Horrible as his yard had been, according to him, every single object in it was something he wanted to keep. A few things he was planning to use “one of these days,” or at least might need at some future date. Most of the junk items were, according to him, either valuable heirlooms or family mementos of great sentimental value.
I’d finally gotten him to agree to the cleanup by offering to give him an itemized receipt for every single thing we hauled to the dump, plus a signed promise from Randall that if at any time he actually did need any of it—or found a buyer for it—Randall would haul it back from the dump himself. There were rumors that in the months following the cleanup he’d gone up to the dump a time or two to peer through the chain-link fence at his stuff, but Randall hadn’t gotten any requests to haul any of it back. Maybe that boded well for cleaning out the inside of his house.
Well, I could hope.
And then again, maybe he hadn’t called to have anything brought back because he’d managed to reclutter his yard again all by himself.
As we drew near the house, I could see that the hedges were, if possible, even more bedraggled and unhealthy than I remembered. But at least the yard was still mainly clear. He’d started a new and much smaller collection of weeds and flowerpots, but apart from that it didn’t look too bad.
The house, on the other hand, was a disaster. Had it been that bad a couple of years ago? Surely I’d have remembered if it had been. Maybe it had taken a lot of damage from this fall’s storms.
Or maybe we’d been so focused on the yard that we’d turned a blind eye to how awful the house was.
At least it was relatively small: a modest frame bungalow with wide front porch running its entire length and a matching detached one-car garage to the right and a little behind the main house. I couldn’t tell if the siding had originally been painted white or pale gray. It was all gray now; peeling paint and weathered wood underneath. The roof was more blue tarp than shingle. The porch listed downhill toward the left side of the house, and I hoped there was something to hold the porch roof up other than the six dilapidated pillars I could see. It looked as if Mr. Dunlop was trying to keep the porch clear, or at least methodically organized—there was actually a wicker rocking chair that, unlike every other possible seat within sight, was not filled with pillows, empty flowerpots, deceased houseplants, empty popcorn tins, small garden tools, milk crates of recyclables, and who knows what else. But all of it was neatly stacked, as if he hoped that with enough organization he could ward off the neighbors’ complaints.
Most of the windows had at least one pane of glass that was cracked or replaced with plywood. And inside, I could see venetian blinds tightly closed, no doubt to shield the mess inside from prying eyes.
“This one’s going to be a big project,” Cordelia remarked.
I parked in front of the cracked concrete walkway that led to the porch. We all got out and stood for a few moments, looking at the house.
“At least it’s one story,” Caroline said.
“There could be a basement,” Cordelia countered.
I spotted a flicker of movement in the house to the left of Mr. Dunlop’s. A curtain in one of the front windows opened a crack and I saw first a face and then the twin lenses of a pair of binoculars as one of Mr. Dunlop’s neighbors inspected us.
The front door of the house to the right opened and a portly man in a plaid jacket came out and stared at us with undisguised curiosity.
“Excuse me.”
Chapter 3
We turned to see that someone had come up behind us, a tall, thin man in a baggy gray suit and a fussy little blue bow tie. He strode forward with an awkward, jerky gait and planted himself between us and Mr. Dunlop’s house.
Where had he come from? And why was he blocking our path?
“What are you doing here?” He had folded his arms and was frowning at us. Combined with his bad posture and stick-thin, angular shape, the gesture made me think of a praying mantis. A very large praying mantis that had been carelessly transformed into human shape by a lazy or incompetent wizard.
“I could ask you the same thing,” I said. “I’m with the county.”
Sometimes saying that impressed people. Apparently this was one of those times. The man’s face brightened and he rubbed his hands together.
“Are you here from Adult Protective Services?” He sounded eager.
“From the mayor’s office.” I reached into my purse, pulled out one of my business cards—not the blacksmith one, but the one that proclaimed me as Special Assistant to the Mayor—and handed it to him.
His face brightened even more.
“Morris Haverhill,” he said, offering me his hand. “Representing the family. Harvey’s my cousin.”
We all shook his hand solemnly. His hand was bony and oddly dry.
“I’m glad to see the county’s finally taking this seriously,” Mr. Haverhill said. “Want me to brief you before we go in?”
Behind Haverhill I could see a small flicker at one of the venetian blinds in Mr. Dunlop’s house. He was watching us: Mr. Dunlop, who was protective of his property to the point of paranoia. And I had the sneaking feeling that if he liked and trusted his relatives, Mr. Haverhill would be inside, not out here lurking on the sidewalk. Entering in Mr. Haverhill’s company might not go over all that well.
I arranged my face in a stern expression.
“Mr. Haverhill, I appreciate your willingness to help,” I said. “But I’m afraid I’ll have to insist that you stay out here. In fact, it would be much better if you could go home and leave this to us.”
“Nonsense! How can you expect—”
“Mr. Haverhill, I have previous experience with Mr. Dunlop,” I said. “Not to mention extensive experience with hoarding situations.”
To my relief, neither Caroline nor Cordelia laughed. In fact, they nodded and mirrored my stern expression.
“In situations like these, the hoarder often comes to resent the very friends and family members who are trying to help them,” I said in the most solemn tone I could manage. “When that happens, the best thing is to back off and bring in the authorities—which you’ve done. So now you need to step away and let us do our job.”
“It’s the best thing, believe me,” Cordelia said.
Caroline merely nodded emphatically.
“But I need to—I want to help.”
“And you can help,” I said. “It’s a big job, and we’ll need all the help we can get. But for right now, the best way you can help is to let us get on with our job.”
It must have sounded plausible—and reassuring. His eyes flicked back and forth, studying our faces briefly. Then he blew out a long breath.
“Well, you’re the experts. Just keep me informed, will you? We want to do anything we can to help out poor old Harvey.”
He handed me a business card, which I tucked in my pocket without even looking at it. Not that I wasn’t curious, but I was playing to an audience of one right now—Mr. Dunlop.
Caroline, Cordelia, and I watched while Haverhill went back across the street where several cars were parked. He got into the nearest one, a light blue sedan. And then he sat there, watching us.
“Troublemaker, if you ask me,” Caroline said. “We’ll need to keep our eye on him.”