Dolly's Trash & Treasures (A Story From the Dark Side) Read online

  “I know.”

  “And the rotten peanut butter at the bottom just adds to the value. Proves it’s authentic. Plus it gives the ants something to eat.”

  “Oh, dear. But there are people who are almost as far gone as Dolly and you wouldn’t know it. There was a woman in Swedish Haven, and she was always immaculately groomed and clean about her person, and she walked to and from her place of business every day—”

  “She had a place of business?”

  “A shop, actually. She sold notions and bric-a-brac and, oh, local souvenirs. The shop was neat as a pin.”

  “And I bet she sold pins, too.”

  “And doilies and place mats. Until one day the shop never opened, and when her doorbell and phone went unanswered someone broke into her house and found her there. A stroke or a heart attack, whatever it was, but dead or alive she was in better shape than her house. It turned out she could have been a Collyer sister.”

  “Don’t tell me it was like this.”

  “It wasn’t filthy, and everything was in a semblance of order. But she never threw anything out, and the newspapers were packed in orderly stacks until they reached clear to the ceiling, and so were old clothes and everything else you could think of. Including empty jars, peanut butter and otherwise. She soaked off the labels and scrubbed the jars clean, but she kept them all, along with just about everything else that came into her hands.”

  “Good grief.”

  “I don’t know that you can call it a disease, but it’s certainly a disorder. I understand the FBI profilers divide serial killers into organized and disorganized, and I suppose you could distinguish between Dolly and the woman in Swedish Haven in much the same way, and—”

  “John? Thelma? Excuse me, but there’s something you ought to see.”

  “What is it, Arnie?”

  “Well, it’s a cat.”

  “There’ve been a few of them running around. What’s so special about this one?”

  “Well, for one thing, it’s running days ended a while ago. A couple of years, would be my guess. Come on, you’re not gonna believe this.”

  I wondered whatever happened to that cat. It was a gray tabby, and I can remember the sound it made when it purred. Although I guess all cats make the same sound, pretty much. It’s a comfort, hearing them make that sound, which I guess is part of the reason I always liked having animals in the house.

  I thought it probably wandered off. They come and they go. But something must have happened to this one, and then it just turned up again.

  “It’s like an archaeological dig. You go down another stratum and you’re in another year.”

  “And if it’s a truly productive site, sooner or later you unearth a dead cat.”

  “Did you hear what she said? She always wondered what happened to that cat. You know what it looked like?”

  “A cartoon cat.”

  “Exactly! Like Wiley Coyote when he falls off a cliff and flattens out on the pavement. Or like Tom when Jerry outsmarts him—”

  “Which is all the time.”

  “—and he gets run over by a steamroller. Then he picks himself up, fills out again, and gets back into the game.”

  “Without having learned his lesson. But I’m afraid this cat’s not going to fill out again.”

  “No.”

  “I wonder how it died. And when.”

  “I hope you’re not going to order an autopsy.”

  “No, hardly that, but they didn’t come across it until they’d moved a whole mountain of junk. It must have been there for years.”

  “Unless it dug its way under there and died.”

  “Why would it do something like that?”

  “Maybe it knew it was dying, and how else could it make sure it got buried? You know what else I was wondering? I was just—oh, hang on a minute. Arnie, is there a problem?”

  “A problem? It’s all of it a problem, isn’t it? The thing is, well, I don’t know if you need to know this, or if you even want to know it, but the boys just found another cat.”

  It was the little calico.

  Except I should say she. All calico cats are female. It’s genetic, and you’ll never find a male one. How many people know that?

  They think I’m stupid and ignorant, but I’m not. There are a lot of things I know that most people probably don’t. All white cats with blue eyes are deaf. Born that way. Genetic.

  How do I know? Well, I sure didn’t learn it in school. There’s a book about cats, a very good book, and there’s a chapter in it about genetics. One gene decides if a cat is Siamese or not.

  I’ve got the book here somewhere. Unless one of them threw it out, one of these geniuses with his name on his shirt so he won’t forget who he is.

  That calico cat, she was always Little Debby’s favorite. Of course all of the children liked all of the animals, that’s the way they were brought up, but that calico, Little Debby was crazy about her.

  “That woman in Swedish Haven?”

  “She was remarkable. The way the inner and outer lives were at such utter variance.”

  “Right, but here’s my question. How many cats did she have?”

  “Not a one.”

  “Seriously? I thought they all had a house full of cats.”

  “She didn’t have any, living or dead. Unless you count china cats.”

  “She had those?”

  “Oh, plenty of them. She collected them. And patterned glass, and travel books, and postcards and matchbooks. All of them carefully organized and neatly displayed, except that there was such a profusion of clutter that you couldn’t really see any of the displays. But they were all there, and all in apple-pie order.”

  “Your organized lunatic, as opposed to your disorganized lunatic.”

  “Except they’re not lunatics, or at least not all of them. Something goes wrong in their wiring, or maybe it’s a way to come to terms with a horrible childhood, or—”

  “Oh, shit, everybody had a bad childhood.”

  ‘Well, I have to say nobody molested me, or locked me in the closet for a week at a time. While some of the cases we get—”

  “All right, point taken. Mine wasn’t that bad, either. I used to say I had as miserable a childhood as the next braggart, but it was way short of being that kind of nightmare.”

  “I just hope there aren’t any more dead animals. Because the good news is that we’re making real progress here.”

  “Well, give the dead cats some credit.”

  “What do you mean, John?”

  “Ever since the first one turned up, she hasn’t been kicking up a fuss. Haven’t you noticed? Instead of putting up a fight every time somebody wants to throw out the 1972 World Almanac, she stays locked into her own private world and leaves the men alone. It makes a big difference.”

  “Maybe she’s resigned herself to it.”

  “And maybe she figured she knows where the county landfill is, and she can just drive down there and retrieve her treasures after we’re gone.”

  “Oh, God, don’t even say that.”

  “Plus who knows what other treasures she might find while she’s there, and—Arnie, what is it? And please don’t tell me dead cats come in threes.”

  “No, John, I think it’s worse than that. Arnie, you’re white as a sheet. It’s bad, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Arnie, what is it?”

  “Eddie and that other fellow, I can’t think of his name right now—”

  “Never mind his name.”

  “I don’t know why I can’t think of it. But it don’t matter for now. The two of them, they was in the basement, which is no judgment calls involved, you know, because it’s all water-damaged and all gotta be thrown out, and they were in, I don’t know, the root cellar or the fruit cellar, or maybe it was the coal cellar back in the day.”

  “And?”

  “You just better come downstairs. You better come see for yourselves.”

  One look a
nd I knew who I was looking at. I recognized her right off. Her T-shirt was faded, it used to be yellow and now it’s more of a gray, but you can still make out Minnie Mouse’s picture on it, and that meant it was Little Debby. It was one of her favorite shirts, she plain loved Minnie Mouse.

  But I’d have known anyway, because of the size. She was the youngest, and small for her age on top of that, so it for sure wasn’t Tricia or Maxine. Plus her red hair was a dead giveaway. Nobody else had hair that color. I guess she got it from her father, not that he was a redhead but his mother was. And nobody on my side of the family had red hair.

  Not that I know just how that works in people. Cat genetics, there’s something I know a little about, but I think it’s more complicated in human beings.

  I’ll tell you something, I think I knew it was Little Debby before I even set eyes on her. I just got this powerful feeling on the way down the cellar stairs. I couldn’t guess when was the last time I went anywhere near the cellar, but on the staircase, well, I had this feeling.

  So I guess she didn’t run off after all. I guess it couldn’t have been so bad here at home, I guess she liked it well enough to stay.

  A mother’s not supposed to play favorites, but she was my favorite, Little Debby. It’s funny, I don’t know how to explain this, but I have to say it: I’m sort of glad she’s here.

  I wonder what else will turn up.

  I hope you enjoyed

  ● Dolly’s Trash and Treasures ●

  A Story From The Dark Side, by Lawrence Block

  Lawrence Block is a Grandmaster of the Mystery Writers of America, and winner of multiple awards, including the Edgar and the Shamus awards for his novels.

  I hope you enjoyed this story. If so, I’d love to hear from you.

  Email: [email protected]

  Twitter: @LawrenceBlock

  Blog:

  http://lawrenceblock.wordpress.com/

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  www.lawrenceblock.com

  If you did in fact like this story, you might enjoy more of my short fiction. Three collections of my short fiction are available as ebooks:

  Enough Rope

  One Night Stands & Lost Weekends

  Ehrengraf for the Defense

  Also available as special edition ebooks are Single Short Stories, Novellas, and a play. Subscribe to LB’s blog and sign up for the newsletter to get the latest updates on sales, new releases and special offers.

  Stories From the Dark Side

  “Catch & Release” (a fisherman)

  “A Chance to Get Even” (a poker game)

  “Dolly’s Trash & Treasures” (a hoarder)

  “Headaches and Bad Dreams” (a psychic)

  “In For a Penny” (New York noir)

  “Like a Bone in the Throat” (revenge)

  “Scenarios” (a man with imagination)

  “Sweet Little Hands” (a cheating wife)

  “Three In The Side Pocket” (a failed scam)

  “Welcome to the Real World” (a golfer)

  “Who Knows Where It Goes” (a job hunter)

  “You Don’t Even Feel It” (a boxer’s wife)

  Bernie Rhodenbarr

  “The Burglar Who Smelled Smoke”

  “Like a Thief in the Night”

  Chip Harrison

  “As Dark As Christmas Gets”

  Ehrengraf For The Defense

  “The Ehrengraf Defense”

  “The Ehrengraf Presumption”

  “The Ehrengraf Experience”

  “The Ehrengraf Apointment”

  “The Ehrengraf Riposte”

  “The Ehrengraf Obligation”

  “The Ehrengraf Alternative”

  “The Ehrengraf Nostrum”

  “The Ehrengraf Affirmation”

  “The Ehrengraf Reverse”

  “The Ehrengraf Settlement

  Keller

  “Keller in Dallas”

  Four-Part Novellas

  “Speaking of Greed”

  “Speaking of Lust”

  A One-Act Stage Play

  “How Far”

  Short Stories

  “Almost Perfect” (baseball and adultery)

  “A Bad Night for Burglars” (a bad-luck burglar)

  “Terrible Tommy Terhune” (a tennis player)

  “A Vision in White” (another tennis player)

  For a list of all my available fiction, with my series novels listed in chronological order, go to About LB’s Fiction. And if you LOVE any of these stories, I’d really appreciate it if you’d tell your friends—including the friends you haven’t met, by blogging, posting an online review, or otherwise spreading the word.

  Thanks!

  Lawrence Block

  Available Now! The complete collection of Martin H. Ehrengraf stories.

  Includes the newest story, The Ehrengraf Settlement.

  You've never met a lawyer like Martin Ehrengraf. He never loses a case, and rarely sees the inside of a courtroom. Nor does he pass his hours poring over dusty legal volumes, or searching the Lexis database. Ehrengraf is a criminal lawyer who takes cases on a contingency basis; he collects a fee only when his client goes free. And that somehow never fails to happen happens, because his clients always turn out to be innocent.

  Ehrengraf's debut came in 1978, in Ellery Queen. Ten stories appeared between then and 2003, and now, after almost a decade, the dapper little lawyer is back (only in eBook form, and only for Kindle) in "The Ehrengraf Settlement." All eleven Ehrengraf stories, exclusively eVailable as Kindle Select titles, have now been gathered up into this full-length eBook.

  In 1994, when there were only eight stories about the fellow, a small press collected them in a limited edition of Ehrengraf for the Defense. (That little volume commands $250 to $1250 on the collector market—if you can find it.) Edward D. Hoch, acknowledged master of short mystery fiction, wrote an appreciative introduction, and Lawrence Block added an afterword. Hoch's introduction is reprinted in our new enlarged eDition of the stories, and Block has updated his afterword.

  Lawrence Block has peopled his fictional universe with a host of memorable characters. If you want a walk through the dark and gritty streets of Manhattan and the outer boroughs, Matt Scudder's your man. If you need a lighthearted and lightfingered companion to lift something from a safe in a triple-locked apartment, you want Bernie Rhodenbarr. If you have to get someone out of your hair once and for all, you'd better get Keller on the case.

  But if you're facing a murder charge, and if the evidence is overwhelming, you want the one man who's not only prepared to believe in your innocence but able to demonstrate it to the world. You want Ehrengraf.

  Just make sure you pay his fee...

  Available now on Amazon

  Ehrengraf For The Defense

  The Complete Short Story Collection