Jamie Brodie 02 - Hoarded to Death

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, Kev in 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