Address to Die For (28 page)

We don't use the word
hoarder
in my business. It holds negative connotations, few of which are true of the chronically disorganized.

 

 

 

 

I
couldn't be sure where the line was between a mansion and a really big house, but I knew that I was straddling it, standing on the front porch of the gracious Victorian home of Stanford professor Lincoln Sinclair. The future of my career here in Orchard View straddled a similar line—the one between success and failure.

I rang the doorbell a second time and glanced at my best friend, Tess Olmos. She was dressed in what I called her dominatrix outfit—red-and-black designer business clothes and expensive black stilettos with red soles. I wore jeans, sneakers, and a long-sleeved white T-shirt over which I wore a canvas fisherman's vest filled with the tools of my trade. I'm a certified professional organizer and my job today was to finish helping the professor sort through three generations of furniture and a lifetime's collection of “stuff” he was emotionally attached to.

The professor was a brilliant man on the short list for the Nobel Prize in a field I didn't understand, but his brain wasn't programmed for organization and never would be.

And that's where I came in. Organization is my superpower.

I looked at my watch. It was 9:10 a.m. We had arrived promptly for our appointment at nine. Tess had arranged to use the house for her annual holiday showcase to thank her clients and promote her business, but she wanted to double-check our progress on clearing things out before she scheduled her team of vendors. All but one of the rooms was empty, but Tess had a sharp eye and might well spot something I'd missed. If she had questions about anything Linc and I had done, I wanted to be on hand to answer them immediately.

Participating in Tess's holiday event would give my fledgling business a huge boost. Endorsements from Tess Olmos and Linc Sinclair were likely to bring me as much business as I could handle.

“We did say nine o'clock, didn't we?” I asked Tess. “I wonder if he overslept after that storm last night?” A rare electrical storm had coursed across the San Francisco Bay Area the previous evening, bringing buckets of much-needed rain. With it came winds that downed trees and power lines. Thunder shook my house to its foundation.

“What did the weather folks predict? ‘Isolated storm cells with a chance of lightning.' The morning news was showing footage of funnel clouds in Palo Alto. My dog whined all night.” Tess bent to peek through one of the front windows. “Wow, you've really made a lot of progress in there,” she said. “I can see clear through to the dining room.”

I smiled as I stepped off the porch and onto the fieldstone path running across the grass and past the chrysanthemums and snapdragons that edged the front garden.

“Linc's been working hard,” I said. “All that's left, beyond a few boxes, is his upstairs workroom with all that electronic equipment and research papers. I'm hoping to organize most of that today and take it to his freshly cleaned and cataloged storage unit. If it goes well, we'll tackle his office at Stanford too.”

I looked up and down the street. No professor.

“Where is he?” asked Tess, echoing the question I'd already asked myself.

“I'll take a look 'round back,” I said. “He may be working in the garden or kitchen with his headphones on and can't hear the bell.”

I followed the flagstone walk around to the side of the house and let out a yelp. My hand flew to my throat and my heart rate soared.

“Oh my, sorry. I'm so sorry,” I said to the woman blocking my way. I fought to regain my balance after my abrupt stop. “You startled me. Can I help you?”

“Humph!” said the woman, straightening as if to maximize her height. “I could ask you the same question. Does Professor Sinclair know you're here? He appreciates neither visitors nor interruptions.” Her face was overshadowed by a gardening hat the size of a small umbrella. Green rubber boots with white polka dots swallowed her feet and lower legs, which vanished beneath a voluminous fuchsia skirt splattered with potting soil. A purple flannel shirt completed her outfit.

Tess's stilettos clicked on the path behind me. With one hand on my shoulder, she reached in front of me, holding out her hand to greet the woman.

“Tess Olmos,” she said. “I'm Linc's Realtor and this is Maggie McDonald, his professional organizer. We're here for an appointment.”

I scrambled in my cargo vest for a business card as the woman picked up the business end of a coiled garden hose. I had the distinct impression she was waiting for an excuse to turn the nozzle on us. I found a card, plucked it from my pocket, and handed it to her.

“I was checking the professor's house for damage after that storm last night,” the woman said as she took my card and put it in her pocket without looking at it. “My nana would have called it a
gully-womper
. Nice to meet you ladies, but I need to get to work. For twenty years, the Sinclairs have allowed me to use their water in my community garden plot.” She waved her arm toward an overgrown hedge at the back of the half-acre property. “In exchange, I provide them with fresh vegetables.”

“Of course,” Tess said as if she knew all about the arrangement. “And you are?”

“Oh, sorry.” The woman wiped her grubby hands on her pink skirt before shaking Tess's outstretched hand. “I'm Claire Domingo, but I go by Boots. I'm the president of the Orchard View Potters Garden Club. We run the community garden in back of the house.”

Before any of us could say anything more, I heard the screeching of bicycle brakes. Linc careened around the corner with his legs outstretched and his jacket flapping behind him. His Irish wolfhound, Newton, loped beside him and made the turn easily.

Out of breath, Linc jumped from the bike and let it fall to the ground beside him as if he were an eight-year-old who was late for lunch.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” he said, scurrying toward us. “I had an idea for a new project in the middle of the night and I rode over to the university. Time got away from me. Sorry to keep you waiting.”

Newton barked in greeting and lunged toward me.

Linc unhooked the dog from the bicycle leash he'd invented ten years earlier, but had never sought a patent for. Once he'd created it and proved it worked, he'd lost interest.

Newton barreled in my direction. I stepped back and knelt to give him more room to slow down before he plowed into me. Linc had trained him well, but his exuberance sometimes got the better of him. I scratched him behind the ears in a proper doggy greeting before turning my attention to Linc, who picked up the bicycle and leaned it against the fence.

“No problem, Linc,” I said. “You're here now. Shall we get started?”

Linc patted the pockets of his jacket, his jeans, and his sweatshirt and looked up, chagrined. “I'm afraid I've forgotten my key again.”

Tess, Boots, and I each reached into our own pockets and plucked out keys labeled with varying shades of fluorescent tags. I laughed awkwardly and headed toward the back porch, knowing that the lock on the kitchen door was less fussy than some of the other old locks on the house.

“Let's add installing new locks to the list of jobs,” I told Tess.

Boots followed us. We stepped carefully around some of the boxes of donations that awaited pickup by a local charity resale shop. I unlocked the door and we trooped in.

Linc shifted from one foot to another, took off his glasses, and cleaned them with his shirttail. He looked around the room, blinking as if surprised to find he was no longer in his Stanford University lab. I flicked the light switch, but the room remained dim. Last week I'd brought over a supply of bulbs to replace several that I'd found burned out. I must have missed this one.

“Did you lose power in the storm?” I asked.

He answered with a shrug. “I'm not sure; maybe. I was at my lab working on my project.”

Boots pulled open the refrigerator door and plucked a bag of lettuce from the darkness within. It had turned soggy in the bag.

“I'll take this for compost and bring you back some fresh spinach this afternoon,” she said. “The kale's coming along nicely too.”

“Can I get you all a cup of tea?” Linc asked. It was a delaying tactic I recognized from experience. Sorting and organizing was nearly painful for this man, who was said to have several ideas that could reverse the effects of global warming.

“Let's get started upstairs,” I said. “I want to show Tess how much progress you've made.”

Boots rummaged in the refrigerator. “I'll see what else needs to be tossed, Linc. Go on. I'll let myself out.”

“I can't withstand pressure from all three of you.” Linc shrugged and turned toward the staircase that divided the kitchen and living room. I started up the steps behind him, then stopped and called over my shoulder. “Tess, I'm going to show you Linc's workroom first. He's been working in there while I've been tackling the other rooms.” I mouthed the words
praise him
to her. Linc hadn't actually made all that much progress, but he
had
agreed on broad-based guidelines for culling the equipment and organizing some of his papers.

Newton nudged past us to lead the way up the stairs. When I reached the hall landing, it was dark.
Right,
I thought
. The storm. No electricity.

Newton growled, low in his throat, then whimpered. Linc moved down the hall toward his office and workroom. In the doorway, he gasped and froze. His mouth dropped open. His eyes grew wide. He stepped back, but leaned forward with his arm outstretched.

“Whatever it is, we can fix it,” I said, rushing toward him, terrified I'd tossed out something of great value. “Everything we moved out of here is still in the garage.”

Peering over Linc's shaking shoulders, I bit my lip, swallowed hard, and grasped his arm as he tried to move forward into the room. We couldn't fix it. Not this.

“No, don't,” I said, pulling him back. “Tess, get the police. An ambulance.”

Tess moved forward in the narrow hall, apparently trying to get a look at whatever had shocked Linc and me. I shook my head and whispered, “It's Sarah. Just dial. Quickly.”

I hoped my voice would carry to the kitchen. “Boots, do you know where there's a fuse box or electrical panel? Can you make
triple sure
the power is out all through the house?”

“What's going on?” shouted Boots.

I couldn't think of an appropriate answer, but I gave it a shot. “We've got a problem up here, Boots. Can you make sure the power is off,
now
? Please? Right now?”

“'Kay,” said Boots, though I could hear her grumbling that she wasn't our servant to command. Her voice was followed by the creak of old door hinges and the sound of her rubber boots galumphing down the basement stairs.

I forced myself to look at Linc's workroom again. Nothing had changed. Sarah Palmer, Linc's fiancée, lay sprawled on the floor in a puddle of water. Sarah Palmer, one of my dearest friends, whose caramel-colored skin normally shone with warmth and health, lay face down with her hand outstretched and clutching a frayed electrical cord.

Worst of all, the body that had once been Sarah's looked very, very dead.