Who Killed Blanche DuBois?

by Carole Elizabeth Buggé

  “Don’t you see that it’s violence against women?” she said, her eyes pleading. Two of the black women looked stonily ahead, ignoring her question; the third, a large, very light-skinned African-American, shook her head violently.

  “You just don’ get it, do you? It’s the same old story all over again: get the nigger!”

  Claire winced at the sound of the word; it was so ugly, carrying behind it centuries of violence and racial hatred. The blonde in the expensive pantsuit looked deflated.

  “But it’s so clear he’s guilty!” she said in a defeated voice.

  One of the black women shook her head. “Maybe to you, white girl, but not to us!”

  The audience hooted and roared. Claire turned off the television. The woman was right: as far as many black women were concerned, when push came to shove, racial empathy trumped sisterhood every time. Claire didn’t understand it, and knew she couldn’t understand it because she had never been where those black women had been.

  Later that afternoon Claire called the video store and reserved three Buster Keaton films—but even The General failed to stir her from her apathy. It wasn’t until Sunday evening that it occurred to her that she was missing Meredith. She wasn’t even sure she liked Meredith—the girl could be very irritating—and yet the emptiness Claire felt was because of her absence. Sitting in the living room, she imagined Meredith opposite her on the couch, sipping tea, her thin legs pulled up underneath her, bony knees protruding like white knobs from under her skirt. Meredith in the kitchen, carefully arranging the latest cache of Pepperidge Farm cookies, alphabetically, Bordeaux to Zanzibar.

  Sarah had suggested that Meredith might be autistic, and Claire scoffed at the idea, but, in thinking about her now, she thought maybe Sarah had a point. Maybe there were degrees of autism, variations on the condition that no one had yet discovered. Maybe Meredith was suffering—if that was the word—from a kind of autism . . .

  When the phone rang Sunday night, Claire was more pleased than she expected to be when she heard Meredith’s voice on the other end.

  “Claire, it’s me.” Meredith sounded more childlike over the phone than in person.

  “Hello, Meredith. How are you?”

  “Oh, as well as can be expected, as they say, considering that I’m back in the Wasteland. Do you know, I think Eliot must have lived in Connecticut at some point.”

  “How are you getting along with your stepmother?”

  Claire could feel the rolling of Meredith’s eyes in her voice.

  “One does not ‘get along’ with my stepmother, Claire; one simply tolerates her, as one would a noxious odor—and attempts to remain sane.”

  “Well, are you doing that?”

  “Oh, yes, I’m perfectly Sane; she’s the one who’s bonkers. How my father could have gotten pulled into her undertow is something I’ll never understand. His judgment must have been impaired by his excessive grief over my dear departed mother.”

  There was a pause, and then Meredith said, “Do you miss me?”

  Claire took a deep breath.

  “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I do.”

  “I miss you, too,” Meredith replied breezily, as though it cost her nothing. Claire wondered why she had held on to her own response so tightly, her emotions guarded currency to be spent frugally.

  “So,” said Meredith, “whatcha up to?”

  Claire paused again. What, exactly, was she doing? Moping around, feeling ill-used by the world—in short, nothing; worse than nothing. Meredith, on the other hand, always seemed to be doing something.

  “Oh, not much,” Claire replied cautiously. “How about you?”

  “Oh, research . . . cataloging clues, that sort of thing.”

  “Cataloging—”

  “Clues. You know, who might be guilty and why.”

  “I see.”

  “Some people run on instinct, you know, but I have to organize my thoughts.”

  “Oh. Do you have any—”

  “Any suspects? Oh, everyone’s a suspect until proven innocent. Even you.”

  “Me?”

  Meredith laughed. “Don’t worry, I don’t seriously think you did it. But you could have; like most everyone else, you had the means and the opportunity . . . whether or not you had the motive, I’m not sure. I don’t think so. After all, Blanche was the goose that laid the golden egg, wasn’t she?”

  That was the second time Claire had heard Blanche referred to in this way since her death. The third time it’s comedy, she thought. Just then she heard the beep of call waiting on her phone line.

  “Meredith, I have another call.”

  “All right, I’ll go. When do you want me to come back down?” There was a hint of a plea in her voice.

  “Oh, I don’t know . . . whenever you want.”

  “Good! I’ll tell Dad he can bring me down Friday after school, okay?”

  “All right.”

  “See you then!”

  Claire pushed the button to click on the other call.

  “Hello?” she said.

  “Hello, Claire.” It was Robert.

  “Oh, hi!” Claire thought her voice sounded too bright, forced.

  “I got a minute to myself, thought I’d call.”

  “How nice.”

  Claire heard music in the background.

  “What are you listening to?” she said.

  “Oh, that’s Verdi’s Otello . . . I was just in the mood for it.” There was a slight pause, and then he said, “Do you miss me?”

  How unlike Robert to ask that question, and how odd to hear it twice like this.

  “Yes, I do.”

  “I miss you. Listen, why don’t you come up next weekend?”

  “Well, I . . .” Next weekend Meredith would be arriving.

  “What’s wrong? Don’t you want to come?”

  “Well, yes, it’s just that—”

  “What?”

  “Well, Meredith’s coming down on Friday.”

  “No problem; bring her along.”

  “Well, she’s—”

  “I know, I know—she’s a handful. I don’t mind; bring her. We’ll find something to occupy her.”

  “Well, if you’re sure . . .”

  “Of course I’m sure. Don’t give it a second thought, really.”

  After they hung up, Claire felt a little less depressed, but she was still restless. She hadn’t mentioned her mood to Robert because she thought he would disapprove. She could imagine his response:

  “Well, then go out and do something. Don’t just mope about on your own.”

  Claire headed toward the kitchen to make some coffee. Ralph wove in between her legs, mewing pathetically.

  “Did you miss me?” she said to him under her breath.

  “Hey!” she yelped when he got under her feet, making her trip and almost fall. In response, he jumped up onto the kitchen counter, rubbing against the cupboard containing the cat food.

  “You are so spoiled, do you know that?” Claire said.

  Ralph sat and looked at her with wide, virtuous eyes.

  “All right,” she said, giving in, taking out a can of Tuna Treat.

  Ralph jumped onto the floor, purring like a diesel, rubbing up against her ankles.

  “It’s not me you love,” Claire muttered to him. “It’s Tuna Treat. I’m just the vehicle for your digestive satisfaction.” As she said it she was struck by the notion that it sounded like something Meredith would say.

  After she fed him, Claire made herself a strong cup of decaf Kona blend, her favorite coffee, and went into the living room to drink it. She put on a recording of Rossini’s Messa Solenne and lay down on the couch to listen. She sighed with pleasure at the first notes of the Kyrie, with its inventive and compelling bass line, and felt her stomach relax as the sopranos and altos made their entrance, eerily floating over the orchestra. Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison . . .

  Chapter 9

  Detective Wallace Jackson lay on the couch
in his darkened study staring up at the play of headlights on the ceiling. He wore a wool sweater under his tatty grey trench coat; the heat in his building was malfunctioning again and the room had a distinct chill. He had gone to bed early, but unable to sleep, he wandered around the apartment for a while, until fatigue finally brought him to the couch in his study. Sometimes, when he couldn’t sleep in his bed, he was able to fall asleep on the soft leather sofa in the study. He wasn’t sleepy now—tired, yes, but not sleepy. His mind was working rapidly, about so many things that it was hard to keep track of them all.

  Sleepless nights were not so frequent as they were a few years ago. Following the death of his wife, they had been the norm rather than the exception. He resisted taking the medication his doctor prescribed because his Scottish Presbyterian background held any and all such drugs in deep suspicion. Finally, though, as the circles under his eyes darkened and his hands began shaking with fatigue, he had acquiesced, sinking gratefully into nights of dreamless, drug-assisted sleep.

  He got up from the couch and looked out the window, where a light snow was settling on the fire escape. Anne had loved snow—to her, extreme weather was an adventure, a challenge. On more than one occasion she insisted on going out in blizzard conditions just for the sheer exhilaration of it. Jackson went into the kitchen and made himself a cup of cocoa. He was just now beginning to pull out of the numbness that had followed Anne’s death. Food had regained its taste, and the thick layer of sadness which hovered over his life showed promise of lifting.

  He went back to the study and put on a recording of the Mozart Requiem. He sat down and leaned back to listen to the opening bars of the first chorus. He closed his eyes—and to his surprise, Claire Rawlings’s face suddenly appeared in his mind’s eye. He didn’t know why he thought of her just then, but he allowed his mind to study her face—the high cheekbones and thin aristocratic nose with its slight bump, the full mouth and deep-set blue eyes. It was a good face, plain in some lights and beautiful in others, but it was certainly a strong face.

  Claire awoke to silence. She had slept through the entire recording of the Rossini. She stretched and sat up. Her shoulder bag lay open on the floor, and when she picked it up to move it, a piece of paper fell to the floor: Detective Jackson’s business card. She picked the card up and looked at the number written in ink on the back. Claire had an irrational desire to call him, to hear his soft, weary voice . . . she imagined the heavy, sad eyes and rumpled grey hair. She looked at the card again. She wondered if she called whether a woman would answer. Remembering his tattered coat with the missing button, she had an instinct that the answer was no—but she had been wrong before.

  Carefully, she put the card next to the phone and settled in the red chair to drink her coffee, which was cold by now. If she called him, she would have to have a reason or it would, look odd. Something she had forgotten to mention before, maybe . . . Claire tried to think if she might have anything of real value to say to Detective Jackson. She stared at the business card, at the phone number written in his neat, precise hand. She pictured his hands, the long fingernails and firm palms. I miss you, she thought. I miss you, and I don’t even know you.

  She lifted the phone and dialed his number. It rang twice, and midway through the third ring he answered.

  “Jackson here.”

  Hearing his voice over the phone, Claire realized for the first time that what she had interpreted as weariness was in fact pain.

  “Oh, hello, it’s Claire—Claire Rawlings,” she said, suddenly out of breath.

  “Yes, Ms. Rawlings.”

  Call me Claire, she wanted to say, call me anything you want, as long as you call me.

  “I—I just thought I’d call and—” And then she realized she had nothing at all to say, that she just wanted to hear his voice. There was a pause, and then he spoke.

  “Are you frightened?”

  “Am I—?”

  “Are you frightened?” The voice was patient, tired.

  “Well, I don’t know . . . I guess maybe; I hadn’t thought about it . . .”

  “Don’t worry, it’s perfectly natural to feel what you’re feeling under the circumstances. Someone you knew well has just been murdered. It would be odd if you felt nothing.”

  Claire suddenly realized that Jackson was right—she was scared; terrified, in fact—and her depression was just masking the feeling of terror that lurked beneath the surface of her consciousness. How did he know? she thought. How could he read my mind like that?

  “You know, sometimes people get help . . . I could give you some numbers to call.”

  “Well, that’s very kind, but I don’t think—”

  She broke off, confused, afraid to reveal any more of herself to him.

  “Well, let me know if you change your mind. You can reach me here or at the precinct.”

  “Thank you. Have you . . . have you made any progress in the investigation?”

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t really go into specifics. I’m sure you understand. It’s department policy.”

  “Of course . . . sure. Sorry, I just . . .”

  “I know; I’m sorry, too. We’re doing everything we can, I promise you.”

  “Oh, I’m sure you are.”

  Another pause, during which Ralph came and wrapped his body around Claire’s ankles, purring. “Well, listen, thanks,” she said. “I appreciate talking to you. Let me know if there’s anything I can do.”

  “I will—and in the meantime, if you think of anything that might be of use, call me.”

  “I will. Thanks . . . goodbye.”

  “Good night.”

  Claire hung up the phone and looked out the window at the early winter darkness settling over the West Side. Lights burned in the windows of the buildings across the street. She could hear the faint sound of a piano coming from one of the buildings, someone picking their way through a Mozart sonata.

  Meine Töchter führen das Nächtlichen rein

  Und wiegen und tanzen und singen dich ein

  Claire stood looking out the window for a long time, then closed the curtains. Somewhere out there in the darkness was Blanche’s murderer, and whoever it was, the killer might not stop with one victim.

  Chapter 10

  At the end of the week, Meredith returned to New York to spend a three-day weekend with Claire. Once back in town, the girl was reluctant to leave “the scene of the crime,” as she put it, but Claire wanted Robert to meet her.

  “Is he handsome?” said Meredith as they wandered around the Museum of Natural History on Friday afternoon. She particularly liked the Gem Room, where she stood staring at the Star of India for some time. “It says here that it was stolen from the museum and then recovered,” she said. “Someone should really write a mystery about that.”

  “I’m sure someone has,” said Claire, watching a group of Japanese tourists listening to a tour guide explaining the reason some diamonds are colored. The tour guide was short with frizzy brown hair, and she carried a little orange flag like the one bicyclists sometimes use to increase their visibility to cars. The Japanese tourists were nodding, their faces frozen in a public mask of polite interest.

  “You haven’t answered my question,” said Meredith. “Is he handsome?”

  “Robert? Yes, I guess he is.”

  “Do you have a picture of him?”

  Claire opened her wallet and took out the picture of Robert standing in front of the Croton Reservoir. Meredith studied it for a moment and then gave it back.

  “He’s cuter than Detective Jackson,” she said bluntly.

  Claire realized that the Japanese tourists were now looking at her and Meredith. Embarrassed, she took Meredith’s hand and pulled her in the direction of the exit.

  “Hey, where are we going?” Meredith protested.

  “Somewhere more private,” Claire said grimly. “How about a cup of tea in the cafeteria?”

  Meredith shrugged. “That’s hardly more private.”
>
  Minutes later they sat sipping tea in the cafeteria in the basement of the museum. It was not exactly private, but the ambient noise of people talking and trays rattling echoed through the tiled floors and walls and created a kind of privacy. Meredith sat picking at a sweet roll, carefully removing the pecans before tearing off strips of dough and putting them delicately into her mouth.

  “What’s wrong, don’t you like talking about Robert?” she said.

  “I guess I’m just kind of private about these things.”

  “Do you have a crush on Detective Jackson?” Meredith plucked a pecan from her roll and deposited it carefully on the side of the paper plate.

  “I think he’s an attractive man.”

  “But Robert’s cuter. Are you in love with Detective Jackson?”

  Claire was caught off guard by the question. “Oh, what does that mean anyway, to be ‘in love’?” she said feebly.

  Meredith smiled a secret smile. “You are,” she said. “You love Wallace Jackson,” she said in the singsong voice of a child on a playground.

  Claire couldn’t think of a reply. Her stomach tightened and tingled. “Drink your tea,” she said. She wasn’t sure that she could allow herself to fall “in love” in the sense that Meredith meant. It seemed increasingly to Claire that growing older was a series of disillusionments, a letting go of expectations, a gradual freezing of options. She vaguely remembered a time when she had leaned eagerly into life, but now that seemed not only unrealistic but impossible. She no longer had the expectation of her needs being met by any one person. She felt ambivalent about most of the people in her life, and the truth was that she wasn’t sure she could fall in love with anyone again. She looked at Meredith, busy dismembering her sweet roll, pale lips pursed, her kinky hair surrounding her face like an unruly orange halo. For just a moment she wished with all her heart she could be thirteen years old once again.

  They decided to take the train up to Hudson on Saturday morning. Robert was photographing a wedding when they arrived, and so couldn’t meet them at the station.