One Door From Heaven

her bonds presented a greater danger than a minor skin burn. Shackled and fettered, able to squirm along hardly more efficiently than an inchworm, she dared not risk unintentionally igniting a major blaze.
        As a second blast of thunder rocked the day and as the tramp-tramp-tramp of rain marched across the roof, she scanned the walls, seeking some item in the trash that might serve her. Only the coffee cans held promise.
        Maxwell House. Four rows of large four-pound cans, each row measuring six cans wide, were wedged between columns of twine-bundled newspapers, with more papers stacked under and atop them. A plastic lid capped each can.
        No one would keep twenty-four unopened cans of Maxwell House here instead of in a pantry. People saved empty coffee containers to store things in. Teelroy, who apparently had never thrown out anything in his life, who seemed to have filled his home with an eccentric collection worthy of a chapter in a psychology textbook, surely would not have left any of these twenty-four empty.
        Micky inched away from the chair, passed the TV, arrived at the Maxwell House display, rose onto her knees with more than a little effort, got a firm grip on one of the cans in the topmost of the four rows. She hesitated to wrench the container out of the stacks, fearful that she would trigger a sudden collapse of the entire wall, burying herself in a ton of moldering trash.
        After studying the structure, assessing its stability, she opted for action, realizing that she had no other choice. At first the can seemed to be as immovable as a stone mortared in a rampart. Then it wiggled a little between the compressed block of newsprint above it and the second row of cans below. Wiggled, slid, and came loose.
        Still on her knees, bracing the can between her thighs, Micky pried at the stubborn lid. Over the years, the plastic had pressure bonded to the aluminum. Micky clawed in frustration, but at last tore it off.
        At least a hundred small pale crescents, varying in color from white to dirty yellow, spilled out of the can, onto the floor at her knees, before she corrected its tilt. Thousands of little quarter-moons filled the container, and Micky stared in bafflement for a second, not because she failed to identify the contents, but because she couldn't wrap her mind around the scope of Teelroy's obsessive hoarding. Fingernail and toenail clippings: years'1 worth.
        Not all had come from the same two hands. Some were smaller than others and bright with nail polish: a woman's trimmings. Maybe the whole family had contributed in years past when there had been more people living here than just poor Leonard with his needful, desperate eyes. Multigenerational obsession.
        She set the can aside, worked loose another one. Too light. Not likely to contain anything of use to her. She clawed it open anyway.
        Hair. Oily hair clippings.
        When Micky popped the lid off a third can, a clean calcium scent wafted up, a sort of seashell smell. Peering inside, she cried out and let the container drop from between her thighs.
        The can rolled across the floor, spilling the tiny white skeletons of six or eight birds, all as fragile as sugar lace. They were too small to have been anything but canaries or parakeets. The Teelroys evidently had kept parakeets, and every time one of their little birds had died, they had somehow separated feathers and flesh from the bones,
        saving those blanched and brittle remains for…For what?
        Sentimental reasons? The papery bones crumbled as the skeletons rattled across the floor, and the skulls, none bigger than a cherry tomato, bounced and tumbled and rattled like misshapen dice.
        Maybe she had too quickly dismissed the idea that she was dead and in Hell. This place had surely been a hell of sorts for Leonard Teelroy and evidently for other Teelroys before him.
        These coffee cans weren't going to yield anything of use.
        This foul room didn't contain a clock, but she could hear one ticking nonetheless, counting down to Preston Maddoc's return.
        CLUTCHING the rain-soaked journal, Polly reached the Fleetwood, opened the door, climbed inside, paused on the steps, turned to urge Leilani to hurry-and saw that the girl had vanished.
        Having disconnected the utility hookups, Curtis appeared around the front of the motor home just as Cass, ensconced in the