The Cluttered Corpse (2 page)

Emmy Lou threw back her head and laughed. “Oh no. Not by a long shot.”

She squared her shoulders and sailed down the hall, carrying the stuffies. “We haven't redecorated upstairs yet. This whole level was an earlier renovation from the previous owners. We have great ideas, but…we need to get things under control first.”

I checked out the hallway. Except for stuffed animals lined up against the wall, three deep, it was pleasant and well appointed. Maybe it lacked the wow factor of the first floor, but you'd hardly call a few toys out of control. Most people would be ecstatic to have a bedroom level like this.

Emmy Lou stopped at a closed door and paused. I found myself holding my breath. She turned the handle slowly and said, “Dwayne has been so good about it. Really, it's for him that I want to get the…situation in hand.”

“Sure,” I said.

The door swung open to…what? Santa's toy shop post-tornado? Every surface was covered with something fluffy and huggable in a nontoxic pastel shade.

Emmy Lou bit her lip.

I found my voice. “So, this is…?”

“The bedroom.”

“
Your
bedroom?”

“Yes.”

“I see. Where's the bed? Oh, there it is. I didn't actually notice it at first because of the giant pandas and all that. Is that a stuffed snake?”

“Cute, isn't it? I think the rainbow stripes are adorable.”

I draw the line at snakes, however pastel and striped. “Adorable” and “snake” do not belong in the same sentence. Still, Emmy Lou needed my advice, not a list of my phobias—with snakes as number one. Plus I'm supposed to be helpful, not be a smug, judgmental pain in the butt. I gave the room a second look, trying to assess the large space. The previous owners must have opened up the ceiling into the attic level and installed the cathedral window overlooking the backyard, where an enormous oak tree was starting to bud. It would give wonderful shade in the summer. Under normal circumstances, I would have loved this room.

“Maybe you can sit here,” Emmy Lou said, sweeping a family of plush yellow duckies from the only visible chair.

I stayed standing. “I can see why you want to get your collection in hand. This will be a spectacular space when you're done.”

“You think we can do it?” By this time she had a bead of sweat on her upper lip. She might love these creatures, but they were giving her grief. Why was she letting this happen? But, of course, that was what I needed to figure out.

I said, “It will be great. We'll have fun.”

“Do you think? That's a relief. I've been feeling so overwhelmed.”

Emmy Lou was the kind of client I loved: she knew what she needed to do but not how to do it. I could tell she would follow through.

“As soon as we have a plan, you're going to feel better. Let's check out the rest of this level. Is there another bedroom?”

“Oh. Yes, but it's sort of an office.”

“Okay, we'll have a look. We might need it for swing space.”

She bit her lip. “There's nowhere to swing anything. Certainly not a stuffed cat.”

I grinned. “Cute.”

She said wryly, “Too bad it's true.”

“And how about the bathroom?”

She hesitated. “It's not too bad. Not like this. Now that you're here, I have to look at all this stuff in a new light. I can't believe that this whole collection has gotten so totally out of hand.”

I shrugged. “It happens.”

She reached out, picked up a toy Dalmatian, and stroked its spotted fun fur. “It feels so lovely. Do you like plush toys?”

Sometimes it's better not to disclose your likes and dislikes to clients. “I have two real dogs. They're pretty overwhelming sometimes too.”

“I've never had a dog,” she said. “Only these.” She pointed toward a pile of cuddly doglike creatures, pale blue, green, and pink. She definitely had a pastel theme going with the stuffies.

“Real ones are a lot more trouble,” I said. “Trust me.”

“I'm not sure that's true. Do they multiply overnight?”

“Why? Do your stuffed animals multiply overnight?” I chuckled.

She gave a nervous giggle, at odds with her sophisticated look. “They're popping up everywhere. I don't even remember buying some of them. I guess that's when you know your collection is out of control.”

“They're not all sentimental purchases?”

“Some of them, for sure. It started when I first met Dwayne. We were on our third date and we were strolling past a toy store. I told him I'd never had a stuffed toy as a child.”

Ah, I thought. That might explain a bit.

“So he bought you one?”

“One? You probably noticed that Dwayne is a bit dramatic. He charged into the shop and bought me one of every kind they had. And I loved them, of course. And him too, it goes without saying.”

Hmm. Maybe the problem with the overabundance didn't lie with Emmy Lou after all. Good thing we were taking our time getting to know the situation.

“Did he buy all these?”

“Oh no. I was hooked almost instantly. My own kind of crystal meth. He bought me lots and lots, although he's stopped doing it lately. He must have realized that he'd unleashed a monster.”

I wanted to put a stop to that kind of negative self-talk, as they call it. It makes the process harder. “Emmy Lou, you're obviously a very capable person. So you have a collection that you love and it's got the upper hand. That's no biggie. You'd be surprised by how many normal people have a problem like this in some part of their life. It's good news for me, because I have to make a living. Once we find a way to manage these fluffy creatures, you'll be happy with them again.”

“That's good because I can't resist them. And they're everywhere, even in the grocery stores, sometimes in gas stations. If you're driving along and you see a garage sale, there are always so many lonely plush toys. But then you don't even have to leave the house, when you have catalogs and eBay.”

“And you love every one of them.”

“I love the idea of them. But they're not all sentimental, no. Any that Dwayne bought, which would be hundreds, I guess, those I adore. Some of the others, honestly, are still in their boxes; most of them have their original tags on. I must be buying them in my sleep.”

“Mmm,” I said.

She managed a weak smile. “But they are too adorable for words, aren't they? What kind of dogs do you have?”

“Miniature dachshunds. They're called Truffle and Sweet Marie.”

“Wiener dogs, that's lovely. Small and cute. Hold on, I think I have some toy wiener dogs. I saw them the other day.”

“Oh, that's okay,” I said.

Maybe she didn't hear me. She marched over to the closet and whipped open the door. Naturally, the closet was full of stuffed animals. I had no idea where Emmy Lou kept her designer wardrobe, but it sure wasn't here.

She put her hands on her hips and frowned. “Now where did they get to?”

“Don't worry about it.”

“There they are!” She reached onto a top shelf and pulled out a box. “Oh, no, they're mice, not wiener dogs. But they're too cute for words.”

She placed the box in my hands. “I'd like you to have them.”

“Thanks so much, but I couldn't.” Meaning please don't give me a pair of stuffed toy mice dressed as a bride and groom mounted on a foam wedding cake with cheese decorations. They wouldn't last a New York minute in the room with Truffle and Sweet Marie.

Emmy Lou turned on her full-wattage smile. “It would make me very, very happy.”

This was obviously stressful for her. No point in making it worse. I smiled soothingly. “Okay, thanks, they're very…”

“That's wonderful,” she said, clapping her hands. “Now the bathroom. We plan to make it en suite when we get to the next stage. We have some fabulous ideas for it. There are hardly any stuffed animals in there.”

I blurted, “Hardly any? You mean there are some?”

Emmy Lou said, “The type that go near water, like frogs and turtles and—”

A loud
thump
shook the cathedral window. Two hideously contorted faces glowered in at us. A flash lit up the window.

Emmy Lou screamed and fell back.

I dropped my pen. I barely stopped myself from screaming too.

The faces remained pressed against the glass. One had dark eyes, a nose flattened against the window, and an expression somewhere between demonic and demented. The other, paler face grinned like a mischievous troll.

Emmy Lou slumped onto the bed, dislodging a massive stuffed zebra. Her breathing was ragged.

I stumbled over fallen plush toys to reach her side. “Are you all right?”

“I'm fine! I'm fine. Honestly,” she gasped. She was far from fine, her face the color of spoiled milk, her pupils the size of dimes.

But what had happened?

I raced over to the window and stared out. “What the hell is that? I mean who?”

“Nothing,” Emmy Lou insisted. It would have been more convincing if her voice hadn't sounded choked. “I'm so sorry, Charlotte. You must think I'm crazy, screeching like a—”

“Crazy? People are banging on your second-floor bedroom window. That doesn't happen every day. It's worth screaming about.”

“He startled me, that's all.”

Outside the two figures disappeared, shrieking with laughter as they clambered down the oak tree.

“Who was that? Who startled you?”

“It's the boy next door and his friend. They don't mean anything by it. They're playful.”

I stared at her. “But they weren't children.”

“Poor Kevin. He can't help it.”

Perhaps she hadn't seen them clearly. “They looked like men to me.”

“Yes, yes, he's an adult, technically, but mentally and emotionally, he's a little boy. There's nothing to worry about.”

I must have looked unconvinced. And I was.

She said, “I've known him all his life. The problem is that he had a little oxygen deprivation at birth so that his judgment isn't always perfect. Sometimes his little jokes miss the mark.”

This one had missed the mark for sure. I peered down into the backyard. Two grown men were laughing and slapping each other on the back. Kevin, I assumed, and his equally bizarre friend.

She said, “It's nice that Kevin has someone to spend time with now. His life was quite lonely for a long time until he met Tony.”

Tony must have been the tall, dark, and dangerous-looking one.

Emmy Lou said, “It doesn't matter if he's silly sometimes. I wasn't expecting to see them there, that's all.”

“I'm sure you weren't expecting them at your second-story window. And with a camera! They were obviously trying to frighten you. They took a photo of you in your bedroom without your permission. I think we should call the police.”

Emmy Lou scowled at me. “I don't want to call the police. I told you this is nothing serious. It doesn't bother me. And it isn't any of
your
business.”

Huh.

I reminded myself that Emmy Lou Rheinbeck had a serious job, dealt with all kinds of people and problems. She knew whether or not she had cause to worry. I was there to find a way to organize a superabundance of plush toys, not to live her life for her.

“Sorry,” I said. “How about showing me the office and the bathroom now? We might need that office for swing space.”

She glanced up at me from the bed, where she continued to sit surrounded by fluffy and unlikely creatures. The shock had strained her lovely face.

“Not today,” she said.

“I thought you were ready to get started. Was it that…?” I pointed to the window.

She shook her head. Her auburn hair contrasted sharply with her bloodless face. She clutched the lamb, perhaps so I wouldn't notice the tremor in her hands. No matter what she said, that bizarre scene at the window had bothered Emmy Lou. Big-time.

She said, “I can't handle this now. Please. Go.”

I headed downstairs, reluctantly. I was dragging my stylish wedge heels because I knew Emmy Lou Rheinbeck's problem went way beyond a few thousand toys.

Five minutes later, I was standing on the walkway in front of the Rheinbeck house, remembering the firm
click
of the door locking behind me. I clutched my briefcase and wedding mice. Everything seemed so normal now. Like the interior of the house, the outside was a cut above the neighborhood. Bell Street, only one block long, was lined with modest two-story wood-frame houses. Most hadn't changed much in the seventy or eighty years since they'd been built. In fact, two units across the street were being torn down, probably for stylish new infill housing. One was reduced to a foundation now, and the other half-demolished. Sheets of plywood and boards were stacked up against the chain-link fence of the neighboring property. The honking big Dumpster on the lot signaled a neighborhood about to change. Not surprising. The houses on each side of the Rheinbecks' looked tired in comparison. Even the color of the grass faded out as it left their property. Emmy Lou and Dwayne's reno had obviously kick-started changes in the neighborhood. I was sure there'd be envy over the new stonework and upgraded windows. Their front porch looked like a recent add-on, incorporating a roof and a sitting area. The crisp edges of the lawn and landscaped bed were softened by deep purple sand cherries and low junipers. This landscaping had obviously been done by a pro. I couldn't picture Emmy Lou mucking around in the dirt with that French manicure. She'd be more at home in the new silver Volvo C70 convertible parked in the driveway.

I rubbed my chin and worried. Should I have left? Emmy Lou had definitely given me the boot. But what did it mean? You're fired? Never darken my door again?

My nose twitched. I put that down to pollen from the large white mulberry tree on the property next door. I love trees, but they don't repay me in pollen season.

Maybe I'd pushed too hard. While I was debating with myself, a battered Dodge Colt pulled into the driveway of the saggy blue house to the right of the Rheinbecks' and parked. A tall, lanky fortyish man holding a bag from Hannaford's got out of the car. He glanced over and rumbled toward me, pushing his thinning fair hair back with his free hand.

He shook his fist and shouted, “You leave her the hell alone.”

For a second I thought I'd heard wrong. Why was he yelling at me? He did look slightly familiar, but I couldn't imagine what I'd done to bring this on. Maybe he was Kevin's father. He definitely seemed deranged.

“Excuse me?” I said when I regained my voice.

“You heard me.”

I pulled myself up to my full four foot eleven and three-quarters. I lowered my voice to its deepest range and said, “I am here at Ms. Rheinbeck's request.”

He strode toward me, shaking his fist. Up close, his icy blue eyes gave me goose bumps. Plus he seemed frighteningly tall. “But I wasn't—”

A woman threw open the window of the blue house and called after him, “Forget it, Bill. It's not our business.”

“Next time we'll have the cops here,” he roared.

“There's no reason to call the police,” I said, with my chin high. I held my ground, but only barely.

He dropped the Hannaford's bag, pushed past me, and loped across the Rheinbecks' manicured lawn. Several oranges rolled out of the bag.

I whirled to find him confronting a slight young man with wispy hair, mousy brown, not unlike my own, only without the benefit of highlights. Even if I hadn't been distracted by his vintage tracksuit, I would have recognized the mischievous face from the window.

Kevin.

The oranges continued rolling back toward the car. I didn't intend to get in the middle of whatever was going on, but I could do something useful. I snatched up the oranges and stuck them back in the bag. Bill was busy shaking his fist at Kevin.

I decided to deliver the bag to the woman who had been watching from the window. She seemed to have vanished, but that's what doorbells are for. I wanted to get rid of the bag, then be on my way. If the hostilities escalated and it looked as if someone might get hurt, I planned to call 911.

I kept an eye on the scene on the Rheinbecks' lawn as I carried the grocery bag up the steps.

“I mean it,” Bill yelled. “Stop hounding her.”

Kevin hung his head slightly but said nothing. I had to admit, he did seem somewhat helpless and childlike. If I hadn't witnessed the scene at the window, I would have wanted to protect him from Bill.

A hulking body appeared behind Kevin. I figured with those sloping shoulders and greasy dark hair topped by an equally greasy baseball cap, he must be Tony. He no longer looked either demonic or deranged, but all the same, I wouldn't have wanted to run into him in a graveyard at midnight. Or in a front yard in the middle of the afternoon. And definitely not in a tree outside my bedroom window. He didn't speak either. Of course, his raised middle finger said it all.

I turned and caught a glimpse of the woman at the window again, peering intently at the action. She called out, “Get back in here, Bill. Remember your blood pressure.”

“Come on, Bonnie. I can't let them drive her crazy.”

“Yeah right,” Tony said, his finger pointed skyward. “You're the one trespassing, doofus.”

“Bill!”

He stomped back toward his own driveway, but stopped and turned back to watch the boys as I rang the doorbell. I heard the bell sound inside. I kept one eye on the door and the other on the action so I didn't miss anything. Tony retracted the middle finger slowly. The smirk lingered.

I glanced back toward my client's house. I thought I saw the living room blinds twitch. Emmy Lou could hardly be unaware of the shouting.

What kind of neighborhood hell had I stumbled into?

The dull blue paint on the clapboard was in need of a new coat or three. The front steps had a wobbly banister and two steps that were overdue for replacement. A few straggly daffodils had pushed their way through the patchy grass by the stairs. On the plus side, I could smell something delicious being baked on the inside. Was Bell Street the secret food center of Woodbridge?

When no one answered, I rang the doorbell again. “Your husband dropped these,” I called loudly.

Bill returned to his own driveway and paced in smaller and smaller circles, sort of like my pooches when they're ready for a pee.

Then he spotted me on the doorstep. “And you are…?”

I hate that way of asking a person's name. Normally I would have introduced myself, but normally I am not caught in the middle of people bellowing threats at each other. “Charlotte Adams. I was seeing Mrs. Rheinbeck.” I smiled.

“Visiting?”

“Leaving.” I am used to neighbors taking an interest in my clients and their projects. Often they want details. Other people's mess and clutter is almost as interesting as their sex lives, and just as much not anyone else's business.

He eyed my briefcase suspiciously. Not the friendliest guy, this Bill.

The woman who appeared at the door was fortyish with pixie-cut salt-and-pepper hair and a distinctive heart-shaped face that would be pretty at eighty. Although her pinched mouth hinted at chronic pain, she managed to smile. I spotted the cane she was leaning on and felt a wave of guilt about ringing the doorbell until she was forced to answer.

She called out to Bill, who was behind me, “It's true. Emmy Lou called me a minute ago. Sorry about that little scene, Charlotte, did you say? I'm Bonnie Baxter and this big dope here is Bill. And those foolish creatures across the way are giving Emmy Lou a lot of grief lately. Bill's at the end of his rope.”

Bill extended his large hand. Up close he wasn't scary at all. Just a pleasant man with a tired, lined face.

“We worry,” he said.

I glanced back toward the smirking hulk who was firmly planted in the same place. “Did you say that they've been giving her grief?”

“Harassing her. Peeking in the windows. Phoning. Following.”

I'd witnessed the impact of their faces in the window. It had scared me out of my new shoes, even if Emmy Lou had pretended it hadn't shocked her. I was worried too. If that kind of stuff had been going on for a while, no wonder her hands shook whenever she heard a noise. It explained the tic too.

I said, “That's terrible. There are laws against stalking. She should…” Of course, it's always easy to say what others should do. I turned toward the house expecting to see my lovely new client wringing her hands, but this time there was no twitch in the blinds.

A comment came from Bonnie, leaning on her cane at the door. “Bill has tried to warn her, but she won't listen. She's such a sweet person. She has to be careful. Those two are obviously not normal.”

No kidding.

Bonnie added, “Bill even offered to go with her to the station, but she says to let it be. I hate to see those two making her miserable.”

“And getting away with it,” Bill added, glowering across the Rheinbecks' yard. An El Greco delivery van had squealed to a halt, and Kevin and his friend collected what looked like the Gargantua pizza and carried it into the house.