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

by Barbara Neely

  “Like what?” Blanche swung her crossed leg.

  “Like that!” He looked at her as though she might have stolen something.

  When Shaquita and Taifa came in, Taifa stood in front of Blanche, where she sat in her favorite chair.

  “Whatsup, Moms!” She leaned over and looked deep into Blanche’s eyes, then stood back with a frown on her face. “Anybody been here?” she asked with a hint of Malik’s suspicion in her voice.

  Blanche laughed, told them there was food in the fridge if they were hungry, and went upstairs to slip her sweetly aching body into yet another tub of warm water.

  She drifted off to sleep with the ease of an otter slipping through water. She dreamed of water, too, of floating on a calm blue sea, bobbing to the rhythm of it breathing beneath her. Then she was standing beside a road. Two women stood nearby. They smiled and spoke to her as if she knew them. The plaid headdresses and old-fashioned long skirts they wore were like those she’d seen on Caribbean women in ads for vacations to Jamaica. Dream Blanche was tired and sweaty and knew that she was waiting for some kind of ride. The two women began applauding as a Model T Ford chugged toward them. Bea Richards was driving. She waved to the two women, then opened the door and beckoned to Blanche, but the car turned into a crumbling building just before Blanche stepped in. Bea barely escaped. The two women threw buckets of water at the dust rising from the falling building. Bea. Water. Ford. Building.

  Blanche’s eyes flew open. Her feet were on the floor before her legs were fully awake. She staggered down the hall to Malik’s room, reached out to shake him, and changed her mind. He needed his rest. She moved his backpack and the Jockey shorts and shirt he’d worn Sunday. The notebook for his environmental paper was on his desk. She stepped out into the hall, where she could see better, and flipped the book open to the last used pages. Excitement made her fingers clumsy. Did she have the right name? The state she’d been in when Malik told her about the owners, who knew what he’d said. But there they were, Laconia and Murleen Waterford, the dead wife and the locked-away, retarded stepdaughter of Maurice Samuelson. They were the named officers of the corporation that owned the abandoned building where lead poisoning may have killed a child.

  THIRTEEN

  DAY TWELVE—MONDAY

  Blanche couldn’t wait for Malik’s alarm to go off. She shook him awake. “I know who owns the abandoned building!”

  Malik rubbed his eyes and blinked at her as though trying to make sure he wasn’t dreaming.

  “The officers of the corporation that own the abandoned building are Maurice Samuelson’s dead wife and stepdaughter.”

  “Who?”

  “Maurice Samuelson. Reverend Samuelson.”

  “You mean that creepy minister who was at the meeting?”

  “The very same lowlife.”

  “Moms! Moms!” He grabbed her by the shoulders and bounced on the bed. “You did it, Moms! You did it!” He gave her that you’re-Wonder-Woman look he usually saved for Aminata. Blanche was embarrassed to be so pleased by it.

  “I gotta call Aminata!” He leapt out of bed and rushed to the phone.

  Blanche sat on the side of his bed grinning from Malik’s praise and the deep, gut-warming possibility of having finally gotten something on that so-called minister of God.

  “She wants to talk to you, Mama Blanche!” Malik said after he’d told Aminata the news.

  “Girl, you are something! How’d you find out who they were?”

  Blanche told her about Bea Richards. “But who knows if I’d have remembered hearing their names before if I hadn’t dreamt about them.”

  “Well, I’m gonna try to get up with Computer Teddy, as Othello calls him,” Aminata told her. “We need a marriage certificate or something to tie the Waterford women to Samuelson.”

  “I guess Laconia could have started the corporation and bought the buildings without Samuelson knowing anything about it.” Blanche thought this as likely as a flying footstool, but they had to be sure.

  “Un-huh. And maybe I’m really the queen of the Nile,” Aminata said. “I never did trust that man! I’m betting it’s the other way around. I’m betting Samuelson didn’t even start the corporation until after Laconia was dead. I’d like to know what else his corporation owns besides buildings that probably have phony deleading certificates. I’m checking that out. I got a feeling it ain’t just buildings he’s hiding behind that woman’s name. And what about the stepdaughter? Where’s she, I wonder.”

  Blanche told her what Bea had said about Samuelson putting Murleen in an institution.

  “I bet she don’t know she’s an officer in some corporation. That man really oughtta be ashamed of hisself!”

  If only, Blanche thought. “You really think your computer friend can find a marriage certificate for them?” Blanche’s doubt was as clear as her words. “They probably got married down in Delaware. Did I tell you that?”

  “It don’t matter. Teddy’s one of them information junkies. Hooked into everything. That’s all he does, all he talks about. And they got everything on that Internet, girl,” Aminata said. “Keep your fingers crossed. If we find what we need, we’ll call a community meeting for Thursday night. Turn this sucker over to the ’hood first, to the people whose kids he poisoned. Then we go to the authorities. The rotten bastard.”

  Almost as soon as Blanche had waved the children off to school, Malik ran back to tell her Cousin Charlotte had called while she was in the tub last night. “She’ll be back on Wednesday.” He dashed back out the door.

  Blanche moaned and wished she didn’t have to deal with Cousin Charlotte’s reaction to Shaquita’s pregnancy. And what about Miz Inez? Blanche didn’t want to be the one to tell her the truth about how Ray-Ray had died. There was only so much bad news she was prepared to deliver.

  She waited until nearly noon before she walked down to Dudley Square and around the corner to The Steak Shop.

  The shop was small and narrow: a counter running along one wall, three tables with cracked Formica tops and four wooden chairs each. The grill was behind the counter. The place smelled of cigarettes and burnt grease smoke mixed with the scent of cooking meat. The large front window was so cloudy, the outside world seemed lost in fog. Lucinda was wiping the counter, her head cocked hard to the side to avoid the smoke curling up from the cigarette in the side of her mouth. There was no one else in the place.

  “Hey, Lucinda, how you doin’?” Blanche took a seat in front of her.

  “Nothin’ to it, Blanche. What can I get you? We just got some fresh cold cuts; I could make you a real decent hoagie.”

  Blanche looked down at Lucinda’s three-inch bright-red-with-rhinestones nails and remembered an article she’d read about the germs under fingernails. Of course, it would be interesting to see Lucinda work in those things, but not worth the risk, she decided.

  “I’ll just have one of those orange drinks, thanks.”

  Lucinda brought Blanche the bottled drink and a straw. She put out her cigarette and leaned against the counter.

  Blanche jumped in before Lucinda could start a conversation about something else.

  “Lucinda, remember when I saw you in Connolly’s the other day? When I was with Donnie and you said something about him being an artist, or something like…”

  Lucinda grimaced. “Quick-change artist,” she said. “But I didn’t mean nothing by it, Blanche. It’s none of my business who you…”

  “Lucinda! Just tell me what you meant. He ain’t a friend.”

  A woman and a little girl came in and took a table. Lucinda went off to wait on them. Like Blanche, they only wanted drinks.

  “Tell me what you meant,” Blanche said when Lucinda came back. “Do you know him?”

  Lucinda chuckled. “I useta work at Plug’s before it closed. You know what I’m talkin’ about?”

  Blanche didn
’t.

  “It was a bar. It wasn’t a gay bar. Lotta neighborhood people hung there, especially in the daytime. But a lot of gays hung out there at night. Not the kind who shake they ass and say ‘I’m gay, get over it,’ and not the kind who was pretendin’ to be straight. I mean the ones that act like regular people, you know what I’m sayin’?”

  Blanche didn’t want to get into a thing about “regular people,” but she wasn’t going to agree with her either. “Go on,” she said.

  “Well, you know what it’s like tendin’ bar; people talk to you like listenin’s what you get paid to do. When they ain’t talkin’ to you, they talk in front of you like you can’t hear.”

  “So, you know anything about him?”

  Lucinda gave her a stop-interrupting look.

  “Anyway, Donnie useta hang in there and meet dates there.”

  “So? What was so quick-change about that?”

  Lucinda widened her eyes and crossed her arms. “A big change. From his wife and kiddies out in Taunton to Miss Thang in the bar. Is that quick-change enough for you?”

  Blanche frowned, trying to make sense of what Lucinda was saying. Lucinda gave her an exasperated look.

  “Donnie useta come in and meet gay guys and go out with them, but his wife probably ain’t hip to it.”

  “Donnie’s wife?! You mean Donnie has a wife?”

  “Sure. My girlfriend lives right around the corner from him. She went to school with Donnie’s wife. Their kids go to the same school. She came to meet me at Plug’s one night and almost shit when she saw Donnie there.”

  “A wife,” Blanche said, trying to get used to the idea that the man she’d thought was gay, who’d told her he was gay and in love with another gay man had a wife and…

  “Did you say kids?!” She sounded as shocked as she was.

  “Yep. Three or four, I think.” Lucinda looked amused. “Donnie ain’t the only one, you know. A lotta the so-called ‘straight’ men who hung out at Plug’s were married or had girlfriends.” She laughed and shook her head. “They all acted like people were stupid. Donnie and those other married dudes would come in, buy a drink for one of the fags, sit with him, and chitchat. Then the straight guy would leave by the front door. Five minutes later, the gay guy would leave by the back door. In fifteen minutes to a half an hour, one or both of them would be back. And I ain’t talking turning tricks, here. I’m talking boys just like to have fun,” she chortled. She went off to collect from the woman and child.

  Blanche was stunned. Only a few days ago she’d had to rearrange her thinking to include Ray-Ray and Donnie as lovers. Now Lucinda was adding another branch to that family.

  “Well, maybe his wife does know,” Blanche said when Lucinda came back. “I mean, if he’s bisexual, maybe she is, too, or…”

  “Girl! Get real! How many black women you know agreeing to that share-and-share-alike shit? Anyway, if that was the deal, my girlfriend wouldn’t have been so shocked to see Donnie in Plug’s doing his guy thing.”

  Blanche thought of Leo’s brother George, who’d done time for armed robbery. She remembered him talking about guys who were straight on the street but had male lovers in jail. Blanche had always thought George was one of those men, although he’d never admitted it. Did men like that consider themselves bi? Or gay? Not from the way George talked. Or Lucinda.

  Lucinda checked her nails. “Yeah, girl, the bartenders used to talk about it all the time. We used to joke about somebody needing to call Donnie’s and those other dudes’ wives to make sure those suckers were using condoms at home.”

  “Did Ray-Ray Brown hang out at Plug’s?”

  “You sure know your Donnie. Ray-Ray was all up in that boy’s face. I useta wonder if there was something more than a quickie goin’ on between those two. I think if Ray-Ray had had his way, there woulda been. He died, you know.” Lucinda leaned on the counter. “Donnie ain’t bad-lookin’,” she said, “but I never could see what Ray-Ray saw in him. I always got a real weird vibe from Donnie.”

  Blanche leaned toward her. “Weird how, exactly?”

  Lucinda hunched her shoulders. “The nigga’s just strange!”

  “You don’t mean because of the gay sex thing, do you?”

  “No, no. This didn’t have nothin’ to do with sex. This is about…I don’t know, but I never heard him talk about anything but money: how much he needed, what he’d do with it if he had it, why he didn’t have it, what he was gonna do to get some. If he came in while people were talking about the rain, he’d turn the conversation to the cost of umbrellas and raincoats. Always money. It ain’t natural.

  “Why you so interested in him, anyway?” Lucinda asked.

  “It’s kinda complicated,” Blanche said, and scolded herself for not having a ready answer to a question she should have expected. “Donnie’s messing around with a friend of a friend, and I was just curious about what he might…it’s kinda, you know, personal.”

  Lucinda gave her a skeptical look. “Whatever,” she said in a way that told Blanche she’d gotten her last bit of information from this source.

  Blanche paid Lucinda for her drink and hurried home. She was stepping fast but hardly quick enough to keep up with the thoughts tumbling around in her mind like laundry in the dryer. She felt her ideas about what had happened to Ray-Ray and Miz Barker shuffling like cards in a hustler’s hands. She unlocked the door and went right to the phone. She called Information for Taunton. There was one Roberta MacFadden and one McFadden, initials D. A. Blanche punched in D. A.’s number.

  “Mrs. McFadden?” she said to the woman who answered the phone.

  “Yeah?”

  Blanche could hear children very nearby. One of them was crying.

  “Mrs. Donnie McFadden?”

  “Yeah? Who’s this? Leave your brother alone, Donnella!”

  “This is Mary Green for Boston City Hall, Mrs. McFadden. I just need to verify your husband’s address. He does still live with you at…”

  “Darnell! Get down from there. Now! Of course he lives—who did you say this was?”

  “Can I reach Mr. McFadden at his place of employment at…” Blanche scrambled around in her purse for the piece of paper Donnie had given her, and read the number.

  “Well, yes, but…Awright now, I’m warning both of you!”

  “Thank you.” Blanche hung up.

  So there it was. Donnie was still living with his wife. He’d made Blanche think he had a place of his own. Of course, that could still be true. Yeah, if he owned the company where he worked. He’d lied to her about having his own place and about getting a place with Ray-Ray. He’d lied to her about being gay. She was both pissed and embarrassed about that. Like any good scam artist, he couldn’t have done it without her help, without her believing that he had to be gay because he moved his hands and body and used his voice in ways the movies and other bullshit artists said were signs of being gay. She couldn’t blame a damn bit of that on Donnie. From what Lucinda had said, he was probably lying to himself, too.

  He’d lied to her about everything and she’d believed him. Why? Looking back, she couldn’t find any good reasons. When he’d told her he didn’t know Miz Barker or Marc, why hadn’t she known then that she was being suckered? She was like a person who got hit by a truck because she looked the wrong way on a one-way street. Although Samuelson and Brindle had given her plenty of reasons to look their way, Donnie had given her a couple, too. Still, that business about being afraid of Ray-Ray’s killer was a stroke of evil genius—one for which she fully intended to find some way to pay him back.

  But if money-hungry Donnie had the tape, he’d have been in touch with Brindle, trying to turn that tape into cash. At least as late as yesterday, that hadn’t happened—which probably meant Donnie didn’t have it. Did he know where it was? Or was he waiting for her to find it for him? Of course, she could be w
rong about Miz Barker having the tape. Marc could have had it, but all she’d heard him say was that he knew what was on the tape. He never actually said he had it. Donnie must have thought he knew where it was, or he wouldn’t have killed Ray-Ray and Miz Barker before he laid hands on it. Ray-Ray had probably given Miz Barker the tape in the store while Donnie was watching. But then, crafty as usual, she’d moved the tape and started watching her back.

  Blanche put on her old Keds and changed into her housecleaning pants and sweatshirt. She threw on a jacket, grabbed her handbag and flashlight, and made sure her pepper spray was in her jacket pocket. Minutes later, she was back in Miz Barker’s bomb shelter.

  She ignored the boxes she’d already searched, and lifted the covers off the items on the shelves: an old electric toaster, the kind with fold-down doors on either side; an upright black manual typewriter with a cutout front; a curling iron and straightening comb in their own little heater.

  Like a retirement home, she thought. Nothing broken, everything past its time. She imagined the items talking together, reminding one another of the lives they’d lived when they’d been the star of the kitchen or the latest gadget on the market, of how people had gathered round, eager for what they had to offer.

  Time. Everything and everybody had only a thin slice and that was all. When your time was up, you got put on the shelf in the basement. She didn’t want to go there, to wind up in a nursing home with a bunch of discarded souls trying to outdo one another with stories from the past.

  There was a cathedral radio like the one her grandmother had owned. She fiddled with its knob. Granny had never liked for Blanche to touch that precious box. She looked more closely at the little window where the tuning dial once glowed, all dingy now, like the window in an old lady’s apartment. She also didn’t want to live alone in some Blanche-smelling room talking to herself and a couple of cats. She didn’t want to live with Taifa or Malik and feel herself becoming somebody’s child. But she didn’t want to die before she was eligible for any of that either.