Blanche on the Lam: A Blanche White Mystery (24 page)

The pain that shot up Blanche's arm as her knuckles made contact with Grace's lips and teeth was so satisfying it made her “Aah” with pleasure. But she had only a moment in which to savor it.

Although Blanche had struck her hard enough to rattle her teeth, Grace didn't stagger. No moan or scream passed her lips.
She didn't bother to wipe the blood dripping down her cream-colored silk blouse.

Oh, shit! Blanche suddenly remembered old Miz Carter, who finally went all the way round the bend and took off all of her clothes in the main rotunda of the statehouse. Six attendants and a straitjacket were needed to get her in the ambulance, even though she was ninety years old and thin as a pencil. And Grace had more than the superhuman strength of the mad on her side.

She had the drawer open and the carving knife in hand before Blanche could fully register what was happening. In Grace's hand, that familiar cooking tool became something out of a barroom brawl—slim, curved, and mean-looking. The sight of it momentarily dissolved all of her courage. Blanche was running for the door by the time Grace raised the knife and roared like a wild and angry beast. Blanche flung a kitchen chair behind her as she raced for the swinging door. In the dining room she hurled another chair, blocking the door on both sides. Grace cursed as she stumbled over the first chair.

Blanche threw open the front door, then ran up the stairs. Grace bellowed as she ran to the front door. She held the knife in both hands, her arms extended as though the knife were a divining rod that would lead her to Blanche.

Blanche looked down the upstairs hall. The house slammed all its doors in her face. You can't hide in here, it told her. Grace had known the house since she was a child. All its secret spaces were open to her. And when she finds me, Blanche thought, and honored the urge to check her back.

Grace was walking slowly up the stairs. She smiled up at Blanche as though they were long-lost friends. She held the knife as though she knew just how to thrust and rip with it. Blanche was rooted to the spot, mesmerized by Grace's wide, wild eyes. Grace was nearly at the top of the stairs before Blanche turned
and ran down the back stairs, out the back door, and into the woods.

The woods around the house were thick with underbrush. There were places where only a small animal could penetrate. Spiky green fingers ripped at Blanche's ankles and calves. She had no idea how far the woods went on, so she didn't want to lose sight of the house. She looked for a tree to climb but couldn't find one with low limbs. From the corner of her eye she saw Grace running out the back door.

Blanche fell to her knees behind a bush and tried to slow her breathing. Through a chink in the shrubbery she watched Grace jerk her head and upper body from side to side, slashing about with the knife and looking crazily around the yard. Her arms swung way out from her body as she snapped first one way and then the other like a mechanical toy gone haywire. Then she abruptly stopped her frantic movements and headed for the shed at the foot of the yard.

“Are you in there, bitch?” she shouted in a voice that could have belonged to a man, a big, mean man. Grace kicked the shed door open and flung herself inside. Blanche could hear her throwing things about, cursing and screaming, and laughing in a high, eerie way.

Blanche felt something akin to shame. First some pervert ran her out of New York, then the law ran her into this mess, and now she was running away from a crazy-assed white woman! It didn't feel right. It didn't feel right at all.

Grace came out of the shed and looked quickly from side to side. Blanche fought the instinct to run. She took a deep breath, relaxed, took another breath, and felt her heart begin to beat a little more slowly. She could see that Grace's face was deep pink, and only tearing at her hair could have made it stand out in those spiky clumps. The fear that had pounded through Blanche's body while she was running like a panicked beast, now quieted. She
imagined she heard Grace's ragged breathing above the chirping and squawking of birds.

Grace stomped through Nate's cabbages to the edge of the woods on the other side of the yard, diagonally across from where Blanche was hiding. She began inching slowly sideways, parallel to the woods. She was moving in Blanche's direction. The knife blade shone white in the sunlight. Blanche couldn't see Grace's face, but she didn't need to. Grace's whole body, the slowness of her motions and the utter stillness of her pauses, spoke of looking for the movement that didn't fit, listening for the sound that didn't belong.

Running from her was not the answer. Blanche shifted her position until her damp knees were off the ground. She assumed a deep and surprisingly comfortable squat, legs spread and her butt balanced in between. She felt somehow strengthened. She breathed in deep drafts of the dirt-and-green-smelling woods and looked around for a stone. She found a large pine cone. She hefted it to make sure it was weighty enough. She rose slowly and aimed the pine cone to the right of Grace's back.

Grace spun in the direction of the cone cracking to the ground. She crouched low and weaved her upper body from side to side, like a snake scoping prey. “I see you! You can't hide from me!” She crashed into the woods in the area where the cone had fallen.

Blanche changed her hiding place. She was now standing somewhat deeper in the woods, surrounded by bushes and saplings. Grace continued to worry the spot where she'd heard the sound. Blanche began moving toward the shed. She moved as quietly as possible, although it wasn't necessary. She could hear Grace thrashing about. Every once in a while Grace bellowed Blanche's name, along with some other names—like “whore,” “nigger bitch,” and “black slut,” names Blanche had long ago learned had nothing to do with her and everything to do with the
person from whose mouth they came. “She don't even pronounce them right,” Blanche whispered to herself.

Blanche slipped into the shed. Grace had made quite a mess. Shards of broken clay pots mingled with the spilled guts of a bag of peat moss in the middle of the floor. Blanche stepped over a long board, plant stakes, and assorted debris. She turned and picked up the board. It was about three feet long and three inches wide. She held it like a squared-off baseball bat. She went to the shed door and used the stick to push it as hard as she could, so that the door swung out and slammed against the side of the shed with a crash like a gunshot blast. She stepped to the side of the doorway and waited.

It didn't take long. Grace was there in seconds, snorting and grunting like a wild pig. Half-formed curses and nearly incoherent insults foamed out of her mouth. Blanche took a deep breath, widened her stance, and hefted the board in both hands. As Grace's right foot and head appeared through the doorway, Blanche pivoted her body and pictured Grace's head as a large baseball.

The blow sent Grace sprawling backward to lie spread-eagled on the ground in front of the shed. Her right shoe lay on its side just inside the door. The knife skittered off into the cabbages. Blanche stood in the doorway staring out and down at Grace. A slow, satisfied grin spread over Blanche's face. She'd never been sure that talking back to her employers, and using their front rooms and first names, was enough to protect her against Darkies' Disease. It could be picked up like a virus, and her concern for Mumsfield had seemed like a symptom. But Grace's body lying unconscious on the ground was proof enough of her own mental health.

She stepped over Grace's legs and gingerly felt for a pulse in the woman's throat. Grace's skin was cool and clammy. Her pulse was strong. Blanche sank down on the shed step, next to Grace's feet, and balanced the board across her knees. She watched as the
bruises below Grace's eyes became two glorious shiners and the tissues around her nose began to swell. Broken, Blanche diagnosed. Something to remember Nate by, she told Grace's unconscious body.

THIRTEEN

B
lanche was still sitting on the shed stoop with a faint grin on her face when Archibald's car zoomed up the drive and screeched to a halt.

“Out here!” she shouted when she heard feet running toward the house.

Archibald hurried down the yard and knelt beside Grace. He picked up her wrist and lifted her eyelid as though he'd been trained as a doctor instead of a lawyer. Mumsfield came and stood close to Blanche and took her hand. His eyes seemed to be asking her something, but Blanche's mind wasn't moving fast enough to catch the question.

“What's happened here?” Archibald demanded once he'd felt Grace's pulse.

“Did you bring that letter? Did you read it?” Blanche asked him.

“What's happened here, I said!”

“She fell,” Blanche told him. Until he read that letter, she wasn't going to say anything.

Archibald looked from Blanche to the board across her knees but didn't comment. He don't want to know any more than I want to tell him, Blanche realized.

“Where is Cousin Emmeline?” Archibald's tone was an accusation.

“Do you really want to talk about that now?” Blanche asked him.

Archibald looked from Blanche to Mumsfield, who was staring down at Grace with a look of shock and confusion on his
face. “Perhaps you're right.” He turned his full attention to reviving Grace, who was beginning to stir.

Mumsfield moved closer to Blanche's side. She could feel the heat from his body. “You need to read that letter,” she told Archibald.

Grace groaned. Archibald leaned down to help her to her feet. They were like two drunken dancers. Each time he tried to help her up, Grace's weight pulled him off-balance.

“Give me a hand!” Archibald called out. Blanche snorted. Mumsfield held Blanche's hand a little tighter. Neither of them moved.

Archibald circled behind Grace, put his arms under her armpits, and heaved. Weaving and slipping sideways, Archibald finally hoisted Grace onto her feet. She was rocky, but she was upright. Her eyes were mere slits in puffy purple flesh. She looked around with a puzzled air, as though trying to figure out where she was and how she had gotten there. Her knees continued to buckle. She clutched Archibald for support. Blanche was delighted. If the sounds Grace was making were any indication, she was feeling as bad as she looked. Blanche felt new energy flow through her limbs at the sight of her handiwork.

Grace steadied herself with Archibald's help and peered at Blanche. “She...she...” Grace looked beseechingly up at Archibald and pointed at Blanche. Grace's face was stormy and indignant. “She...she...” Grace tried again, seeming more and more agitated. Then, without warning, her eyes glazed over as though she'd packed herself up and gone away, leaving her body behind. She shuffled docilely toward the back door, leaning heavily on Archibald's arm.

Blanche told Mumsfield to wait in the kitchen. She followed Archibald and Grace into the living room. Archibald settled Grace on the sofa and went to the hall phone. Blanche kept a skeptical eye on Grace. She seemed passive enough, but there was a glint in the back of her eyes when she looked at Blanche that made Blanche
wonder how much of her zombie act was just that. Blanche could hear the urgency in Archibald's voice as he gave orders for a doctor and an ambulance. When he hung up the receiver, Blanche went to speak to him. “Have you read the letter yet?”

“I don't know what you're talking about. What's been going on here?”

It was exactly the situation she'd most feared. There was no letter. The look-alike had run off. Everett was dead in a ravine somewhere and Grace was too crackers, or wily, to talk or be held responsible for what she'd done. And guess who was left holding the bag?

“I'd better call the sheriff,” Archibald announced.

“Grace killed Nate and the sheriff.”

“Now, you look here, you...”

Blanche cut him off. “You let an imposter sign Emmeline's will, and you'd better check the cellar in the house in town before you call anybody.”

Archibald stared at Blanche but he didn't interrupt her while she told him all that she knew and guessed. The doctor Archibald had called arrived in an unmarked van with two orderlies. Mumsfield came to the living room when he heard the doorbell. He seemed both repelled and fascinated by the doctor's probing and pressing of Grace's nose and face and her whimpers of pain. He took a few steps into the living room, fear and confusion etching age into his face. Blanche led him back to the kitchen.

Archibald went to the kitchen, once Grace had been taken away—to someplace private, Blanche was sure. His skin was gray and dry, as though someone had recently relieved him of a large quantity of blood.

“Please stay with the boy until I return,” he said to Blanche. He turned and left the room before either she or Mumsfield could speak. Blanche motioned for Mumsfield to stay put and be quiet. She waited until Archibald had had enough time to clear the pantry and the dining room, then followed him.

Archibald went straight to the phone in the hall and made a call that Blanche did her damnedest to overhear. She heard enough to know that it was the wife of the attorney general to whom he spoke and addressed as “Cousin Julia.” Blanche supposed this was less illegal than speaking to the attorney general, should “the whole unfortunate matter,” as Archibald described it, ever come to light. Which he, of course, was committed to avoiding at all costs. He then described how the family could and should cover up any and all crimes. And they say there are some things money can't buy! Blanche thought Archibald left the house by the front door. Blanche went back to the kitchen.