Blanche on the Lam: A Blanche White Mystery

by Barbara Neely

  “Course, our bein' worse off didn't stop the gov'ment and all these low-life rednecks round here from blamin' us, like they always do. There was more Klan rallies going on round here, more talk 'bout protectin' the flower of Southern womanhood from thievin' black men, than you could shake a stick at! Naturally, all us colored kept to ourselves and kept as quiet as possible. Seems to me even the children played in a whisper.”

  Blanche heard Nate's voice as though it were coming from a distance, even though he sat just across the table from her. It was as though he'd slipped behind a thick glass wall where he was untouched by his own words and the thoughts that went with them. He sat perfectly still while he spoke.

  “One night, round this time of year, a white woman's body was found in a ditch by the road down by Merkston's gas station. No identification. Nobody from round here. But somebody, I never did hear who, said they saw a black man in a beat-up pickup truck speedin' down the road near where that woman was found.

  “Them Klan boys went round all the plantations and other places where colored live. Caught a couple fellas out in the street after dark. Chased one of 'em into the woods. They didn't catch him, but he ain't never been back round these parts since. The young boy they caught, they beat unmerciful. Only God knows why they didn't string him up. They might as well have. Boy wasn't fit for much after that. Broke his back. Put out one a his eyes. Hardly left him enough privates to make water.” Nate shook his head mournfully from side to side.

  “Well, it just so happen that round that time, I had me a ole piece of pickup truck. Them Klan boys spotted it in front of my place, tore my house up, and made somebody or another tell them where I was. Then they come here lookin' for me. I was out in front, seein' to them weeds in the flower bed when they drove up. They all jump out the truck wearin' them damn-fool outfits, callin' me out by name, and acting like the rabid dogs they is. They grabbed me and was draggin' me to they truck when Miz Grace come out the front door lookin' for me. Her dog, Lady, was 'bout to whelp and the child was 'spectin me to help with the birthin'.

  “Miz Grace come runnin' over to those boys holdin' me. Now, you know what crackers is like round gentry, and these boys was just gettin' started, so they wasn't drunked up enough to step out they place. They stopped draggin' me off when the child come runnin', but they didn't let me go. 'This here your nigger, Miss?' one of 'em ask her.

  “ 'Yes,' she told him, 'and you let him go right now! He has to stay here to see to my dog!' Just like that she said it, bold as brass. By this time, Miz Em heard the commotion and come to the door. 'What's going on here?' she wanted to know. That's when they let go a my arms, 'cause they had to take off them dummy caps and show some respect to their better. 'We lookin' for a nigger what run over a white woman with a beat-up pickup truck, ma'am.'

  “ 'Well, this one's truck isn't working just now, but he is. For me. Nate, come see to the child's dog.' She beckoned for me to come in the house, right through the front door. She didn't take her eyes off them Klan boys till they was in the truck and headed down the drive.”

  By the time he got to this point in his story, Nate seemed to have slipped out from behind his protective wall. There was amusement, and something else she couldn't read, on his face when he turned to look directly at her for the first time since he'd begun speaking. “Minute I see Miz Grace agin, I tole her. I say, 'Miz Grace, I'm in your debt. I really is. Why, if you hadn't needed me to midwife your dog, I'd probably be dead today!' ”

  They looked at each other for a long moment, then broke into peals of laughter tinged with deep sorrow at his debt, which they both knew he did not take lightly, despite the circumstances under which it had been incurred. When they'd finally settled down, Nate began speaking again, almost as though he needed to tell a different tale in order to clear his mind of the one he'd just told.

  “Back then, Mr. Everett's people owned the Lace Hill plantation over by Sheldon Road. Sheriff's folks was sharecroppers on Lace Hill. Mr. Everett and Miz Grace used to ride that fat pony of his up and down the road and play cowboys and Indians right out in them woods. That was 'fore Miz Grace went off to boardin' school and stopped comin' here for the summers, after her little cousin drowned in that same pond out front. Miz Grace was mighty upset 'bout that. There was a heap a gossip that didn't make no sense, but nobody never did figure out what that little girl was doin' out there that time a night. Miz Grace was real broke up over that business. She was the one that found the child. Never did get her spunk back, far as I can tell.” The veil of memory lifted from Nate's eyes. He shifted in his chair. “That was a mighty fine glass of lemonade, Miz City.”

  Blanche took the hint and refilled his glass. He took a long swallow before he went on. “Now, Mr. Everett's daddy packed up his family and moved down Atlanta way in 1952. Wasn't no need to stay hereabouts. He lost Lace Hill to Kyle Munroe in a poker game.” Nate shook his head in censure and took another swig of lemonade.

  Blanche leaned back in her chair and adopted a listening pose. Nate had already proved to her that he was a storytelling man. She knew enough storytelling folks—like her Aunt Maeleen, who could bring tears to Blanche's eyes by telling her about the tragic death and/or funeral of someone neither of them knew—to know that a storytelling person couldn't be rushed. Their rhythm, the silences between their words, and their intonation were as important to the telling of the tale as the words they spoke. The story might sound like common gossip when told by another person, but in the mouth of a storyteller, gossip was art.

  “...Course, them no-count Munroes didn't know doodly-squat 'bout runnin' no plantation. Killed the land and ended up sellin' it to developers who put up them tacky little houses for mill workers. That's how come Stillwell is the sheriff 'stead of sharecroppin' like his daddy.” Nate leaned back in his chair.

  “Mista Mumsfield come here 'bout six years back, after his folks was killed in a plane crash. Miz Em always did like the boy, even if he 'tarded. His daddy was Miz Em's favorite nephew. Then Miz Em broke her leg. That's why Miz Grace come up here from Atlanta. To look after her aunt and the boy. Or so they say. Miz Grace's daddy and Mr. Mumsfield's daddy was brothers, ya see. Her daddy was a high-muckty-muck lawyer down Atlanta. Had a heart attack right in the courtroom! She was his only child. Left her a heap of money, but it's all gone now. Thanks to him. Don't seem to matter much to Miz Grace. She still crazy 'bout him.”

  “So the sheriff was friends with him, when they was coming up?” Blanche gave the same intonation to the word “him” that Nate himself had used. She was beginning to suspect that Nate planned to tell her everything about these people except why the sheriff was hanging around. She wondered why but was sure Nate would never respond to that question.

  “He ain't never had no friends. Leastways not no men friends.” Nate's mouth turned down at the corners. “Sheriff usta play with Mr. Everett and Miz Grace, till he got big enough to work in the fields with his daddy. Sheriff took a dislikin' to Mr. Everett after that.”

  Blanche wasn't surprised to learn that there was old bad blood between Everett and the sheriff, or that Everett needed more than one adoring fan at a time. She'd suspected from the lack of any papers, books, or briefcase among his things that he needed somebody to pay his way. “Does Grace know Everett's running around?”

  “Lot she don't know 'bout him.” Nate fell silent for a few moments in which he seemed to stare right through Blanche. “But some things she just got to know. Everybody know they own.” He spoke in a slightly puzzled talking-to-himself tone.

  Blanche repeated each of his words in her head but found no clue to what they collectively meant. “Maybe the sheriff is threatening to tell Grace about Everett running around. Maybe that's why he's hanging around here.”

  Nate gave her a quizzical frown. “Why he want to do that?” He shook his head vigorously from side to side. “Naw, Miz City. That ain't what it's 'bout.”

  “What is it about, then?” She tried to catch and hold his eyes, but he look
ed away before she could get a good grasp.

  “Less we know 'bout it, the better. You remember what I say, now. Anybody ask you anything 'bout these people, just say you don't know nothin'. Nothin' at all!”

  “Well, it wouldn't be a lie!” Now, she added to herself. She intended to change that situation. It was just so male of him to decide that he would withhold the juicy bits for her own good. It would be fun to teach him a lesson. She didn't doubt that she could find out what he was hiding. A family couldn't have domestic help and secrets. Fortunately, Nate was not her only source of information. Too bad Miz Minnie refused to have a phone in her house, but that problem was easily overcome. In the meantime, Nate could at least entertain her with some more common knowledge. “What about Mumsfield? You say he's been here six years?”

  Nate slumped a little in his chair, relaxing into this easily answered question. “Why, I remember when Mista Mumsfield first come here to stay. Cried all the time, wouldn't talk to nobody. Miz Em pulled him outta hisself. Turned the limousine over to him...I don't know what the boy's goin' to do once...” Nate stopped in mid-sentence. Blanche watched him but said nothing.

  “Best I be gittin' on. Sittin' round doin' a lotta loose talkin' don't get that garden tended.” He gave Blanche a look that somehow blamed her for making him say more than he'd planned.

  “What about the sheriff?” She asked more out of curiosity about how he'd react than in expectation of any information.

  Nate set his now-empty glass in the sink, then leaned on the table and brought his face close to hers. His gaze was as piercingly direct as her own had been earlier. “Just keep your eyes down and your ears shut. Believe me, Miz City, that's the best thing for you round this place. And for me, too.” His voice was serious and sad. He turned and walked toward the back door.

  That's okay, she told herself with a smile, now determined to best him in the information-gathering department. She rose and looked out the window over the sink. Everett was hurrying toward the front of the house with a stiff, almost goosestepping gait. His fists were clenched. Next time, he'll explode, she thought. She could hear a car going quickly down the drive. Her body had already told her the coast was clear, the sheriff was gone. Blanche went to the phone.

  “Ardell?” Blanche hurriedly told her friend about Nate's miserly information habits and how she planned to cure him.

  “Sounds like a visit to Miz Minnie is in order,” Ardell told her before Blanche could make the request. “I'll get right on it, honey. And you be careful! Sounds like you got some folks who're badly out of balance.” Ardell was deep into being balanced and centered. Blanche agreed in principle but refused to give up a tilt toward excess every once in a while.

  When she'd hung up, Blanche took lamb chops from the refrigerator and began trimming thick, pearly slabs of fat. She'd been planning to call Taifa and Malik after lunch, when she was sure they'd be back from church. Now she was just as eager to talk to Ardell.

  Grace and Everett were bamboozling Mumsfield out of his money, or at least out of control of it. Not unusual behavior among the sort of people for whom she worked, especially if, as Nate said, Everett had already run through Grace's money and she'd bought him in the first place. Maybe her own money was just the down payment. Emmeline's clumsily covered up alcoholism was also typical of many families—rich and poor—who thought they could pretend reality away.

  She washed and trimmed the green beans for steaming, roasted some pine nuts to go in them, and made a dressing for the melon salad. She decided to feed Emmeline before Everett. Grace and Mumsfield had gone into Farleigh to church. Grace wasn't having lunch, and Mumsfield would no doubt eat when they returned. Blanche cautioned herself to be cool as she prepared Emmeline's tray.

  Once again, Emmeline didn't bother to answer when Blanche knocked on her door. She didn't acknowledge Blanche's presence, or that of the lunch tray Blanche put on the table at her elbow. The window curtains were still drawn and the bed covers hung half on the floor. Emmeline was propped up in the same chair she'd occupied yesterday. Her feet were bare, the toenails long and thick. The green satin robe that sagged from her shoulders was littered with ashes and dotted with tiny cigarette burns. And she stinks, Blanche remarked to herself. She made the bed and emptied Emmeline's ashtray.

  “Shall I open the window, ma'am?”

  “Get the hell out of here,” Emmeline mumbled in a monotone. “And tell that bitch not to send you up to spy on me again, or I'll make her good and sorry.”

  Blanche stared at Emmeline, trying to see her through Mumsfield's eyes. Love, she thought, can truly make a princess out of a pig.

  Blanche went back downstairs and served Everett's lunch. There was no hint of her growing distrust and dislike of the man in the solicitous way she offered him peas and scalloped potatoes, or in the flourish with which she presented the lamb chops and mint jelly. It was a game she sometimes played with herself when she particularly disliked an employer she couldn't afford to drop. She'd give herself merit points for being as correct and as civil as possible. The more discerning employer soon became aware of the insult implied by her overly polite behavior but could do nothing much about it. Had she been planning to stay in his employ, Everett would have come to understand that behind her meticulous care, she was prepared to nail his ass to the wall—at least verbally—if he ever again stretched her name out as though it were a piece of already chewed gum on the hands of a messy child. But it was questionable whether anything was getting through to Everett right now. Three times, as she served his meal, Everett had stared at his watch.

  “Can I get you anything else, sir?”

  Everett looked at his watch once again. “I've got one-fifteen. Is that the right ti—” He was out of his chair and headed for the phone while the first ring was still vibrating the air. Blanche followed him to the doorway and listened.

  “Is everything all right? I've been waiting...What? What? Are you sure? Oh, God! Oh, God! No. I'm all right. It's just the shock. I...Yes, yes. But we'll have to tell her, ask her to...Of course. As soon as you get back. Yes. Goodbye.”

  Blanche ran to the table, spilled a few peas on it, and began cleaning them up. “Sorry, sir, I...” She started to speak, expecting him to come back, but he didn't return. She eased down the hall to the living room. Everett was pacing back and forth. “Excuse me, sir. Are you finished with lunch?”

  He jumped at the sound of her voice, crossed the room, and threw himself into Grace's chair. “Yes. Clear it away.” He rose as abruptly as he'd sat down. Blanche could hear him across the hall in the sitting room, the clink of glass against decanter as he poured himself a drink.

  She wondered who'd been on the phone. At first, she'd been sure he was talking to Grace. But Everett had said, “I'm all right. It's just the shock.” Blanche had never heard Grace ask after his welfare. It was generally he who asked after and took care of her. Could it have been the woman Everett was seeing? Whatever was said, it obviously wasn't anything Everett wanted to hear. Things might get real interesting when Grace came home. Blanche finished the lunch dishes and checked to see what Everett was up to. He was back in the living room, slumped in the same chair with his eyes closed and a glass of whiskey in his hand. Blanche went back to the kitchen. She cleared her mind of anything that might show up in her voice as worry, then dialed her mother's number.

  For the first few minutes they talked about how the children were handling Blanche's being away. While this was far from the first time they'd been separated from her, this time was different, unplanned. No “Goodbye,” “Bring me,” or “Be good” had been said. Still, according to her mother, they seemed to be all right. Malik hadn't had any nightmares, which was how he showed his upsets, and Taifa hadn't picked any more fights than usual with her friends, which was her way. Mama, too, sounded fine. Of course, with Mama, sounding fine meant making a fuss.

  “Now, you listen to me, Blanche. You act like you got some sense, you hear me? This ain't no time for bein'
uppity.” She spoke in her most no-nonsense voice. “You just smile with your mouth closed and those people won't pay you no mind.”

  “Yes, Mama.” Blanche stifled the impulse to ask her how she'd come to be an expert on hiding out in other people's houses. “Mama, I really appreciate how you—”

  “I'm not foolin' with you, girl,” Miz Cora interrupted. “You do like I say and behave yourself and don't let that mouth of yours git you in trouble. And give me that phone number this minute! I got a right to talk to my own child, even if she is wanted by the police and livin' with some white folks, out in the middle of God knows where! I sure will be glad when that darned check comes, so you can git...”

  Blanche let her mother talk longer than was wise, but she knew Miz Cora needed to fuss at her as much as Blanche needed the reassurance of her mother's voice.

  Just as Blanche was about to interrupt, her mother seemed to read her mind. “...And that Cora Lee Walters come by here a while ago. Thinkin' she was gon' take my grandbabies on over to that cold old house of hers. But I told her, 'No, ma'am, even though you is their poor dead daddy's mama. Not today. We got plans,' I told her. I just had a feelin' you'd be callin' 'bout now.

  “Taifa! Malik! It's Mama Blanche!” she shouted.

  “When you coming home, Mama Blanche? And where did you say you were?” Taifa asked in her most officious tone.

  “Mama! Mama!” Malik shouted in Blanche's ear.

  Then her mother's voice in the background: “Boy! You know I don't tolerate no brute force! Give that phone back to your sister and wait your turn!”

  When Taifa came back on the line, she told Blanche about the fish she'd caught the day before and how Uncle Leo said she and Malik were almost as good at fishing as he was. Blanche silently thanked the child for not continuing to ask when she'd be home.