Killed by Clutter

by Leslie Caine

  “Tell me, Helen,” Jack asked, gently prying his arm free of his wife’s grip, “do you want a separate doorbell outside your garage door, or do you just want to be able to hear the existing doorbell when you’re in your garage?”

  “Hmm. I don’t know. I’m not sure which would be more practical,”He picked up his toolbox and bag. “Let’s go take a look at your garage, and I’ll help you decide.”

  “I’ll come too,” Rachel said.

  “Don’t be silly, Rachel,” Jack snapped. “You can trust Helen and me to be out your sight for just five minutes, can’t you?” He forced a chuckle. His thinly disguised simmering anger brought back an unpleasant memory of the way my father spoke to my mother sometimes in the months leading to their divorce.

  Rachel’s cheeks flamed beet red, and she cast a painfully embarrassed glance at Helen and me. “Yes, darling, but you said I could help you, and that’s what I want to do. Please?”

  Helen pursed her lips for a moment, but then gestured for her to join them and said kindly, “I’d like to get Rachel’s opinion on this, actually.”

  Rachel smiled gratefully, but the instant that Helen and Jack turned to head into the garage, an unmistakable expression of pure hatred flashed across her features.

  Chapter 6

  Unexpectedly alone in the house, I indulged myself in a few moments of mental room makeovers—a designer’s version of window shopping. Helen would never want a modern kitchen, complete with granite countertops, cherry cabinets, and stainless steel appliances. But with very little effort and expense, this kitchen could be adorable and was already so retro with its old appliances—back when the color choice was white or white—that it was even fashionable. I could paint the cabinets a stylish ivory and replace their boring knobs. With the limited wall space in this kitchen; we could go with a bright, fun color—tangerine, in this case—and give the room real pizzazz. The blah brown Linoleum floors could be upgraded with two or three colorful rugs.

  I peered into Helen’s small dining room, now crowded with the boxes. This space cried out for wainscot; a simple bead-board—ivory—with a chair rail that we’d continue into the kitchen. And crown molding to add a dash of flair.

  My Big Picture task was to create a nurturing environment for my client in which she could thrive and grow. For now, that meant merely disposing of that which didn’t belong. I banished myself to Helen’s pantry, but found myself running a mental inventory. On the shortest wall of shelves, she had three sandwich makers, four waffle irons, and two smaller-than-a-breadbox appliances with functions that I couldn’t immediately identify. Judging by the thick coat of dust on the plastic bags that covered them, neither could Helen.

  Someone tapped on the front door then opened it, and I rushed into the living room to see who was there. Sullivan leaned in and said with a sexy smile, “Your moving man’s back.”

  “Come on in.”

  He entered, tentatively glanced around, and peered through the entranceway to the kitchen.

  In answer to his unasked question, I reported, “Helen’s in the garage, discussing the doorbell with the Schwartzes.”

  “The Schwartzes?”

  “Her neighbors. The Georgian colonial across the street.”

  He gave an appreciative nod then shifted his focus to our surroundings. “Jeez. Underneath all the clutter, this house—”

  “Oh, I know. This place is crying out to be a warm, cozy cottage. Helen would feel right at home in such a space if we could just isolate her hoardings to a workroom.” Once again, the boring cabinet doors caught my eye. “I’m thinking of replacing the knobs with translucent, sea-mist green, cut-glass knobs on the kitchen cabinets.”

  “We’d have to convince her that the hardware store kept her original knobs as trade-ins,” Sullivan replied. “Sage walls?”

  I shook my head. “Tangerine.”

  He grinned and said wistfully, “With hand-painted ceramic tiles on the backsplash.”

  “Yes! And complementary countertops...a maize, maybe. Or blue-gray.”

  We gazed in silence at our imaginary kitchen for a moment. Then Sullivan grumbled, “If I move fast, I can get a couple armloads of newspapers from the sixties out of here before she notices.”

  “I don’t want to betray her trust like that. Let’s just focus exclusively on the kitchen for today, and try to get another load dropped off to Eco-cycle.”

  He gave his hair a quick rake, then he pulled something out of his pocket. “What should I do with this?” He handed a slip of paper to me. I unfolded the sheet of his “Sullivan Designs” stationary. He’d written: I’m sorry. A man of few words.

  “Gee, Sullivan.” I smiled a little, in spite of myself. As much as the man infuriated me, he sure had a knack for catching me off guard. “I don’t know what to say. I mean, this is just such ponderous reading material, it could take me a while to work my way through it.” I handed it back to him, and he returned it to the back pocket of his jeans.

  “At least you didn’t tell me to stick it where the sun don’t shine.” He gave me a shy, slightly crooked smile that had, no doubt, melted many a girl’s heart. “For what it’s worth, Gilbert, I—”

  The doorbell rang, and I glanced through the screen door. A short, plump, white-haired woman waved and gave me a pleasant smile. “Good morning, dear. My name is Kay Livingston. I’m a friend of Helen’s.”

  “Come on in, Kay.”

  The hinges squeaked as she let herself inside. “You must be Erin Gilbert, the designer. Helen was telling me all about you over the phone.” She gave Sullivan a visual once-over and grinned. “She certainly didn’t mention any young men, however.”

  “This is my assistant, Steve Sullivan.”

  Sullivan stiffened and cleared his throat, but didn’t correct me.

  “How nice for you! Gilbert and Sullivan? I absolutely love ‘Pirates of Penzance.’”

  “Different duo,” Sullivan deadpanned.

  Helen bustled through the inner garage door and greeted her friend with a hug, then introduced Kay to us, saying, “Kay and I have been friends longer than the two of you have been alive, put together. We met clear back in grade school in Denver. Then she and I, along with my sister, moved into an apartment together when we were in our twenties.” She beamed at Kay. “That was a fun time, wasn’t it?”

  Kay glowered at Helen and replied, “For some of us, more than others.” We shared an awkward silence until the garage door rumbled open. “Helen?” Kay looked perplexed. “Who’s in your garage?”

  “Jack Schwartz is installing a doorbell. So that I can hear the doorbell from the garage,” she explained.

  “A doorbell for the garage?” Kay held up her palms and said, “Actually, I don’t want to know.” She turned her attention to me. “One thing you absolutely must help Helen do, Erin, is to unbury her porcelain collections. She has a stunning set of Lladro figurines. Each one is of a dancer.”

  Helen groaned at her friend’s instructions to me and said, “They’re not going to be able to get much of anything done, till they get back to work.”

  “On that note,” Sullivan said with a slight bow, “if you ladies will excuse me, I’ve got some more toting and lifting to do.”

  “It was nice meeting you, Mr. Sullivan.”

  “You, as well, Ms. Livingston.”

  He headed into the kitchen, and Kay squeezed my arm and whispered into my ear, “He is so handsome!” I gave her a noncommittal shrug—although there was no denying the man’s great looks—as she continued, “Helen’s got a lot of truly beautiful things around. She just let the place go once Lois moved in with her. Lois was never much of a housekeeper and had a ton of curios herself, just not nearly the same quality as Helen’s collections. Next thing you know, the house got out of hand.”

  “You can say that again,” a woman’s voice interjected. Rachel Schwartz was eavesdropping from the front porch. “Lois had no taste whatsoever,” Rachel persisted. “She and George had let their own
house go completely to seed.”

  Helen tried to cut her off, crying, “Rachel, I—”

  Rachel merely raised her voice and prattled on through the screen door, “I always figured that was why Stephanie went into real estate. She wants to build nice new places to compensate for the—”

  “Rachel!” Jack called from the garage door. “Just press the damn doorbell, would you please?”

  “I’m on it, dear,” she called back, rolling her eyes. She jabbed at the button as though she were typing Morse code, making the gong over our heads ring repeatedly. “Can you hear that?”

  “Yes,” he called back. “Stop, pushing it, already!”

  Sullivan came through the room, carrying a box full of jar lids, which quickly passed Helen’s inspection. Rachel and Kay raced over to hold the door for him, both holding it open and then basking in his broad smile and his syrupy-sweet: “Thank you, ladies.”

  Seconds later, Jack joined us, Rachel again latching onto his arm. “Helen,” he said with a hint of exasperation, “I decided to install a remote doorbell ringer inside your garage. It will chime whenever anyone presses the front doorbell. It just plugs into an ordinary electric socket, so you can move it anyplace. I even set it up to play a tune for you.”

  “That sounds perfect, Jack. Thank you.”

  Although momentarily distracted by Sullivan’s backside as he returned and walked past us once more, Rachel said, “But getting back to our discussion, Helen, you know just as well as I do that half the trouble with your sister’s children never would—”

  “It’s time we got on home. Now!” Jack roared. He threw in a hasty “Bye,” and all but dragged his wife out the door.

  Turning to Helen, Kay said, “Wouldn’t you think someone who’s only in her fifties would have better things to do with her time than to be such a busybody? All that woman ever does is stare out her windows and gossip!”

  Helen merely frowned, but Rachel’s behavior had raised my warning flags. Was it possible Helen’s break-ins were real after all? Could Rachel be letting herself into Helen’s house to poke around whenever Helen left her home? Curious if Helen shared my suspicions, I remarked, “Rachel’s sure keeping a close watch on your house.”

  “She certainly is,” Helen replied evenly.

  Kay had the door duty to herself as Sullivan tried to come through a second time with another load for the truck. Helen blocked his path and made him lower the huge box to her eye-level for inspection. This time she hemmed and hawed, before grudgingly allowing him to remove the jars.

  As Kay shut the screen door behind him, she reached up and touched the tape fastened to the inside corner of the door frame. She gave me a sheepish glance and asked Helen, “Are you still having troubles with break-ins?”

  “Yes,” Helen said in a harsh whisper. “And Erin already knows about my security system...with the strands of hair. Just remember, Kay, you’re the only one in our immediate circle who knows about it, so don’t breathe a word to anyone!”

  “You know how I pride myself on keeping secrets,” Kay retorted. “I fully intend to take yours to the grave.”

  “Thank you, dear.”

  I studied Kay’s placid features. If she in any way doubted that the break-ins were really happening, she was keeping her skepticism to herself.

  As Sullivan returned once more, Kay remarked, “My, my. That young man is working so hard, it’s exhausting just to watch! This is such an enormous job. Can I be of any help, Helen?”

  “No, and much as I’d love to have you stay and chat, I really want to stay focused on working with Gilbert and Sullivan.”

  Kay grinned. “Far be it from me to slow you down, dear. I’ll be going, then. It was a pleasure meeting you, Miss Gilbert. You too, Mr. Sullivan,” she called into the kitchen.

  “Take care, Ms. Livingston,” came Sullivan’s cheery reply.

  She winked at me and called to Sullivan, “Love your work. Especially ‘The Mikado.’”

  “Yeah, thanks. I’m proud of that one, too,” he shot back.

  Helen walked her friend to her car, and Sullivan seized the opportunity to report to me that he was filling a box with extras from fast-food restaurants—condiment packets, straws, thousands of plastic utensils, and rinsed-out paper cups. “She’s got enough junk like that to outfit her own fast-food chain. Just in case she disapproves, you’ll need to distract her.”

  I nodded, thinking that although this didn’t fit Helen’s permitted category of “recyclables,” we truly needed to dispose of them. I made a show of realigning yet more scrapbooks in the dining room as she returned, and Helen promptly rushed to my side. Meanwhile, Sullivan sneaked out the door. I muttered something about making sure the books didn’t topple over and asked loudly to cover for the squeaky door hinge, “By the way, Helen, have you ever asked Rachel if she’s seen a prowler?”

  “Of course not. That would be darned stupid of me. It would only serve to tip my hand. If it turns out Rachel’s the one breaking into my home, she’d know I’ve got a system that alerts me.”

  “Do you have any reason to suspect her personally?”

  “Well, of course.” She put her hands on her hips and regarded me as though I’d just asked her what color she thought the sky was. “For one thing, there’s the fact that she’s never once said a thing about spying anyone entering my home in my absence. Yet she always knows about every single person who comes to my door when I’m here to let ‘em in.” Sullivan had eased himself back into the house and now tiptoed toward the kitchen. “Even as we speak, she’s probably delighting in the way your assistant is making extra trips to the truck when he thinks I’m not looking.”

  Behind her, Sullivan froze. “Sorry, Helen,” I said. “We’re really just trying to move things along as quickly as possible, and to do that, you have to trust our judgment a little.”

  “That’d be easier if you weren’t trying to pull the wool over my eyes.”

  “We won’t do it again,” Sullivan said, “I promise.” He gave me a “Yikes” grimace and returned to the kitchen.

  “We meant no harm, Helen. It was just things like leftover catsup packets that he took away.”

  “But...I use catsup, and there’s no sense in—”

  The doorbell rang again, and she grumbled, “What now?” I followed her back into the living room, and she swept open the door.

  “Hello, Teddy.” Helen’s greeting held more exasperation than warmth. “This is a surprise.”

  “It is? I thought I told you I’d be stopping by.” A slender elderly man with stooped shoulders bussed Helen’s cheek, then beamed at me. He was wearing baggy pants and a plaid vest over his white button shirt. With his cherubic dimpled, ruddy cheeks and bright blue eyes, he looked like a skinny overgrown elf. I returned his smile.

  “This is Erin Gilbert. Erin, Theodore Frederickson.”

  “I’m an old friend of the family’s,” he explained, pumping my hand with a firm grip. He was hiding something behind his back. I hoped it wasn’t anything for the house.

  “It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Frederickson.”

  “Everyone calls me Teddy.”

  He peered through the doorway into the kitchen, and Helen said, “That’s Steve Sullivan. Mr. Sullivan? Meet Teddy Frederickson.”

  Teddy ducked into the kitchen for a moment to shake hands, then said, “Wow, Helen. These kids have made some terrific progress already! You can see some of your furniture, and all the way to the back door.”

  “I know,” she replied. “It looks strange to me now. Empty, even.”

  “You’ll get used to it. T’ain’t like you need all the junk in here to weigh the place down and keep it from shooting up into outer space.” He laughed and patted Helen on the back.

  “No, I realize that,” she said with a hint of irritation in her voice.

  Teddy promptly stopped laughing, cleared his throat, and handed her a box of candy, clicking his heels in a pseudo-Hitler style. “These are for you, my dear.�
��

  “What’s the occasion?” she asked as she accepted the box.

  “A gift to celebrate your courage in allowing some changes to be made in your home.”

  “I don’t have any problem with change. Just so long as it’s not for the worse.”

  “Won’t know if change is good or bad till you try it on for a while!” Teddy said, again laughing. He pointed with his chin. “They’re first-rate chocolates. You’re not allergic to chocolate, are you?”

  “No, no,” she said sadly, “Lois was the one with all the allergies in the family.” She shook the box. “Aren’t candy boxes normally shrink-wrapped?”

  “Can you come here for a moment, Erin?” Steve called from the kitchen just then. I complied, and Sullivan showed me two cabinets jammed full with dusty, junky-looking cookware. With great effort, I extracted one of the pots. Both insides and outsides were charred black. A five-year-old Cub Scout would consider this pot too grungy for a campout.

  Both Helen and Teddy had followed me into the kitchen. “We should get rid of all these really beat-up pots and pans, Helen,” I told her.

  “But those are my backups. I might need them some day.”

  “What scenario will cause you to need four sets of ‘backup’ cookware?” I asked gently.

  “Well, I don’t know. What if the roof springs some leaks? Right while I’m preparing supper?”

  Teddy guffawed. “You’re afraid you’ll have twenty or thirty holes in your roof show up at the same time? What’s your roof made out of? Swiss cheese?” He all but doubled over with hilarity.

  Helen sighed, but turned to me and said, “Fine. Let’s give my old pots to the needy.”

  “Good idea,” Teddy declared. “We’ll give ‘em out according to which ones have the most holes in their roofs.”

  His last remark was voiced with such good humor that I had to laugh myself. Helen, however, set the box of candy on the counter, grabbed Teddy’s arm, and started to escort him out. “Thank you for stopping by, Teddy, and for the candies. We’re going to get back to work now.”