I wasn’t sure what trouble Haverhill could cause, but I agreed with her assessment. So I nodded, and headed up the driveway toward Mr. Dunlop’s front door. And then, realizing how treacherous the sidewalk was, with its broken concrete slabs and places where tree roots were heaving slabs into the air, I hurried back to take Cordelia’s arm and keep an eye on Caroline, to make sure we all got safely to the door.
The porch steps were unsteady, and several porch boards were alarmingly spongy. I wasn’t keen on standing under that dramatically slanting porch roof, but there was no way around it. A paper Christmas wreath was taped to his door—a very familiar-looking wreath, since I could tell it had been cut out of one of the gaily printed bags that the Caerphilly Market used in place of plain brown paper during the holiday season.
I reached out to ring the doorbell, then noticed that it seemed to have been rewired on the outside, with an old and rather frayed power cord that ran up to the top of the doorframe, then over to disappear inside the nearest window. The whole jerry-rigged contraption looked like an accidental electrocution waiting to happen.
I looked around, picked up a fallen stick, and pushed the doorbell with that.
I could hear a melodious “ding-dong” inside.
Nothing else happened.
I rang twice more before finally getting a reaction.
The section of wood on which the door knocker rested suddenly swung out, revealing a hole about two inches wide by three tall. A watery blue eye appeared in the opening and then disappeared.
“Go away!”
I could see fingers groping toward a leather strap attached to the trapdoor. Before he could pull it closed, I grabbed the door knocker and held on tight.
“Mr. Dunlop! It’s Meg Langslow.”
He gave up trying to grab the strap but he didn’t answer.
“Remember me? A while back Randall Shiffley and I helped you get your yard in shape.”
“And now you’re back for the rest of my stuff, I suppose.”
I couldn’t exactly argue with that.
“Mr. Dunlop, it’s really cold out here, and it’s kind of hard shouting through that little hole in the door. Why don’t you let us in so we can talk more comfortably?”
“Who’s that with you? Did you bring the cops to strong-arm me?” His tone reminded me of Spike, who barked all the louder when something frightened him.
“This is my grandmother, Cordelia Mason.” I stepped aside so Cordelia could smile at the trapdoor.
“And this is a friend of ours, Caroline Willner.”
Caroline followed Cordelia’s example. And they were both on their best behavior, trying to look like harmless little old ladies.
“We just want to talk to you,” I said, returning to my place in front of the peephole.
At first I didn’t think he was going to react.
“Just you,” he said. “If the o— If the ladies are cold, they can wait in the car. And you’re not coming in here—back away and I’ll come out.”
Caroline, Cordelia, and I retreated to stand by the car. Then the door opened, hesitantly. Mr. Dunlop stepped out and then immediately turned to lock the door behind him.
He wasn’t very tall, and he seemed even shorter, thanks to his stooped posture. Back when we’d cleaned up his yard, I’d had some reason to look him up in the town records. He’d been forty-seven then, so he’d be forty-nine now, or maybe fifty. But he looked—well, not exactly older, but a lot more faded than you’d expect from someone his age.
He came down the walkway toward us, favoring his right leg slightly, and stopped a few feet away from us.
“I want to show you something.” He turned and limped along the inside of the hedge until he reached the gravel driveway, then led the way not to the garage door but around the corner to the smaller side door. He stopped beside the door and pointed to the doorknob. That and the dead bolt above it were both bright, shiny, and probably decades newer than anything else on his property.
Caroline and Cordelia had decided to ignore the “just you” part, and were following us, though at a discreet distance.
“I put that in after what they did to me last fall,” he said. “Before, I only had a padlock on the door. They just pried it right off.”
“Oh, dear.” I wasn’t sure where this was headed, but I didn’t think a sympathetic attitude would hurt.
He pulled a key ring out of his pocket, unlocked the door, flung it open, and gestured as if to invite us to enter.
“Look at it!” His voice shook with … rage? Pain? Something, anyway.
I braced myself and stepped in.
It wasn’t cluttered.
I was so surprised that I stopped in the doorway, and Cordelia bumped into me.
“Sorry!” she said.
“My fault,” I said as I stepped aside to let her and Caroline enter.
We gazed around at the interior of the garage, collectively puzzled. It wasn’t empty. He had parked his car in it, which was more than a lot of people could manage. Compared to the house—well, at least the porch, which was the only part we’d seen—it was downright minimalist. There were more tools hanging on the walls than seemed quite necessary, but they were all hanging on the walls. One corner held a dusty clump of patio furniture that didn’t look as if it had seen the light of day in years. The bags of grass seed and fertilizer had cobwebs on them. But it mostly looked like a perfectly normal garage. The only odd part was that he’d rigged up some extra storage overhead, hanging random things from the joists with hooks or ropes and storing larger things by balancing them across the joists. I spotted a moose head, a brass spittoon, a sled, a couple of crab pots, and yes, an oversized kitchen sink. But even the overhead storage area fell short of my definition of cluttered.
“You see!” Mr. Dunlop was clearly feeling outraged about something.
“I’m not really sure I understand,” I said. “What happened?”
“They broke in while I wasn’t home and took things.”
“Who broke in?” I asked. “And what did they take?”
“My so-called loved ones.” His voice was hard. “My three greedy cousins. And the neighbors helped them. They broke in and took everything except what you see here!”
I had to bite my tongue to keep from saying “How nice of them!”
“I had a carousel horse that my great-grandfather made, that I was going to restore.” He pointed to an empty corner. “And three vintage pinball machines from my uncle’s old grill that only needed a little tinkering to make them work again.” He pointed to another corner. “A Victorian fainting couch that belonged to my grandmother. It only needed new upholstery. And her treadle sewing machine, which only needed a little work to make it good as new.”
As he tallied his lost treasures, he pointed to various parts of the garage, and I realized that if I wasn’t careful I could start visualizing the garage as it had been, with all his tattered treasures beginning to loom up around me, filling the open space with their bulk and weight and solid presence.
I shook myself and focused back on the matter at hand.
“What did they do with all of it?” I asked.
“A good question,” he said. “They claim they donated some of it and took the rest to the dump. But I never found any of it. Not in any of the local dumps, and not at any of the nearby charities. I’m pretty sure they sold it all and kept the profits. Probably hauled it all to antique shops out of state and sold it. I gave up looking. I had my hands full keeping them from breaking into the house.”