Killed by Clutter
Page 12
“It was perfectly fine with me, Helen. I truly didn’t mind in the least. I’m their oldest member by at least ten years. They all felt the scrapbook was taking up too much of my time and energy, and Rachel was dying to do it. They only had my best interests at heart.”
“Your ‘best interests at heart,’” Helen mocked. “Pish posh! People always claim they’re acting for someone else’s best interest, when they’re really just rationalizing their own heartless acts.”
I looked into the rearview mirror to gauge Kay’s reaction to that. She was staring at the back of Helen’s head. Kay said evenly, “Yes, I guess you have a point there.”
A chill went up my spine. Helen winced at her friend’s hostile comment.
Our conversation during the rest of the drive home was forced. Although I had no idea what Kay was referring to, Helen had obviously hit a nerve when she’d mentioned “heartless acts,” and we had to flounder to defuse the tension. As we pulled into Helen’s driveway, the lovely flowerboxes and the spotless siding and cheerful trim made her home so inviting that it reminded me again how much potential this place had, buried beneath all those layers of possessions. I needed to get back to work. If Sullivan and I could somehow get the first floor de-cluttered in another four or five days, maybe by next week I could tackle her basement and inventory—as well as dispose of—everything that had been destroyed by the flood.
“Helen, could I do a quick survey of the main floor? Steve and I should be able to finish up the kitchen this afternoon, but I’d like to get a handle on tomorrow’s goals as well.”
“Oh, absolutely,” Helen said, hopping down from my van with surprising agility. “In fact why don’t I make us all a nice lunch while you’re doing that?”
“I’m so happy to hear that you’re using your kitchen again.” I replied. “And I’d love to, Helen, but my day is jam-packed with client appointments from here on out.”
“I should get home soon, too,” Kay said. “I can get a ride with Erin.”
“Okay,” Helen said, though I could feel her happiness fade. I had visions of her deciding then and there that she was never going to cook for anyone ever again, so she might as well rebury her kitchen. She unlocked the front door. “I wish I hadn’t forgotten to take the garage door opener with me this morning. Now I’m not going to be able to tell if anyone broke in through the front door while I was gone.”
To my surprise, the living room was much neater than it had been yesterday evening when I’d last seen it. Although the furnishings were still a hopeless mishmash—Bentwood rocker, glass coffee table, nightstand cum end table, a recliner, and a pseudo-leather lounger—all the stacks of sundry items were gone. The piano and its bench had been cleared off and polished. The scrapbooks were still stored on the floor, but they’d at least been lined up along the walls instead of in piles.
Following me inside, Kay said, “I meant to mention on our drive down, Erin, how impressive your progress on this house has been.”
“Much as I’d like to, I can’t take any credit for this room. So far my work’s been limited to the kitchen.” I gave Helen a smile, which she didn’t return. Uh-oh. Her lack of pride dimmed my hopes for my efforts to effect a permanent change in her living space. “Helen? Did you do all this yourself?”
She nodded. “Due to a bad case of insomnia. I was such a nervous wreck yesterday at the thought of doing Audrey’s show that I cleaned this room when I should have been sleeping.”
An unnerving thought occurred to me. “Where did you move everything?” Don’t say the kitchen! Anyplace but the—
“Oh, it’s all in the kitchen.”
Damn! “We were going to move everything out of the kitchen and into another room, remember? So that we could get all your cabinets and pantry cleaned and reorganized.” I couldn’t completely hide my annoyance.
“Well, I know, but now the kitchen had the most available storage space, and.... Oh, dear. I’ve made more work for you. Well, I’ll just move my stuff back in here, then.”
“No, please don’t. That’s counterproductive. We’ll just start today by moving everything else out of the living room. This way we’re at least halfway through with reorganizing your living room.”
As I scanned the over-stuffed entertainment unit and the long line of scrapbooks along the baseboards, I hoped that I wasn’t underestimating the work that remained to be done in this space. Plus, at some point, I needed to get that sofa and floor lamp out of the garage and back in here. Along with putting a slipcover on the sofa. Come to think of it, I had to call Stephanie later today and ask that we rework the budget so as to allow me to bring in my paint crew. (Which, with Helen’s objections to large numbers of “strangers” in her house, meant a “crew” of just one painter.) I had to have some fun here, by God, and nothing invigorates a room for less money than a fresh coat of paint. I could see a soothing sage in this room, a bright buttery-yellow for the dining room, and maybe something daring for that disaster of a den—cornflower blue, perhaps.
Kay’s attention had been drawn to Helen’s photo albums again, and she made a beeline for the one marked “George Miller.” She snatched it up and started paging through it, saying, “I never did look at this yesterday when I saw that you’d finally unearthed this one.”
My suspicious nature still running amok, I wondered what she’d been doing while she was alone in this house, after Helen and Audrey left and before I arrived to pick her up. My hunch was that she’d pored through the album the instant Helen was gone.
Paging through the book, Kay said, “My, my, Helen! You’ve done such a great...” Her voice faded, and worry lines creased her forehead. “That’s odd,” she muttered as she flipped forward from the last page of the book.
“What?” Helen asked.
“Why are a third of the pages missing?”
Chapter 14
“Pardon?” Helen said, the color leaving her face.
“Well, take a look at it,” Kay said. “This book is the one you put together on George’s life and career accomplishments, but it doesn’t even go up through nineteen sixty, when we all met George. It’s all just things you pieced together from the photographs that Lois collected from his boyhood home.”
Helen was clearly flustered, yet she said, “I was afraid something like this would happen. The binder had snapped open a long time ago, and the pages got scattered all around the house. I must have accidentally discarded them.”
Kay studied her friend’s features incredulously, and like her, I didn’t believe a single word. “You don’t discard anything,” she said accusingly.
“I do now, though.” Helen waggled her thumb at me. “It’s either listen to Erin and do as she says or have to answer to Stephanie, my Nazi Niece.”
“When you put it like that, I don’t blame you. I’d sure opt for listening to Erin, too. That Stephanie is such a one-woman tank. And heaven help whoever gets in her way.”
Helen sighed. “She can be difficult to deal with, but she means well.”
Kay scoffed, “How do you know she ‘means well?’ What she means is to boot you right out of house and home!”
Helen pursed her lips and continued to stare forlornly at the scrapbook in Kay’s hands. She muttered, “Maybe so.”
“We’ll fix her wagon if she tries to give you the boot.” Kay grinned at me. “Won’t we, Erin?”
I merely offered a lame smile. I couldn’t answer without insulting one of my clients, and this was a family matter. Besides, I didn’t believe Kay’s routine about only just now noticing the missing pages. Kay was either covering for the fact that she’d snooped earlier this morning, or she’d taken the pages herself. She seemed to have an old axe to grind, whereas Helen must have gotten so used to Kay’s occasional snipes over the years that they barely registered with her now.
Kay crammed the book back into its slot along the floor. Maybe there was an attractive bookcase in the den, which I could move into this room. If not, I could design on
e for her—one with surface spaces that could be pulled out to feature a couple of scrapbooks and Helen’s beautiful layouts. Kay was saying, “Stephanie might have gone too far. If she was trying to scare you by flooding your basement, she’s going to have to be stopped. She never would have intentionally killed anyone, but you have to suspect that maybe she sabotaged your cellar, and the whole thing backfired.”
“I know my niece better than you do,” Helen replied, her voice more worried than chastising. “I just can’t believe she’s completely evil.”
As opposed to partially evil? Helen was drumming her fingers on her crossed arms, anxious about something that she clearly wanted to keep to herself.
“That’s true,” Kay murmured absently. “She’s your niece, not mine, thank—” She stopped herself and turned to me. “Hadn’t we better get going? My next-door neighbors are coming over today, and I was going to bake us some goodies.” She gave Helen a quick hug. “I’m sorry to rush off. But you know how I hate to have a bare cupboard when friends visit. We’ll have lunch soon. Tomorrow.”
“That would be wonderful,” Helen replied, but her smile lacked its usual warmth. She accompanied us as far as the porch and stood watching as we drove away. Kay waved back at her as though they would be separated for an eternity.
As we turned the corner, Kay sighed and settled back into her seat. “I wonder if they’re going to arrest Rachel Schwartz for...harassment or trespassing, or something.”
“I doubt the station executives will want to press charges. Especially once they learn she’s a recent widow.”
Though I felt a tinge of guilt at prying, this was an excellent chance to befriend Kay and get her to confide in me. “Rachel really seems to hate Helen. I saw Rachel give Helen the evil eye the other day, right before the...accident in Helen’s basement.”
Kay nodded. “The feeling’s mutual. Although Helen’s much too nice to sink anywhere near as low as Rachel does. But those two definitely bear grudges toward each other.”
“Why?”
“Oh, greed, envy, lust, spitefulness. The usual.”
“The ‘usual’? That’s quite the heavy-duty list, wouldn’t you say?”
“I suppose so, but then, Rachel and Helen lived across the street from one another for twenty years, and a lot of water’s passed under their bridge.”
“Such as?”
Kay sighed again. “Let’s just say that, back in the day, Jack was quite the ladies’ man.”
Even in my peripheral vision, though, I detected a hint of a smile that made me think that this gossip wasn’t exactly being dragged out of her. Jack’s fondness for women could certainly explain Rachel’s obvious unwillingness the other day to leave him and Helen alone, even for a moment. “Jack had a wandering eye?”
She nodded and muttered slyly, “If only his eye had been the only part of his anatomy that wandered, Jack might still be alive.”
“You think that Jack was killed because he was having an affair?”
“Indirectly.”
“Are you saying you suspect Rachel killed him?”
“Well...she’d be my first guess. Though that’s all it is, of course. A pure guess. I’m thinking she either accidentally got the wrong victim by electrocuting her husband, or she got the right one, but cleverly made it look like Helen was the intended target.” She leaned toward me and added in a conspiratorial voice, “It’s always the spouse who’s the prime suspect, you know.”
“Is it?”
“Oh, yes. I watch cop shows all the time. But then again, I’m biased. Rachel is not one of my favorite people, which makes me feel torn. If she’s innocent, the poor woman’s just lost her husband, and here I am, speaking badly of her. The Bible teaches us that we’re all God’s children...but Rachel Schwartz is definitely not His best work.”
Three hours later as scheduled, I returned to Helen’s house to resume my job. No sign of Sullivan’s van. She opened the door before I could ring the doorbell, and she was clearly flustered. Her bun that had been immaculate this morning once again in disarray. She grabbed my arm and tugged me inside, shutting the door behind us. “Erin! I thought we’d all agreed that you were going to let me go through the newspapers in the den myself before you took any of them away.”
“We did.”
“But they’re missing! The important stacks are, that is. The ones in the corner.”
“I didn’t touch the newspapers, and neither did Steve Sullivan. Neither of us has even ventured into your den, Helen.” And, judging by the view through the French doors, it was surprising that she could reach the corner of the room, let alone look at the dates of the newspapers to determine some of them were missing.
“In that case, I’ve been burglarized!”
“You think somebody stole your old newspapers?”
“Along with those pages from my scrapbook. And there’s no way I’ll get any help from the police to recover my loss. They’re not going to rush to investigate the theft of several pages of an old lady’s scrapbook. Not to mention a bunch of old newspapers.”
“The pages that Kay noticed were missing weren’t merely lost, were they?”
She shook her head. “They were stolen. But don’t tell Kay, please. She has a vested interest.” Helen snatched up the scrapbook that Kay had been looking through to show me how abruptly it ended. “The killer ripped out all the pages from my scrapbook that were about Lois and George’s courtship.”
“Why would somebody want to take pages out of your scrapbook?” Hadn’t your album been here, untouched, for several years?”
“Yes, but that’s one of the good things about clutter, Erin. Nobody but me knows where to begin to look for anything in it. When Kay first showed me that some pages were missing, I kept trying not to worry. I figured I’d simply redo them. That’s why I’ve been keeping backup editions of the newspapers from the fifties and sixties safe and sound in my den. I already have duplicates of the snapshots.” She added sadly, “I should have photocopied the letters, though.”
I stood at the now-open doors to the den and looked at the narrow makeshift aisle. Helen had burrowed her way to the adjacent corner of the room. There stacks of newspapers were at least five feet deep and equally high. “There’s still so many papers there, though, Helen. How can you know for certain that some editions were...stolen?”
“Because they’re arranged chronologically. The oldest ones are on the bottom and back against the wall. And there are certain dates that are fixed in my mind. Those are missing, Erin.”
Knowing I needed to get rid of that gargantuan accumulation of newspapers, I seized the opportunity. “Helen, I’ll make a deal with you. You write down each of the dates that are fixed in your head for me. Sullivan and I will find and save those papers for you. In exchange, you’ll let us get rid of all the other papers.”
“You’re not listening to me, Erin! Those editions were stolen! Along with half my scrapbook! Probably by the killer, because he or she realized they were incriminating!”
“But old newspaper articles are public records. They’re stored on computers. It wouldn’t do a killer any good just to get rid of your copies.” Helen started to protest, but I laid my hand on her shoulder. “Maybe whoever is breaking into your house has been looking through your papers but, unlike you, didn’t know the precise dates to search for. If so, the stacks have been rifled through and are probably out of order.”
The doorbell rang. “Rachel Schwartz surely isn’t at my door today,” Helen told me. “I suppose this will be Steve Sullivan. Our conversation will have to wait.”
“It’s okay. You can trust him.”
She stopped and turned back. “But...I really don’t want to air my dirty laundry to just anyone.”
“He’s not ‘just anyone,’ he’s my associate, and he’s going to have to help me look through your newspaper stacks for the few editions that you’re going to keep.”
“I can only keep a few?” she asked in wide-eyed horror.
The doorbell rang again.
“Fine,” she snapped, swung open the door, and cut off his apology for being late to inform him: “Erin Gilbert is stubborn and unreasonable!”
“Ah, you’re getting to know each other well, then,” he quipped, but winked at me as he stepped inside. He was in casual attire today, jeans and a bright orange polo shirt. “What’s up?”
“Change in plans for the day.” Two hours ago, we’d spoken on the phone about my desire to complete the kitchen today and to remove the junk she’d shifted there from the living room. “We’re going to work on the den. Someone’s taken or moved some of Helen’s important editions from her stash there.”
“After stealing my scrapbook pages,” she piped up. “The ones that concerned my sister and her husband’s courtship and marriage. And all of his trial proceedings.”
“What trial?” Sullivan and I asked simultaneously.
Claiming that it was “a long story,” she insisted that we all take seats in the living room before answering. I tried to ignore how uncomfortable her Naugahyde chair was and how awkward Sullivan looked on the Bentwood rocker. I was so dying to perk up this seating arrangement that my knees were twitching with restless-leg syndrome. From her perch at the piano, with school-teacher inflections to her voice, she began, “George Miller—my late brother-in-law—and my friend Teddy Frederickson were once partners in the Denver police force.”She frowned. “Back then, Lois was a floorwalker at a department store. Unbeknownst to me at the time when Lois and I first met them, she had recently blown the whistle on a shoplifting operation. And, unbeknownst to either of us, the kingpins were George and Teddy, who sometimes moonlighted as security guards at the store.”
“Were they stealing the stuff themselves, or deliberately looking the other way?” Sullivan asked.
“Probably both, but Teddy was the only one who was convicted of anything. George even got to keep his job, though he transferred to the Crestview police department. The reports about the trial were in the papers that have gone missing from my den.”