Blanche Among the Talented Tenth (Blanche White series Book 2)

by Barbara Neely

  Blanche gave Mattie a skeptical look. “Only people I ever knew to be ruined by an unplanned child were the women who birthed them.”

  Mattie shook her head. “You don’t understand. Clothilde’s a Coghill. Her family built Amber Cove. It’s hers and she is not the sort of woman who could forgive this level of betrayal.” Mattie stared down at the birth certificate and then up at Blanche.

  “I wonder if he loved her,” Mattie said.

  Blanche grunted. “I wonder if he pays child support,” she replied. Did he love her indeed! Didn’t Mattie say it was men who were romantic?

  Blanche lifted the slim book from the box. It had a hard, marbled gray cover bound by a black leather spine. It was the length and width of a small diary. The title was spelled out in simple red letters set in a rectangle of white with a black border. Lovers, by R.B.R. Lynch. Blanche opened the cover. Beneath a tissue paper sheet was a black and white drawing on heavy, stiff, cream paper. It was of two men inclined together on a chaise lounge, their arms and legs wrapped around each other. Beneath it was a scrawled inscription in thick, black ink:

  “MDT, I’ll never forget you. Or us.” The initials, RBRL, were written beneath the line.

  Blanche handed the book to Mattie. “Did you know about this?”

  Mattie’s eyes widened. “Ah.” She nodded her head in a confirming way. “There was talk when he was younger. Veronica has a brother, you see. Some people thought he and Martin…It all died down when Martin and Veronica married and had children.” Mattie shook her head. “I suppose we were naive to assume that one apparent sexual preference precluded any other.”

  “Does Veronica know?” Blanche asked.

  “If she does, she doesn’t. It’s not real to her if it’s not public, if it isn’t affecting her public persona.”

  Blanche thought about Martin’s children. Would they have been better off if Martin had come out, left Veronica, maybe? Would Veronica be better off? And who was to say whether Veronica knew or not? When Blanche was growing up, all the black folks in Farleigh had known that Mrs. Carter had a more intimate relationship with her roomer, Charlotte Moore, than that of landlady. Everybody, including Mr. Carter, who’d been heard to remark that he was getting tired of sleeping in that cold little back room of theirs. Maybe if Martin had got it together, he and Veronica could have had a real old-fashioned Carter kind of marriage, although Martin had better not bring home a dark-skinned honey, the way Mrs. Carter did!

  “What else is in there?” Blanche wanted to know.

  Mattie lifted the remaining plain white envelope from the box. It held a small, ragged newspaper clipping. At the top, in faint pencil were the words Philadelphia Daily News.

  Mary Lacy, aged nine, of Upper Darby was fatally struck by a hit-and-run driver near the intersection of Kelsey Road and Pier Way. Witnesses report seeing a dark blue sedan in the area of the accident. Police are seeking

  The bottom edge was ragged and the rest of the article was missing. Mattie passed it to Blanche, who read it and passed it back.

  “No ideas on this one,” Mattie said. “Could be anyone. And what’s this?” A gold bracelet or anklet made like an identity bracelet glowed in the corner of the box. Blanche picked it up by one end of its chain and let it twirl in the light from the nearby lamp. The name tag was gold filigree, as delicate as lace. The name plaque was a thin, slightly curved, oval wafer of thinnest gold held in place by the lacy filigree. The gold glowed like trapped sunlight.

  Mattie leaned forward and examined it. “Exquisite! I wonder who it belongs to?”

  Blanche held the name plaque to the light and read the inscription out loud: You are my Sun and my Moon. May our love last as long.

  There were no initials or names. Mattie took it and draped it across her palm before putting it on the arm of the chair.

  “How’d Faith get this stuff?” Blanche asked.

  “I wondered about that. You know, every year, one guest or another complains about their cottage having been broken into. Even me. Nothing missing that I could find. Years ago, some village boys were seen running from the place, so we always assumed it was them. As long as nothing was stolen and it wasn’t a regular thing…Now I wonder. If Faith did steal some of these things, people might be reluctant to mention it.” Mattie pointed at the folded papers in the box. “Those are all copies. She could have taken the originals, copied them, and put them back.”

  “Why would Arthur have this child’s birth certificate lying around for someone to steal?” Blanche wanted to know. “And what about Carol’s rap sheet? You think she had that laying on the coffee table or even in an unlocked drawer? Faith may have stolen some of this stuff but not all of it.”

  “You mean a detective?” Mattie’s voice made it clear she didn’t want to believe it, but couldn’t avoid the possibility. Her mouth drew down at the corners. “Awful, awful creature,” she muttered.

  Blanche looked at each of the items again, then handed them to Mattie who also examined each one, before putting them back in the box. Blanche felt as though she were taking part in a ceremony.

  “Arthur Hill!” Mattie hooted. “And poor Veronica! She must have been mortified by that letter. Of course, that’s nothing compared to how she’d feel if she knew about Martin’s love affair.”

  “Any one of them could have hit me,” Blanche said. “Anybody except Carol.”

  Mattie was silent for a long time before she said: “No. Carol certainly couldn’t have done that. But I now know why Hank lied for Carol.”

  Blanche gave her a get-real kind of look.

  “He did lie, he did! I know it, Blanche. Hank simply couldn’t have killed Faith. It just wasn’t in him.”

  Blanche knew there was more to be said on this issue, but she couldn’t think. Her body seemed to be sinking into the ground and dragging her mind with it.

  “You’ve overdone.” Mattie handed Blanche her walking stick. “Here, lean on this. I only carry it as a weapon.”

  “Don’t make me laugh Mattie, it makes my head throb.”

  Mattie picked up the box, locked it, and tucked it under her arm. “I have a safe,” she said.

  Blanche hesitated when she stepped out of Faith’s cottage. She looked carefully around, conscious of a slight vibration in the air, as though someone had just passed by, was still nearby. There was no movement, except the leaves high in the trees. She stepped off the porch. Her uneasiness dissolved as they moved farther away from Faith’s cottage. Blanche walked Mattie to her cottage, just beyond the Crowleys’. Mattie insisted she come inside for a moment. “You look quite done in.” She left Blanche sitting in the living room and returned without the box. “What can I get you? I haven’t a thing for a headache. I never get them. You shouldn’t take any alcohol.”

  Blanche asked for water. Mattie brought her a glass with ice. “Here. Take this with you.” She handed Blanche the heavy crockery bowl that had held their morning hoe cake. “And use it to bop anything that moves out there!”

  “Mattie, didn’t I tell you not to make me laugh? The shape I’m in I sure hope there’s nobody out there. I’m lucky to be keeping my feet on the ground instead of my behind!” She saluted Mattie with the bowl and left. She could feel Mattie watching from her porch. Mattie called good night when Blanche reached the Crowleys’ porch.

  Durant and Tina were building up bad vibes on the porch. Blanche said good night to them and blew each of the children a kiss from the doorway of their rooms. Once guilt sharp as a knife would have pierced her because she hadn’t been home to see the children to bed, but she’d been a parent long enough now to know that if this was the worst thing she ever did to them, she’d be a perfect mother. Anyway, it gave the children something to complain about. They needed to understand she wasn’t any more perfect than they were. She gulped down three extra-strength Tylenol and slid into bed. The memory of her attack threatened
to keep her awake, but her body had other ideas. She tumbled into a deep and untroubled sleep.

  ELEVEN

  Blanche reached out and answered the phone ringing at her bedside. Without opening her eyes or sitting up, and before Ardell could say, “Hello,” she blurted out the story about the lump on her forehead.

  “What?! Blanche, grab the kids and get your ass out of there!” Ardell’s voice got so loud Blanche had to hold the phone away from her ear. She sat up and leaned against the headboard.

  “What should I do with Deirdre and Casey? Lock ’em in the house until their parents come back? It’s the box, Ardell. It’s not me somebody wanted to hurt. I just showed up at Faith’s at the wrong time. I coulda been anybody.” She was amazed by how calm and reasonable she sounded. Ardell was neither impressed nor fooled.

  “Whoever bashed you over the head has a funny way of not meaning you no harm! And don’t tell me you ain’t mad about it, ’cause I can hear it in your voice. You wouldn’t leave now if you could, not ’til you find out who bashed you. I know you, girl!”

  “Did I say anything about not being mad? All I was trying to say is that it ain’t me, personally, that somebody wants to get at.”

  “Then tell Mattie to do her own dirty work, or do like Faith and hire somebody.” She paused. “Aw shit. I forgot about the Madame Rosa thing. Maybe you should call her. See if you can get an update on whether what you're supposed to do there is worth endangering your life.”

  Blanche didn’t answer.

  “I think maybe Mattie’s right!” Ardell told her. “There is some murdering asshole running around up there and you look to be right in his path.” Ardell stopped. Blanche could hear her breathing; she waited for it to slow down a bit before she spoke.

  “I’m doin’ just what you’d do in my place. Now that I know this business is likely to include being knocked out, believe me, I will be more careful. I ain’t concerned about nobody breaking in here, cause I don’t have what he’s looking for.”

  “But you seen it, didn’t you? Maybe he don’t want nobody else to know about it.”

  Blanche had no answer for that and didn’t try to find one.

  “Hummm. I see you ain’t gon’ pay me no mind, as usual. At least I hope you have some fun before you die. You talk to that pretty man, yet?”

  Blanche remembered that Stu was supposed to call her yesterday. She couldn’t swear he hadn’t because she hadn’t been around. Ardell was confident he would call and reminded Blanche once more to keep her posted.

  There was a phone message for Blanche tacked to the refrigerator: Stu had called three times. Tina came in the kitchen.

  “You should have heard the relief in his voice when I told him you were really out, not just refusing to talk to him. I think he likes you a lot. Maybe you should forgive him.”

  Blanche laughed at how much Tina sounded like Ardell. She’d already decided to forgive Stu, or at least lay aside his first fuck-up because it was fun being sought after. But that’s all. They weren’t building a relationship, they were carrying out a short-term flirtation. She wondered who she was reacquainting with that fact, since neither Tina nor Ardell could hear her.

  Her headache was a vague memory but the bump at her hairline was tender and obvious. “Wow!” was Tina’s first response. Blanche made up a story about a run-in with the medicine cabinet in the dark and hurried on to ask Tina if she needed any help with her cake and coffee get-together with Veronica.

  “Durant says she’s really looking forward to it, which shows you how easily he can be lied to.”

  “Maybe she is,” Blanche started breakfast. She could hear the children bouncing around in their rooms. “Maybe she means something different by that than you mean.” Blanche could tell from Tina’s expression that she didn’t get it. At least not yet.

  “Durant’s going to take us for a ride this afternoon,” Malik announced immediately after “Good morning.”

  “He has a convertible,” Deirdre and Taifa said in unison.

  “I haven’t been in a car since we got here!” Casey added.

  When Stu called again, Blanche was braiding Taifa’s hair, but talked to him anyway. He invited her to lunch at the seafood place in the village. She accepted.

  She had coffee with Mattie first.

  “What I would like to know is who hit me over the head. Carol’s in the hospital a long way from here, so she wasn’t the fool who knocked me out.”

  Mattie took another tack: “Maybe what happened to Faith and you getting hit on the head don’t have anything to do with each other. Anyone with something in the box wants it back. As you said, any one of them could have hit you, but it doesn’t mean that person killed Faith, that’s what matters, and we know why poor Carol killed Faith.”

  Blanche ignored her. “I been thinking about all the folks we know who have belongings in that box. Everyone of them, except Carol, has already tried to find the box once without hitting me on the head. The day after Faith died, I saw Martin slinking around Faith’s cottage. Arthur was at Faith’s waiting for us the first time we went to the cottage, remember? When I went through Faith’s drawers, I was surprised how jumbled a couple of them were. Maybe we weren’t the first to go through her things. Then Veronica showed up and tries to get you to let her stay behind. Of course, it could have been one of them giving it a second try, but I don’t think so. I got a feeling it’s the unknown person who hit me.”

  Mattie tossed her head impatiently. “But who could they be? Practically everyone here is implicated already.”

  “Not everybody. Just you Insiders. What about the so-called Outsiders? Faith messed with them, too.” Blanche paused to make sure she had Mattie’s full attention. “Maybe she had an even nastier surprise for one of them. Or one of the help. I want to know who hit me. I got a right.” Blanche hoped she wasn’t going to have to come right out and remind her that she wouldn’t have been in Faith’s cottage if she hadn’t been trying to help Mattie. She attributed Mattie’s attitude to her being consumed with Hank, but that didn’t help Blanche like it any better.

  “Yes, of course you have a right.” Mattie didn’t look happy, but she didn’t argue. “Very well. I have a journalist friend who should be able to find out if there was anything more to the hit and run story, although I doubt anyone here would do such a thing.”

  “I want to take another look at that anklet,” Blanche told her.

  Mattie went off to another room and returned with the box, opened it, and handed it to Blanche. Blanche took out the anklet and held it close to her eyes, examining the back of the plaque and the clasp. “You got a magnifying glass?”

  “At my age?” Mattie snorted. “I could probably supply a small city.” She opened a drawer and handed Blanche one.

  “What are you looking for?”

  Blanche held the anklet under the glass. “There it is!” She looked up at Mattie. “Mr. Adamson, a jeweler I worked for in New York, told me some jewelers put their trademark or some kind of number on all their jewelry so they always got a record of who bought what and for how much.”

  Mattie leaned over the glass. “There’s one on there?”

  “There’s something on the back of the clasp, but I can’t quite make it out.” Blanche handed the glass and anklet to Mattie. “See it? I’m going to call him right now.”

  “Why?”

  “Maybe he can tell where this came from by this number or design or whatever it is. It’s a good piece of jewelry. Eighteen carat.”

  “How do you know?” Mattie sounded as if she didn’t believe Blanche did know.

  “Mr. Adamson, of course. See how deep the color is, and you can tell that it wouldn’t take much to bend it. Eighteen carat gold is soft like this.”

  Mattie waved her to the phone.

  Mr. Adamson was still listed on the Upper East Side. He was, by his own account,
delighted to hear from Blanche and to help her. She didn’t tell him why she needed the information and he didn’t ask. He told her she could send the piece to him and he’d return it quickly. “Don’t hold out too much hope. Some of the bigger jewelers’ codes are well known. If it’s one of them I’ll be able to help, but otherwise…”

  Mattie produced a small box and an overnight mail service envelope and form for the anklet. “The driver comes directly to my cottage. I receive a great deal of mail and send a great deal as well. Hank always makes sure I have…” A quick flash of pain distorted her face for half a second. She took the package to a basket by the front door.

  “Now it’s your turn,” Blanche handed Mattie the phone and the article from Faith’s box. She watched and listened while Mattie phoned her newspaper friend and asked for his help. Blanche only had a few days left at Amber Cove. She wanted to find out who hit her before it was time to leave.

  Blanche left Mattie's and took the path to the village. She waved to Stu heading toward her.

  “What happened?”

  Blanche had forgotten about the knot on her forehead until she saw Stu’s anxious stare. She told him the medicine cabinet story. She wanted to tell him the truth. She wanted to tell him what she and Mattie were up to and ask his advice; he’d known these people all of his life. But that was part of the reason she held her tongue. Stu asked her about Carol.

  “Mattie’s told everyone to hold off on the memorial service a little while longer, to see if Carol improves, poor thing. Mattie’s not in such great shape herself.”

  Stu shook his head. “Sad, really. But in a way he was lucky. To have two women who loved him so much. I wouldn’t mind that. But I’d happily settle for one.”