The Gift of the Magpie Read online

  “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.”

  “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—Adu
lt 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.

  “We can fix your place up, too,” I said. “But we can’t do it with your stuff in here. We need to do something about the stuff before the repair crew comes in.”

  “It sounds like a great deal,” he said. “Can’t you just give me a few weeks to get things organized? I’m sure I can rearrange stuff so the workmen would have enough access.”

  “Mr. Dunlop, I have a better idea.” Cordelia set her teacup on the table with an air that suggested we’d spent far too much time on social niceties and should get down to business. “Let us help you with your stuff. Not getting rid of it,” she added quickly, seeing him open his mouth to protest. “Moving it—temporarily. I’m sure Meg can find a place—I bet she can get the Spare Attic to donate a storage unit for the short time it would take to do the repairs.” She glanced around and frowned slightly. “Maybe a couple of units. We help you pack up everything. We move it all to the storage unit. The Helping Hands crew comes in and fixes everything up—it will go so much faster if the place is empty. And then we can help you move your stuff back in. If you find there’s some of it you don’t want to bring back, we’ll help you sell it or donate it or recycle it or whatever you want. But if you want every stick of it brought back here, that’s what we’ll do.”

  He actually looked as if he was considering it.

  It was a crazy idea. And not very practical, either. The Spare Attic, a converted textile factory, was Caerphilly’s only off-site storage business, and I knew people who had been on the waiting list there for years. And even if we could find a space there, the other customers would probably mutiny when they heard about it, no matter how many precautions we took to ensure that we didn’t move any insects or rodents along with Mr. Dunlop’s stuff.

  But then an idea struck me. Randall Shiffley had recently bought up an empty building in town that had once housed a furniture store. He hadn’t yet figured out what to do with it—his main reason for buying it was to make sure no sneaky chain stores from outside the county got their hands on it and came barging in to put the local shops out of business. It was a freestanding building, so we were less likely to get complaints about pests—and if need be we could fumigate the whole place. Randall probably wouldn’t mind, or if he did—well, he was the one who’d stuck me with handling Mr. Dunlop and his hoard.

  “I have it,” I said. “We can move your stuff into the vacant Caerphilly Furniture World building. I’m sure you’ve seen it—it’s huge. You’ll have plenty of room to spread your things out and sort them properly. If there’s stuff that needs to be repaired or refinished, there’s space to do that on-site, and we can probably find experts to help out. If there’s stuff you’ve been meaning to sell, we can help you do that, too. It’ll be great. And we can ask Ms. Ellie Draper from the library to help you start writing up the history of your valuable items, so the information won’t get lost when you’re no longer around to bear witness.”

  Mr. Dunlop looked slightly wary. But only slightly.

  “You’re hoping once you get all my stuff out of here you can talk me out of most of it,” he said.

  “Yes.” I didn’t think lying would work. “Definitely. But talk you out of it. Not grab it and stuff it in the dumpster when you’re not around. We’ll respect your stuff—I promise.”

  We sat there for what seemed like an eternity, looking at him. Finally he lifted his chin as if in determination.

  “I’ll do it. When were you thinking of starting?”

  “I can get some volunteers over here by noon,” I said.

  “You’ve got one volunteer already,” Cordelia said.

  “And I can come back a little later,” Caroline said. “I just need to put on some work clothes.”

  “Oh, my.” Mr. Dunlop looked slightly stunned. He’d probably been hoping for at least a few days’ reprieve.

  “No time like the present,” I said. “The sooner we act, the sooner you can thumb your nose at those annoying relatives and neighbors. Start packing a suitcase. And think about whether you want to sleep at the furniture store with your stuff or if you’d like me to find you a room at a nearby bed-and-breakfast. Because everything goes over to the store, as soon as we can pack it up, and this place will be a construction zone.”

  “Okay.” He sounded a little shaky, and it was probably a good idea for Cordelia to stay and keep him feeling positive about the project.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “We’ll get you through this.”

  “More tea?” Cordelia asked, lifting the teapot.

  By the time I left, Cordelia had pulled out pencil and paper and was taking notes as Mr. Dunlop retold the story of the family bank in greater detail.

  As soon as I was back on the crumbling front walk, I pulled out my phone. I had a lot to organize.

  “I’m going to check around the foundation and out in the yard for signs of rodent activity,” Caroline said. “Only take a few minutes.”

  I nodded. I was already calling Randall.

  “How are things over at Mr. Dunlop’s?” he asked.

  “So far so good,” I said. “You know that building you bought this summer? The old furniture store? You got any plans for it yet?”

  “Not really,” he said. “I assume you’re asking because you do?”

  “We’re going to put Mr. Dunlop’s stuff in it while the Helping Hands volunteers fix up his house.”

  Randall was briefly silent while he digested the idea.

  “O-kay,” he said finally. “Are you thinking it will go the way it did with his yard, and he won’t want any of it back?”

  “I expect it won’t be nearly as easy,” I said. “Because obviously he will need some of his stuff back. Furniture. Appliances. Dishes. But maybe when he sees the house all clean and repaired and empty he’ll have a change of heart and be reasonable about how much he brings back. And if not, maybe we can find a therapist who specializes in OCD and hoarding to help him. But even if all we do is clean up his stuff, arrange it neatly and put it all back, he’ll still be better off without the building inspector breathing down his neck.”

  “Agreed. Okay—what do you need from me, apart from the keys to the furniture store?”

  “Moving boxes. And the use of a truck. And we need it yesterday—we want to start before he changes his mind.”

  “I’m on it. And I should probably send Eastman over to check things out.”

  “Eastman?” One of the enormous Shiffley clan, no doubt, but I couldn’t place him offhand.

  “He just took over running Shiffley Pest Control last month, when his daddy retired.”

  “Good idea.” I shuddered slightly. “Who knows what critters are sharing quarters with Mr. Dunlop?”

  “Nothing major, unless it’s changed recently. I’ve had Eastman out there regularly—ever since Ham Brimley next door to him began complaining about rats.”

  “Are there rats?” I wasn’t looking forward to finding out if Caroline’s matter-of-fact attitude toward rats sur
vived a personal encounter.

  “No rats anymore, and it wasn’t Harvey’s fault they were in the neighborhood in the first place. Seems Brimley was just throwing every kind of trash imaginable in his backyard and calling it a compost pile. Whole colony of rats had moved in. Eastman and his daddy took care of that this last spring, and they’ve been keeping their eyes on the place ever since.”

  “Is Ham Brimley the neighbor on the left or the right?”

  “Right, I think. Garage side, whichever that is.”

  “That would be the right side.” I glanced over at where the portly man—presumably Mr. Brimley—was back on his porch, glaring at me.

  “Other side’s Mrs. Gudgeon, who could single-handedly keep the nine-one-one line afloat if the rest of the county gave up using it,” Randall said. “Keep an eye on Brimley.”

  “Is he dangerous? Because I was going to leave Cordelia out here to keep Mr. Dunlop on task. If there’s any danger—”

  “Just a blowhard, as far as I can see. But he could be part of the bunch who broke into Dunlop’s garage while he was in the hospital with his gallbladder and cleaned out a bunch of his stuff.”

  “Mr. Dunlop mentioned that,” I said. “He thinks his relatives were also involved.”

  “Wouldn’t put it past them, either. I’d keep my eye on all of them.”

  “I plan to,” I said. “And I also plan to keep them out of Mr. Dunlop’s house.”

  “Good,” he said.

  With that we signed off. I was feeling chilled and turned to go back to my car. As I was reaching for the door handle, I heard a voice behind me—too close.

  “You’re not condemning the house, are you?”

  Chapter 5

  I started, and turned to find that Morris Haverhill had returned.

  “No, we haven’t condemned the house, Mr. Haverhill.” I refrained from explaining that Randall had done his best to assure the building inspector that if he just gave us a little more time we’d have the house up to code. “I already told you—”