“Why didn’t you report them?” Cordelia asked. “Charge them with trespassing and theft.”
“I figured the authorities would side with them.” Mr. Dunlop looked sullen. “Considering that everyone in the county has been trying to make me get rid of my possessions for years now.”
“I’m not here to make you get rid of your possessions,” I said. “I’m here to figure out how we can get everyone off your back—your relatives, your neighbors, the building inspector, and Adult Protective Services. It’s probably going to mean giving up some of your stuff—but not everything. And what you give up should be your choice.”
He looked uncertain.
“You should listen to her,” Cordelia said.
“Because if you don’t,” Caroline added. “Next thing you know the relatives will show up with a dumpster and haul you off in a straightjacket.”
Mr. Dunlop sighed.
“Let’s go up to the house,” he said. “Cold out here.”
Chapter 4
Mr. Dunlop led the way out of the garage, stopping to relock both door locks, and then headed for the door. Morris Haverhill was still sitting in his car across the road. The neighbor on the right had gone in from his front porch, but the binoculars were still visible in the front window of the house on the left.
As Mr. Dunlop fumbled with the front door lock, I braced myself. At least it wasn’t summer, I reminded myself. It probably wouldn’t smell that much—right?
“I didn’t pick up,” Mr. Dunlop said as he swung the door open. “Wasn’t expecting company.”
To my relief, it only smelled a little musty. But it was every bit as cluttered as I’d expected, and I was immediately sorry we hadn’t just continued our conversation in the garage, even if it wasn’t heated.
Most of the floor space in the living room was completely filled with stuff. The couch was piled high, except for a Mr. Dunlop-sized space at one end. He probably sat there to watch the television that was perched near the ceiling, atop a rather unstable-looking pile of cardboard boxes. I’d never have described myself as claustrophobic, but I could feel the surroundings starting to make me anxious. It wasn’t just the piles and piles of stuff—the ceiling itself seemed lower than usual—or was that just an optical illusion because of all the places where the clutter was actually jammed up against it?
In front of us, a path led to a hallway that had been narrow even before he’d begun piling books and boxes along both sides of it. He led us to the left, down the other path, into a galley kitchen that was at least a little less overwhelmingly cluttered than the living room.
Clearly Mr. Dunlop didn’t have much company. There was a small area on the kitchen table, a little clearing in the clutter, that contained only the remains of his breakfast. The rest of the table was piled two or three feet high with boxes, books, magazines, and newspapers. A relatively new-looking laptop perched atop one of the piles, and a white-painted wooden chair sat in front of the clear spot.
“I only just finished breakfast,” he said, hurrying to sweep the dishes off the table and add them to the mountain of older dirty dishes in the sink. He seemed relieved when he’d done that, as if he’d restored his kitchen to company-ready condition.
It took a little bit of rearranging, but Mr. Dunlop managed to find three more chairs, and clear a space for them around his kitchen table. He put the kettle on to boil and scurried around to find enough clean teacups. Cordelia and Caroline and I all sat down and tried to pretend we weren’t looking around and inventorying stuff—or, for that matter, assessing whether there was anything in the stacks looming over us that was precariously balanced and might fall down and brain us.
I was a little dubious about drinking Mr. Dunlop’s tea, but I reminded myself that boiling water would probably kill most of the nasties that might be in it. We made small talk for a few minutes, mostly about whether or not there was any chance of having a white Christmas.
But after a while, Mr. Dunlop set down his teacup and looked as if he were bracing himself.
“Look—I know I have too much stuff. I know I need to pare it down. But I want to do it myself. In my own way. I’m the only one who understands what most of these things are worth, or what sentimental value they have to me. This, for example.”
He patted the kitchen table, which was made of a heavy slab of marble about an inch thick and thirty inches square, white with pale gray veins, laid atop an X-shaped wooden base. There were rough holes in all four corners of the slab, as if someone had rudely drilled through it, and one corner was broken off.
“I know it doesn’t look like much,” he said.
“Nice piece of marble,” Caroline said. “And the contrast between the polished top and the rough-hewn parts is interesting.”
“Yes, isn’t it?” Mr. Dunlop’s face lit up. “But it’s so much more than that if you know where it came from—what it stands for. My family used to own a bank.”
“Here in Caerphilly?” I didn’t recall hearing of any banks in town other than the First National Bank of Caerphilly, and even that I only knew of from learning about local history—it had been bought by one of the big regional banks years before I’d come to town.
“Yes—The Farmers and Mechanics Bank of Caerphilly. Of course, it was a long time ago. Before I was born. I’m not sure when it was founded—sometime in the eighteen hundreds. And closed in the nineteen thirties, during the Depression. Anyway—that piece of marble—it was part of the bank’s counters. Just imagine what tales it could tell!”
He beamed at the marble as if he expected it to begin dictating its life history at any moment.
“Anyway, it’s part of my family history. Part of the town’s history. And that’s only one of the treasures I have—treasures that might get thrown away if someone else just came in to clear stuff out. That’s why I have to be the one to organize my things.”
“I understand,” I said. “The problem is that for a variety of reasons you haven’t been getting that organizing done, and now you’re in a crisis. Your neighbors are complaining to the county that you’re blighting the neighborhood, your family—”
“Are trying to get me committed.” He nodded. “Oh, don’t try to deny it—Adult Protective Services is the foot in the door that leads to the loony bin.”
I wasn’t going to argue with him.
“Then there’s the most urgent problem of all,” I went on. “This house is about to fall down around your ears. A good lawyer could keep your neighbors and relatives and the county at bay for a good long time, but you need to do something to put this place back together again.”
As if to emphasize my words, a small piece of plaster fell out of the ceiling and landed in Mr. Dunlop’s teacup. He fished it out matter-of-factly and took a sip. Then he closed his eyes and nodded slightly.
“We can help you with that,” I said. “We’ve got this program—Helping Hands for the Holidays.”
“I’ve heard of it,” he said. “You fixed Jeb Wilson’s furnace.”
Actually, we’d replaced Jeb Wilson’s furnace, and his water heater besides. But he was a proud old man living on a fixed income, and we didn’t want to embarrass him, so for public consumption, we’d just done minor repairs to the furnace.