by Leslie Caine
Killed by Clutter
A Domestic Bliss Mystery (#4)
Leslie Caine
Copyright
This e-book is licensed to you for your personal enjoyment only.
This e-book may not be sold, shared, or given away.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the writer’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Killed by Clutter
Copyright © 2006 by Leslie O’Kane
Ebook ISBN: 9781625174437
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
No part of this work may be used, reproduced, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without prior permission in writing from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
NYLA Publishing
350 7th Avenue, Suite 2003, NY 10001, New York.
http://www.nyliterary.com
Dedication
To Claudia Mills
You are a great writer and a great friend. Thank you for all the wise counsel you’ve given me as both over the years.
Chapter 1
Helen Walker scowled at me from her perch on the mottled pink polyester loveseat. While fidgeting with the messy bun of powder-white hair that sat lopsided atop her head like a shredded pillow, she declared, “You never should have come here, Miss Gilbert. You’re not wanted. I am perfectly comfortable living out here in my garage!”
“Even so, now that I’m here, why don’t we just take a quick look at—”
“Come off it, Aunt Helen!” Stephanie Miller interrupted. She stood with her sturdy arms akimbo. “Be reasonable, for once!”
Helen narrowed her eyes at her niece, but then smiled lovingly at the calico cat that hopped onto the seat cushion beside her. A second cat, a beautiful smoky gray longhair, let out a rumbling protest from its hiding spot under the car. As the calico settled beside her, Helen replied, “I am always reasonable. I am simply unwilling to roll over and play dead on your behalf.”
I hid my smile as Stephanie clicked her tongue and looked back at her brother, lurking behind us. “Say something, Peter!”
Just last Friday, the two attractive and well-dressed forty-something siblings had strolled into my interior-design office and hired me on Helen Walker’s behalf. At the time, they’d said nothing about their “eccentric and willful aunt” (Peter’s description) having moved into her attached two-car garage, only that “the woman is the worst packrat you’d ever want to meet. Assuming anyone would actually want to meet a hideous packrat in the first place.” (Stephanie’s words.)
The deep scowl returned to Helen’s otherwise delicate features as she shifted her focus to her nephew. “You’re kowtowing to your sister about my house, Peter?”
“Aunt Helen,” Peter began with a sigh and a hangdog demeanor, “we’re only trying to do our best to watch out for your interests.” He peered over his sister’s shoulder, allowing Stephanie to be human Scotchguard against whatever vitriol his diminutive seventy-five-year-old aunt might hurl his way. “Miss Gilbert here has come highly recommended, and is an excellent decorator, who trained in Manhattan at—”
“I do not need help with my decorations! Christmas is three months away!”
“Peter misspoke,” Stephanie sniffed. “She’s not here to deck the halls and hang mistletoe, Aunt Helen. Erin Gilbert is an interior designer. She’s going to resolve your clutter catastrophe. Furthermore, Peter and I have already hired her, so there’s no need to discuss whether you think you need her or not. You do, and here she is.”
Helen spread her arms to indicate this car-less half of her two-port garage. “What clutter? As you can see for yourself, there isn’t a speck of clutter here.”
That was true and quite curious for the World’s Biggest Packrat, as dubbed by her niece. I had yet to judge the situation for myself; when we’d first arrived, Helen had responded to the doorbell by opening the garage door, gesturing for us to come hither, and then had used a remote control to shut the door behind us as though we had driven—and parked—an invisible Buick. Although a few garage-like items lined the unfinished, tar-papered wall behind Helen’s white four-door sedan, this second carport was spotless and held just the loveseat, a large electric-blue suitcase, a beige two-feet-by-three-feet space heater, and a brass floor lamp, circa 1970 Montgomery Wards. These last two items were plugged into an extension chord that snaked across the concrete floor.
“Given time, the clutter will follow you out here too,” Peter told her. “Or rather, it would, if you were to refuse to accept Miss Gilbert’s services.”
The older woman’s face lit up. “I can do that? I can refuse to let her in?”
“No.” Stephanie bristled, firing a glare at her brother. “You can’t. It’s a done deal. She’s been prepaid. Like one of those phone cards at the supermarket. Which you’re always buying and then losing in your messy house.”
“Oh, I’m not all that disorganized,” Helen replied.
“Yes, you are. Ever since Mother died, you’ve been living in your own little world.”
All warmth instantly drained from Helen’s expression. She stopped stroking her cat and began to wring her pale hands. During our introductory meeting, Peter had explained to me that Lois Miller—his and Stephanie’s mother—had moved into her sister’s house two years ago after the death of their father. Lois had died herself just three months ago.
Stephanie grimaced as she scanned the surroundings and added under her breath, “Your own little world encompassing the garage, as it turns out.”
Peter dared to step forward far enough to touch an arm of the loveseat. “Didn’t this couch used to be in the living room? How did you move it out here?”
“Teddy helped me earlier this morning.”
“Teddy?” Stephanie shrieked. “My God! Now that Mother died, is he hitting on you?”
Helen narrowed her eyes, but said evenly, “I get to choose my own friends, Stephanie. Even if I apparently don’t get to choose my own living quarters.”
“Ms. Walker,” I interjected, “my hunch is that your nephew and niece are unhappy at the notion of having their beloved aunt living in a garage. Whether or not you’re comfortable out here.”
“Precisely,” Stephanie said stiffly. “So, let’s go inside now, and show Erin what she’s dealing with.” Her sing-song tone of voice was so patronizing that, even though she was acting as my advocate, my teeth were instantly on edge.
With surprising quickness, Helen rose and blocked her path to the door. “No, Stephanie. I’m not staying out here while you lead a full battalion through my home!”
Unable to suppress a smile at the notion of being termed “a full battalion,” I cheerfully suggested, “How about just you and I go take a quick look, in that case?”
Helen pursed her lips and sized me up from head to foot. At five-nine, I was considerable taller than she was. Despite Colorado’s typical warm, dry September weather, this morning I’d chosen to wear a conservative and sophisticated baby-blue skirt suit and pearls; my guess was that, otherwise, she might mistakenly assume that, at twenty-eight, I was too young to understand the sentimental value she placed on a lifetime’s accumulation of personal possessions.
Though she didn’t as much as smile, she finally nodded. “Peter, Stephanie, you two can wait out here.” She gestured at the sofa, where the calico cat was now spread out and licking a front paw. “Make yourselves at home.”
“In a garage?” her niece huffed.
“Unless you’d rather wait on the driveway,” Helen replied in sac
charine tones. She opened the door a crack, and the gray cat emerged from beneath the car and promptly dashed ahead of us, emitting a rr-r-rr the entire time, not unlike a child squealing as he tried to avoid being touched in a game of tag.
Stephanie harrumphed and looked at Peter, who let his hands flop to his sides in surrender. With their matching dark hair and eyes and patrician features, it was obvious that the two were siblings, but that was where all similarities ended. Strange to think that this retiring, diffident man was a lawyer. His sister, a real estate developer, had confidence to spare.
Helen ushered me past the heavy door and breathed an exaggerated sigh of relief as it shut behind us. For my part, although I’d certainly been forewarned, I had to stifle a gasp. This room made the Crestview County dump look like a city park.
Judging from what was visible of the hexagonal brown Linoleum flooring, we now stood in the kitchen. Helen sidled ahead of me through a narrow aisle that cut through towering heaps of junk. I bit back a cry of: Be careful! Her tiny, elderly body was dwarfed by the precarious stacks that surrounded her. She had hoarded paper products of every imaginable ilk—towels, napkins, slightly crumpled wrapping paper, newspapers, magazines, and flattened brown paper bags. Like the cherry atop a potentially lethal sundae, Helen had weighed down the paper piles with heavy objects—mostly clay flower pots—which were now just waiting to topple over and conk her on the head.
Other piles were built from discarded clothing, books, and assorted containers. Various items poked out from bulging cardboard boxes—the fuzzy blue leg of a stuffed toy, a stiff-with-dirt gardening glove with holes in its fingertips, an orange foam football, a bicycle-tire pump.
A stack of used tires served as a gigantic vase for an arrangement of long-handled gardening tools, and I bit my lip as I watched Helen duck below the pointy metal tines of a rake. She must have recently emptied out the garage, only to stash its contents here. That could explain why she’d been so adamant about not allowing her relatives through the door. She turned to face me at what could only be termed a “clearing,” four-feet wide or so. “Welcome to my home, Erin.”
With a forced smile, I said, “Thank you,” and followed her. I paused to relocate the rake safely between two relatively sturdy stacks of newspapers with my mother’s words: “This could poke out someone’s eye,” emerging unbidden from my lips.
Judging from the view of a window and sink afforded by a path to my left, we were roughly in the center of her kitchen. Ahead of me were the refrigerator and pantry. (Heaven only knows what she stored in there. By taking a diagonal approach, it appeared feasible to reach the back door, provided one wasn’t forced to exhale en route.
To our right was an entranceway to the rest of the house. Thankfully, I don’t suffer from claustrophobia, or I’d be racing in that direction. Instead my attention was drawn to a half-opened box near my feet. The box contained at least one truly stunning crystal candlestick holder, a fuzzy purple slipper festooned with a poodle head, and a veritable bushel of small items—from screws to dime-store party favors. If all of these boxes held similar contents, it could easily take an hour to go through each one.
“I suppose I should say ‘Pardon the mess,’ but that’s such a cliché.” There was a twinkle in Helen’s gray eyes.
“Fair enough.” So I’ll spare you the cliché of saying: I love what you’ve done with the place. The funny thing was that, I actually was picking up on a wonderful and welcoming ambiance to this house. I’d already fallen in love with the place from the outside. Set back from the road and beneath a thick canopy of trees, the dormers of this charming bungalow had all but winked an invitation to me. The house had freshly painted ecru siding with periwinkle trim and shutters. (Who can resist actual shutters?) Window boxes brimmed with pink begonias and scarlet geraniums. Outside the kitchen window, yellow and red rose bushes graced a white picket fence, which enclosed the meticulously cared-for, sprawling lawn. It was absolutely unheard of to have this much acreage, smack between the foothills of the Rockies and downtown Crestview.
Moreover, even though I could barely see the walls, I could sense there was warmth within them, and I loved the sensible layout of a classic two-story, doll-house-style dwelling. My most valuable professional skill was my ability to see the lovely possibilities in any given space, no matter how unlovely its current appearance might be. (That skill seemed to work in reverse when it came to men, however.) This home was a stunning sterling silver vase, now blackened with tarnish, crying out to me to use some elbow grease and uncover its dazzle.
From somewhere deeper in the house, a cat’s plaintive meow arose.
“Ella? It’s all right,” Helen called. “They’ll be leaving soon.”
“Ella is your gray cat, right?”
“Yes, and she gets upset easily. She doesn’t much care for my relatives.”
“And what’s your calico’s name?”
“Vator.”
I chuckled. “Ella and Vator? How cute! I love cats. My cat’s named Hildi. She’s a black long-hair with a white tip on her tail.”
Helen crossed her spindly arms, which poked out of the oversized purple-and-magenta floral blouse that she’d tucked into her black Capris. “You know, Erin, I was just being crotchety toward you out there for my niece and nephew’s sakes. You don’t have to work so hard at getting me to like you.”
“I sincerely love cats, Ms. Walker, and, believe it or not, I love your house, too.”
Her skeptical expression melted, changing into a heartwarming smile. “Call me Helen. But there’s a big problem here, so let’s get right to the point.” She wiggled her slightly gnarled fingers at the garage door. “You don’t want anything to do with those two characters, Erin. Furthermore, my house truly isn’t all that bad.”
Tact isn’t necessarily one of my strong points, but an understatement was clearly in order here. “The thing is, though, you have so much open storage that the overall charm of your home is diminished.”
She furrowed her brow. “Well, it’s true the kitchen needs work. After all, I had to put the garage contents someplace. I gave up cooking, you see, after my sister, Lois, died. And the basement was already jam-packed. Plus, well, I guess the den is a problem.”
“Oh?”
“When Lois first moved in, we turned the den into a storage room. Neither of us much cared for watching TV anyway...though I suppose it would be nice someday to see if it’s still in there.”
“Helen, my first concern, which we both know your nephew and niece share, is that your home is a fire hazard. These papers are highly combustible.” Afraid that the slightest shove could cause a domino effect, I brushed my fingertips on the edge of a wobbly looking stack of yellowing newspapers. “In the case of a fire, they’re blocking your access to the windows and doors.”
“Not really.” She made a Vanna White gesture at the window. “There’s also a path to the back door. You just have to bob and weave a little. Besides, I’m living in the garage now.”
“The problem with that is, in an electrical fire, the power will go out, and then the garage door won’t open. You’d be forced to search in darkness for the manual release, and even if you found it, you’d need the strength to lift the heavy door.”
“Maybe so. But I never use the stove anymore, just the microwave, and I’m careful to keep everything clear of the heating ducts.” She gave me a reassuring smile. “Truly, Erin. You can just give my nephew and niece their money back and turn down the job.”
“I already promised them that I wouldn’t let myself get discouraged too easily. And I very much want to accept this job.” I had to swallow my strong urge to add in all earnestness: This house needs me!
“Oh, but you mustn’t accept it.” She grabbed my wrist and met my gaze with fearful eyes. “You need to stay out of my house, Erin. For your own good. And mine.”
“Why?”
She frowned, her gray eyes still searching mine. “The real reason I’ve moved into the garage i
s for my personal safety.”
“Because of the fire hazard, you mean?”
She shook her head emphatically, causing a small section of pure white hair to unfurl from her bun. “Oh, it’s far more serious than that, I’m afraid. Someone keeps breaking into my house!”
“You mean, you’ve had a burglar? More than one?” I asked in alarm.
Again, she shook her head. Her anxious gaze held mine. “Even worse. I know it sounds crazy, but just three months ago, someone broke into this house and killed my sister! And now they’re trying to kill me!”
Chapter 2
“Your sister was...murdered?” I repeated, stunned. “Stephanie told me just three days ago that her mother died of natural causes.”
“That’s what she’s chosen to believe,” Helen said tearfully. “So does her brother. It’s so much easier that way.” She shivered, as though an icy draft had made its way through her mountainous stacks. “But Lois was killed by a bell pepper.”
I gaped at her. I had a ridiculous image of a man-sized bright green pepper with Mickey Mouse arms and legs wielding a razor-sharp axe. “Pardon?”
“Lois was deathly allergic to them.”
“I didn’t even realize there was such an allergy.”
“Oh, yes. Peppers can cause every bit as severe an allergic reaction as peanuts. My poor sister is proof of that fact.”
“But, how could her eating a pepper have been murder?”
“The night it happened, she’d had a bad head cold, you see, so I made dinner for her. I was leaving town for a couple of days, and when I saw how sick she was, I offered to stay, but she insisted she’d be fine. The killer added bell peppers to the casserole I’d prepared.” She lifted her palms as if to fend off anticipated protestations. “Oh, I know how crazy that sounds, Erin. But it’s the only possible explanation. We never kept peppers in our kitchen, let alone cooked with them. It was the head cold, I’m sure, that masked the first symptoms, till it was too late.”
