Hoarded to Death (A Jamie Brodie Mystery)

by Perry, Meg

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or individuals - living or dead - is entirely coincidental.

  ©2013 All rights reserved.

  For the special collections librarians.

  September

  "Today, on Clean My Hoard..."

  An obese young woman, sitting in a chair on a rickety front porch. "My name is Tami, and I'm a hoarder."

  Tami continued to speak as a camera panned around a room piled to the ceiling with boxes, bags, clothes, and garbage. "If I don't clean up my house, I'm gonna lose my kids."

  A little girl, about six years old. "I hate the way my house looks. I wish mommy would clean up."

  The camera switched to Tami and another woman yelling at each other. Tami: "I won't let you take away my kids!" The other woman: "You won't have any choice if you don't clean up this mess!"

  The title screen appeared, then a commercial started. I hit the fast forward button on the remote.

  It was Sunday morning. We’d spent all day yesterday on a friend's boat fishing and drinking beer. Today I was mildly sunburned and hung over. Pete was tanned and less hung over. We'd planned to go hiking today, but it had turned cold and foggy and we’d decided to stay in.

  I was on the sofa; Pete was on the floor in front of me. I was massaging his left shoulder. Back in June, Pete was shot in an attempt on my life. He’d finished physical therapy but still had some muscle stiffness. Especially after a day of fishing.

  I'd moved in with former boyfriend Pete Ferguson on an emergency basis three and a half months ago after my apartment was vandalized and set on fire. We’d dated for a while several years ago, and had remained friends. I’d gone through a couple of other boyfriends since then, and I was glad to be back with Pete. We’d settled into a cozy domesticity. But it still felt temporary to me. I was still paying rent on my old apartment, since my other roommates, my brother Kevin and his girlfriend Abby, couldn’t swing the entire rent on their own. The time was coming in a few weeks when we’d have to either renew the lease on our two-bedroom apartment, or Kevin and Abby would have to get a new lease on a one-bedroom. I was facing a big decision.

  Pete said he loved me. And I cared a lot about him. We got along great. There was absolutely no reason that I should be worried about the future.

  So why was I?

  The commercials were over, and I hit the play button. Tami the hoarder was talking as the camera panned around her house in more detail. What a mess.

  I just didn't understand the desire to gather stuff. When our apartment had been set on fire, it was all of my belongings that were torched. I'd lost everything except my computer, my car, and the clothes on my back. Starting with a clean slate was refreshing, in a way. I didn't have nearly as much stuff now, and I was perfectly happy. It gave me a sense of freedom. It was a lot easier to decide what to wear to work when you had fewer choices. And I hadn’t worn a tie in two and a half months.

  I picked up the remote to fast forward through the commercials again. "Okay, take your pick. Does she lose her kids or not? By the end of the show?"

  Pete mulled it over. "I say no."

  "All right. Then I say yes."

  Clean My Hoard was a show that we never failed to watch. We both found it fascinating, but for different reasons. Pete was a psychologist, an assistant professor at Santa Monica College, and it was instructive for him to watch personality disorders in action. For me, my brother Kevin's ex-wife, Jennifer, was a hoarder. It's one of the reasons they divorced. Since then I've always been morbidly fascinated by the hoarding shows. It's like watching a train wreck.

  It was sick humor on our part, but Pete and I would always bet on the outcome of the show. Would the lady lose her kids? Would the man lose his house? Would the husband divorce his wife? The loser of the bet had to clean the baseboards of the townhouse that week.

  Pete and I were both neat by nature. We didn't have many characteristics of stereotypical gay guys, but I guess that was one of them. We liked a clean house, and we didn’t mind cleaning. But we both hated doing baseboards. So that's what we bet for.

  By the end of the show, Tami hadn’t yet lost her kids. She’d cleaned up enough of the house to satisfy her sister, who was the one threatening to call Child Protective Services.

  I’d be cleaning baseboards this week.

  Monday morning, after going for a run and cleaning the baseboards, I hurried to the bus stop. I’m a librarian at UCLA’s Young Research Library, with a subject specialty in ancient history. The fall quarter was starting in a week, and I had a lot to do. I spent the morning at my desk, updating some of our online research guides, filling information requests from faculty who’d been off all summer, and working on a proposal for an upcoming conference. At 1:00, I went to the reference desk for my regular two-hour shift. My partner on the desk and best friend at work, Liz Nguyen, met me there.

  At precisely 1:30, our regular eccentric Clinton approached the desk.

  Liz said, “Hi, Clinton.”

  He regarded us gravely and said, “The word of the day is rectitude.” He bowed at the waist and strode away.

  Clinton performed this service daily, Monday through Friday, rain or shine. Liz and I had improved our respective vocabularies greatly as a result. Liz looked up rectitude. She laughed. “It says, ‘The quality or state of being straight.’”

  “No way.” I snickered. “Well, he was half right.”

  “It also means righteousness.”

  “Ah. So you’re straight and I’m righteous.”

  We both got tickled and had to pull ourselves back together for the next patron.

  When I got back to my office shortly after 3:00, there was a message on my phone. "Hello, Mr. Brodie, this is Raven Hechesky. I'm the assistant producer for the TV show Clean My Hoard.”

  What??

  “We have an application for our show from Jennifer Graham, and she has listed you as one of the people she'd like to have on her support team as she goes through this process. I'd like to meet with you this week, at your convenience." She left her number.

  Holy shit. My brother’s ex was going to clean up her mess? On national TV? And she wanted me to help her? And she’d taken back her maiden name. Was that a sign that Jennifer was getting her act together?

  My brother Kevin had met Jennifer Graham in college, here at UCLA. Jennifer had grown up on the edge of poverty in a double-wide mobile home in Julian, California, a tiny town of a few hundred people in the mountains of San Diego County. I hadn’t gotten to know her well. While she and Kevin were dating, I was in college at Berkeley. After they got married, I moved to Oxford, England, to begin graduate school. I could count the number of times I’d interacted with her on both hands. Including the wedding. She’d always seemed a bit standoffish. Or maybe she was just shy. Either way, we didn’t talk much – but for some reason I’d always felt sorry for her. Even after the divorce.

  My dad started mentioning problems in Kevin and Jennifer's relationship during my third year at Oxford, but I was having problems in my own relationship with my longtime boyfriend and couldn't worry too much about what was going on with Kevin. My boyfriend broke up with me, I graduated from Oxford, and moved to LA for library school. Kevin and Jennifer finalized their divorce, and Kevin and I moved in together. I hadn’t heard anything of Jennifer since. She and Kevin hadn’t had kids, so there was no reason for them to stay in contact.

  Before I agreed to see Raven Hechesky, I had to get the okay from Kevin. If he didn’t want me to participate, there was no point in meeting with Raven.
<
br />   Might as well find out now. I texted Kevin. "Call if you can."

  My phone rang almost immediately. "Hey, what's up?"

  "You're not busy, huh?"

  "Nah, not right now. Working on a cold case, going through old evidence." Kevin was an LAPD homicide detective.

  "Well, you're not going to believe this." I told him about Raven’s message.

  Kevin was quiet for a minute. Then, "You are shitting me."

  "Nope. How could I make this shit up? Jennifer's going on TV, and she apparently wants me there."

  "I can't believe this." I could tell Kevin had gotten up and was pacing. "There's no way she would have decided to do this on her own. Someone or something must be forcing her into it. Maybe she's gonna be evicted if she doesn't clean up."

  "That could be it."

  "I cannot fucking believe that she’s asking you to do this."

  "It's entirely up to you, Kev. If you say no, I'll call them and tell them to forget it."

  He was quiet again, but I could still hear him pacing.

  "And I’d have to run it by Pete. He could say no, too."

  More pacing. Then, "You know what? Why the hell not?"

  I was shocked. "Really?"

  "Really. Jennifer is a sick puppy. If this gets her out of her own fucking head and on the road to recovery, it'll be a good thing for society. But there is one condition."

  "Sure, anything."

  "My name does NOT get mentioned in any way, shape, or form. And I'd rather you only use your first name. Actually, I'm gonna make that a condition. Tell them you'll only do it if they won't mention your last name on the air."

  "Okay. That's better for me, too." Another thought occurred to me. "I'd better get this approved by UCLA. I don't want to get fired over something like this."

  "Right. But if the U and Pete both give you the go ahead, and you can be first name only, then give it your best shot."

  We said goodbye. I still wasn’t sure about helping Jennifer – but as a fan of the show, I was curious about the inner workings of Clean My Hoard. I dialed the number Raven had left, and she answered on the first ring.

  “Hi, Ms. Hechesky, I’m Jamie Brodie. You left…”

  She jumped right in. “Yes, thanks for getting back to me so quickly. I’d like to set up a meeting with you. Tomorrow afternoon, around 4:00? Your office?”

  Well, that was efficient. I checked my calendar. “If you can make it 4:15, that’s a deal.”

  “Yep, that’ll work. See you then.” She clicked off before I even said goodbye.

  Busy lady. I guess she could figure out how to find me.

  She could. Tuesday afternoon, she showed up five minutes early. I was finishing up a brief meeting with my supervisor. I saw Dr. Loomis out and ushered Raven in. She was a tiny person, with a jet-black crew cut, wearing black leggings and a loose black shirt over a gray tank top, and smelling faintly of cigarette smoke.

  Clad in black: the unofficial uniform of backstage Hollywood.

  She didn’t waste any time getting started. "Dr. Brodie, I'm Raven Hechesky, associate producer of the show "Clean My Hoard." She shook my hand briskly. "We are working with Jennifer Graham, and we're going to feature her on a coming episode of the show.”

  "That's great. I hope you all can help her."

  Raven nodded. "That's certainly our intention. Do you watch the show?"

  "Actually, I do. My partner and I use it as motivation for cleaning house on the weekends."

  She laughed. "Well, as you know, then, we ask as much of the featured individual's family as possible to be involved in the process. Jennifer gave us your name as a family member who might be willing to participate."

  "I have to tell you, that really surprises me. Jennifer's been divorced from my brother for six years. I haven't seen her since. I don't even know where she's living. Why would she want me to help?"

  Raven frowned. "Ah. Jennifer didn't indicate that it had been that long since her divorce."

  "Oh, yeah. As far as I know, she and my brother haven't had any contact since then."

  "Hmm." Raven mused. "Our problem is that we're having trouble finding people to take part in Jennifer's recovery. Her father has passed away, and her mother hung up on us when we called. Jennifer doesn’t want any of her coworkers to be involved. Her sister lives in Louisiana and can't make the trip. She gave us your name as someone who might be sympathetic. She also gave us your other sister-in-law's name - Valerie, is it?"

  Valerie was married to my oldest brother, Jeff. "Yeah. I doubt she'll be interested. But you can ask." I frowned. "I don't understand why she put me on the list, really. Or Valerie, for that matter. Even when Jennifer and Kevin were married, she wasn't close to our family. Then when she maxed out all the credit cards buying stuff and started filling the house up and wouldn't go to counseling, he had to get out."

  Raven sat back in her chair. "See, that's the kind of thing we can use on the show. That sort of background information helps flesh out Jennifer's story."

  "But that's all I know. I was living in England that entire time. I didn't see any of it while it was happening. All I know is what Kevin told me."

  Raven looked intrigued. "Jennifer didn't give us Kevin's name to contact. But he'd be the ideal participant. Do you think he would?"

  "Oh, hell no." I laughed. "Suffice it to say he'd hang up on you too."

  "Ah. Too bad."

  "Doesn't she have any friends?"

  "She did give us one name. Someone that she grew up with, as I understand it. But so far that's the only person that has agreed to participate." Raven gave me a we're-counting-on-you kind of look. "We could really use your help."

  Shit. She had me, and she knew it. “I have some conditions.”

  “Such as?”

  “My last name cannot be used on the air at all.”

  “That’s no problem.”

  “I also have to talk to my partner and okay it with the university. What's your deadline?”

  "Well, obviously we'd like to know as soon as possible. But the deadline is next Monday, by 8:00 a.m." She handed me her business card. "You can call or text." She stood up, and we shook hands again. "Thank you for considering this. I know Jennifer would be very grateful for your help."

  I wasn't so sure about that.

  I called to see if my supervisor, Dr. Loomis, was in her office. She was, so I headed up there.

  Dr. Loomis was also a tiny woman, but I’d never seen her in black. She seemed to have an endless supply of tailored pastel suits. She wore her gray hair in a bun, so she looked the part of the stodgy old-school librarian. In reality, old-school was the last term I’d use to describe her. She was as tech savvy as any of us and read PC Magazine for fun. I loved working for her.

  I explained the situation to Dr. Loomis. She was intrigued. “How interesting. I’ve never known anyone with a hoarding problem.”

  “What do you think about me appearing on the show?”

  “It’s fine with me. I agree that it’s a good idea not to use your last name. But you’d better check with HR to make sure they have no objection.”

  That would have to wait until morning. It was 5:00, and HR didn’t stick around after five. I said goodnight to Dr. Loomis, went back to my office to gather my stuff, and headed for the bus stop and home.

  Pete’s home, that is.

  Maybe mine too? I really needed to make a decision.

  I really hated making relationship decisions.

  Pete’s schedule was more flexible than mine, and he didn’t have any late afternoon classes. So he usually beat me home and had dinner nearly ready, and tonight was no exception. He was a good cook, and tonight he’d made a salmon pasta salad. I changed into sweats and a t-shirt, and we ate on the small front patio of the townhouse. There was a nice screen of privacy hedge between us and 17 Street. We could hear traffic but couldn’t see any.

  While we ate, I told Pete about my visit from Raven. He was also surprised that she had listed
my name.

  “I really think she was kind of desperate. Apparently her family has refused to participate.”

  “Huh. From what I remember of them, that’s not a shock.”

  I looked at Pete in surprise. “Hey, that’s right. You were partners with Kevin while all that was going on.” Pete was an ex-cop. He and Kevin were partners during Kevin’s first six years with LAPD. They were still best friends.

  “Oh, yeah. I lived through that divorce right with Kev. It’s been a long time, but I bet I knew Jennifer better than you did.”

  “Well, then, you should be on the show too.”

  Pete looked horrified. “Oh, hell no. No way.”

  “Why not? You don’t have to be interviewed, you can just be one of the people who helps. And wouldn’t it be interesting to study what goes on between Jennifer and the psychologist in person instead of just what they edit to show on screen?”

  He glared at me. “You just don’t want to go by yourself.”

  “You’re right, I don’t. But it’s going to take a whole weekend – wouldn’t you rather spend it together?” I had him. “And you’ll probably get some great anecdotes to use in your classes. And Val might be there.” Although I doubted it. “It’ll be fun.”

  “No, it won’t. But you’re right about getting material for lectures.” Pete sighed. “Okay. But if anything goes wrong, I’m holding you personally responsible.”

  “Hey, what could go wrong?”

  Ha.

  The next couple of days were hectic. Our two-hour reference shift was the closest thing to downtime that Liz and I had, and we were able to analyze Clinton’s visits. He seemed to be working on a theme. The word of the day on Tuesday had been orphrey, “a band of elaborate embroidery decorating the front of certain ecclesiastical vestments.” On Wednesday, the word was cucullate, a botanical term meaning “having the shape of a cowl.”

  On Thursday, when Clinton approached the desk, we were ready for him. We both sat back in our chairs, with our palms pressed together in a position of prayer.

  Clinton tipped his head slightly to the side. He seemed to be suppressing a smile. “The word of the day is gyrovague.” He stepped back and bowed, then winked at us and walked away.