I poured two fingers worth this time and said nothing.
She stared down into the glass. “My husband’s name was Gus—Augustus. He wanted us to wait to have children.”
“Which can mean increased health risks to both mother and infant.”
“I don’t like you and you shorted me on my drink, but you’re very smart.”
“Thank you.”
“Finally, he gave in and I got pregnant. I was thirty-nine. There were serious complications with the delivery and it turned out that this was going to be the one and The False-Hearted Teddy
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only time I could give birth.” She took a small sip of the liquor. “You know, this tastes like candy.”
“Glad you like it. How’d Gus deal with the arrival of a new baby?”
“At first, he was a really good dad, but a few years later, when we found out just how sick Benjamin was . . .”
“Why do I have the feeling that you’re about to tell me that Gus pulled a D. B. Cooper?” I asked, referring to the legendary skyjacker robber.
“Huh?”
“Did he bail out and disappear?”
“He told me he couldn’t deal with the situation. That he had a life to live. That . . .”
“He was a selfish, dishonorable bastard?”
“No, but I appreciate you saying that.” Fresh tears welled up in her eyes. “Gus blamed me for Ben’s illness.
He said that if I hadn’t insisted on having a child at my age, this never would have happened.”
“And so he skied.” I shook my head in disgust.
“He left. The last I heard, he was living someplace in Nevada. If it hadn’t been for Jen, I don’t know what I would have done.”
“I assume you were teaching then. How did you manage to keep your job?”
“I needed to stay home with Ben, so I took a sabbatical.”
“Which meant no income and—oh God—no health insurance.”
“No, I was able to keep the health insurance through the school district. My parents are fairly well-off and they kept up the monthly premiums, but they couldn’t completely support me.” Donna swallowed a little more of the Frangelico. “I needed money and something I could do from the home, so that’s what made me start making teddy bears. I’d always wanted to make them and it turned out I was talented.”
I stood up and carried my empty coffee cup over to the 130
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brewer. Pouring what remained in the carafe into my cup, I asked, “What did you do? Sell them at regional bear shows?”
“There, and at craft shows, and to a bear shop in Lititz, and even on eBay. I began to develop a collector customer-base and it looked as if I was on my way to a new career.”
“How did Jen help?”
“At the time, she lived just down the block. She came over every morning to visit after Tony went to work.
She’d play with Ben and talk to me while I worked on the bears. Eventually, I ended up teaching her how to make the bears.”
“Was she any good?”
“Not at first, but she improved. Sometimes Jen would stay all day and then Tony would beat her because his supper wasn’t ready.” Donna smiled ruefully.
“Yeah, as if he should have been concerned over missing a meal.” I sat back down at the table. “What happened to change your relationship with her?”
“Ben had the best medical treatment, but he kept getting sicker and more weak. By the time he was four, he mostly stayed in bed. But he never complained. He was such a sweet boy.” She held out the empty glass for a refill. When I’d poured some more Frangelico, she continued, “He loved teddy bears and so I began making some especially for him—some that I never intended to sell, because it would have been like selling part of Ben.”
“The Cheery Cherub Bears?”
“My cheery cherub’s bears. I hung them up with fishing line from his ceiling, so it looked like they were flying around his room. Then I made fabric clouds and began attaching them to the walls with the bears sitting on them.”
“Sounds beautiful.”
“Ben loved them. In the end there were probably fifty The False-Hearted Teddy
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bears and, and . . .” Donna’s lower lip began to tremble and tears were running down her cheeks. “And I told him that that was what heaven looked like, so he shouldn’t be afraid of going there.”
Suddenly, she was wracked with sobs and slowly bent forward to bury her head in her shaking hands. I wanted to touch her arm, but somehow knew that she wouldn’t tolerate even the slightest sign of intimacy from me, and with good reason. I wasn’t her friend. I was the cold-hearted son of a bitch making her relive the most terrible and anguished episodes of her life. It was one of those moments as a cop when you know that you’re doing the right thing by digging for the truth, but you still hate yourself. So, all I could do was sit there and watch silently as she wailed and wept. When the crying finally guttered to a halt I held out a Kleenex box. Donna grabbed a wad of tissue and mopped at her eyes and nose.
“When did Benjamin die?” I asked.
“Two and a half years ago,” she whispered.
“You were devastated.”
“Yes. There were times when I thought about just stepping out in front of a train or something . . .”
“And killing yourself?”
“But I didn’t. I toughed it out.” Her nostrils flared and I heard a subtle yet unmistakable tinge of pride in her voice. “After the funeral, I went back to my teaching job and tried to get on with my life. But I couldn’t continue making the teddy bears, because they reminded me too much of Ben.”
“How soon was it after Ben died that you learned Jennifer had stolen your idea and designs and was making the Cheery Cherub Bears?”
Donna blew her nose and frowned. “Four weeks to the day after the funeral.”
“What happened?”
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“We need to back up a little bit for you to understand why I hated her so much. The day after the funeral, Jen came over to help me pack up everything in Ben’s bedroom. I had to clean it out completely, otherwise it would have ripped my heart out every time I went in there.”
“I’d have done the same thing.”
“We took all the cherub bears down and put them into three big cardboard boxes. I asked Jen to take them over to Lancaster General Hospital and donate them, thinking that maybe some other sick child would like a teddy bear.
Jen said she’d take care of it.”
“And then?”
“After that I saw less and less of Jen. I figured she was just tired of listening to me cry. Hell,
I
was tired of listening to me cry.”
“But?”
“But a few weeks later I understood the real reason why. I was over near York taking care of some errands.”
“What is that, about thirty miles from Basingstoke Township?”
“Maybe a little farther.”
Donna took a swallow of the liqueur. “It was a Saturday and the last thing I wanted was to go back to that empty house. There was a craft fair and I decided to go in.”
Spontaneously, I knew where the story was heading and, although as a cop you smugly imagine that you’ve seen the very worst the human race is capable of, people can still surprise you with their capacity for sheer vileness. I said, “Oh, no. Please don’t tell me she was there, selling the bears you’d asked her to donate to the hospital.”
“She and Tony had a booth and, yes, she was selling Ben’s angel bears along with some others that she’d made, as if it were all her own work. I guess they figured that York was far enough away that I wouldn’t find out what they were doing.”
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“Christ Almighty, talk about stealing the pennies from a dead man’s eyes. What did you do?”
“At first I just stood there in shock, because I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. She was supposed to have been my best friend.”
“Did they see you?”
“Yes, eventually.”
“How did they react?”
“Tony looked away. I could tell he was embarrassed.”
“And with good freaking reason. What about Jennifer?”
“She just jutted her jaw out and stared right at me as if daring me to say anything. That look was just like being slugged in the stomach. She’d traded our friendship for a little money and you could tell that it didn’t bother her at all.”
“And then what happened?”
“Nothing. It was the final betrayal. First Gus, then God killing my little boy, and then Jen. I couldn’t deal with it, so I just skulked out of there with my tail between my legs.”
“And your grave-robbing ‘friend’ went on to turn the bears you’d made to comfort your dying son into a cheesy but lucrative enterprise. How long was it before you made another bear?”
“Almost two years.”
“What made you start up again?”
“It was either that or drink myself to death and I missed my friends from the teddy bear community.”
“Yeah, for the most part they’re good people. When you signed up for this show, did you know that Jennifer would be attending?”
“Of course. You saw the pre-event brochure with their smug pictures plastered on the front.”
“Were you planning some sort of showdown?”
“No, I was going to ignore them.”
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“But something happened to change your mind.”
“It was their booth.”
“Huh?”
“That vulgar booth with the flashing lights and music.
My son died surrounded by angel bears and that filthy pair of monsters had them on display like they were cheap prizes at a third-rate carnival. First it made me sick. Then it made me mad.”
“So, you weren’t upset over them signing the big contract with Wintle and the cartoon series?”
“This wasn’t about money,” Donna snapped.
“I understand.”
“It wasn’t enough that Jen stole those bears, she’d turned them into something tawdry and vile and in doing so deliberately dishonored the memory of my son. She might as well have set that goddamned booth up on Benjamin’s grave.”
My brain couldn’t quite follow the logic, but my heart did and I nodded in full agreement. “So, what did you do?”
“Last night at the reception, I started drinking and the drunker I got, the more I wanted to remind Jennifer of just what an evil thing she’d done.”
“Where did you go after you finished talking to Ash and me?”
“Out to the lobby. You were right. I pretended to be Jennifer to get a key card to their room. The clerk didn’t think twice about issuing a new one.”
“And what did you do then?”
“I went up there and—I’ll admit it—for a few seconds I considered either destroying or stealing the angel bears they had stored in their room.” Donna glanced away for a second, clearly embarrassed at the admission. “But, I didn’t do it.”
“Actually, I’m not as worried about the fact that you The False-Hearted Teddy
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considered committing vandalism and theft so much as whether or not you put superglue into Jennifer’s inhaler.”
“How many times do I have to tell you? I didn’t kill her.”
“Any idea of who did?”
“Probably someone else she stabbed in the back and if I knew the name I certainly wouldn’t tell you or the police. And let me ask
you
a question.” She pointed a finger at me. “Would it be so wrong for Tony to go to jail for Jen’s murder? Both of them were very bad people.”
“They may have been, but that doesn’t mean it’s okay to commit a brutal murder and imprison a man for life for a crime he didn’t commit. That’s dangerous thinking because what happens if somebody decides that
you’re
evil and deserve to die?”
“I suppose.” She didn’t sound convinced, however.
“So, what did you do in their room?”
“I took one of the angel bears from a box and propped it up on the bed next to the pillows. Then I got a picture of my son that I used to carry in my wallet . . .” Donna took a deep ragged breath. “And I put it so that the bear was holding the picture. Then I left.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s all I did. I wanted to remind her of what a ghoul she was.”
“Yet you didn’t get the response you were hoping for from Jennifer.”
“I—how did you know?”
“Your B-52 strike that I regret interrupting at breakfast. Something obviously happened to make you even angrier than the night before.”
“Late last night, Jen called my room and told me that she wasn’t going to tolerate any further harassment and 136
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that if I so much as blinked at her wrong, she was going to have me arrested for stalking and trespassing.”
“Not exactly the penitent response you were hoping for.”
“No, and then she told me I was crazy. She said that the cherub bears were her idea and that I was just jealous of her success. How could she have lied like that?”
I chuckled humorlessly. “Sorry, I don’t mean to laugh.
But this woman was so sleazy that she stole your dead son’s teddy bears, which were supposed to be donated to a hospital, and you’re actually surprised that she lied to you?”
“When you put it that way, I guess it does sound ridiculous.”
“But at the time you were angry.”
“Furious.”
“Enough to go back to their room this morning while they were at breakfast?”
“No. Besides, I couldn’t. Right after I got off the phone with Jen, I began worrying that she was going to call the police or hotel security.”
“So you got rid of the card. Where?”
“I threw on some clothes and went down the hall to the elevator. There was a trash can there.” Donna emptied the glass again. “Can I have some more?”
“Just a little. I want to save some for my wife.” Once I finished pouring, I sat back and rubbed my eyes, suddenly weary. “What do you suppose happened to the picture of Benjamin?”
“I’m assuming she threw it away.”
There was a pair of gentle taps on the door. Donna gave me a nervous look.
“It’s okay. It’s probably Ash.”
I limped over to the door and received an ugly surprise. No sooner did I press down on the handle far enough to disengage the latch, than the door slammed The False-Hearted Teddy
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into me with enormous force. I fell backwards, bounced off the dresser, and crashed to the floor, landing hard on my hip. Meanwhile, a platoon of heavily-armed cops came piling through the doorway in a never-ending stream, like clowns from a car, all of them shouting, “Police! Get your hands up!” Behind me, Donna screamed.