Blanche on the Lam: A Blanche White Mystery (15 page)

“...said the sheriff's apparent suicide may be linked to the investigation. More news at ten, right here on...”

All the tension in Blanche's neck and back drained away at once. She was momentarily light-headed. She leaned against the table to steady herself. He won't be asking me no more questions. She poured a bit more milk into the bowl and squeezed the dough into a moist blob. She waited for the pang, like a string breaking, that she always felt when she heard of the death of someone she knew. It didn't come. She turned the now springy dough out onto a marble cutting board and kneaded it. The dough took on life, growing more springy and responsive beneath her hands. One less enemy in the world, she thought. One less racist. She rolled the dough out.

He hadn't simply died. The news report said he'd committed suicide. “I ain't going nowhere. Nowhere at all,” he'd told Everett
just last night. Why would a man who was just talking about how he wanted to continue to live in a certain place up and kill himself the very same night, or early the next morning? The perfect dough floated from the biscuit cutter onto the baking sheet. Blanche wished she'd lingered on the front porch a little longer last night. As it was, the last thing she'd heard Everett utter was a threat against the sheriff. Then Everett goes out in the middle of the night and the sheriff is dead in the morning. She stopped what she was doing and laid her hand across her stomach, as if she could press away the warning hollowness behind her diaphragm. She was staying in a house with a murderer. She was also running from the law. The sheriff had found her yesterday, and this morning he had turned up dead.

She opened the oven door and placed the biscuits inside. If the rest of the world decided that the sheriff had been murdered, she was a prime suspect. If she were to run and be caught now, who knew what kind of trumped-up charges they'd hang on her? She was positive that all concerned would rather have her arrested for killing the sheriff than Everett.

Of course, it was possible the sheriff had killed himself. Life could certainly take the kind of quick and serious turn for the worse that made a person do things they had never thought they would. It had happened to her a number of times, including a few days ago. Had it really only been five days since she had taken off from the courthouse, heading in what was turning out to be a very wrong direction? She set the timer for twelve minutes.

She wondered if Grace knew. More likely, he'd done it to keep her from finding out what the sheriff knew. To keep his meal ticket safe. It would be better to forget about the sheriff's visits, his conversations with Everett, and the limousine rolling silently down the drive. That shouldn't be a problem. She had plenty of experience not seeing what went on in her customers' homes, like black eyes, specks of white powder left on silver-backed mirrors, cufflinks with the wrong initials under the bed,
and prescriptions for herpes. She was particularly good at not seeing anything that might be dangerous or illegal. But as good as she was at being blind, there were certain things she couldn't overlook. She'd made more than one anonymous call to a noncustodial parent about child abuse.

But no helpless child was endangered by the sheriff's murder. Still, it tugged at her. She transferred plump, golden biscuits from the oven to a bun warmer. How had Everett made it look like suicide? She gathered eggs and milk, and scrambled them in butter, together with salt, pepper, and a dash of Tabasco. She imagined pills in some whiskey, a hose from the exhaust pipe to the front vent window of the sheriff's car, a blow to the head, poison, a bullet to the brain.

She carried the biscuits into the dining room along with the chafing dish of eggs, then the warmer of bacon and sausages. All the family members were at the table, except Emmeline, who, Blanche suspected, never came downstairs—at least not while she was in her cups. Blanche concentrated on the food to keep from staring at Everett calmly sipping his coffee. She felt as transparent as plastic wrap. Surely he knew that she knew, that she'd seen him, was a danger to him.

“Good morning, Blanche.” Mumsfield grinned between spoonfuls of cornflakes.

Both Grace and Everett looked up at her. Everett's glance was quick and distracted. Grace moved her head so slowly she was like a woman under water. They both responded to Blanche's greeting with nods—Everett's curt, Grace's slow and careful, as though her head might roll off if she didn't move gingerly.

Blanche put the bread warmer and other dishes on the sideboard. She moved bowls and utensils about, cleared the grapefruit plates, and watched Everett from the corner of her eye. His eyes looked squinched together. Like something worrisome is tugging at them from the inside, she thought. In her mind, she heard him warning the sheriff in a voice as soft as a scorpion
slipping across sand. She saw him sitting in the limousine as it rolled slowly and silently down the drive, the moonlight turning his already pale skin to vampire blue. And now the sheriff was dead. She stifled her strong longing for the privacy of the kitchen and braced herself to serve him. She was grateful when he waved her away. But before he did, she noticed that despite his almost constant sipping, his coffee cup was still full. And while he was holding his head as though reading the newspaper that lay beside his plate, he was actually watching his wife. Grace looked so limp she might have been loosely stuffed with sawdust. Her complexion was shallow, her face yellow as a harvest moon. She still had on her bedroom slippers and her legs were bare. She knows, Blanche thought, and was glad Everett was not her man. Grace took a dab of eggs and a slice of bacon but didn't eat them. Mumsfield speared massive quantities of bacon and sausages, three biscuits, and a large scoop of scrambled eggs.

But why was she so sure about Everett and the sheriff? She fished around in the dishwater for stray utensils. There was a dishwasher, of course, but it helped her to think things through when the front of her mind was distracted by some simple task. People threatened each other all the time. It didn't usually come to murder. Just because she'd seen Everett sneaking out of the house on the night the sheriff died didn't necessarily mean he was a murderer. She knew from Nate that Everett was running around on Grace. When she really thought about it, she had no concrete reason to suspect Everett, and no reason to think the sheriff's death was anything other than what the radio had said—suicide. But she did think. She'd lived too long to rely only on concrete evidence to tell her whether something was true. She thought it was likely the sheriff had found a way out of his investigation trouble other than his own death. She thought the sheriff's solution included paying someone off with money he expected to get from Everett for not telling Grace that Everett was fucking around. Blackmail, in a word. Blanche quickly searched her
mind for the other word, the one that began with “ex.” She tried not to use words that made black sound bad. When she couldn't find the word she wanted, she settled on “white male” and was pleased with how much more accurately her word described the situation. She used the spray attachment to give the dishes a final scalding rinse.

She twirled the dial on the radio, skating across music, talk shows, and commercials in search of some news. She looked over her shoulder at the wall clock. Nine-forty-five, three minutes later than it had been the last time she'd checked the clock. There wasn't likely to be any news before ten. She turned off the radio and let the dishwater out of the sink. Out the window, she saw Nate hobbling past the vegetable garden toward the back door. She wiped her hands on her apron and got the door open before he had a chance to knock. She stepped back to let him enter.

“Hear 'bout the sheriff?” he asked her without a “Hello” or “How are you?” He didn't even wait for Blanche to answer. “Shame, ain't it?” he added. But the huge grin that turned his face into that of a much younger, more carefree man didn't match his words.

It was probably events like the sheriff's death that got her slave ancestors a reputation for being happy, childlike, and able to grin in the face of the worst disaster. She could just see some old slaver trying to find a reason why the slaves did a jig when the overseer died.

“What happened?” She pulled a chair out from the table. Nate sat down and fanned himself with his battered baseball cap.

“Run his car off Oman's Bluff—'bout three miles down Kerry Road.” He motioned with his head toward the east. “Exploded.” He paused again. Blanche sank slowly into the chair across from him.

“They say he was stealing money hand over fist. Course, ain't nobody surprised to hear that.” Nate chewed on the inside of his cheek and looked at Blanche from the corner of his eye.

Something's wrong, Blanche thought. Nate's a storytelling man. He'd no more walk in here and start spouting off the facts of an event like this than Aunt Mabel, who was generally considered the best-dressed woman in her church, would go to Sunday service in beat-up bedroom shoes.

Nate fiddled with his hat. His dark hands were as knotted as tree roots. His tan nails were edged with soil. He crossed and uncrossed his legs. “They say,” he went on, still looking at Blanche from the corner of his eye, “they say he killed hisself 'cause it was all gon' be in the newspaper, 'bout him stealing, I mean.” He stopped, turned his entire upper body to face her, and stared at her with perplexed, worried eyes. “But why would somebody from this here house be leavin' the very place where it happened? Couldn't have been nobody else!” he added quickly, as though she'd disagreed with him. “Ain't nobody else in these parts got a pink jacket.” He said the words “pink jacket” in a way that made it clear what he thought of such a garment. Blanche said nothing. She knew there was more.

“I ain't slept much these last five or so years.” Nate squeezed his cap between both hands as he spoke. “Most nights find me roamin' round my old place, my old yard. Just thinking 'bout things and...and bein' there, if you know what I mean. Sleep don't seem like the best way to use time when you ain't got but a drop or two left.”

He looked out the window for a moment. What must he know? she wondered. What must he have learned, after all these years spent so close to the earth? She imagined evenings of listening to him talk of times gone and what they'd counted for.

“Some nights, I just sit out on my porch in the dark. Just sit and rock a bit. That's how I come to see that pink jacket. I live over by Kerry Road...not too far from Oman's Bluff, where the sheriff...where the sheriff died.

“Fact is,” he added with a deep, shuddering sigh, “the shortcut to Oman's Bluff goes right by my front yard, right there 'cross
the road from my front yard. A big ole pine branch fell on that path day 'fore yesterday. Anybody walkin' along the path got to step round that limb.”

Nate hesitated once again. He wiped his hand across his face. “My eyes ain't all they once was, but when he stepped off the path to go round that there pine limb, I saw that pink jacket clear as...” His eyes widened slightly as he looked up from Blanche's face to the doorway beyond her.

Mumsfield, Blanche said to herself.

“And the carrots lookin' mighty fine, too.” Nate was still looking over Blanche's head. He rose from the chair.

“Mornin', Mista Mumsfield.” Nate eased toward the back door as he spoke.

Blanche turned her head. Mumsfield was standing with his head just inside the swinging door. “Hello, Nate. Hello, Blanche.” Mumsfield came fully into the room. His voice was barely audible. He stood with his head hung, his eyes lowered, and his hands jammed deep in his pockets.

“Well, I best be seein' to them vegetables.” Nate wished Mumsfield another “Good morning,” gave Blanche a nod and a look she couldn't read, then slipped out the back door.

Blanche turned in her chair and stared at Mumsfield. Her usually soft brown eyes snapped with annoyance—once again, she'd felt his presence before her eyes or ears had any information to go on. Like he's some kind of kin of mine, she thought, and the thought irritated her.

She suddenly saw her affection for people as a wide lake whose sides sloped down to a very deep middle. Some people—Mama, the kids, Ardell, Cousin Maxine, and Blanche's New York buddy Carla Sanchez—floated in the middle of the lake. Lots of other people—neighbors she'd had over the years, schoolmates, old lovers, and such—waded in the shallower waters of her affection. But she knew that, when necessary, she could sweep unwanted waders right off her beach, including this one. She
gave Mumsfield a hard look. I won't be here much longer, she reminded herself.

Mumsfield called her back to his immediate distress with a sigh damp with approaching tears. “Mumsfield is very sad, Blanche,” he told her, as though she'd asked him a question. “Mumsfield heard Uncle Everett tell Aunt Grace about...about...”

“The sheriff?” Blanche asked him. Mumsfield raised his head and looked at her with tear-glazed eyes. Blanche almost burst out laughing. She manufactured a cough and politely covered her mouth with her hand. She turned away from Mumsfield until she straightened out her face. She didn't want him to think she was laughing at him, when her laughter was really a celebration of her own good sense. Hadn't she just been warning herself off this young man? Now here was a perfect example of why. Crying over the sheriff!

“Everyone dies, Mumsfield, honey.” She tried to make her voice as gentle as possible. She rose, led him to a chair, and patted his shoulder while he sobbed softly into his cupped hands. Her mouth tightened into a plump line of disapproval toward a family in which a member had to come to the hired help for solace.

When Mumsfield's sobs had dissolved into shudders and sniffles, she questioned him about his relationship with the sheriff. From what he told her, it sounded as though the sheriff had hardly ever spoken to Mumsfield, beyond “Hello” and “Goodbye.”

It's the sheriff of America-the-make-believe he's mourning, she told herself. Boy's been watching too much television.

By the time she'd finished explaining that death is what comes after life, the same way youth follows childhood, and how perfectly it seems to work to keep people and planet alive, Mumsfield was dry-eyed and attentive. He sat with his hands folded on the table like a student at a desk, until he was soothed and ready to go about his business.