Who Killed Blanche DuBois?

by Carole Elizabeth Buggé

  “They said he doesn’t work there anymore.”

  “What?” said Claire, surprised. “Since when?”

  “They didn’t say. They couldn’t even tell me where he went.”

  “That’s strange,” Claire mused. “Anthony’s been at Roche for a long time. I wonder why he left.”

  “So do I,” said Meredith, “so do I.”

  Peter Schwartz walked into Claire’s office the next morning and tossed a packet of photos onto her desk.

  “Well, what do you think?” he said, plopping himself down on the couch.

  Claire looked through the photos. They were all of Peter, taken in his office.

  “They’re good; what are they for?”

  “Oh, it’s for a magazine article. They said I could provide my own photos if I wanted.”

  “Who took them?”

  “Don’t you recognize the style?”

  Claire looked at the photos again. They were really very good; in them, Peter looked ten pounds lighter.

  “Was it Robert?” she said.

  “Naturellement—who else?”

  “When did he take these?”

  “Oh, a few months ago—just before you started dating, actually. Right after the book party where you two met.”

  Peter took the photographs and put them in his jacket pocket.

  “Listen, I have some tickets for the theatre tonight. Would you like to come?”

  “Well, that sounds nice, but Meredith—”

  “Oh, bring her along.”

  “Well, thank you . . .”

  “Here’s the address,” he said, scribbling it on a scrap of paper. “Don’t worry,” he said as he left Claire’s office, “it’s suitable for children.”

  Suitable for children. Claire thought of Meredith and smiled at the inappropriateness of the phrase.

  Claire had heard stories about the kind of shows Peter liked to see. To say that he had a taste for the avant-garde was an understatement—but Meredith thought it would be good for her to see something weird.

  “Oh, come on; it’ll expand your horizons,” she said over tea and a bag of Nantucket cookies.

  And so they showed up that night at the appointed place, a loft in TriBeCa where they had to use the service elevator to get to the theatre, which was on the second floor. The production was a Swedish theatre company’s rendition of the story of Kasper Hauser, and the first twenty minutes consisted of a man slowly working his way out of a large black garbage bag. He did not talk, though he made sounds from time to time that suggested a bull moose during rutting season. He was then joined onstage by two other men, and the three of them made sounds that evoked a bear with a particularly virulent attack of gas.

  At intermission Claire considered pleading that she had a headache—which would not have been far from the truth— but Peter looked so pleased that she didn’t have the heart.

  “Isn’t it smashing?” he said, offering her a glass of red wine from the wobbly makeshift bar that was set up in the lobby. “It really calls into question everything—the whole dynamic of entertainment, the nature of the audience’s relationship to the actors. It makes us so aware of our expectations.”

  “It’s really boring,” said Meredith.

  “Oh, but boredom is good for the soul,” said Peter. “Just don’t fight it.”

  “The only thing I’m fighting is sleep,” Meredith replied sourly.

  Claire smiled, glad that she had brought Meredith after all, because the girl could say everything Claire was too polite to say.

  During the second act the boredom became a physical sensation, acutely painful, like a toothache. There was a mime scene performed by bad mimes, and then a young man with red dreadlocks chased some other people around for a while. During this, a large woman sat in the corner beating a drum. Peter was enraptured, and as they left he suggested dinner.

  “We can’t end an evening like this so abruptly. I won’t fall asleep for hours now, I’m so stimulated,” he sighed happily.

  “He’s weird,” Meredith whispered to Claire as they wound through the streets of TriBeCa on their way to Chinatown, where Peter said he knew a terrific noodle house on Mott Street.

  The noodle house was tucked away in the crook of Mott Street as it turns to intersect the Bowery. Peter insisted on ordering for all of them, and when the food came, Claire had to admit his taste in cuisine was better than his taste in theatre.

  “You know,” Peter said in between mouthfuls of shrimp lo mein, “I once saw a production of a Peter Handke piece which consisted of an actor who stood absolutely still without speaking for thirty minutes.”

  Meredith looked up from her hot-and-sour soup. “You mean, you paid money to watch someone stand there without saying anything?”

  “Oh, yes . . . I got to musing about the nature of theatre, and what it all means.” He took a bite of noodles and thought for a moment. “A lot of people left.”

  “But not you.”

  “No, I stayed the longest.”

  Meredith rolled her eyes.

  “So you got your money’s worth.”

  “I’ll say I did; it was very stimulating.”

  “John Cage did a similar thing, you know—sat there until the audience walked out,” said Claire.

  “Oh, this was before John Cage,” said Peter, as though the comparison were an insult. “The second act was even more interesting; it was all about a man and his doppelgänger.”

  “His what?” said Meredith.

  “His doppelganger. It’s a German word which literally means ‘double-goer,’ but it’s often used in literature to mean someone’s evil genius or demonic side—”

  “Oh, you mean like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Hmm . . . that’s interesting.” Meredith turned to Claire. “Maybe I’m your doppelgänger,” she said playfully.

  “They say that everyone has one,” said Peter, digging into a plate of crabs in garlic sauce.

  “Who’s yours?” said Meredith.

  Peter paused, holding a crab in midair with his chopsticks. “I don’t know. How about Willard?” he said with a wicked grin, and they all laughed.

  “I like that idea,” said Meredith. “Doppelgänger . . . I wonder if Detective Jackson has one?” she whispered to Claire.

  “Well, don’t get too excited about it,” said Peter. “In literature, the appearance of the doppelgänger often heralds death.”

  “Cool!” said Meredith.

  Claire shivered.

  Wer reitet so spät durch Nacht und Wind?

  They ate in silence for a while, and every once in a while Peter said something to the waiter in Chinese. He had learned to speak it during the Vietnam War, and was very proud of himself. Claire had to admit that Peter was a good host, and he even managed to charm the waiter, who joked with him in Chinese.

  “So how are you enjoying New York?” he said to Meredith, lifting a piece of asparagus to his mouth.

  “Oh, it’s a big improvement over Hartford-on-Auschwitz,” Meredith said.

  Claire felt herself tighten, and she glared at Meredith. Peter looked startled, but then he laughed. “Is that what you call it?”

  “Yeah, I guess . . .” Meredith shrugged. “I mean, I don’t mean to be insensitive or anything, it’s just that it fits.”

  “Is Hartford that bad?”

  “Well, it’s just really constraining and conservative, you know, and there’s very little culture for an inquisitive mind.”

  “Like yours.”

  “Like mine, or anyone who is serious about the life of the mind.”

  “But what about the life of the body?” said Peter, pouring himself and Claire some more Tsing Tsao beer.

  Meredith shrugged.

  “I have no objection to it on principle, but the unexamined life and all that, you know.”

  “Yes, I know,” Peter said, “but don’t you think the examination thing can be overdone? I mean, aren’t you a little
tired of all of the whining that’s going on in our society now, with people blaming their traumatic childhoods for every little neurosis or personality quirk? God, it seems like there’s a support group for everything these days. I wouldn’t be surprised if they form a support group for support-group addicts.”

  Meredith snorted disdainfully.

  “I don’t think that’s the kind of examination Meredith’s talking about,” said Claire.

  Just then there was a loud crashing sound in the kitchen. Conversation in the restaurant stopped abruptly, and there were a few nervous giggles; a couple of people applauded.

  “People are so strange, aren’t they?” said Meredith, shaking her head. “Everyone loves a disaster, even if it’s only a tray dropping in the kitchen.”

  “We all have a dark side,” said Peter, his mouth full of lo mein. “Oh, listen, speaking of strange, I wanted to tell you something.”

  “Oh? What’s that?”

  “Do you remember asking me about my insulin injections?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I seem to have misplaced my spare syringe.”

  Meredith’s eyes brightened, and her whole body shot up to attention.

  “What do you mean, you misplaced it?”

  “Well, normally I keep one at home and one in the office just in case, and the other day I looked and it wasn’t there.”

  “Did you look everywhere you might have left it?”

  “Well, yes; at least, I think I did. I don’t know what to make of it. Do you think I should tell the police, or would that be silly?”

  “You should absolutely tell the police,” Meredith said, “and no, I don’t think it’s silly at all.”

  “But who would—I mean, who could possibly have—”

  “That’s what I intend to find out,” said Meredith, with a look in her eyes that Claire had already come to recognize. She then launched into a lecture, about leaving no stone unturned and how the smallest thing may be of significance. Peter listened politely, and when Meredith paused for breath he turned to Claire.

  “It sounds as though you have another future mystery author on your hands.”

  “Oh, I’m not a writer,” Meredith said, as though the word were an insult. “I’m a detective. There’s a difference, you know.”

  “Yes, I’d heard that,” Peter said, and ordered himself another beer. Claire thought about Meredith’s stepmother and her drug habit, and wondered if being around Meredith had exacerbated it.

  When they had finished eating Peter suggested a cappuccino in Little Italy, but Claire was exhausted.

  “It’s way past Meredith’s bedtime,” she said. “Maybe another time.”

  “Aw, come on,” Meredith begged. “I’m not tired at all.”

  “Well, you may not feel tired, but it’s very late,” said Claire.

  “It’s Friday night,” Meredith whined.

  “You’d better do what she says,” said Peter. “You don’t want to press your luck with Claire; believe me, I know.”

  Claire had no idea what Peter was talking about, but she smiled at him gratefully.

  Meredith grumbled a little, but she climbed quietly into the cab when they got to Canal Street.

  “Cheerio,” said Peter, closing the door of the cab.

  Meredith settled into the back of the cab as it rattled up Centre Street. “I like him,” she said, looking out the window. “He’s weird, but I like him. He seems like a good guy.”

  “Yeah,” said Claire, “he’s all right.”

  “Of course, that doesn’t mean he’s not on my list of suspects.”

  “Really?”

  “Oh, sure. Do you believe the story about the misplaced syringe?”

  Claire thought about it. “I guess I do, yeah. Do you?”

  Meredith shrugged. “I neither believe nor disbelieve. I keep my mind open to all possibilities so that when the truth emerges I’m prepared to recognize it. I’ll tell you one thing, though: If Peter isn’t the killer, it’s almost certainly someone who knows him well enough to know he has access to a syringe.”

  Claire was silent. She found it difficult to picture Peter Schwartz as a cold-blooded killer. But then, someone had killed Blanche DuBois and Amelia Moore—and if it wasn’t Peter, who was it?

  Chapter 20

  You know what I’m not looking forward to?” said Meredith the next morning as they sat on the terrace of the boat café in Central Park watching a couple of mallards paddling around on the lake. The fall continued to be unusually mild, and Claire sat with her jacket unbuttoned. A patch of sunlight filtered down through the dried vines that wound around the wooden trellis.

  “What are you not looking forward to?” said Claire.

  “Being an adult and dealing with all that stupid stuff adults have to do, like remembering to buy toilet paper.” Meredith looked up at her, squinting, from where she sat on a little bench in the shade. Meredith hated sunlight—her pale eyes were sensitive to any kind of strong light, and she worried obsessively about skin cancer. “Silent killer,” she would say, studying her white arms, completely devoid of freckles, “especially for fair-skinned people like us.”

  Claire took a sip of coffee, hot and bitter and comforting. They were alone on the terrace except for an elderly man in an old-fashioned suit and a fedora; he was reading the Times and eating a bagel.

  “You know what I mean?” Meredith continued, picking apart her Danish into tiny pieces, which she ate one by one. Meredith was always pulling her food apart before consuming it. She seemed to have a need to rearrange everything before she put it in her mouth—for instance, she liked to pull all the cheese off her pizza to eat it, then eat the crust separately. Sometimes she would dismantle an entire sandwich and eat all of the components separately—first the tuna salad, then the bread, then the lettuce, and finally the tomato.

  Claire tried not to look too hard at the implications of this behavior. Something about the girl made Claire not want too pry too deeply into what was troubling her. Though she knew Meredith missed her mother, she wasn’t sure that she wanted to delve too deeply into the girl’s loss. The truth was Claire was jealous of Katherine; feelings she had been able to repress at school now bubbled to the surface. At Duke, Claire had successfully convinced herself that she and Katherine were not really in competition. But now that Meredith was part of the equation she was sure the girl was comparing the two of them, and feared that whatever the scale of measurement, Claire would always come out second best.

  As if reading her thoughts, Meredith said, “You know, my mom always said she hated that kind of thing, too—you know, having to remember what to get at the store and stuff.”

  Meredith threw a piece of Danish in the direction of the ducks. It landed out in the water beyond them, and they rushed toward it, tilting forward, heads bent, paddling madly. The male reached it first, and the female circled him, disappointed. He ate greedily, his beautiful green head bobbing up and down in the water as he pecked at the bread.

  “My mom was”— Meredith paused, and Claire braced herself, but to her surprise the girl said—“funny that way.”

  “What do you mean—funny what way?”

  Meredith shrugged.

  “Oh, I don’t know . . . she hated what she called the ‘dull throb of everyday existence.’ ”

  Claire didn’t know what to say, so she pulled off a piece of her own Danish and threw it to the ducks. It landed a few yards away, closer to the shore this time, and the ducks turned around abruptly and paddled frantically toward it. Meredith laughed.

  “They’re so silly,” she said. “Scrambling after a little piece of bread.”

  “Do you hate it?” said Meredith.

  “Hate what?”

  “The dull throb of everyday existence?”

  Claire thought about it. “Sometimes,” she said. “When I remember to think about it . . . I guess it doesn’t bother me most of the time.”

  “Why not?” said Meredith.


  “Why not?” said Claire. “Well, I guess because it’s all we have.”

  “Right,” said Meredith. “It’s all we have . . . I guess you have to learn to love it, huh?”

  “Yeah,” said Claire, “I guess you do.”

  “I wish I could have told my mom that,” Meredith said wistfully. “She always wanted . . .”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not really sure what she wanted, just that—”

  “What?” said Claire, holding her breath.

  “Oh, why did she have to die before she found it?” Meredith said in a voice that was somewhere between a wail and a sob. She buried her head in Claire’s lap. The elderly gentleman with the newspaper looked over at them, a startled expression on his face.

  Claire’s hand, uncertain at first, stroked the girl’s hair. It was rough and kinky, with the texture of hemp.

  “Shh,” she said, “it’s going to be all right. Everything’s going to be all right.”

  Claire looked out over the lake. A gust of wind ruffled the surface, the fluted ripples of water shivering in the breeze.

  Sei ruhig, bleibe ruhig, mein Kind;

  in dürren Blättern säuselt der Wind.

  Claire looked down at the ducks. This time the female had reached the bread first, and the male had to watch as she ate it. He circled her anxiously, flicking his tail feathers impatiently. “Good for you,” Claire whispered softly to the female, “good for you.”

  When they got home there was a message from Marshall Bassett on Claire’s machine.

  “I’m in a frivolous mood. Come join me for lunch at 21. Be there by one if you get this.”

  Claire looked at the clock; it was twelve-fifteen.

  “Do you want to go?” she asked Meredith.

  “Do I?” said Meredith, “Of course I do! They know about 21 even in Connecticut!”