Melinda Wells - The Proof is in the Pudding

Three hours and twelve hands of gin later-I owed Liddy six dollars and John owed her eight-Detective Hatch and his Merry Pillagers finally emerged from my house.

With a cardboard box full of DVDs and VHS tapes.

“Those are my favorite old movies,” I told Hatch. “After you’ve had your film festival, I want them back.”

“If they’re really what you say, they’ll be returned.”

In a low voice, Liddy said, “At least they’re not carting off huge garbage bags full of stuff, like I see on the cop shows.”

“That’s because Della’s house wasn’t the scene of the crime,” John said.

“We’re going to search your vehicle,” Hatch announced.

“I’ll get the keys,” I said.

“No need.” Hatch held up the keys to my Jeep. “They were on your dresser.” He tossed the ring to one of the uniformed officers. “We’re taking this to the LAPD garage to look it over there. You’ll get it back in a day or two.”

That further indignity infuriated me, but I couldn’t prevent it. “I know the mileage and how much gas is in the tank,” I said, “so no joyriding. And keep my radio on the setting where I have it.”

They ignored me and headed toward the driveway, where I’d parked. I hadn’t put the Jeep into the garage last night because Nicholas was there, and we’d started kissing.

The thought of Nicholas made me remember that I hadn’t made my bed this morning, after he and I… And Nicholas had left a wet towel on the bathroom floor after he showered. Hatch must think I’m a slob.

It suddenly struck me as funny that I’d worry about such a ridiculous thing, under the circumstances. I started to laugh.

John picked up Emma’s carrier. “You’re taking this well.”

“I was a cop’s wife,” I said. “We’re tough.”

Then I opened my front door, stepped into my house, and began to cry.

“Oh, no…” Liddy’s voice was a wail of despair. She put her arm around my shoulders in sympathy. “This is awful.”

Awful didn’t begin to describe the condition of my living room.

“Bastards,” John said. “I’m sorry, Del.”

Every book had been taken from the shelves and left on the floor. Chairs were turned upside down; the drawer was removed from my Grandma Nell’s little antique writing desk and the contents scattered on the floor; sofa cushions lay in a heap in a corner. The heavy glass top on my carved wooden coffee table was leaning up against one wall, with the table upended. The two area rugs were rolled up and pushed aside. The pictures on the walls had been taken down and leaned against the baseboards. The family photos on surfaces had been taken out of their frames and left lying facedown where they used to stand upright.

Liddy handed me a packet of tissues. I wiped away the tears, blew my nose, and took a long, deep breath.

“I’m okay now.” It was a lie, but I figured if I kept saying that to myself, I could make it true.

I picked up the little wastebasket that had been under the writing desk, placed it back where it belonged, and dropped the tissues into it. “Let’s keep going.”

John lifted the cat carrier a little higher and asked, “Where do you want Emma?”

The fact that John remembered the name of my cat cheered me. In the middle of chaos, little things mattered.

“For now, in my bathroom,” I said.

At the door to my bedroom, I felt tears filling my eyes again. The linens had been torn from the bed and lay in piles on the floor. The mattress had been turned over but not put back on the box springs. All the clothes in my closets had been taken out and dropped onto the bed. The lingerie in my dresser had been dumped out and the drawers turned upside down. Even all of my handbags had been opened, shaken out, and thrown aside. Old tissues, crumpled receipts, loose coins, and partial rolls of breath mints that had been in the bottoms of the purses were left on the linen pile.

Reaching for the only positive thing I could think of, I said, “At least they didn’t slice up my cushions and mattress and pull out the stuffing.”

Relatively speaking, my bathroom was in the best shape. Towels and washcloths had been swept from the shelves and left on the floor. The top of the toilet tank had been taken off but not put back on, just leaned up against the corner of the shower stall. The contents of my medicine cabinet had been hauled out and left in the bathroom sink. Even Emma’s box has been emptied out onto one of the used towels.

Adding insult to injury-I hate a cliché, but in this case it expressed exactly how I felt-the toilet seat had been left up. Nicholas never left it up, so it meant that one of those rampaging “Protect and Servers” had relieved himself here. That made me mad enough to stop the tears.

I closed the lid, resolving to scrub out the toilet later, before I used it myself.

“Let me straighten this up quickly,” I told John, “and then we can settle Emma in here for a while.”

While John stood holding the carrier, Liddy quickly put dirty laundry into the hamper and replaced the clean towels on shelves. I folded the spilled litter into the dirty towel where it had been dumped and refilled Emma’s box with fresh crystals from an unopened box beneath the sink. Finally, I refilled Emma’s water dish and spread a fresh towel out on the floor and took the carrier from John.

I unzipped it and coaxed her out. She was tentative. I know how upsetting it is to an animal when their familiar territory is changed in some way. It’s hard on human beings, too. I stroked her and said, “Don’t worry, sweetheart. You’ll be comfortable here until I can let you back into the rest of the house.”

Emma crept over to examine her litter box, and I backed out of the bathroom and closed the door.

Eileen’s bedroom and bathroom were an ugly mirror image of mine. Total disarray.

“We’ll have this put back together before she sees it,” I told John.

Jaws clamped, John nodded. I guessed that he didn’t trust himself to speak at that moment.

As bad as the living room and the bedrooms had been, the worst pain whacked me in the heart as soon as I came to the kitchen.

Liddy groaned, and John muttered a string of expletives I’d never before heard him use.

All of my dishes and cooking utensils had been taken out of their cabinets and left on the counters, the table, and the floor. All of my cleaning products had been removed from the area beneath the sink and my brooms and mops and vacuum cleaner cleared from the utility closet. My large crockery jars of dried pastas, sugar, and flour had been emptied onto paper towels and obviously pawed through. Rendered unusable by hands I was sure were dirty, those supplies would have to be thrown away.

They hadn’t opened Tuffy’s and Emma’s sealed bags of Natural Balance dry food, but they’d emptied the already opened bags onto newspapers. I’d have to discard that, too.

With growing dread, I opened the refrigerator. Hatch and his team had taken everything out, but at least they’d put back the items that needed to stay cold, although not in the logical arrangement in which I kept my supplies.

Last came the freezer. This news was semibad. The frozen items in sealed supermarket packaging had been left alone, but everything that I’d wrapped in foil or freezer bags had been opened and not resealed. I’d have to get rid of that food, too, because I didn’t know what contamination had occurred and I wasn’t going to risk my health, or anyone else’s.

John’s expression was grim, but-perhaps trying to sound a positive note-he said, “For anything that they’ve destroyed, you can be reimbursed. There are forms. Want me to pick one up for you?”