Hoarded to Death (A Jamie Brodie Mystery) (3 page)

"Hi. Let me come out there." She stepped outside and closed the door. "I don't want you all to see inside until we do it with the cameras, so we get your authentic first reactions."

"How bad is it?" Val asked.

Raven shrugged. "I've seen worse. But it's pretty bad." She lit a cigarette, and blew the stream of smoke away from us. I stepped back, and Raven looked at me questioningly.

"I have asthma. Sorry."

"Oh! I didn't know." Raven quickly put out the cigarette. "I'm the one that's sorry. No smoking around you." She smiled. "Okay. Jennifer is not here right now; she's at Dr. Hayman’s office and they'll be here in about 45 minutes. We've got the camera crew in there now; they're doing their opening shots of the rooms. As soon as they've got everything they need, we'll take you all in with the cameras and get your reactions. Then Jennifer and Dr. Hayman will be here, and we'll let you talk about it with her. How does that sound?"

Val and I looked at each other and shrugged. "Fine, I guess. That's your standard procedure, right?"

"Yep. This situation is a little different because we don't have a lot of room to maneuver here, being on the second floor and having this balcony here. We have the manager's permission to use the parking lot for the dumpster trucks today and tomorrow." She turned as the door opened. "Oh, good, here's Mike."

I recognized Mike, although I didn't remember his last name. He was one of the regular organizers that worked with the show. He shook our hands, then turned to Raven. "We're just waiting on one more, right?"

"Right." Raven checked her clipboard. "Susannah Ridgeway. One of Jennifer's childhood friends." She looked at me. "Have you met her?"

"Not that I remember. Unless she was in the wedding."

"Okay, that doesn't matter. Oh good, here she is now."

Susannah Ridgeway had come a long way from Julian, California. She looked like she had just stepped out of a glossy corporate annual report. Designer suit, hose and heels, hair cut in a short wedge, perfect makeup and tasteful jewelry. She certainly wasn’t planning on doing any cleaning or carrying. We introduced ourselves. She cocked her head at me. "So you're Kevin's brother."

"Yep."

She nodded. "I only met Kevin once. He was...imposing."

"Yeah, Kevin can be kind of intimidating. Were you at their wedding?"

"No. I was in Europe at the time." She pursed her lips. "Actually, I haven't really kept up with Jennifer. We exchange Christmas cards. I knew she was divorced but I had no idea that she'd come to...this." She waved her hand at the apartment.

"Yeah. It was one of the reasons for the divorce."

"I would think so." Susannah turned up her nose a bit and looked at her watch. "Okay, I have a meeting in three hours. Can we get started?"

A meeting on Saturday morning? What was Susannah even here for?

"Absolutely." Raven opened the door. "Mike, you do the honors. I'm going to get out of the way."

Mike stepped back into the house. To say he squeezed through would be more accurate. The door didn't open all the way.
God knows what was behind it
, I thought. And we were about to find out.

We all squeezed in after Mike. The apartment was dark. The drapes were drawn, and there was stuff piled up in front of the windows to the ceiling. There was stuff piled up
everywhere
to the ceiling. There was a faint smell, not of garbage, but of old mustiness. It was kind of like the smell in the home of an old person. Like a nursing home without the urine overlay. There were cobwebs in the corners, big ones. There was no way that anyone would be able to reach the corners to clean them.

The camera stayed in front of us as we looked around, mouths agape, at the mountains of stuff. Then Val said, "Oh. My. God." And I sneezed.

Seeing it on TV did nothing to prepare me for the scene in front of me. It's like they say about the aftermath of natural disasters: seeing it on TV is nothing like seeing it in real life. Well, this was an unnatural disaster. There were a lot of things in bags. There were some boxes. There were slumping stacks of magazines and newspapers. There were cases of canned food.

I couldn't see any furniture. "Where's the furniture?"

Pete shook his head. "Buried."

There was a very narrow path along the edge of the mess, which allowed us to squeeze through to the kitchen. The kitchen was stacked with what looked like supplies - canned food, paper towels, and more magazines and newspapers. There weren't any dirty dishes, but there were dozens of plastic cups from places like McDonalds and 7-11. There were a couple of garbage bags, closed, which looked like they contained fast food wrappers. The stove was covered and the sink was full; there was no way Jennifer could cook or wash dishes. The microwave was full of magazines. The refrigerator was hard to open because of the multiple rolls of paper towels stacked in front of it. When we did get the door open, the odor rushed out. Val quickly shut the door again. "Oh shit. That's nasty."

Susannah made a gagging sound. "What was that?"

Val waved her hand in front of her face, fanning away the fumes. "It looked like old takeout containers."

Now we needed to get out of the kitchen. We inched through the narrow path back to the master bedroom. It was full of clothes, mostly in bags, either shopping bags or garbage bags. There were clothes piled on every available surface, up to the ceiling in the corners, and there were cobwebs in the corners again. There were magazines and newspapers in here, too. What was it with the magazines and newspapers?

Jennifer had a twin bed shoved against the back wall, and the path ended there. The bed was piled with clothes and blankets. I didn’t see how she'd been sleeping there. Val looked around. "Where's the bathroom?"

"This way." The cameraman pointed. We had to climb over a couple of small piles of clothes to get to the door; there wasn't a path here anymore.

The floor of the bathroom was piled with more paper towels, magazines, and newspapers. There were also plastic drink cups in here. There was a narrow path in front of the sink and toilet, leading to the tub. The toilet was clean, thank God. There were clothes hanging from the shower head; it looked like Jennifer must only take baths. The bathtub was clean, but there were a couple dozen bottles of shampoo and conditioner lining its edges, and a few sitting inside the tub itself.

We'd been pretty quiet. The cameraman said, "You all aren't saying much."

Val opened her mouth, then closed it again. I said, "I think we're stunned. You know, I've watched the hoarding shows a lot, and I thought I was prepared for whatever was going on here, but seeing it in person is a whole different experience."

Susannah said grimly, "I would never have thought that Jennifer would be one to do this. She never seemed that type to me. Whatever that type is."

"But how well did you really know her?" Val scratched her forehead and looked around again. "We were related to her, and we had no idea. When she and Kevin were around I always tried to draw her out, but she never would say more than a few words."

"I was in England for almost the whole time they were married. I didn't really know her at all." I shrugged. "When Raven told me Jennifer was going by Graham now, I thought maybe that was a good sign, that she'd taken back her maiden name and now she was going to get her act together. Maybe she'll be successful here. Maybe we can really help her do this."

Val looked at me skeptically. Susannah sighed dramatically. The cameraman signaled Mike, who rubbed his hands together. “Great stuff, guys. Great stuff. Let’s step outside until Jennifer and Dr. Hayman get here.”

We went back out to the Jeep to wait for Jennifer to arrive. Pete had another muffin. I sipped my Coke; the smell from the refrigerator had killed my appetite. Val paced a little, then scooted into the cargo area with us. Susannah immediately started talking on her phone. Raven went to the other side of the parking lot to smoke and talk to her assistant and the cameraman.

In about 15 minutes, Jennifer and Dr. Hayman, the psychologist, arrived. Dr. Hayman was pleasant but harried looking, a moderately heavy set lady with a faded red dye job, dressed in a long skirt and what looked like a man's sweater hanging down over it. Pete and Val introduced themselves, and she thanked us for coming. Jennifer looked stressed. She was sticking close to Dr. Hayman.

There was a few minutes of general milling around, then Stan the Junk Man and his minions arrived. Stan was a local entrepreneur, with junkyards, recycling centers, and self-storage units all over LA and Orange Counties. I'd seen hoarding shows where the junk trucks actually had the word "JUNK" prominently displayed on them; that seemed to me to be the icing on the humiliation cake for the hoarder. Stan's trucks were decorated with the logo of his self-storage business. So if any of Jennifer's neighbors got nosy, it would just look like she was moving a bunch of stuff to storage.

Finally, Raven called us all to attention. We gathered at the foot of the staircase leading to Jennifer's apartment. Raven said, "Okay, what we want to do now is to get some footage of the friends and family talking to Jennifer about the hoard and their reactions to it. Then we'll get started with the clean. So, Susannah, Jamie, Pete and Val, if you'd come up with Jennifer and Dr. Hayman and the cameraman will get you positioned."

We trooped up the steps and back into the apartment. Greg, the cameraman, aligned us in a semicircle near the door, then said, "Okay, rolling."

We looked at each other for a minute. Jennifer looked at the floor. Then Val asked, "Where do you sleep?"

Jennifer didn't look up. "On the bed. I just shove stuff over until I can make enough room."

Val continued. "How do you even use your kitchen? When's the last time you cooked anything?"

"I don't remember. I've been eating out every meal for a long time."

Pete took over. "What's with all the magazines and newspapers?"

Jennifer still didn't look at us. "The magazines are mostly for school. Some are education journals and some are news magazines. I want - wanted - to look at them for ideas for bulletin boards and lesson plans. The papers have coupons and stuff in them."

I was only really interested in one thing. "Where are the boxes with the books?"

That got Jennifer to look up. "They're in the guest room. But they're under a bunch of stuff."

Susannah hadn't said anything yet. Now she did. "This is disgusting. How can you live like this?"

Jennifer got tears in her eyes. "I can't any more. That's why I want to do this."

Dr. Hayman laid her hand on Jennifer's shoulder. "Jennifer, how do you feel about your family's reactions to your hoard?"

Jennifer sighed. "They're right. It's awful. I can't live like this."

Greg the cameraman cut us off. "Okay, that's good. Let's go back outside and have our pep talk." Dr. Hayman glared at Greg. I got the impression she wasn't done with the "how do you feel" line of questioning. But time was a'wastin’. We all marched back downstairs and formed a bigger semicircle, now including Stan and his guys, in the parking lot.

Mike the organizer took over.

"Okay, folks, thank you all for coming. Here's how we're going to do this."

We received our instructions. Jennifer would allow us to get rid of all the magazines and newspapers with no restrictions. However, she wanted to look at everything else. Every item in every box and bag had to be scrutinized before she'd agree to get rid of it. Susannah was going to stay outside with Jennifer and help her decide what to donate and what to sell. I thought that was wise.

Pete and I wanted no part of the sorting. As the organizer was speaking, I poked Pete in the ribs. "Let's hit the magazines and newspapers. Avoid the drama."

"Great idea." Pete turned to me. "But you’re wearing a mask to keep out the dust. And the first bit of mold we run into, or cockroach shit, or anything like that, you're out of here. Agreed?"

"Agreed." I had no interest in sacrificing the health of my lungs to Jennifer's hoard. Back in June I'd nearly died after a cologne-induced asthma attack, and I didn't want to find myself back in the hospital for a long, long time.

As soon as we were released to begin, Pete and I grabbed a roll of garbage bags and headed for the bedroom. We thought we'd work from the back forward. We set up a good rhythm, holding the open trash bag in one hand and tossing magazines and newspapers into it with the other. We were very careful not to include anything but magazines and newspapers.

At one point, I moved a stack of magazines off the surface of a dresser and found a picture. Oh shit. It was Jennifer and Kevin's wedding picture. I picked it up. "Pete. Take a look at this."

Pete straightened up and saw the picture. "Damn."

"No kidding. Why does she still have this?"

"No idea. But it can't be good."

As we worked, I chatted a bit with Stan's guys. The head of the crew seemed to be Alvin, a middle-aged black man with a shaved head and goatee. The other three were younger, one Hispanic and two white. The Hispanic guy, Eddie, was the friendliest. He was taking night classes at UCLA, so we talked, careful to keep it off-camera, about school and the Bruins football team. One of the white guys, Jerry, worked silently but efficiently. He had a lot of crude tattoos and big muscles. I wondered if he had obtained them in prison.

Alvin, Eddie and Jerry worked hard. They slung the full bags of magazines, newspapers and garbage as fast as Pete and I could fill them, and filled a few of their own as well. The fourth guy, Wally, didn’t look like he fit. He was a scrawny guy, pale, with no discernible muscle mass. He had light brown hair and a scruffy goatee. He reminded me of Shaggy on the old Scooby-Doo cartoon.

Wally wasn't putting forth the same effort that the other three were. He spent more time looking through the stuff he was loading into the bags. I thought that was a little odd. I mentioned it to Pete when we were momentarily alone in the guest room.

Pete grinned. "Maybe he's a hoarder."

"Oh my God. A hoarder who cleans other people's hoards? How ironic is that?"