I Dreamed I Married Perry Mason (16 page)

G
iven my recalcitrant technophobia, my spending the morning on the Internet amounted to a victory of sorts. My search on Lisette Peterson Johnson yielded some interesting results. The woman had run for school board five different times in the last fifteen years, which told me she was either oblivious, a fatalist, or some kind of megalomaniac. She was definitely a press hound. I scrolled through no less than twenty-five interviews she'd done with the local papers over the years, promoting herself and her pet causes, one of which seemed to be something called “reorientation therapy” for unhappy homosexuals. How hideous.

The woman was canny, I'll give her that. All that talking and she never let anything of a personal nature slip out, except for the fact that she'd gone to Hollywood after high school to try to become an actress (!), but had come back home after a couple of depressing years. I was about to launch a search on reorientation therapy when I reminded myself of why I had started all this in the first place, that being the urgent need to resuscitate my dead-in-the-water book on ESG.

I had enough on Perry Mason. I'd done the literary analysis. I'd done the political and social context. I'd even devoted a chapter to the merchandising philosophy, which involved deemphasizing individual books in favor of the lengthy list of titles available through a constant stream of reissues. What I needed was a more extensive discussion of Gardner's travel books, which were not as well known.

Back in his Ventura days, Gardner had joined a sailing party to Cabo San Lucas, a lark that had ended prematurely when the boat tipped over in the shallows off the coast and marooned itself, along with the entire group of revelers. ESG was not one to be discouraged, however. In 1947, he'd made his first trip to the peninsula and on his return began a series of thirteen travel books. These documented his Baja explorations, as well as his adventures in the desert, blimp expeditions, and treacherous journeys deeper into Mexico. What I really wanted to check on, however, was the story Gardner recounted in
The Hidden Heart of Baja
about making a find of prehistoric cave paintings. Even more interesting was that two years afterward he'd been barred from Baja, accused of stealing archeological treasures and taking them back across the border. It was a trumped-up charge, everyone acknowledged, but I wanted the details.

That investigation, however, was on hold while I waited to hear back from the helicopter pilot who'd accompanied Gardner on the trip in question. But I needed to keep busy. I jotted down some inconsequential factoids from the Baja California Tourist Bureau site, knowing full well I'd never use them, and then I sat there for a while. And sat there, thumbing through my books in despair.

Then I started doing crazy things, like counting the num
ber of times the word
diamond
appeared in one of Gardner's titles (five, starting with
The Case of the Candied Diamonds,
a Speed Dash novelette).

I looked up the word
diamond
in the dictionary: “A native carbon crystallized in the isometric system, usually nearly colorless such that when free from flaws is highly valued as a precious stone because when faceted shows a remarkable brilliance, and when flawed is invaluable for industrial purposes because it is the hardest substance known.”

Colorless: my prose.

Flawed: my mental processes.

Remarkable brilliance: the thing I lack.

The hardest substance known: material you're trying to shape into a book.

I spun around in my chair until I felt nauseous. I got up to get some Diet Coke, even though I'd sworn I'd no longer touch the stuff before noon. There wasn't any. I checked my messages. There weren't any.

I got Mimi and went back out to my desk. I seated myself with my cat in my lap and got out a fresh yellow legal pad. Nothing like a fresh yellow legal pad.

I wrote
ERLE STANLEY GARDNER
at the top, in capital letters. But I was distracted by the dust on my desk. I got out the Fantastik, which did the trick. No more dust. No more excuses. I looked at
ERLE STANLEY GARDNER
again. I started to count the letters. I shook my head, clearing out the cobwebs. Nothing.

I counted how many times a color appeared in one of ESG's titles (twenty-three, with
crimson
in the lead:
Crimson Jade, The Crimson Mask, The Crimson Scorpion, The Case of the Crimson Kiss
). It was like reading tea leaves. If I could
just see the patterns, it would make sense. If it made sense, I'd know what to do.

I turned to a new page and wrote
JOSEPH ALBACCO
on the first line. I looked at it for a while. Then things started to get interesting.

The collect call came from the California Correctional Institution in Tehachapi.

“How are you, Ms. Caruso?”

“I'm fine, Mr. Albacco. I'm glad you called. I was sitting here thinking about you, literally. Listen, I want to apologize for the other day.”

“Don't.”

“I was awful. Everything you've been through. I was wrong to speak to you like that.”

“Stop. I've been thinking about you, too, Ms. Caruso. About the things you said to me. I needed to hear them.”

“Not like that.”

“Please. I remembered something. I don't know if it's important or not.”

“Tell me.”

“You mentioned Morgan Allan, Meredith's father. You thought Meredith might have been trying to protect him. You mentioned something about the tidelands.”

“Yes, that's right,” I said. “Jean had a letter about it. Meredith's father was advised to sell some tidelands holdings he had, way back in the twenties. I don't know why exactly, or what it might have to do with Jean or you, for that matter.”

“How did Jean get a letter like that? And what do you know about it?”

“Don't worry about that now.”

“Well, I don't know if there's any connection, or what it
could have to do with anything, but my father owned some tidelands, too.”

I didn't understand.

“Your father? Are you sure about that? How would your father have gotten his hands on something so valuable? I mean, I don't want to insult your family, but I thought you grew up poor.”

“I did. We never had a cent.”

“And?”

“And one day, after my father was gone, my mother was going through some papers and found the deed to some tidelands, dating way, way back. There was a lease or something on the land that had expired, an oil lease. My dad had been a roustabout in the oil fields, back when he was a young man. I worked on a rig a couple summers, too. He must've raised some money to buy the land, I don't know. Nothing he ever did worked out right. Turned out what he had wasn't worth much of anything. Big surprise. But my mother found out only after she'd spent our last dime on the lawyers.”

“When was this?”

“Must've been, I don't know, when I was twelve, thirteen. Late forties, I'd say.”

“Did Jean know anything about this?”

“I never mentioned anything to her.”

It seemed like too much of a coincidence.

“Do you have any idea how I could pursue this?”

“Well, the case was handled by an old Ventura law firm.”

It couldn't be.

“Was it Benton, Orr, Duval, and Buckingham?”

“That was the name. Erle Stanley Gardner's old law firm. Funny, isn't it?”

T
hat was one too many coincidences. I've been around the block enough times to know that if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it ain't a ukelele.

My mind went back to Joe's heartbreak file, the one that contained the letter Joe had written to ESG all those years ago. ESG had thought something about the case “rang a bell.” Those were his very words. I think I finally understood why. ESG must have remembered the Albacco name from his Ventura days, when he'd represented Joe's grandfather in an assault case. And, remembering the name, he must've followed Joe's trial, at least closely enough so that when he received Joe's letter, it seemed familiar. And that wasn't the end of it. ESG had played a role in Joe's mother's life, too. It made perfect sense when you thought about it. Mrs. Albacco needed an attorney. Who better to turn to than the man who had rescued her family once before?

I was on the road by two-thirty. The sun was still shining through the palm trees lining California Street when I walked through the doors of Benton, Orr, Duval, and Buckingham.

“I love your sunglasses!” said the receptionist, a plump young woman encased in too-tight everything. “Dior, right? I almost got the same ones, pink lenses and everything. But they were priced too high. Not on my salary, no way, José! They're great on you, though.”

“Thanks, Ms….?”

“I'm Allison.”

“Cece.”

“You're not a client of ours, are you? All we usually get around here are drooling old farts. I'll bet you're an actress or something. Your outfit is so cool. Vintage, right?”

I was wearing a navy-blue Norma Kamali disco dress I'd bought the first time around and had had sense enough not to toss when power suits came along.

“I can't afford what I want most of the time,” I said. “But I'm a dedicated shopper.”

“I like that. A dedicated shopper. Me, too.”

“Listen, Allison, I need some information about a former client of this firm's. About a particular case, actually. I know it's late in the day, but I drove here all the way from L.A. Any chance I could talk to someone this afternoon?”

She gave me a conspiratorial glance.

“Anybody can talk to anybody around here, assuming they're willing to pay the price, and I'm talking, like, five hundred an hour. That's eight twenty-five a minute, if you can believe it. These guys even bill you when they go to the bathroom! I guess they do their best thinking on the john.”

“Men,” I said superciliously.

She giggled. “So what do you think of this belt? I got it on sale.”

“It's very Chanel.”

She beamed.

“Listen, the case concerned the sale of some land, back in the forties. Somebody here handled it. The client's name was Albacco. I just need the details.”

“I'm going to law school at night, starting next year.”

“That's great.”

“Yeah. I'm pretty proud of myself. Only thing is, you have to wear such ugly outfits, I'm talking bo-ring! Plus, there's a glass ceiling and that kind of thing. But I'm not too worried. I know how to stick up for myself, you know?”

I could tell.

“Anyway, you don't need a lawyer to tell you that stuff.”

“I don't?”

“I'll just look it up.” I followed her down the hall to a small room with filing cabinets stacked from floor to ceiling. “This is all the old stuff. Inactive files.”

“Listen, I don't want to get you in trouble.”

“Forget about it.”

Before I could say another word, she started riffling through the A's.

“Cece.” She looked up. “Can I try on your sunglasses?”

I handed them over. Allison put them right on, then pulled out a thin file and walked over to the copy machine.

I was pacing. “Shouldn't you be up front, in case somebody comes in?”

“Relax. Nobody's coming. They're all at a retreat at some spa. You know, solving the world's problems with a Shiatsu massage and a round of golf. What a scam. I've got this whole place to myself!”

She stapled the pages together and handed them to me.

“Enjoy!”

So much for client-attorney privilege. “Thank you so much.”

She looked at me as if our business wasn't quite done.

“Listen, why don't you keep those sunglasses? They look much better on you.”

“No offense,” she said, admiring her reflection in a mirrored paperweight, “but I do think you're right.”

I walked out into the setting sun. Allison was going to make some lawyer.

ESG had been some lawyer, too. He had honed his skills in the old Ventura County Courthouse, now City Hall, which I could see from where I was standing. There it was, way up at the top of California Street, its facade fronted by the obligatory statue of Father Junípero Serra. A tiny man, no more than about five-three, and crippled because of an untreated bug bite, Father Serra established the first nine of the twenty-one Alta California missions, the last of which was Mission San Buenaventura. He was ubiquitous around these parts.

So here was the dilemma. I was anxious to check in to the hotel and go through the papers I had just misappropriated, but I didn't know how soon I'd have another opportunity to check out ESG's old stomping grounds. I wanted to see if the brass spittoons were still there. I wanted to pace the marble halls Gardner had paced while waiting for the jury to come back with a verdict.

I'd be quick. I started up the hill. The temperature had dropped at least ten degrees in the last twenty minutes. I pulled on my sweater. Even after living in California for eleven years, I hadn't gotten used to the rapid shifts in temperature. Evenings could be chilly here, even in the dog days
of summer. The desert ecology and all. Californians were actually meant to live like lizards, hiding in the shade by day and crawling around at night, in search of water. But who wants to be a lizard? Not when you can steal water from places where it rains, or just drain a few lakes.

The California dream was built on such hubris. The courthouse, which dated back to 1913, was symptomatic. Take the exterior, an eighty-foot span of gleaming terra-cotta, flanked by two hundred-foot wings, all of classical Roman proportions. Also, fluted columns, a pedimented entry, a copper dome and cupola. And, between the first-and second-floor windows, a truly mad inspiration: twenty-four happy friars, carved of stone. Architects don't usually have a sense of humor, but this one went on to design Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood, so he obviously did.

The entry was full of telling details, like the medallions on the bronze gates. These displayed bouquets of the humble lima bean, a sly reminder that Ventura County's longtime chief cash crop underwrote the civic fathers' appetite for luxury. The reception desk was unattended. I took a brochure about ESG's Ventura and a map to historic downtown bungalows and started up the marble staircase.

“Excuse me, coming through!” shouted a stern-looking woman in a dark pantsuit, wielding her briefcase like a shield. I leapt out of her way, feeling somewhat conspicuous. Unlike Allison, I had never ascribed to the theory that sexy clothes were anathema to being taken seriously. Then again, I didn't have to spend much time around lawyers. One thing I've noticed about them is that they take things very literally—that is, if you're wearing a tarty dress, you must be a tart. My ex's divorce lawyer had tried to insinuate something to that
effect at one of our custody hearings, but the judge had just rolled his eyes and told the guy to move on.

I rounded the corner and there it was, Superior Courtroom #1, the place where the “real” Perry Mason had learned everything he knew. It was city council chambers now. There was no one around, so I walked in and sat down in the first of several rows of mustard-colored chairs. It felt sort of illicit, my taking one of the seats of the aggrieved, irate about zoning ordinances and no smoking policies and the invasive roots of ficus trees. Not particularly aggrieved about anything, I gazed out the arched windows to the Ventura Pier and vast blue ocean beyond. It was a clear day, and I could see all the way to the Santa Cruz and Anacapa Islands.

ESG said he always knew it was time to write another Perry Mason book when he got nostalgic for Superior Courtroom #1. And no wonder. Everywhere you looked there was gleaming cherry. And one, two, no, three large stained-glass domes on the ceiling, depicting three symbols of the Law: a book, a sword, and the scales of justice. And that view! ESG would've been able to see the waves crash when he was up in front of the judge, arguing a case. I wondered if his track record even came close to Perry Mason's. I remember reading somewhere that Perry had lost only once, in
The Case of the Terrified Typist
(I think the client wanted to lose; I'd have to double-check).

And right then a chill went up my spine. Superior Courtroom #1 was where all the big cases had been tried in ESG's day. If that was still true in 1958, it meant that Joseph Albacco had stood trial for murder in this very room.

I swallowed hard. It had seemed so abstract, this whole thing—like a book I'd read or a movie I'd seen. But it was
real, all of it. Real lives had been changed forever inside these four walls. I tried to imagine what Superior Courtroom #1 would have looked like from the point of view of a man fighting for his life. A book, the scales of justice, a sword. When did Joe realize that the law would fail him? Was it when he saw the faces of the jury returning with the verdict? Or was it during opening arguments, when the D.A. laid out the perfect circumstantial case? Meredith Allan probably sat in the back, watching her lover sink deeper and deeper into the hole she had so ably dug for him. Had Lisette Peterson been there? Or was she already in Hollywood, not making it as an actress? What about Theresa Flynn? She was Jean's next of kin. That would have put her in the front row, maybe in the seat I was sitting in right now.

Unnerved, I got up and went out into the hallway. It was lined with paintings and photographs of Ventura's mayors, past and present, each the picture of municipal pride and responsibility. “I do not know who is responsible,” Joe had written in his letter to ESG. Neither did I, and there were only a few days left before his parole hearing. That letter wouldn't go away. I saw it in my dreams. It had been written by a young man with stars in his eyes, a young man who believed the truth would set him free. The day I showed up at Tehachapi, I had brought that young man back from the dead. And if nothing else, this much I understood: when you bring someone back from the dead, he is your responsibility forever.