Organize Your Corpses (2 page)

I smiled like a fellow shoe person and extended my hand. “Charlotte Adams. We have an appointment.”

Two large tears trickled down her leathery cheeks. Tears are a part of this business although they don’t usually start at the front door. But I was ready. I reached into my briefcase and held out a couple of man-size tissues.

“What can I do?” she asked in a slight tremolo, wiping her eyes.

“Well . . .” I said, filled with hope.

“My miserable cousin, Randolph, has left all this behind,” she interrupted, twisting the tissues in her hands. “Look what he’s done to this beautiful old house. Appalling. And the grounds.” She gestured toward the neglected lawn. Shredded bits of damp tissue drifted to the floor.

“That’s why I’m here, Miss Henley,” I said. “Organized for Success. Remember?”

She snapped, “Of course I remember. Do you think I’m senile?”

“Not at all,” I said, startled.

“It’s all dreadful. Truly dreadful.” She combined the sudden mood change with a sad glimpse at the grounds.

“We’ll fix it,” I said, glancing behind me to see nothing but swirling leaves. I turned back to face her.

“Weren’t you one of my pupils?” she said.

I tried smiling again. “Yes.”

The red-rimmed eyes narrowed. “I do believe I remember you.”

“And I certainly remember you.”

“Has your handwriting improved?”

“What?”

“Smudges all over your work.”

I wasn’t even in the house and already I was losing ground.

“You must have me mixed up with another student.” Sally maybe or Margaret Tang or Jack Reilly or even my former friend, Pepper O’Day.

“Something else then. Math.”

I stiffened. “A strong point.”

“Social studies.”

“Straight As.”

“English language.”

I raised my chin. “I should hardly think so.”

“Oh yes, it’s coming back to me. Attendance. Dismal record. You had that bizarre mother. Divorces. Scandals. It’s a miracle you finished school. You were never there.”

“I’m here now, Miss Henley.”

“I thought you’d gone on to work in the city.”

“Yes. Investment banking.”

“Did you get fired?”

“No.”
Good grief. What had she heard?

“You have a pale line on your ring finger. I suppose that means you are recovering from a failed marriage.”

Without thinking, I whipped my left hand behind my back. The pale line had been left by a square-cut diamond solitaire now lying on the bottom of the Hudson. Too bad my double-dealing dirty dog of an ex-fiancé hadn’t dived in after it.

I said, “It does not.”

“Well, what else would make you move back here?”

“Excuse me?” I said, frostily.

“I must ask myself if you could be equal to a task of this magnitude.”

“You’re right, Miss Henley. You should find someone else.” I pivoted perfectly on my stiletto heels and stalked off toward the sweeping staircase with its rotting boards. I kept my nose in the air but gripped the banister on my way down. No point in ruining a perfectly good exit by plunging down the steps and snapping my neck.

“You were always a drama queen,” Miss Henley called out. “You might as well come in and see what we have to contend with.”

I said, after a slow reverse pivot, “Keep in mind this is a business relationship and I expect to be treated—”

“Yes, yes,” she said, disappearing into the gloom.

Seconds later I got her point about magnitude. The narrow path through newspapers stacked at least six feet high filled a foyer that would have been splendid under normal circumstances.

The paper gave off a whiff of mildew. I also noted the unmistakable reek of mice. Miss Henley forged on as if she’d gotten used to it, although perhaps she just had a head cold. I stopped and stared around and up. Wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling junk. Boxes, tools, building materials, frames, even a few broken lawn chairs. Here and there, I glimpsed rich red wallpaper and elaborate crown moldings, half hidden by spiderwebs and grime. Several heavy oak beams leaned haphazardly against paper towers. I didn’t see any sign of beams on the ceiling. Had these been salvaged from another historic property? For what? They’d be another challenge for my team if I got the job.

Every room was choked with paper, garbage, and trivia. I spotted the odd item that might be worth a few dollars to collectors, but by and large, any valuable items were smothered by a thick layer of rubbish. As we proceeded through the house, from the first floor with its formerly grand parlor and dining room, to the spacious second-floor bedrooms, and finally to the third floor that had probably once been the servants’ quarters, one thing was clear: the place was a disaster. Okay, make that two things: it was also a firetrap.

“Forget the basement,” Miss Henley said, as we descended from the second floor. “We’d never get down the stairs. I’ve cleared a space in the kitchen. And I’ve just made hot tea. There will be room for us to sit, while I define the task.”

Miss Henley steered past a tangle of broken lamps. “Watch out for wires. You might trip and kill yourself in those ridiculous boots.”

I could have suggested she find herself an organizer whose footwear suited her better, but I chose to watch for wires instead. The kitchen took me by surprise. It was hard to know what was most striking. The piles of rags on the antique stove? The row of truck tires? Or maybe the overflowing kitty litter?

Two chairs were pulled out from a crowded table. A small bit of surface had been cleared in front of each.

“Have a seat, Charlotte Adams,” Miss Henley said.

I sat. After a minute I decided it might be safe to set my briefcase down. I kept my jacket on, since Henley House seemed even colder inside. The lovely smell of wood smoke sure hadn’t come from here.

Miss Henley handed me a cup and saucer.

“There’s no milk or sugar,” she said

“Thank you. I’ll take it as it is.” Hot was all that mattered.

I reached into the briefcase for my red notebook and the Celtic-patterned pewter pen I’ve had since my sixteenth birthday. I opened the notebook to the page I’d already ear-marked as
Henley House Project
and clicked my lucky pen confidently. Call me a young fogy, but I prefer my connection to paper over the benefits of electronics.

Miss Henley sat on the other chair. “Here is the situation. I have always been the poor Henley relation. I’m not complaining. I had a career I enjoyed. I have invested wisely and I have a good pension. My wretched cousin Randolph ran my grandfather’s home into the ground. Now see what I have to deal with.”

I had a flashback of how Miss Henley dealt with people she didn’t much care for. I felt a flicker of sympathy for the late Randolph Henley. He was better off dead than facing his cousin. “I can recommend a good hauler to drag the garbage to the landfill,” I said.

“It’s not that easy.”

“I think—”

“You think wrong, Charlotte Adams. Randolph is laughing at me from beyond the grave.”

“What do you mean?”

Miss Henley gave me a triumphant grin. “I mean he set me up. So if I followed your advice, I’d be in real trouble, wouldn’t I?”

I sensed I was about to lose a point. “Why?”

“Are you going to let me finish or not?”

“Go ahead.” I tried to sound magnanimous.

“Randolph was born nasty. Always playing mean games on the other children. He could ruin any celebration. Thanksgiving. Birthday parties. Christmas was his specialty.”

“What did he do?”

“Toys disappeared. Whatever you cared about. Your shoes. Your gifts. Your puppy.”

I gasped. My sympathy for Randolph evaporated.

Miss Henley took a minute to pull herself together. “He was an evil child and he grew up to become a wicked man.”

I had a hazy memory of a shriveled man in a stained three-piece suit and a yellow bow tie. Suit and tie were always dotted with stains. For sure he’d been a sloppy eater and a pack rat. But given Miss Henley’s critical nature, I gave him the benefit of the doubt on the evil label.

“Are you listening?” Miss Henley said.

“Of course,” I said.

“There are papers I need. Documents. Randolph has hidden them.”

“What kind of papers?”

“Legal documents. Several items. Not necessarily valuable, but of great historical significance.”

“Well, if you tell me exactly what we’re searching for . . .”

A flash of steel from the grey eyes. “If I knew what and where, I wouldn’t need your services, would I?”

“How do you know he hid these documents?”

“For reasons I don’t wish to go into, I believe that Randolph was playing a very dangerous game. He had the use of this property for his lifetime. In trust. After his death, the property was to pass to me.”

“Also in trust?”

“No. I am the next oldest and inherit it outright. My cousin Olivia Henley Simonett is the only other relative left. She’s richer than God, so Grandfather didn’t feel she needed more money. And rightly so.” She sniffed. “I plan to transfer the deed to the Woodbridge Historical Society, once we’ve found the documents. Of course, we’ll have to ensure it’s in better shape than this. The Henley name is attached to it.”

“Do these documents have to do with your inheritance?”

“All that should matter to
you
is that
I
require them.”

Right. I wrote down “missing documents???” and left it at that. “So to recap, you want me to recommend a way to eliminate this chaos while searching for documents that can’t be described or discussed.”

“I want you to find them.”

Something snakelike brushed against my ankle and I screamed.

“Have you never seen a cat before?” Miss Henley said. “Another miserable legacy from Randolph, but hardly worth shrieking over.”

I’ll decide what’s worth shrieking over, I thought. “Do you have any idea where these, um, documents might be?”

“They’ll be someplace inconvenient. Possibly dangerous.”

“Ah. In that case, I imagine your cousin planted them in the newspapers.”

“That sounds like him.”

“Maximum inconvenience.”

“I see that you’re getting the point.”

“Of course, he might have put the newspapers here to slow your search. Not to mention providing a handy fire hazard. I recommend you deal with the newspapers first. They impede access to other potential hiding places. I’ll hire a team to comb through the papers, carefully. Since the team members won’t know what to look for, I’ll get two people to check each newspaper. Then we can discard them.”

She frowned. “Not until I have the documents.”

“No problem. After they’ve been checked, we’ll stick them in temporary storage. When the documents turn up, we dispose of the newspapers.”

Miss Henley gave her familiar snort. “As long as I find what I want in time.”

“With the papers removed, we can move on to the clothing, concentrating on pockets and linings. We’ll have easy access to furniture. We’ll check under tables, beneath beds and sofas. We’ll hunt for items sewn into cushions or upholstery.”

Miss Henley brightened. “Sewn into cushions. I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Next, we’ll check loose wallpaper and examine the backing of paintings and photos. I’ll get the artwork valued, if you want.”

She sniffed. “And if the documents aren’t found?”

“At some point, we’d inspect the china, crystal, and silver, if there is any.”

“Of course there is. Randolph kept all the family heirlooms. After all, this was the Henley House.”

“Then the china and silver might be worth a lot. You don’t have a security system here. You should get one or have valuables moved until your search is completed. Before they’ve been removed, we’ll look between the plates, in the felt wraps for the silverware, inside the coffee and tea services, under trays.”

“You’ve done this type of job before?”

“It’s my job.” Maybe not exactly like this.

“Not that organizing drivel,” she said. “I mean searching for missing documents.”

Well, I’d read enough Nancy Drew in my childhood to get the drift. “It’s all a matter of logic and planning.”

“Fine. You’re hired.”

“Great,” I said, jotting down the requirements for sorting and disposal. “I’ll draw up an itemized contract with a timetable for your signature tomorrow morning.”

“Then you can start immediately.”

“As soon as you’ve signed the contract.”

Miss Henley reached down and picked up her handbag. She snapped it open and extracted her checkbook. I watched as she wrote out a check, in my name. She waved it under my nose. “A retainer. To engage your services. It should be enough to get you started.”

I said, “First, we need to get a liability insurance rider set up to cover the site. I wouldn’t want one of my sorters or movers to get hurt.”

“You’re already stalling. You’ve got two weeks to get it done. No more. You can name your price, but that deadline holds. Take it or leave it, Charlotte Adams.”

You’d think, at some point, I would have asked myself why anyone would want this job. I imagined my mother’s voice, shrieking, “Wait. What’s the catch?” But who listens to her mother?

“It’s a deal.” I slid the check into my briefcase. Now why didn’t that make me feel all warm and fuzzy?

2

By the time I deposited Miss Henley’s check through the ATM on Hudson Street, I was in desperate need of black and white fudge from Kristee’s Kandees, which was right around the corner. But, oh crap, Kristee’s was unaccountably closed. That was very bad. The meeting with Miss Henley had depleted my serotonin levels. Black and white fudge would have raised them. I formed Plan B, which was to head straight for Hannaford’s and the candy aisle. But that was before the line of police cars shot by with roof lights flashing and sirens wailing, splashing my clean car and taking my mind off fudge.