained.

That might sound like I’m about as cold and hard as that bag of spinach that sits forgotten on the bottom shelf of everyone’s freezer, but I learned during my police career that it’s far easier to be gloomy than cheerful. Cop angst—the entire woe-is-me-because-I’ve-seen-
so
-much-horror—is self-pity dressed in a blue uniform. The bottom line is that the cops that laugh the hardest, usually live the longest.

So, although it had been a couple of years since I’d nicknamed a case, it was just like riding a bicycle—you never forget how to do it. I was ready to suggest “Leaving in a Huff ” or “Gone With Her Wind” to the Baltimore cops.

I hadn’t been on scene much more than twenty-five minutes in that previous arsenic-poisoning case when it became clear to my old partner Gregg and me that the wife hadn’t quite thought this entire unsolvable “perfect” murder thing through: we found the empty rat poison box in the trashcan outside. The killer later told us that she hadn’t thought we’d look there.

However, if Jennifer had indeed been poisoned, this crime showed sophistication, knowledge of toxic chemicals, and more than a little advance planning. It also signified that there had to be a very compelling motive to kill her, because the suspect had taken a huge risk. Poisoning is one of those classifications of murder that usually leads to a sentence of death by lethal injection, which is kind of ironic or, if you’re of an Eastern philosophic bent, karmic, since it’s basically execution by poisoning.

Once the patrol officer called headquarters to pass along the information, he wrote down our names, address, and cell phone number, and asked where we could 56

John J. Lamb

be found if it turned out that the detectives needed to talk to us. But from the bored and slightly amused tone of his voice, I could tell he didn’t think that was likely. As far as he was concerned, I was a pathetic old former cop, grand-standing to recapture a couple of moments of glory.

“After we go upstairs and clean up, we’ll be in there.

Space number twenty-three.” I pointed to the entrance of the Har-Bear Expo, where a group of about sixty teddy bear collectors, overwhelmingly composed of women, was already eagerly waiting for the doors to open in about forty-five minutes.

“You were really a San Francisco homicide dick?” he half-smirked.

“That’s right.”

“But now you make teddy bears.”

“And I enjoy it, though I imagine that does sound pretty silly to someone like you. How long have you been a cop?”

“Seven years. Hey, I didn’t mean—”

“Seven whole years, huh? Are you on your first, second, or third wife?” When he didn’t reply, I continued, “I had twenty-five years on the job when I got shot and the city retired me. I’m more in love with this beautiful woman than the day I married her twenty-six years ago.

We spend most of our free time together, and I take great pleasure in life, an important part of which includes making teddy bears. Do you think you’ll be as happy as I am when you’re my age?”

I’d touched a nerve, because he suddenly looked downcast. “Point taken, man. Sorry.”

“Apology accepted. If the detectives need us, they know where to find us.” Ash and I went across the corridor to the elevator and as we waited for it to arrive, I said,

“You were magnificent back there with Jennifer.”

“But it wasn’t enough.” Her eyes were red and brim-ming with tears. The fact that Jennifer had likely died in her arms was beginning to strike home.

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57

I pulled her close and hugged her. “Honey, we did the best we could in an awful situation.”

She took a deep breath. “I know, but it doesn’t make me feel any better. And I have no idea how you coped with this sort of stuff for all those years. It was one thing for me to listen to you talk about your cases, but it’s completely different when you actually experience it.”

“That’s true and I’m sorry you had to see it firsthand.”

The elevator door slid open and Todd stood there looking pale and wild-eyed. Striding from the car, he paused to give us a glare. “Is it true?”

“Yeah, Jennifer is on her way to the hospital.” I reached out to hold the elevator doors open.

“I could have helped her if you’d just let me treat her.”

“Maybe. It was a little more complicated than a simple asthma attack.”

“Then you should have left it to a medical professional, you goddamn idiot.”

Ash wiped at her eyes and her jaw got hard. “Look, I know you’re distraught, but we did our best.”

“Which obviously wasn’t good enough. I hope you’re
real
happy.” Todd waved us away in disgust and started jogging toward the doors leading to the parking garage. I guided her into the empty car and pressed the button for the fifth floor.

Ash said, “Okay, I’m not upset any more, just mad. He had no right to behave that way.”

“Agreed. If he’s this upset and rude now, I wonder how he’ll act when he finds out she’s dead. Maybe Tony will tell him.”

Ash looked skeptical. “If it turns out that she was poisoned by the inhaler, wouldn’t that point directly to Tony as the prime suspect?”

“Yeah, but it’s also at odds with what we know about him. Does he impress you as the Wile E. Coyote, super genius kind of guy who would take the time to cobble 58

John J. Lamb

together some ingenious device to kill the roadrunner or, in this instance, his wife?”

“Well, no.”

“I agree. He’d throw her down the stairs or crush her skull with a floor lamp.” Then something occurred to me.

“Unless . . .”

“Unless what?”

“What if Tony has a girlfriend? Would
that
be out of character?”

“No, but I can’t imagine any woman that desperate.”

“That’s only because you’re aware he abused Jennifer.”

“That, and he’s an ugly slob.”

“An ugly slob about to pick up an extra three-hundred-and-fifty grand, which might make him a lot easier on the eyes to a certain type of woman. Assume you had really low standards and didn’t know his history of violence.

What would your opinion of Tony be?”

Ash looked thoughtful. “Jovial, bordering on manic and a bit of a blabbermouth, but basically harmless.”

“Exactly and that’s how he would appear to a new girlfriend during the courtship phase of their relationship.