EQMM, May 2011 Read online

  Someday I might read the newspapers. There's plenty of interesting articles in them, if I ever get around to it. No reason not to hang on to them for when the time comes. Same with the books and magazines. I don't read much these days, but it's something I might get back to, and when I do the books will be there for me, and the magazines, and the newspapers.

  And yes, a lot of the dolls are broken, but they could be fixed. Why, there's doll hospitals that do nothing but repair broken dolls, because they recognize the importance of preserving treasured memories. Even as they are, the dolls and other toys bring back memories. I bought the Raggedy Ann for Tricia, the Storybook dolls for Maxine. And there were Barbies, so many of them, that I bought for all three of the girls. And Chatty Cathy, how Little Debbie loved that doll! Of course the voice is gone, and there's no string to pull, but Cathy's still there, and if you pick her up and look at her you can almost hear her little voice again, almost hear Little Debbie parroting the phrases right back at her.

  And some of my stuff is worth money. All those Jim Beam decanters, they're scattered all over the house, but they're here somewhere, and a few of them are genuinely rare, and worth good money to a collector. The Colorado Centennial one? You think that's easy to find? Or cheap to buy when you do find it? Walter was a scotch drinker, but he was a good enough sport to switch to bourbon when they came out with those decanters, and in a sense they never cost me a cent, because he had to drink something and he said it might as well be bourbon. And didn't he say he'd got to prefer Jim Beam to the Cutty Sark he used to drink?

  What's he drinking nowadays, wherever he is? Did he go back to scotch? Or did he stay with Jim Beam?

  What's it they say? One man's trash is another man's treasure. Just ‘cause it's trash to you don't make it wrong for me to cherish it. But it's all empty bottles as far as these two are concerned, John and Thelma, all empty Pepsi cans and beer bottles.

  Trash and treasures. If I ever opened a shop, that's what I'd call it. Dolly's Trash & Treasures. Which is which? Well, that's up to you, isn't it?

  And then there's the bottle caps, and don't ask me how many of those I've got. I decided I could make earrings for the girls, they'd be cute and cost next to nothing, so I started saving bottle caps, and I bought a box of the posts you mount the caps on, and got the right kind of quick-setting glue, and no, I haven't actually made any earrings yet, but who's to say I won't one of these days? With the girls run off there's not much point in making earrings now, but who's to say they won't come back?

  Nehi Orange, that was always Little Debbie's favorite. And somewhere I know I've got a pair of orange bottle caps set aside, and wouldn't they make perfect earrings for Little Debbie?

  * * * *

  "I'm just not getting through to her. What do we have to do, throw her in the back of the sheriff's car and haul her off to the nuthouse?"

  "John!"

  "I know, I didn't mean to use the word. I find this stressful, I admit it. I'm sorry."

  "John, let me try. Dolly, at this point you only have two choices, and—"

  "Dorothy."

  "I thought you said people call you Dolly."

  "My friends call me Dolly."

  "Ouch. I gather you don't think we're your friends."

  "If you were my friends you wouldn't be trying to force me out of my own house and home."

  "Oh, I love it. A home? It's a home to vermin and unidentifiable rodents, not to a human being."

  "John—"

  "And it won't even be a house much longer either, with the structural damage you've got going on there."

  "John, this isn't helping."

  "Sorry."

  "If you could just allow me to—"

  "I know, I know. I won't say anything more."

  "Now Dolly, as I was saying, you've got two choices, and you're the one who has to make the decision. The first possibility is that you allow us to relocate you to a really beautiful county facility for assisted living."

  "A nuthouse."

  "No, Dolly, and if John used that expression it was a mistake."

  "A loony bin."

  "Not at all. The people are perfectly nice and the staff is wonderful. My own mother is there, as it happens, and she's truly happy. Would I let my mother go there if it wasn't a good place?"

  "My children moved away and left me all alone, but at least they never put me in a loony bin."

  "Oh, Christ."

  "John! The other choice you have, Dolly, is to allow us to clean your house. We'll get a crew in here to clean it top to bottom."

  "And throw out all my things."

  "A lot of what you've got here is trash, Dolly. We know that and you know that. Old newspapers, empty pizza boxes, paper plates with food on them—"

  "I guess some of it's trash."

  "See? If it wasn't such an overwhelming chore, you'd throw out a lot of it yourself."

  "There's times I've wanted to. But I wouldn't even know where to start."

  "Well, that's where we'll be able to help you. We'll bring in a full crew of trained professionals who've been through all this more times than you could imagine. They'll know where to start and they'll be able to see it through to the finish."

  "It sort of got away from me, you know. It wasn't like this when I moved in."

  "I'm sure it wasn't."

  "And I didn't set out to make it like this. But, you know, I like things, and I don't want to part with my memories. And throwing out useful things is wasteful."

  "Well, that's true, isn't it?"

  "And if these men start throwing away all of my good things—"

  "Dolly, you'll be here the whole time. The things you want to keep, you just say so, and they'll be put in boxes to be saved. Or if it's too tiring, we can make some of the decisions for you. And before you know it you'll have a clean house, a home you can take pride in."

  "It's not so bad the way it is. And I have some wonderful things here."

  "Oh, Christ."

  "John—"

  "I mean, it's my house. I'm the only one here. Why can't you all just leave me be?"

  "Dolly, let me explain it one more time. . ."

  * * * *

  All these people. There must be twenty men, all dressed alike with royal blue shirts and navy blue slacks. Their first names are embroidered in gold braid on their shirt pockets. The only names I've managed to read are Harry and Ben. I keep reading those two names over and over, Harry and Ben, Harry and Ben. Maybe there are ten Harrys and ten Bens, or maybe I just keep seeing the same two young men over and over. They all look the same anyway, with those white masks covering their noses and mouths. Like the air in here would kill them.

  Going through my things. Picking up a Little Debbie cake box or a book with the cover missing, holding it out, rolling their eyes. They don't think I notice what they're doing.

  They'll throw out some things I'd like to keep. I know that. I do what I can, I tell them no, I want to save this, put it in a box to be saved. And sometimes the woman talks me out of saving it, or else she agrees and they put it in a box, but how do I know what will happen to all those boxes? If I let them, they'd take everything I own and cart it to the landfill.

  When your house is clean again, the woman tells me, you'll have a much richer life. Richer without things than with them? You'll have space, she says. And who knows? Maybe your children will come back, when they have a decent clean place to live, when they can have their own rooms again.

  It would be so nice to believe that. And maybe it's true. Maybe Calder will come back, and Tricia, and Maxine. And Little Debbie. Oh what I'd give to see my Little Debbie again!

  * * * *

  "I don't believe this."

  "You've never had a case like this before?"

  "Never anything like this. I mean, I read about the Collyer brothers, but I thought they were the only people in the world who ever lived like this."

  "It's more common than anyone realizes, John. I've heard estimates that one
percent of the population has a problem with compulsive hoarding."

  "That sounds crazy. That'd be what, three million people?"

  "I know. The thing is, most of the time it's invisible. The people seem completely normal until you get inside their homes."

  "Not our Dolly. Spend thirty seconds with her and you know you're dealing with a fruitcake."

  "John!"

  "She can't hear me, she's in the kitchen explaining why an empty Peter Pan peanut butter jar is a priceless treasure. See, it's glass, and nowadays they make them out of plastic, so who'd be crazy enough to throw it out?"

  "I know."

  "And the rotten peanut butter at the bottom just adds to the value. Proves it's authentic. Plus it gives the ants something to eat."

  "Oh, dear. But there are people who are almost as far gone as Dolly and you wouldn't know it. There was a woman in Swedish Haven, and she was always immaculately groomed and clean about her person, and she walked to and from her place of business every day—"

  "She had a place of business?"

  "A shop, actually. She sold notions and bric-a-brac and, oh, local souvenirs. The shop was neat as a pin."

  "And I bet she sold pins, too."

  "And doilies and place mats. Until one day the shop never opened, and when her doorbell and phone went unanswered someone broke into her house and found her there. A stroke or a heart attack, whatever it was, but dead or alive she was in better shape than her house. It turned out she could have been a Collyer sister."

  "Don't tell me it was like this."

  "It wasn't filthy, and everything was in a semblance of order. But she never threw anything out, and the newspapers were packed in orderly stacks until they reached clear to the ceiling, and so were old clothes and everything else you could think of. Including empty jars, peanut butter and otherwise. She soaked off the labels and scrubbed the jars clean, but she kept them all, along with just about everything else that came into her hands."

  "Good grief."

  "I don't know that you can call it a disease, but it's certainly a disorder. I understand the FBI profilers divide serial killers into organized and disorganized, and I suppose you could distinguish between Dolly and the woman in Swedish Haven in much the same way, and—"

  "John? Thelma? Excuse me, but there's something you ought to see."

  "What is it, Arnie?"

  "Well, it's a cat."

  "There've been a few of them running around. What's so special about this one?"

  "Well, for one thing, its running days ended awhile ago. A couple of years, would be my guess. Come on, you're not gonna believe this."

  * * * *

  I wondered whatever happened to that cat. It was a gray tabby, and I can remember the sound it made when it purred. Although I guess all cats make the same sound, pretty much. It's a comfort, hearing them make that sound, which I guess is part of the reason I always liked having animals in the house.

  I thought it probably wandered off. They come and they go. But something must have happened to this one, and then it just turned up again.

  * * * *

  "It's like an archaeological dig. You go down another stratum and you're in another year."

  "And if it's a truly productive site, sooner or later you unearth a dead cat."

  "Did you hear what she said? She always wondered what happened to that cat. You know what it looked like?"

  "A cartoon cat."

  "Exactly! Like Wile E. Coyote when he falls off a cliff and flattens out on the pavement. Or like Tom when Jerry outsmarts him—"

  "Which is all the time."

  "—and he gets run over by a steamroller. Then he picks himself up, fills out again, and gets back into the game."

  "Without having learned his lesson. But I'm afraid this cat's not going to fill out again."

  "No."

  "I wonder how it died. And when."

  "I hope you're not going to order an autopsy."

  "No, hardly that, but they didn't come across it until they'd moved a whole mountain of junk. It must have been there for years."

  "Unless it dug its way under there and died."

  "Why would it do something like that?"

  "Maybe it knew it was dying, and how else could it make sure it got buried? You know what else I was wondering? I was just—oh, hang on a minute. Arnie, is there a problem?"

  "A problem? It's all of it a problem, isn't it? The thing is, well, I don't know if you need to know this, or if you even want to know it, but the boys just found another cat."

  * * * *

  It was the little calico.

  Except I should say she. All calico cats are female. It's genetic, and you'll never find a male one. How many people know that?

  They think I'm stupid and ignorant, but I'm not. There are a lot of things I know that most people probably don't. All white cats with blue eyes are deaf. Born that way. Genetic.

  How do I know? Well, I sure didn't learn it in school. There's a book about cats, a very good book, and there's a chapter in it about genetics. One gene decides if a cat is Siamese or not.

  I've got the book here somewhere. Unless one of them threw it out, one of these geniuses with his name on his shirt so he won't forget who he is.

  That calico cat, she was always Little Debbie's favorite. Of course all of the children liked all of the animals, that's the way they were brought up, but that calico, Little Debbie was crazy about her.

  * * * *

  "That woman in Swedish Haven?"

  "She was remarkable. The way the inner and outer lives were at such utter variance."

  "Right, but here's my question. How many cats did she have?"

  "Not a one."

  "Seriously? I thought they all had a house full of cats."

  "She didn't have any, living or dead. Unless you count china cats."

  "She had those?"

  "Oh, plenty of them. She collected them. And patterned glass, and travel books, and postcards and matchbooks. All of them carefully organized and neatly displayed, except that there was such a profusion of clutter that you couldn't really see any of the displays. But they were all there, and all in apple-pie order."

  "Your organized lunatic, as opposed to your disorganized lunatic."

  "Except they're not lunatics, or at least not all of them. Something goes wrong in their wiring, or maybe it's a way to come to terms with a horrible childhood, or—"

  "Oh, shit, everybody had a bad childhood."

  "Well, I have to say nobody molested me, or locked me in the closet for a week at a time. While some of the cases we get—"

  "All right, point taken. Mine wasn't that bad, either. I used to say I had as miserable a childhood as the next braggart, but it was way short of being that kind of nightmare."

  "I just hope there aren't any more dead animals. Because the good news is that we're making real progress here."

  "Well, give the dead cats some credit."

  "What do you mean, John?"

  "Ever since the first one turned up, she hasn't been kicking up a fuss. Haven't you noticed? Instead of putting up a fight every time somebody wants to throw out the 1972 World Almanac, she stays locked into her own private world and leaves the men alone. It makes a big difference."

  "Maybe she's resigned herself to it."

  "And maybe she figured she knows where the county landfill is, and she can just drive down there and retrieve her treasures after we're gone."

  "Oh, God, don't even say that."

  "Plus who knows what other treasures she might find while she's there, and—Arnie, what is it? And please don't tell me dead cats come in threes."

  "No, John, I think it's worse than that. Arnie, you're white as a sheet. It's bad, isn't it?"

  "Yeah."

  "Arnie, what is it?"

  "Eddie and that other fellow, I can't think of his name right now—"

  "Never mind his name."

  "I don't know why I can't think of it. But it don't matter for now. T
he two of them, they was in the basement, which is no judgment calls involved, you know, because it's all water-damaged and all gotta be thrown out, and they were in, I don't know, the root cellar or the fruit cellar, or maybe it was the coal cellar back in the day."

  "And?"

  "You just better come downstairs. You better come see for yourselves."

  * * * *

  One look and I knew who I was looking at. I recognized her right off. Her T-shirt was faded, it used to be yellow and now it's more of a gray, but you can still make out Minnie Mouse's picture on it, and that meant it was Little Debbie. It was one of her favorite shirts, she plain loved Minnie Mouse.

  But I'd have known anyway, because of the size. She was the youngest, and small for her age on top of that, so it for sure wasn't Tricia or Maxine. Plus her red hair was a dead giveaway. Nobody else had hair that color. I guess she got it from her father, not that he was a redhead but his mother was. And nobody on my side of the family had red hair.

  Not that I know just how that works in people. Cat genetics, there's something I know a little about, but I think it's more complicated in human beings.

  I'll tell you something, I think I knew it was Little Debbie before I even set eyes on her. I just got this powerful feeling on the way down the cellar stairs. I couldn't guess when was the last time I went anywhere near the cellar, but on the staircase, well, I had this feeling.

  So I guess she didn't run off after all. I guess it couldn't have been so bad here at home, I guess she liked it well enough to stay.

  A mother's not supposed to play favorites, but she was my favorite, Little Debbie. It's funny, I don't know how to explain this, but I have to say it: I'm sort of glad she's here.

  I wonder what else will turn up.

  Copyright © 2011 Lawrence Block

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  A lot of crime fiction readers also like to watch crime shows on television, and some of the best of those shows originate in the U.K. Eventually they make their way to this side of the pond, and that leads us to Crime Time Preview (www.crimetimepreview.com), a website that previews “cop dramas and thrillers coming to U.K. television and radio.” As I write this, the discussion on the site is about the BBC's new Dirk Gently series that stars Stephen Mangan as the holistic detective. “Great fun” is the verdict. There's a lot of other good stuff at this site, so take a look for the latest news.