Blanche Cleans Up: A Blanche White Mystery (Blanche White Mystery Series Book 3)
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SIXTEEN
DAY SIXTEEN—FRIDAY
Blanche spent Friday morning calling her clients to let them know she’d be back to work on Monday. They all seemed pleased, and none of them had any complaints against Cousin Charlotte’s niece, who’d replaced her.
It was a real spring day, and she was eager to get out of doors, maybe find her way over to Jamaica Pond and walk along the other side—the side opposite the Brindle house. She stood in her doorway for a few minutes appreciating the coming green, watching the way the sun etched gold on the houses across the way. But she couldn’t get herself out the door. She didn’t know why until the phone rang.
“Well, darlin’, what do you think of it all?”
“Wanda?”
“The very same. I got your number from our Inez.”
“How you doin’?”
“All well on my end. You’re the one, darlin’, bein’ there when the boy died, I mean.”
“Yeah, it was rough, but I’m okay now.”
“I should think so, darlin’. We don’t get paroled from hell every day.”
Blanche laughed. “Working for them wasn’t no picnic, it’s true.”
“It’s not workin’ for ’em I’m talkin’ about, darlin’. I take it you haven’t seen the papers yet?”
“Tell me,” she said.
“Well, darlin’, it seems our Allister’s been caught with his pants down in front of the underaged. It’s all over the front page. Something about a video with children and animals. Quite a nasty business. Even I’m a bit shocked, and I never put anythin’ past that lot!”
So it was out. “Have they arrested him?”
“Not yet, but there’s talk of, how do they put it? Ah yes, serious criminal charges.”
The memory of Brindle talking to her as though she wasn’t fit to breathe faded beneath the picture of him being dragged away in handcuffs. “No more than he deserves.”
“My very thought, darlin’. And what a blessin’ for the people of this state! People can forgive a hand in the till or a pack of lies, but not fornicatin’ with wee kiddies.”
Blanche remembered Ray-Ray telling her that what he was doing would be good for her and everybody in the Commonwealth. Too bad there wasn’t some way he could get credit for it.
“It was good working with you, Wanda. I truly enjoyed it.”
“As did I, darlin’, especially the lovely tea. Come to my place and I’ll fix you a cup of my special blend.”
“One of these days,” Blanche said, and wondered if it was true as she wrote down Wanda’s phone number and address.
She reminded herself to get Carrie’s number from Inez. She owed her a call.
SEVENTEEN
DAY SEVENTEEN—SATURDAY
The next morning, Blanche spent nearly an hour in front of her Ancestor altar, trying to find a way to make peace with the knowledge that Donnie’s family didn’t and would likely never know what had happened to him. She knew she couldn’t tell his wife, could never do anything that would endanger Othello and the Ex-Cons for Community. She also knew this wasn’t justice, and apologized to her forebears for it. When she’d first gotten Othello’s group to help her, she’d been glad to know there were black men in the community prepared to protect people, make the bad actors pay for what they did, and keep the neighborhood safe. She still thought this was a good idea—just as soon as folks figured out how to solve the same problem they had with the downtown system: Who polices the police? Who decides who should be punished and how?
She spent the rest of the day getting ready for the evening. She cleaned the living room, bathroom, and her own room—changing the curtains as well as the sheets, washing the windows and sprucing the place up for her friend’s visit.
Cousin Charlotte stopped by around noon.
“So, what’s Shaquita gonna do?” Blanche asked her.
Cousin Charlotte adjusted today’s hat—a porkpie with a bright green band and a huge pink rose in the front. “We still talkin’ about it,” she said. Her voice told the disappointment her words didn’t express.
Blanche took a deep breath. “Make sure the doctor tests her for AIDS, Cousin Charlotte.”
Cousin Charlotte seemed to collapse like a deflated balloon, but only for a few seconds before her shoulders rose to their usual height. “Well, she’s finishin’ high school and goin’ outta here to college, baby or no baby. I made sure she knows that.”
“If she has it, are you gonna take care of the baby while she’s in school?”
Cousin Charlotte set her lips in a firm line. “No, I ain’t havin’ that mess. I don’t want no baby, and I ain’t havin’ no baby. If she want a baby, she gon have to take care of it. If she decides to have it, she and that baby goin’ to college.”
“What about Pookie?”
“She probably all up in his face right now, stupid child.”
Tears filmed Cousin Charlotte’s eyes. Blanche gave her a long hug before she left.
Blanche was too excited about Ardell’s coming to pay much attention to Taifa and Malik’s bickering. She fed them early and set them free to visit friends. She turned on the radio for the evening news and heard something that stopped her cold:
A new study suggests that childhood exposure to lead increases the chances of juvenile delinquency. Low-level lead has previously been found to lower IQs in children. The latest study suggests that lead’s effect on behavior could be even more significant. NPR’s Richard Harris has the story.
Blanche ran to the phone and called Aminata. Her line was busy. Blanche grabbed a pencil and a piece of paper and wrote down as much information as she could, being extra careful to get the name of the doctor who had done the research, Herbert Nedelman at the University of Pittsburgh, who certainly sounded like a brother to her on the radio.
She tried Aminata’s number again. Still busy. The woman might be half crazy, but she’d been right about lead poisoning and violence in teenagers.
“I knew it. I always knew it,” Aminata said when Blanche finally reached her.
There was no bus in sight when Blanche left the house to go meet Ardell’s train, so she decided to walk a block or two and was almost instantly sorry she had: Just as she turned the corner, Pookie came out of a house farther along the block and began walking ahead of her. He hadn’t seen her. Blanche felt her face tighten and her back do a ramrod thing. She was tempted to slip back around the corner until he got farther away. Why? Because he was one of those young men some people called an endangered species? Was that a reason to turn up her nose at him? After all, people didn’t stop speaking to FDR’s granddad when he was dealing drugs. His little enterprise got him into the president’s family. Maybe Pookie would get lucky. He’d tried in his own way to get Shaquita to change her mind about the baby, and it still might work. Anyway, treating him like he was dog poop on the pavement wasn’t likely to help him come to a good end. If nobody even wanted to speak to these kids, how could anyone then turn around and criticize them for their choices?
“Hey, Pookie! Wait up,” she called.
True to her word, Blanche was waiting on the platform at Back Bay Station when Ardell’s train arrived. They hugged for a long time. When they moved apart, Blanche could see tears about to fall behind Ardell’s glasses, just as they were misting Blanche’s own eyes.
Ardell reached down to pick up her bag. Blanche stopped her.
“I’ve waited as long as I can, Ardell. Tell me what’s up.”
Ardell let a clot of people break around them before she spoke. “I’ve come to tell you that the old police headquarters burnt down last week, so any information they mighta had about why you left town in such a hurry is gone up in smoke. Your mama’s gettin’ old. And you and me both need less work and more money. I got an idea about how we can get both.”
“Good!” Blanche grinned. She picked up Ar
dell’s bag and they headed, arm in arm, toward the escalator.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Barbara Neely’s short fiction has appeared in various anthologies, including Breaking Ice, Things That Divide Us, Angels of Power, Speaking for Ourselves, and Test Tube Women. She lives in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, where she is working on the next Blanche White mystery.