Blanche on the Lam: A Blanche White Mystery by Barbara Neely

Author:Barbara Neely [Neely, Barbara]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Mystery, Thriller & Suspense, United States, Women Sleuths, African American, Literature & Fiction, Mystery; Thriller & Suspense
ISBN: 0140174397
Amazon: B00KBCHOQ0
Publisher: Brash Books
Published: 2014-09-02T04:00:00+00:00

SEVEN

Blanche moved around the kitchen preparing to prepare dinner—gathering bowls and large wooden spoons, choosing knives, setting out measuring cups. She paused in her search for a large colander when she heard Mumsfield calling her name. He said it three times before he ever got to the kitchen—at least she hoped he was saying it out loud and that she wasn't picking it up from his thoughts.

“Blanche,” he said again, as he entered the room. His voice was full of questions and rose slightly with each repetition of her name. “Who is in the guest room, Blanche?”

“I don't know, Mumsfield, honey.” Blanche found the colander and turned her attention to looking for a ring mold for the rice. “Who do you think is in there?” she asked after she'd located the pan on a pull-out shelf in a cabinet beside the stove.

“No one is in the guest room, Blanche. No one.”

She wasn't accustomed to Mumsfield not making sense, so she was halted for a few seconds. She looked at him closely to make sure he was all right. His perpetually quizzical eyes gazed steadily back at her.

“You mean the guest-room person isn't in the guest room now?” she half-stated, half-asked. She nodded with satisfaction when Mumsfield agreed with her interpretation.

“When did you see the person in the guest room?” She was once again stopped by Mumsfield's answer.

“Never, Blanche. I never saw the person in the guest room.”

Blanche decided to try a different direction. “Mumsfield, honey, what were you doing in the guest room?” For a moment, she thought he wasn't going to answer. He blinked in a way that made her think he might be about to cry. She'd decided to tell him to forget the question, when he started speaking. His voice was soft and hesitant.

“Sometimes,” he began, “sometimes...” He shook his head, as if to clear it. “Sometimes, I touch...I feel Aunt Emmeline here,” he said, holding his hand up, as though he were about to press his palm against something. “I go in the...in the guest room...in the closet. I put my hand...” Once again, he raised his hand as though to press it against a wall, then sighed deeply. “But there was no feeling, Blanche. No feeling. Only the clothes.” His sadness brimmed out of his eyes and made his mouth quiver.

Blanche understood what Mumsfield was trying to tell her about the feeling between him and Emmeline. Blanche had shared the same kind of super-sensitivity with her girlhood friend Eula, a high-yellow, sweet-faced girl who'd been Blanche's other self for the two years Eula had lived with her aunt and uncle in a house three doors from Blanche's own. Blanche and Eula's twin-hood was sealed by their both beginning to menstruate on the same rainy spring day. Blanche's heart had nearly broken when her mother told her Eula's uncle and aunt had been killed in an accident, and Eula was being sent back to her parents and fifteen brothers and sisters in Florida. She'd never found a friend to replace Eula, not even Ardell.

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