Blanche Cleans Up: A Blanche White Mystery (Blanche White Mystery Series Book 3)

by Barbara Neely

  “I asked him why he kept seeing me if I was so…He said for fun and profit. He said in a way he was fucking the whole family because dear old Dad was going to be really fucked when he threatened to go to the papers with pictures of both of us with him. He said he’d make a bundle. I knew he was telling the truth that time. It was almost funny. He didn’t know about the tape, you see. That I told Ray-Ray where to find the combination. Saxe always said I was too spineless to really do anything against…So I wanted to show him…to make him proud of me. But when he said…I was glad I hadn’t told him. I laughed in his face. Nobody was going to care about his little photographs once I took the tape to the press.”

  A momentary spasm twisted Allister’s face. He opened his mouth as if to speak but didn’t. Marc went on talking. “Then he told me to get out and to stay away from him. He started pushing me.” Marc’s voice went thin. “Just little shoves.” He jabbed his stiff-fingered hand into an imaginary chest. “He kept talking about me and you, both nympho pushovers who let him do anything he wanted. He kept laughing and talking and pushing me. I saw the trophy where he’d put it on the table…I picked it up. I just wanted to make him stop talking and pushing me and pushing me—”

  “Oh God, oh God, oh God.” Felicia covered her mouth with a hand and crumpled to her knees as though the weight of Marc’s words were too heavy for her to bear. When she looked up, her face was skim-milk white.

  “I went back,” she said. “I…I thought I’d done it. I thought—”

  “You took his things!” Marc interrupted, looking down at her. “I should have realized it was you.” He jerked his head in Allister’s direction. “I thought maybe he’d sent some of his henchmen to make it look like a robbery, or got some police official who owed him a favor to fix it up.”

  Blanche wished she could see Marc’s face, but it wasn’t really necessary. Sorrow and grief flowed between him and Felicia like a fast-moving river.

  Allister leaned forward over their abandoned breakfast. “The tape,” he said. “Where…

  No one else even looked at him. Felicia was still on her knees crying quietly. Marc moved closer to her. He reached down and gently put his hand on her head. She threw her arms around his legs and laid her forehead against them.

  “Oh, Marc, I’m so sorry, so sorry,” she moaned. “We’ll get you out of this. We can—”

  Allister stood up. “Marc, son, listen.” He spoke softly and slowly, as though Marc were a frightened child. “It’s not just me who’ll be hurt by the tape. Your mother, you. Just give me the tape, son. I know I’ve been—”

  “You did this!” Marc shouted at Allister, and pointed the gun straight at him again.

  Allister looked like he thought Marc might have less trouble shooting him than he’d had with that rabbit. “Now, son.” Allister raised his hands in a surrendering way.

  “Don’t call me that, you bastard! Don’t call me that!”

  “But you are my son, you…”

  Marc looked down at Felicia, her face buried against his legs, her arms wrapped around them as though they could save her.

  “I’m sorry, Mother,” Marc said, touching her head once again. “I can’t. I just can’t.”

  Allister paled and shut his eyes, so Blanche was the only one actually looking at Marc Brindle when he turned his face from both parents and put the barrel of the gun in his mouth. She was the only one who actually saw his head explode, flinging chunks of dripping red flesh and bone on the walls and on Felicia’s bowed head, depositing freckles of blood and brains on the floor. All done before Blanche could wrench open the door and scream out the “No!” that was a deafening roar inside her head.

  ELEVEN

  DAY TEN—SATURDAY

  Blanche woke with the smell of blood still fresh in her nose. Her mouth felt slimy and tasted like rancid butter. She licked her lips—hot and chapped, as though she had a fever. Her mind replayed the scene she’d been seeing all night. Would the sight of Marc Brindle’s exploding head ever fade? How long would she have crouched outside the breakfast room door if Carrie hadn’t come running out of the kitchen at the sound of the shot?

  “OhJesusOhJesusOhJesusOhJesus!” was all Blanche could remember her saying. But Carrie must have called the police and ambulance. She remembered that Carrie had also helped her to a kitchen chair where she’d sat staring, trying not to be present, not to have seen. The house rang with Felicia’s screams.

  Blanche was still sitting, staring at the floor, when the ambulance and police arrived. When the policeman asked Blanche where she’d been at the time of death, she told him she was about to make tea when they heard the shot. She pointed to the kettle sitting in the sink waiting for water as proof. When he asked what else she’d heard, she had the presence of mind to tell him the house was too well built to hear anything but the loudest noise from the front rooms when the kitchen door was closed. He’d turned to Carrie.

  If he’d asked Carrie where Blanche had been during the shooting, Blanche was afraid Carrie might have told him rather than blemish her soul with a lie. Blanche had had a she’s-a-jealous-hearted-underling-trying-to-get-me-in-trouble story ready for the police in case Carrie did talk. But he asked only had she let Marc in, what time, and how did he seem—to which Carrie had said, “Like hisself.” Carrie, like any sensible poor person whose knowledge of the police came mostly from their storm-trooping through her neighborhood, had answered his questions and volunteered nothing. Blanche was damned grateful and planned to tell Carrie so, just as soon as she could get her nerves together enough to call her.

  Joanie, Aminata, and Lacey had all heard about Marc on the noon news and were at Blanche’s house when she got home. Aminata and Joanie took the kids. They’d spent the night next door. Lacey had made Blanche a pot of ginger tea with more rum and honey in it than ginger. She’d let Blanche tell the story of what she’d seen over and over again until Blanche’s shoulders began to droop. Then she’d given Blanche the best back rub she’d ever had, and put her to bed.

  Should have had a couple more cups of Lacey’s tea, she thought. The clock by her bed said 2:30 a.m. Middle-of-the-night stillness lay over the house and neighborhood. She was alone in the quiet night—a situation that usually soothed her. But right now, the desire to be held, to be hugged in strong arms until she no longer felt bruised by what she’d seen was a full-body ache. Don’t go there, girlfriend, she told herself. Like Mama says, you didn’t come into this world holding hands with nobody. Still. She rolled over on her side, drew her knees toward her chest, wrapped her arms around her body, and rocked herself back into sleep.

  The phone woke her at 7:00 a.m. She recognized Sadowski’s voice but pretended not to remember immediately who he was. “Oh yeah, Allister Brindle’s boy,” she said.

  Sadowski took a deep breath but held whatever he’d wanted to say in favor of telling her why he’d called. “The Brindles are closing the house for a while. They’re really…”

  She listened to his stiff little speech about the Brindles’ pain and grief and need for complete rest and solitude.

  “Your check will be in the mail this morning, and Mrs. Brindle will be in touch with Inez.”

  When he was finished talking, Blanche hung up without another word. Talking to Sadowski was one less nasty thing she had to do in this life. But that didn’t mean the Brindles were gone from her mind.

  She now knew who had killed Saxe and what part Felicia had played in his death. She knew that Marc, not Ray-Ray, had Allister’s tape; she wondered if Allister had found the tape among his son’s things. She hoped he’d remember to tell Samuelson the tape hunt was off, or at least off her, before he and Felicia left town. The thought of Felicia triggered the sound of her scream echoing through the Brindle house and the smell of blood and the noise and the way Marc’s body had fallen so slowly to the floor. She knew she needed a good cry; her eyes stung, but no tears fell. She c
onsidered getting up, saw herself in the bathroom brushing her teeth, taking a shower. The thought of so much effort made her drowsy. She snuggled back into bed.

  It was ten-thirty when the phone called her out of sleep once again.

  “Is that you, Blanche?” It was Mick.

  “I guess so.”

  “You were there when Marc did it, weren’t you?”

  Blanche said she’d been there, but didn’t say that she’d seen it.

  “You okay? It’s a terrible shock to have something like that happen, Blanche. If you don’t feel up to the funeral, Pam’ll understand.”

  Miz Barker’s funeral! She’d forgotten! She threw back the covers. She’d have to get Taifa and Malik organized to at least go to the viewing. Shaquita was baby-sitting for the Mortons, so she was out. Blanche remembered buying apples the other day—too many for the kids to have eaten them all already. The funeral wasn’t until three. She had time to put together a couple of pies.

  “I’m going,” she told Mick.

  “Moms?” Taifa tapped on the door. Malik was right behind her.

  “You okay, Mama Blanche?” Taifa put her arms around Blanche and held her. Malik stretched his arms across both their shoulders. She leaned into the hug and let them warm and soothe her.

  “Tell us what happened, exactly,” Taifa said. “Was there a whole lotta blood and stuff?” Taifa’s eyes were all curiosity.

  “Oh, Ife, I can’t even tell you how awful it was. One second he was standing there screaming at his parents and the next second he was…”

  Once again, she saw Marc Brindle’s head blow apart.

  “Wasn’t nothin’ you could do, Moms. Don’t feel bad,” Taifa said.

  Blanche stared at Taifa and wondered how she knew. Even though it was in her mind, Blanche was only this moment letting herself look at the question of whether she could have flung open the door, lunged for Marc, screamed, done anything that would have made a difference.

  “Yeah,” Malik added. “You know how you are, Mama Blanche. If there was anything you could have done, you would have.”

  The tears nearly leapt from Blanche’s eyes. She sank to the side of her bed and buried her face in her hands. She cried for all that had happened: Miz Barker’s and Ray-Ray’s deaths, Pam’s and Inez’s grief, Shaquita’s pregnancy and the pain it was going to cause Cousin Charlotte, the shock of Marc’s suicide, Samuelson’s attack on her, the fear that the need for guards had put in the children’s eyes.

  Taifa and Malik sat on either side of her and held her, patted and murmured to her in just the way Blanche had done to them over the years.

  “Oh Lord! I feel so much better.” She blew her nose on the tissues Malik handed her.

  “Thanks,” she said, looking from one to the other.

  Taifa shrugged. “It’s a family thing.”

  Blanche didn’t think she could take any more. She sent them to wash and change, which meant a fight about who got to shower first until Blanche made them flip for it.

  The sun drew her to the bedroom window. The Accord was in the parking lot. She went to the phone to call Othello, but realized she’d better make another call first.

  “Temple of Divine Enlightenment.”

  Blanche asked for Samuelson—remembering to put the “Reverend” in front of his name. She was tempted to lie about her own name when asked; Samuelson might not be willing to talk to her. But he was.

  “My sister.” The oil was back in his voice.

  “If the way you treated me the other night is how you treat your sister, I’m glad we don’t have the same mama.”

  Samuelson went so silent, she began to think the line was dead.

  “All right, all right. A misunderstanding.” He didn’t sound like he meant it.

  “So Brindle told you his son had the tape.”

  “He told me.”

  “Well?”

  “Well what?”

  “Apologize,” she demanded.

  The line really went dead this time. Bastard! But at least she’d found out what she needed to know. She called Othello.

  “It’s funny you should call,” he said. “I was planning to call you.”

  Blanche told him about Marc and the tape and her call to Samuelson.

  “So I’m off Samuelson’s list,” she told him.

  “Yeah, well, the good reverend still needs to be dealt with. He can’t be goin’ around jacking people up like he’s the king of the community.”

  “I just wish there was some way to find out what Brindle has on him. I swear I’d spread it all over town!” Blanche said.

  “Yeah, you mentioned that.”

  Blanche liked his thinking-about-what-to-do-about-it tone.

  “I’ll be hanging out with your son tomorrow, you know. Him and Aminata.”

  He said Aminata’s name as though it were sugar on his tongue. Lucky Aminata, Blanche thought. I will not hate her!

  “Doing what?” she asked without a hint that she was trying to put out an invisible green fire.

  “Driving them to a friend’s house out in Framingham. He thinks he can help them find out who’s behind the company that owns that abandoned building.”

  “Oh yeah, the Internet thing.” Blanche half remembered Malik talking about it.

  “Aminata says your boy is really hyped. Good to see a kid his age interested in the environment. You gotta be proud.”

  “I keep my fingers crossed,” she told him, and knew he understood.

  “That’s all you can do after you’ve done the rest,” he said.

  They were about to hang up when Blanche said, “Why were you going to call me, Othello?”

  “Remember what you told me about somebody being with the brother who drowned at the pool? I had one of the our members ask around. You were right. There was somebody with him, an older guy, is what we were told.”

  “What do you mean, ‘older’?”

  “There’s a woman lives on Washington Street, near the pool. She says she knew Ray-Ray from when she used to go to the same church his mom goes to. She said she saw him and another man heading for the pool the night he died.”

  “Somebody she knew?”

  “She couldn’t see the other dude’s face, but she said she knew he was old by the way he was dressed. ‘Old-timey,’ she said.”

  Blanche’s stomach rolled over twice. “What did you say?” she asked as a picture of Donnie in his old-fashioned, long, square-cut jacket and baggy pants formed in her mind.

  “An older dude,” Othello told her.

  “No, about his clothes.”

  “An old dude in old dude’s clothes,” he said.

  Blanche opened her mouth to tell him what she was thinking, but what if she was wrong? This was something she wanted to be very sure about. Donnie wasn’t the only one who wore vintage clothes. The picture of Donnie in her mind began to fade, like a photo left too long in the sun—but its shadow remained.

  “We’ll keep checking around,” Othello said. “Maybe somebody else saw him, too. Somebody who recognized him.”

  “I really appreciate all your help, Othello. I won’t forget it.” She made a mental note to give the Ex-Cons a goodly chunk of her income tax refund—the next piece of money she expected to have.

  She told herself she had too much to do to get hung up on her conversation with Othello. She tuned the radio to WBUR and listened to Car Talk. She didn’t have a car or want one, but the show was always good for a laugh. She rushed together a couple apple-raisin pies, showered and dressed in her gray, brown, and tan funeral-going dress and the gray-and-brown low-heeled shoes she’d found on sale in Filene’s Basement. She wrote Shaquita a note saying where they’d all gone, and was ready when Mick rang her doorbell.

  The kids rushed outside to admire Mick’s Jeep Cherokee—an insult to Na
tive Americans and to people whose legs weren’t long enough to take a giant step up into the damned thing.

  Blanche couldn’t take her eyes off Mick. The combat-booted, very butch lesbian she’d been talking to for the last week or so was now decked out in a navy blue pin-striped suit with a straight skirt, a white blouse with a ruffle down the front, and navy blue pumps with matching handbag. Blue-and-white earrings dotted her ears.

  “Who you pretendin’ to be?” Blanche joked without thinking, then checked Mick’s face to see if she’d offended her.

  Mick laughed. “That’s just what my girlfriend said.” She kicked off her shoes.

  “How do women walk all day in these damned things!” She plopped on the sofa, legs as sprawled as her skirt would allow.

  “Why wear ’em? Or any of it?” Blanche gestured at Mick’s shoes and outfit.

  “It’s easier this way,” Mick told her. “You know what black folks are.”

  “I ain’t black folk?”

  Mick pushed up her glasses. “You know what I mean, Blanche. It’s hard being an out lesbian in the ’hood. That’s why I moved. I grew up around here, remember? And I caught hell.”

  Blanche knew about catching community hell from the many, many times she’d been wounded by blacks for being too black. She remembered when she would have done anything to make the teasing stop, to turn herself into a mid-range brown girl instead of being out on the extreme edge of blackness. As a girl, she’d even tried rubbing her body with lemon juice because she’d heard somebody say it would lighten your skin. How old had she been when she’d learned to treasure her blackness in a way that made other people’s negative comments about it sound just plain crazy? How many times would Mick have to put on this getup before she realized it wasn’t worth it?

  “You got a lot of faith in clothes makin’ the woman, honey,” she told Mick.