Who Killed Blanche DuBois?

by Carole Elizabeth Buggé

  Sei ruhig, bleibe ruhig, mein Kind;

  In dürren Blättern säuselt der Wind.

  Claire wasn’t even aware a shot had been fired until the bullet grazed a tree next to her. Even Cora didn’t respond immediately; she stood completely still, and then she jumped up in the air, all of her feet leaving the ground at the same time. Thrown forward, Claire instinctively wrapped her arms around the horse’s neck, burying her face in Cora’s mane. She closed her eyes, waiting for the second shot, but there was none. After her initial moment of panic, Cora stood still, trembling. She was waiting for Claire to tell her what to do, how to react.

  The first thing Claire did was dismount. If there was another shot, Cora would be easier to control from the ground. Claire took the reins firmly in her hand and looked around in all directions. A blackbird rose suddenly from the branches of a white birch, disturbing the air with the loud flapping of its wings, but other than that the woods were completely silent. It was then Claire realized she had not heard the shot being fired. She looked at Cora, who had already forgotten her fear and was sniffing around the ground, looking for tidbits of grass among the dead leaves.

  Claire knew that these woods were full of hunters, both legal and illegal. She knew that stray bullets could travel long distances, and that the hunter who had fired this shot could be far out of sight. Was it possible he could also be out of hearing range, though? She looked at the tree that the bullet had scraped—the bark was torn and frayed. She tried to calculate the angle and direction of the approach, and decided it had come more or less from behind her.

  Claire patted Cora on the neck; the horse had found a small tuft of winter grass and was pulling up the green shoots, munching contentedly. Claire considered the options. It was possible that she had not heard the shot because the hunter was far away. But why, then, could she hear the sounds of target practice from West Point, all the way across the river? Her stomach filled with ice as it dawned on her: she had not heard the shot because the shooter had used asilencer. If that was the case, then she was definitely in danger.

  Panic growing inside her, Claire mounted Cora. All she wanted was to get back to Lena’s as quickly as possible.

  “Come on, Cora, let’s go,” she said, putting the horse into a fast canter. Cora complied eagerly; like all horses, her gait was always brighter when she was headed toward the barn. As they rode over the dry leaves scattered on the ground up the hill toward Manitou Road, Claire wondered if she was being paranoid. Why would the murderer want to kill her? She didn’t have any idea of who he or she was, so what possible threat could Claire be? Then she had a thought that frightened her even more: if the murderer was after her, he or she might go after Meredith.

  Once she reached Manitou Road, Claire felt safer. She was fairly certain that whoever it was would not risk trying to shoot her on a public road. She slowed Cora down to a walk to cool her down, then trotted slowly up the long hill to Shady Acres.

  When Claire returned to the farm, the ponies were gone from the paddock, and she found a note from Lena. Gone to a pony party—hope you had a nice ride. Part of Lena’s income came from pony rides she gave at children’s parties. Claire occasionally helped out at these parties; she enjoyed seeing the pleasure the children got from the horses.

  By the time Claire had taken off Cora’s tack, given her one last apple, and put her out in the pasture to graze, she had decided that she was being paranoid, and that the bullet was a stray from a hunter’s rifle. Claire cleaned the saddle and put everything away, then climbed into the car and started the drive back to Hudson.

  Chapter 26

  The Federal Express truck sat in front of 465 Warren Street for less than three minutes. Andrew McNair had had a long day—it seemed like there were even more deliveries than usual on this Saturday—and his day was almost over when he handed the package to the man who came to the door and signed for it. He couldn’t wait to get home to a nice cold six-pack of Budweiser and the football game. A couple of his chums were coming over to watch Cleveland play Dallas. If Andrew noticed anything, it was how polite and well spoken the man at number 465 was. That and perhaps the fact that there was a trace of an accent, although whether it was Southern or English Andrew couldn’t say; he never had much of an ear for dialects. Andrew climbed back into his truck and pulled away. Only one more delivery and he was free! He hummed cheerfully as he put the truck in gear and pulled onto the street. After he had gone a few yards something prompted him to look back at the house he had just left. He turned and looked behind his shoulder, but was blinded by the glare of sunlight off the rear window. He shrugged, shifted into second gear, and thought of how good that first cold beer would taste.

  • • •

  Detective Wallace Jackson didn’t think much about the promotional offering from Apple Bank addressed to Amelia Moore, and he was about to toss it aside when he was struck by the return address; it had been sent from the branch on Fourteenth Street. Wondering why Amelia would open an account at a bank so far away from where she lived, he lifted the receiver and dialed the bank.

  The bank was on Saturday hours and closed for the day when Consuela Rodriguez unlocked the front door to let in the grey-haired man in the frayed trench coat. He didn’t look like a detective, but when he showed his badge Consuela unlocked the glass door and let him in. The manager was there, but Consuela had volunteered to stay late too because she was curious. She remembered the small, distracted woman with the delicate features, and now that the police were interested in her safe-deposit box, Consuela wanted to know why.

  “I knew there was something strange about that woman when I first saw her,” she would say later that night to her husband over pernil con arroz y frijoles. “Something was on her mind, I could tell. And that single piece of paper—Dios, who would put something like that in a safe-deposit box?”

  But Consuela didn’t learn anything more from the policeman than she already knew. When she gave him the deposit box, the detective with the tired eyes opened it (how did he get the key? she wondered), took out the single piece of paper, glanced at it, then put it in his pocket. Thanking her politely, he left without a word of explanation. Consuela was dying to ask him what was on that paper that was so important. Disappointed, she watched him walk off into the night, his breath steaming white in the frosty November air.

  Meredith Lawrence sat on Claire’s bed playing with Ralph. She was back in New York, having escaped Hartford at the earliest possible moment. She knew it was wrong; she knew that she was a bad daughter, but she couldn’t stand being around her father while he worried about the whereabouts of her horrible stepmother. Seeing him like this was too hard for her; it brought back memories of her mother’s death which she just couldn’t face right now. So she took the train to New York and let herself into Claire’s apartment, where she planned to live on pizza and cookies until Claire returned from Hudson.

  Now she was trying to befriend Ralph, her only company. The cat lay on his back, his tail flicking over Meredith’s outstretched fingers. Suddenly he decided he had had enough and abruptly rolled away. Meredith sprang to grab him before he leaped off the bed; just missing him, her right hand struck the play button of the answering machine, which sat on the bedside table. The tape started up and began to play all the old messages. Meredith reached over to turn it off, but then she paused. She would not be able to say exactly why later, but she decided to listen to the backlog of old messages. Then she turned the tape over and listened to the ones on the other side. She sat on the corner of the bed, her eyes fixed on the carpet, elbows wrapped around her knees. Ralph, who had gone as far as the closet door, sat in front of it licking his fur.

  There were a lot of messages on the tape, some of which Meredith had heard before, and then, toward the end of the tape, she heard an unfamiliar voice:

  “. . . but when I saw the photograph, Claire, I just had to call and tell you.” Meredith had never met Blanche, but she was certain this was her voice. It was simil
ar to Sarah’s, but more feminine, more drippingly Southern. “I’m afraid, Claire,” the voice went on, “afraid for you and for me. I never thought he’d show up again, after all these years, but we’re both in danger now! Please call me as soon as you get this . . .” and then Meredith heard something that made her hold her breath. Moments later Ralph was sitting alone in the apartment, flicking his tail irritably at having been left alone so abruptly.

  When Wallace Jackson arrived back at his building, Meredith was pacing back and forth in the lobby. When he entered she practically threw herself at him.

  “We’ve got him!” she cried. “But we’ll have to hurry!”

  • • •

  In Hudson, the wind began to blow the bare trees outside as Claire watched from Robert’s parlor. All during dinner she had the impulse to mention the incident with the gunshot to Robert, but something had held her back—the fear of appearing foolish, probably—and she had decided that it was in all likelihood a stray bullet from a hunter’s gun after all.

  Robert had gone into his darkroom shortly after dinner, saying he had some developing to do, and as Claire stood looking out the window she noticed that the vision in her left eye had begun to blur. She had experienced this before; it inevitably signaled the beginning of a migraine. After about twenty minutes of blurred vision, the migraine began—a reaction to the Valium she had the day before, perhaps. Her eyes felt feverish, her shoulders ached, and her right temple throbbed gently. Her migraines were seldom severe, and there was a kind of euphoria that often accompanied the headache. It was as though the same nerves which caused the pain also caused an elevated mood, a delicate feeling of strange and fragile joy which Claire experienced only during migraines. For that reason—and also because they did not come often—she didn’t dread the headaches. She wouldn’t want one when she had anything very important to do, but the arrival of one tonight released her from the obligation to work.

  Claire climbed the stairs and went into the back bedroom, which was quiet, protected as it was from the noises of the street. She stretched out on the bed, pulled a blanket over her legs, and put on a tape of Carl Orff’sCarmina Burana. She listened to the opening chorus with her eyes closed, the murky harmonies perfectly matched to the Latin text, creating the mysterious sensuality of religious fervor in the Middle Ages. As she listened Claire imagined parades of brown-hooded monks, their torches held high in the blackness, the sound of their shuffling feet accompanying the low chanting voices. Lying on the quilted coverlet, she felt fatigue, gentle but insistent, pushing her down, down into a thick sleep.

  • • •

  Robert worked for about an hour, then he went to the parlor and put on a recording of Verdi’s Otello. He lay on the couch and listened with his eyes closed, following the sweep of the melodic line and the accompanying harmonies as Desdemona and Otello, pushed onward by Iago, rush toward their doom. Anyone looking at him on the couch would have thought he was asleep.

  The desk sergeant on duty in Hudson that Saturday was Sergeant Joseph Ferraro. He had just come back from his dinner break when the detective from New York City called and asked him to put a couple of cruisers out on Warren Street. He replied that since it was Saturday night there were already a couple of cars out driving around.

  “How much backup do you need?” he said.

  “Whatever you can spare.”

  “What are we lookin’ for?”

  There was a pause and he thought he heard a child’s voice in the background at the other end of the phone line. The detective came back on the line.

  “Do you have a James White listed in the Hudson directory?”

  Ferraro pulled out the dog-eared copy of the Hudson phone book and looked up the name.

  “Nope,” he said. “There’s a Ned and a William, but no James.”

  “It’s probably an alias anyway.”

  “He lives in Hudson, you say?”

  “Yes. We don’t have an address, but we think it’s—” He turned away from the receiver and Sergeant Ferraro heard him speaking to the child. “It’s a green house,” he said into the phone, “somewhere on Warren Street.”

  “Do you have any idea how long Warren Street is?” said Sergeant Ferraro, drawing his words out.

  “I’m sorry—I have to go catch my train. Just put whoever you can out there and tell them to look for anything suspicious.”

  Sergeant Ferraro hung up and took a sip of coffee. Anything suspicious. . . as far as he was concerned, that could describe half the population of Hudson.

  The Amtrak Lakeshore Line glides along the Hudson River most of the way to Albany, and the view is so spectacular that the passengers often just sit and stare out of the window. On this particular train, however, there were two passengers who did not stare out of the window but sat, heads close together, whispering. They were an odd couple: an ungainly redheaded girl and a shaggy-haired man with tired eyes.

  The conductor passing through the train took their ticket stubs out of the overhead metal clips and announced, “Next stop Hudson. Hudson next stop.”

  The murderer looked at the clock in the kitchen. The time was ten twenty-five.

  Put out the light, then put out the light.

  He smiled sardonically at the lines which came to him now, so appropriate, so fitting for the occasion. He had considered other methods but had finally chosen this one. She would never have to feel a thing—not much, anyway. It was all for the best. He ascended the polished staircase, treading softly on the slippery oak steps.

  Upstairs, Claire stirred in her sleep and moaned softly.

  Star Taxi, across from the Hudson train station, turns off its green and red neon sign at ten-thirty sharp most nights. Tonight John Meadows had a sick child at home, so he turned the sign off at ten-twenty, turned on the answering machine, and left. He noticed the police cruiser driving slowly along Warren Street, but didn’t think too much about it. The cops liked to make their presence known, especially on a Saturday night, to keep everyone on their best behavior. As John started up his ’94 Chrysler the cop car made a U-turn and headed in the other direction, away from the train station and toward the center of town.

  Anyone watching the ten thirty-five Amtrak coach pulling into the Hudson station would have seen a curious sight. Before the train came to a full stop, two passengers jumped out and raced up the hill that led to Warren Street. The girl, long and thin, ran with uneven, loping strides, while the man ran with quick, short steps, his trench coat flapping out behind him like a grey sail.

  Upstairs, the murderer paused to look at his victim. She lay on her back, mouth slightly open, breathing hoarsely. He had an impulse to touch her hair.

  Being done, there is no pause.

  Slowly, so as not to awaken her, he closed his hands around her neck.

  Outside on the street in front of the line of row houses, Meredith’s eyes searched the buildings frantically.

  “I’ve only been there once,” she muttered. “I don’t know why Claire has to take her address book with her everywhere she goes!” She suddenly stopped and pointed. “That’s it—there, number 465!”

  Wallace Jackson was not an especially athletic man, and the sprint up the hill from the train station had severely taxed his lungs.

  “Stay out here!” he called over his shoulder to Meredith, then, gasping to catch his breath, he pulled out his revolver and flung himself at the green painted door of 465 Warren Street. To his surprise, the door was not locked, and he went tumbling down onto the Persian-carpeted floor of the foyer.

  Upstairs the murderer heard the crash of a body landing in the front hallway. He let go of his victim’s neck, grabbed the sharpened bronze-and-copper letter opener from the writing desk, and sprang out of the bedroom onto the upstairs landing.

  Detective Jackson picked himself up off the floor and saw the tall figure at the top of the stairs. The light was behind him and Jackson could not see his face.

  “James White,” he said, “I arrest you f
or the murder of Blanche DuBois and Ame—”

  At that moment the tall figure stepped forward, so that Jackson could see the face, which made him stop midsentence. Never in all his years of police work had Jackson seen such a concentrated mask of pure evil. The lips were curled into a grimace of fury and hate. The deep-set eyes locked with his.

  “Ha!” said the murderer in a raspy voice. “That’s very amusing, it really is. Come and get me, why don’t you?”

  Jackson started up the stairs but hesitated, realizing the man on the landing had the upper hand. He drew his gun and held it aimed at the man’s chest.

  “You have the right to remain silent,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady. “You have the—”

  But the man was laughing at him.

  “Oh, I’m so frightened!”

  Suddenly Meredith pushed her way in front of Jackson and screamed, “What have you done with Claire?”

  At that moment, Claire appeared on the landing, disoriented and gasping for air.

  “What’s going on—” she began, but before she could finish, the murderer grabbed her and pressed her body to his, keeping her between Jackson and himself, holding the sharpened letter opener to her throat.

  “She’s right here, you stupid little brat.” He laughed. “What’s the matter, Detective? Why don’t you go ahead and shoot me for resisting arrest?”

  Jackson took a step back.

  “Just take it easy and no one will get hurt,” he said, immediately realizing the foolishness of his words.

  “Oh, but you don’t know me very well, do you, Detective?” His proper English accent had turned into a southern snarl. “You’re missing the whole point. I don’t think enough people have been hurt, actually, and I would really like to hurt some more before I go. See, I don’t mind going at all, but I’d like to take some people with me when I do. Don’t you think that’s reasonable, sweetheart?” he said to Claire, who was crying silently now.