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Benoit Blanc Goes Gothic
So I had a fun idea for a Benoit Blanc murder mystery fanfic.
The set-up is a Wuthering Heights situation in which a tenant from the city has recently moved to a cottage on the property of a larger estate owned and managed by an older woman and her granddaughter. Shortly after settling in, the tenant is brutally murdered.
No one knows who did this or why. The grandmother is sick of having the police (and gawkers) on her property, so she hires Benoit Blanc to help out the police and settle things quickly. Her reasoning is that this business is very upsetting to her granddaughter, a socially withdrawn young woman who has all but dropped out of high school.
Benoit Blanc immediately suspects that the granddaughter knows something, but she's not forthcoming. He therefore starts investigating the estranged family members and hired staff of the murdered tenant, who are the only people with possible motives. It turns out that the tenant, though seemingly wealthy, was actually burdened by crushing debt. He divorced his wife and left his family partially to free them from this debt, but mainly because he had a minor mental breakdown and was running away from his responsibilities.
It's a sad story, but still. Who would have murdered him?
Meanwhile, it comes to light that the granddaughter is still suffering from the trauma of having watched her old sister die when she was a little girl. Their mother was also divorced; and, after the death of one child, she left the surviving child with her own mother and disappeared. Essentially, she went out for cigarettes and never came back.
Every time Benoit Blanc talks with the granddaughter, we get a few more details about the death of the older sister. It was supposedly a tragic accident. The two sisters were eating together, and the younger sister was powerless to do anything as the older sister choked. As she was trying to walk out of the room to get their mother, the older sister fell and smashed her head open on the edge of the table.
It gradually comes to light that the younger sister "accidentally" murdered her older sister, who was harassing their mother for having divorced their father. Since the mother ran away from all of this, it was therefore up to the grandmother to hide the incident. She overcompensated by being really strict with her granddaughter.
The police eventually find the girl's mother, who had been hanging around the property and trying to have an affair with the tenant. Since the mother is emotionally unbalanced, they decide to frame and arrest her for the murder. The grandmother is so shocked by this that she has a stroke and needs to be hospitalized.
Benoit Blanc realizes the truth, however. The granddaughter is a fucking psychopath. This girl killed the tenant, whom she associated with her father. Everything she did was to try to earn the affection of her mother, who always seemed to love her father and her sister more than her. Now that her grandmother is no longer around to keep her impulses in check, the girl is free to go out into the world and murder whomever she wishes.
Thoroughly creeped out by this creepy girl and her creepy smile, Benoit Blanc gets right the fuck out of that creepy murder house, reflecting that this is why he left the South in the first place.
I guess there's no reason for the detective to be Benoit Blanc. In fact, I think the High Gothic nature of all of this is a much better fit for Sherlock Holmes, who is now 100% public domain. Maybe I'll actually write this story someday, who knows.
The set-up is a Wuthering Heights situation in which a tenant from the city has recently moved to a cottage on the property of a larger estate owned and managed by an older woman and her granddaughter. Shortly after settling in, the tenant is brutally murdered.
No one knows who did this or why. The grandmother is sick of having the police (and gawkers) on her property, so she hires Benoit Blanc to help out the police and settle things quickly. Her reasoning is that this business is very upsetting to her granddaughter, a socially withdrawn young woman who has all but dropped out of high school.
Benoit Blanc immediately suspects that the granddaughter knows something, but she's not forthcoming. He therefore starts investigating the estranged family members and hired staff of the murdered tenant, who are the only people with possible motives. It turns out that the tenant, though seemingly wealthy, was actually burdened by crushing debt. He divorced his wife and left his family partially to free them from this debt, but mainly because he had a minor mental breakdown and was running away from his responsibilities.
It's a sad story, but still. Who would have murdered him?
Meanwhile, it comes to light that the granddaughter is still suffering from the trauma of having watched her old sister die when she was a little girl. Their mother was also divorced; and, after the death of one child, she left the surviving child with her own mother and disappeared. Essentially, she went out for cigarettes and never came back.
Every time Benoit Blanc talks with the granddaughter, we get a few more details about the death of the older sister. It was supposedly a tragic accident. The two sisters were eating together, and the younger sister was powerless to do anything as the older sister choked. As she was trying to walk out of the room to get their mother, the older sister fell and smashed her head open on the edge of the table.
It gradually comes to light that the younger sister "accidentally" murdered her older sister, who was harassing their mother for having divorced their father. Since the mother ran away from all of this, it was therefore up to the grandmother to hide the incident. She overcompensated by being really strict with her granddaughter.
The police eventually find the girl's mother, who had been hanging around the property and trying to have an affair with the tenant. Since the mother is emotionally unbalanced, they decide to frame and arrest her for the murder. The grandmother is so shocked by this that she has a stroke and needs to be hospitalized.
Benoit Blanc realizes the truth, however. The granddaughter is a fucking psychopath. This girl killed the tenant, whom she associated with her father. Everything she did was to try to earn the affection of her mother, who always seemed to love her father and her sister more than her. Now that her grandmother is no longer around to keep her impulses in check, the girl is free to go out into the world and murder whomever she wishes.
Thoroughly creeped out by this creepy girl and her creepy smile, Benoit Blanc gets right the fuck out of that creepy murder house, reflecting that this is why he left the South in the first place.
I guess there's no reason for the detective to be Benoit Blanc. In fact, I think the High Gothic nature of all of this is a much better fit for Sherlock Holmes, who is now 100% public domain. Maybe I'll actually write this story someday, who knows.
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no subject
I think you especially will appreciate the origin of this story idea. I recently started reading Wuthering Heights. I read it about it ten years ago, but I didn't remember much. I especially didn't remember how violent everyone was all the time! After remarking on how absolutely savage all of the children are all the time, I had a perverse thought: Catherine can and should murder people.
(Which Catherine? Doesn't matter. Both I guess!!)
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The Brontë sisters were, collectively, not ok. I dimly remember reading Wuthering Heights in high school and thinking everyone was an asshole, and it sounds like high school me was not wrong. XD