Killed by Clutter

by Leslie Caine

  “That’s because Helen’s phone wouldn’t have rung. She has wireless phones, and her power was out.” While I was speaking, I caught a whiff of smoke and glanced behind me anxiously. Judging by the scent and the flickering yellow-orange light, Helen must have lit the gas lantern in the kitchen.

  “Nonsense! I heard it ringing on my end!” Rachel retorted.

  “That’s just a sound your own phone makes. It doesn’t mean that the phone on—”

  But Rachel had noticed the light from the kitchen. “Jack?” she called. Again, she swept her flashlight all around the room. “The power went off just after Helen drove into the garage, so I know he’s here, checking the fuses and helping to fix Helen’s power outage. Did something happen to her? Is there anything I can do?”

  “No, Rachel. There’s nothing you can do. The police are on their way. And it isn’t Helen. She’s fine.”

  “So then where’s...Wait. Are you trying to tell me something’s happened to my Jack? But...that’s crazy! The prowler had already left! We both saw someone run away. Someone wearing all-black clothes. And a ski cap. And Helen wasn’t home yet, so...Jack was just going into an empty house!”

  “There was a terrible accident...water in the basement...” I faltered.

  Rachel gasped. “I have to see him. Jack?” she called frantically.

  I grabbed her by the shoulders, afraid that she’d injure herself rushing down the dark stairs. “Rachel, Jack’s dead,” I said gently. “I’m so sorry.”

  “No!” She knocked my hands away. “You’re lying! This is some kind of a sick joke!

  “I’m so sorry, Rachel.” Helen’s voice was full of sorrow. She’d come as far as the kitchen doorway.

  “You’re sorry?” Rachel shrieked. “Oh, my God! What’s happened here? Did you think my Jack was a prowler? Did you kill my poor Jack? Where is he? Let me see him!” The flashlight dropped from her grasp, thudding to the floor, and she staggered back outside onto the porch. She seemed to be on the verge of fainting. I followed and grabbed her arm.

  The police sirens were now wailing, turning the last corner directly ahead of us.

  “Is there someone I can call for you, Rachel? Do you have a relative in the area who can come over?”

  “Oh, dear Lord! The police! So...what you’re saying is true? My husband is really dead? Jack!”

  Two police cars pulled up alongside the curb. A female officer emerged from the first vehicle. She looked at Rachel and me. “Erin?”

  “Linda,” I said, so relieved to see that my friend, Linda DelGardio, was the responding officer that my eyes misted. I felt like hugging her.

  “My husband’s been killed!” Rachel shouted at Linda, wrenching free from my grasp with surprising strength. Then, just as Linda and her partner reached us, Rachel collapsed. Linda’s partner, Officer Mansfield, managed to catch her before she toppled down the porch steps.

  While the two officers from the second car tended to Rachel, Linda turned her attention to me. “This is a client’s house?” she asked quietly.

  “Yes.” I turned. Helen was still standing by the kitchen doorway. “Helen? This is Officer Delgardio. Linda, this is Helen Walker. This is her house.”

  “I’ve lit a few candles,” Helen told us. “And a camper’s lantern.”

  “Helen called me when she heard a noise and her lights went out,” I explained to Linda.

  “Officer Mansfield is coming with me, Ms. Walker.” Linda nodded to her partner to join us. Rachel Schwartz was now slumped on the top porch step, sobbing hysterically. Two officers were bent over her, trying to calm her.

  Linda asked, “Can you show us where—”

  “He’s in the basement. Through that door,” Helen said, pointing with a trembling finger. “He’s my neighbor, Jack Schwartz. He came here while I was at a meeting of my scrapbooking club.”

  Linda donned disposable gloves and went into the basement. While we waited for her to return, Helen and I sat in the captain’s chairs at the table. The propane lamp glowed, casting flickering, eerie shadows on the walls. Standing sentry over us from the corner of the kitchen, Officer Mansfield gathered basic information from Helen, which she supplied in a clear, surprisingly steady voice.

  Minutes later, Linda joined us at the table and took over for her partner in questioning us while he went downstairs. When had we last seen Jack Schwartz alive, she asked us, which was the same time for both of us; Helen hadn’t seen Jack again since he’d left the house at midday upon installing the remote doorbell ringer.

  Helen told Linda about Jack and Rachel’s testy behavior during the doorbell installation, then skipped ahead. She’d come home tonight half an hour early from her scrapbook session and heard “a strange noise” just as she’d stepped into the kitchen from the garage. Moments later, the lights went out. Linda tried to get her to be more specific, but Helen began to wring her hands and rock herself. She would say only, “It was a thud and...maybe a buzz. I don’t know. I thought a lamp had gotten knocked off a table.” She hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary and believed she was walking into an empty house.

  When Officer Mansfield emerged from the basement, Linda held up a hand and said gently, “Excuse me,” to Helen. “Mannie?” she said to her partner. “Why don’t you take Erin’s statement in the patrol car, while I finish speaking with Ms. Walker here?”

  I rose, but Helen protested, “No! Please,” and shook her head firmly. “I need Erin to stay with me.”

  The officers exchanged glances. “I’ll check the whole premises now, if that’s all right, ma’am,” Mansfield asked Helen, who nodded.

  “Be careful where you step,” she warned. “You never know what you might find.”

  “How did Mr. Schwartz get into your house while you were gone, Ms. Walker?” Linda asked, while Mansfield exited through the garage door.

  “My sister might have given him a key. Or whoever broke in could have left the front door open, then killed him. Assuming there’s only one killer. Jack’s the third victim.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Two other people close to me have been murdered, Officer Delgardio,” Helen said firmly. Jack was the third. First someone switched my brother-in-law’s medication with Tic Tacs, and he died of a heart attack. Then three months ago, somebody killed my sister with bell peppers. Now this. My basement was booby trapped.”

  “You think your neighbor was murdered, Ms. Walker?”

  “I’m certain of it! The killer flooded my basement and put my poor Vator inside to try to lure me to step into the electrified water.” She shivered violently. “Instead, Jack fell for the bait. He must have come inside, heard my cat Vator crying downstairs, and waded into the water to get her down....”

  “Do you know why someone might want to harm you?” Linda asked.

  “Lots of reasons, I suppose. To get my house away from me. I don’t have any children, so everything I own will pass to my niece and nephew. Or maybe to get revenge on me for something. I’ve taught in public schools for many years and ruffled some feathers.” She paused. “Though nothing that could lead anyone to hate me this much. But you read the papers. You’re a policewoman. You know how crazy young people are these days. Or maybe...”

  “Ms. Walker? Ma’am? What were you about to say?”

  “Pardon? Oh, nothing. My mind...This has been so confusing. I don’t know.”

  “When was the last time you went into your basement, prior to tonight?”

  “I never go down there anymore, but I...set things down on the stairs sometimes. The last time I did that much was two or three days ago. And it wasn’t flooded then. There’s no way the minor rain storm a couple of days back could have caused all that water down there.”

  I interjected, “I just don’t know how or why an electrician would make such a careless mistake. Even in design school, instructors always warn students about standing water possibly carrying an electric current. That risk is surely drilled into electricians.”

&nb
sp; “There was a wood dowel, floating in the water at the base of the stairs,” Linda said quietly. “If that was on a stair, Mr. Schwartz could have stepped on the dowel and lost his balance. Fell into the water.”

  “I would never put a dowel on a stairway,” Helen said firmly. “I may have lots of possessions, but I’m not an idiot! That was probably part of the trap. The killer probably set it on a step, hoping I’d trip and fall down and break my neck. Then get electrocuted for extra measure.”

  Mansfield came back through the kitchen, checked the pantry, and marched on through to the den, where I heard him mutter, “Whoa,” no doubt in surprise at how jam-packed that room was. “I’m gonna check the upstairs,” he called.

  “This is all my fault,” Helen moaned.

  “Your neighbor’s death?” Linda asked.

  Helen nodded. Trembling, she started rocking herself on the chair, her arms wrapped tightly across her chest.

  “Ms. Walker?”

  She continued to rock herself without comment.

  “Helen, are you all right?” I asked, heartsick at her suffering. “We’ve got to get you a blanket.”

  Linda rose. “Should I get one from upstairs, Ms. Walker?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “I’ll be right back,” Linda said to me, rising. “Stay here with her, Erin.”

  I nodded grimly, as Linda used her flashlight to guide herself to the staircase.

  “Helen, everything’s going to be all right,” I said gently.

  She met my eyes. Hers were wet with tears. “There’s only one way to stop this,” she said.

  “What are you talking about? How are you going to stop this?” I asked, bewildered.

  “There’s no other way to protect myself and everyone else. I have to do something.”

  “Helen—”

  Someone pounded on the door, startling both of us, then the door opened, and an authoritative voice called, “Helen Walker? Detective O’Reilly. I’m in charge of the investigation.”

  I groaned. O’Reilly and I’d had more than one past run-in. O’Reilly was always the detective in charge whenever I was involved in a crisis. He was a tall, thirty-something, non-descript man with a cranky disposition, and he liked to intimidate me.

  “The witnesses are in the kitchen,” I heard Linda say. A moment later, she appeared in the doorway. I rose and grabbed a pink wool blanket from her and wrapped it around Helen’s shoulders. O’Reilly followed Linda and glowered at both of us at the table, then bellowed at Linda, “What kind of procedure are you following here, Dell?”

  “My partner is searching the house. Ms. Walker is quite upset, and—”

  I heard Mansfield’s footsteps as he headed down the stairs. It felt like my fault that Linda was getting chewed out by the detective. I rose. “Excuse me for a moment, Helen.”

  O’Reilly glared at me as I entered the living room. He shined his flashlight directly into my eyes. “You have quite the knack for finding dead bodies, Miss Gilbert.”

  There was no arguing with the statement, so for once I held my tongue. My cheeks felt aflame.

  “Do you have an alibi?”

  “I was home, alone, till Ms. Walker called me. Then I drove here.”

  “You just drove right here? Didn’t think to suggest she call nine-one-one?”

  “I did suggest that! I was going to call myself, but it sounded like her cat had simply knocked a lamp over, and Helen was concerned that the police were just going to belittle her, like they have in the past.”

  “Mansfield, Delgardio, you need to escort Miss Gilbert out of here and get her statement. Now.”

  “I’m on it,” Linda said stiffly. I winced, knowing I’d gotten my friend in trouble with a superior.

  “Check that,” O’Reilly said, holding up a hand. “I’ll interview her. You two get Ms. Walker’s statement instead. There’s been enough favoritism already.”

  He ushered me outside, opened the back door of his light-colored sedan for me, and got into the opposite side of the back seat. Wasting no time on niceties, he demanded, “What happened when you arrived?”

  I intentionally went into as much excruciating detail as I could muster to describe the brief, dark journey from the driveway to Helen’s basement steps. “You made your way through the house with just the light from your flashlight,” O’Reilly said snidely. “Must have been a challenge. She always keep her house in such a mess?”

  “That’s why I was hired. I’m trying to help her straighten the place up. I was hired by her niece and...” I let my voice fade as I watched Mansfield round the car and bend to talk to O’Reilly.

  “Something’s come up during our interview of Ms. Walker,” Mansfield told O’Reilly cryptically.

  O’Reilly nodded. He turned to me. “You can go, Miss Gilbert. We’ve got your information if we have any more questions.”

  “Is Helen okay?” I asked Mansfield.

  “Fine.” But he said it with no conviction.

  Not knowing what else to do, I waited in my van for the detective to leave so I could speak to Helen again. As the minutes dragged by, I saw Helen emerge from the front door. Detective O’Reilly had a grip on her arm, and they were walking slowly. I gasped as I realized she was in handcuffs.

  I bolted out of my van and charged toward them. “Stop! What’s happening? Where are you taking her?”

  “The stationhouse.”

  He helped Helen into the backseat of the patrol car without answering. He closed the car door behind her with a solid thud. She looked up at me. Her face was ghost white. Her lips quivered and her eyes were pleading. She was clearly scared half to death.

  My eyes misted at the sight. “She’s a seventy-five-year-old woman, for God’s sake, and this is her home! Why is she in handcuffs?”

  “No choice,” O’Reilly growled at me. “She just confessed to the murder.”

  Chapter 9

  Desperate to help Helen, but without a clue as to how I might do so, I followed the patrol cars to the police station, a modern-looking white-painted cement structure, now bathed in yellow-tinted light from the numerous lamps that surrounded it. I dashed inside and gave my name to the dispatcher and asked if I could speak to Linda Delgardio.

  The dispatcher nodded and dialed, and I paced in front of her tall oak-veneered enclosure. She spoke quietly into the small mouthpiece of her headset, then relayed that it would be “a few minutes.” I took a seat in the unimaginative lobby, furnished with bulky sectionals upholstered in durable-but-ultra-ugly blue-gray polyester. Pearl-gray fiberglass cubes, bolted to the floor, served as coffee tables. Whoever designed this space had to select furnishings that couldn’t easily be picked up and hurled or smashed into sharp, weapon-like edges, not something that I ever had to take into consideration. With the spate of violence that had enveloped me and my clients of late, though, maybe it was time for me to rethink that policy.

  To bolster my spirits, I mentally redesigned the space around me, opting for a whimsical Lincoln-Logs theme. By the time Linda emerged through the glass door, I’d turned the place into a toy fort, which may have been impractical, but was considerably more visually appealing than the existing design.

  Linda gave me a kind smile and took a seat on the upholstered-chair-cum-tree-stump beside me. “I thought you’d probably show up here. Checking in on Helen Walker?”

  I nodded. “I know she didn’t kill Jack, Linda. The woman wouldn’t hurt a fly. In fact, if a fly died in her house of natural causes, she’d probably dip it into preservatives and stash it in a shoebox.”

  Linda gave a weary shrug. “She confessed.”

  “Probably just to protect herself. She’s certain that her life is in danger and that two of her relatives have been murdered. Now her neighbor stumbles into a trap that she’s convinced was set for her. She figures she’s safer in jail. In her shoes, so would anyone.”

  “Even if that’s true, Erin, it’s also a crime to make a false confession. She’s impeding a police inve
stigation. That’s obstruction of justice.”

  “Helen probably just became so desperate to get out of her house, she didn’t stop to realize the full ramifications.”

  Linda sighed. Her pretty chocolate-brown eyes met mine. “Erin, my hands are tied. O’Reilly is in charge of this investigation, not me. If he decides he wants to press the issue, frankly, there isn’t a whole lot I can do about it.”

  “What’s going on with Helen right now? Do you know where she is?”

  She gave a quick glance at the dispatcher, then leaned closer to me. In a voice barely above a whisper, she replied, “Last I heard she’d clammed up...swore she won’t say another word till her lawyer’s present.”

  Just outside the wall of windows came the piercing shriek of brakes as a car pulled into a parking space at much too rapid a speed. The driver and her passenger emerged. I immediately recognized the imperious form of Stephanie Miller and her brother, Peter. I told Linda, “Here come Helen’s niece and nephew. That was fast.”

  “Yeah,” Linda said wearily. She rose.

  Underneath the harsh lamps that illuminated the concrete slab by the entrance, Stephanie waited impatiently for Peter to catch up to her. The moment she strode through the door, she spotted me.

  “Erin,” she announced. “I’m glad you’re here. I was going to call you to say that we might need you.”

  “How did you find out that—”

  “Rachel Schwartz called us.” Stephanie grimaced. “Quite the abrupt phone conversation, let me tell you. She identified herself, declared: ‘Your crazy aunt murdered my husband, and the police are hauling her out of here in handcuffs,’ then hung up.”

  “That’s exactly what she told me too,” Peter interjected. “Got my attention in a hurry.”

  “I was in the car, on my way to pick up my brother in two seconds flat.” Stephanie put her hands on her hips and eyed Linda skeptically. “Officer, where is my aunt, Helen Walker? My brother is going to serve as her lawyer, and she needs legal counsel immediately.”

  “Did she call and request that you represent her?” Linda asked Peter.