I Dreamed I Married Perry Mason (22 page)

I
did finish my biography of Erle Stanley Gardner, by the way. I don't know if I ever figured out my subject, but I think I came close, which is the most I'd hoped for in the first place. Like I said, a person can never really know another person, not really, not deep down. We're lucky enough if we figure ourselves out. It can take years, for example, to know whether to go with the music or the alarm in the morning, to know what to fix for breakfast so you don't crash by eleven
A.M.,
what attitude to adopt in what situation to achieve maximum success as opposed to ritual humiliation. And choosing the right makeup base, not to mention learning how to put it on so there's no demarcation along the jawline—well, that's a life's work, especially because once you've aced the whole thing they're guaranteed to discontinue your color. But that's another story.

My ex will tell you that biography is a minor genre, best suited for those more enamored of gossip than history. I pretend to take offense, but I suspect he's right, though in ways
he hardly intended. Gossip is the purest form of human communication. It's how Perry Mason always got his best information, for one thing. He couldn't always verify it, not right away, but he could smell the truth. He could taste it. Moral of the story: trust feelings over facts. Of course, that assumes that unlike Tinker Bell you can juggle more than one feeling at a time. I'm constantly juggling a million—that's my whole problem.

Actually, that's not my whole problem. My whole problem is that I'm always hoping for a happy ending, even when I know there isn't a chance in hell of one. I had no idea.

Lisette Peterson Johnson was finally elected to the school board, no thanks to me. Interesting thing is, she, too, had a past with ESG. I discovered that one rainy afternoon when I was proofing my book. I'd pulled out my copy of Joe's heartbreak file to double-check something and had taken another look at the note ESG had clipped to that dog-eared letter on lined paper: “L.P.: follow up. Rings a bell/ESG.” I checked with the archivist, and lo and behold, there she was, in 1958, when she was supposed to be in Hollywood trying to become an actress; one Lisette Peterson, on the payroll of the Court of Last Resort.

The archivist had also found a letter to ESG from Lisette's grandfather, asking for a favor from an old Ventura buddy for his “wayward” granddaughter. ESG had always been loyal to old friends. So what I figure is the reason ESG had never contacted Joe in jail was that Lisette had buried Joe's letter, misfiling it under “J,” where I'd come across it all those months ago in Austin, Texas. She'd been more calculating than I'd given her credit for. When I confronted her about my suspicions, she admitted nothing. She said only that she'd been put on
this earth to do God's work and that there was never any sense in looking back.

Then there was Joe's parole hearing. It went well, on paper, at least. Father Herlihy met me at the prison entrance first thing Monday morning and ushered me up two flights of stairs and down several corridors into a fluorescent-lit room where three men in dark suits were sitting behind a desk opposite Joe.

Joe looked strange—not happy, not sad, just strange. Detectives Moriarty and Lewis were standing in the back. Moriarty gave me a little wave. Since the events of the night before, he'd been eating humble pie all over the place.

The parole commissioners introduced themselves and stated that hearings such as these were intended to determine if the inmate in question was ready for release from incarceration. But in this case, there were extenuating circumstances. Important matters had come to their attention. They glanced at me. Father Herlihy patted my arm encouragingly. They would not be considering parole for Mr. Albacco today. Thanks to certain individuals, they said, they would instead be referring this case to the Board of Prison Terms, which would be investigating and making a recommendation on Mr. Albacco's application to have his sentence vacated. They believed a positive outcome would be the result.

Joe would see the ocean again.

“Thank you, Ms. Caruso,” he had said when it was over. I shook my head. It was over, yes, but I was only beginning to understand what his freedom had cost him. He had spent his life in jail protecting the woman he thought he loved from having to admit she was sleeping with a married man. Forty-five years ago, that must've seemed like a big deal.
Of course, he hadn't had any idea what he'd really been protecting her from. It was probably a good thing that chivalry was dead. And now
she
was dead, killed by the son her long-ago lover, Joe, never even knew he had.

Fairies, as it turns out, don't always elude capture.

There were a few things I still didn't get. I didn't want to burden Joe further, but I had to know.

“That afternoon, after we'd made love, Meredith sent me out for cigarettes,” he explained. “The same as always, Camels, unfiltered. When I came back with them, she had already left. Gone. She was gone. I figured she was sick of our little game, that she went to see her fiancé, Mason—I didn't really know. I was so messed up I punched through a window. That's where the blood came from. Then I lay back down and fell asleep thinking of her beautiful face. When I woke up, I realized how late it was. That it was my wedding anniversary, and I needed to get home, to my wife.”

“And your keys?”

“They'd been gone a week,” he said, his eyes dead from the inside out. “Meredith must've taken them.”

I couldn't hear any more.

Gambino was waiting for me in the hallway.

“Only you would wear a red dress to a parole hearing,” he said.

I twirled around. “Do you like it?”

“Versace, pre-Donatella, am I right?”

I looked at him with new respect.

“And yes, I like it. A lot.”

He took my hands and was about to kiss me, when Detective Moriarty came over.

“You don't need to apologize again, Detective,” I said, trying not to sound too pleased with myself.

“I wasn't going to,” he replied.

“Oh.”

“I just wanted to give you an update, Ms. Caruso. But when you and the detective are done with the personal stuff.”

“We're done,” Gambino said, embarrassed.

“We are not,” I said.

He grinned at me. “Please go ahead, Moriarty.”

“Well, we found out about the money from the Bank of Santa Barbara. It's gone. It went to the state in the early sixties, when the account went inactive.”

So Jean's blackmail money paid for the time her husband served at Tehachapi for not murdering her. It was perfect, in a sick sort of way.

“And we put in a call to that girl you told us about at the law offices in Ventura.”

“Allison,” I said.

“Right, Allison. She got back to me right away.”

I'd counted on that.

“There's a guy there who's supposed to be a genius at this stuff. Allison explained everything about the Albacco family's long involvement with the firm, and the guy's looking forward to sinking his teeth into this one.”

“And his percentage of a billion dollars,” added Gambino.

Moriarty laughed. “Speaking of lucky, good thing the filigree work on Ms. Allan's bracelets was so intricate. Those babies'd been scrubbed within an inch of their lives, but the
lady wasn't too skilled at the housewifely arts, shall we say. Our guys found skin and hair embedded all up in there. Jean Albacco must've taken quite a pounding. But they're not going to have to dig her up. The lab'll be able to make an ID by comparing her DNA with that of her sister, Mrs. Flynn, whose stay in the morgue may have to be extended a few more days. It's like I always say, you gotta love modern technology.”

Actually, as I told Gambino the next morning, when the doorknob came off in his hand, I'm low-tech all the way.

I'd like to acknowledge my friends and family for their encouragement and sage advice: Deborah Michel, who helped me around more than a few plot points, more than a few times; my sister, Linda Kandel; Didi Dunphy; Elizabeth Hayt; Bonnie Grossman; Deborah Brown, for sharing her legal expertise; and Tristin Tzimoulis, the best next-door neighbor a person could have. Maja Thomas and Susan Sayre Batton will never know how much their support meant to me, especially early on.

Special thanks go to my tenacious agent, Sandra Dijkstra, and to Joel Pulliam from her office; and to my editor, the clear-sighted Carolyn Marino, as well as Jennifer Civiletto.

Unlike Cece, I am not a biographer. The following sources helped me look a little more like one: Dorothy Hughes's definitive
Erle Stanley Gardner: The Case of the Real Perry Mason
(William Morrow, 1978); Erle Stanley Gardner's own nonfiction work,
The Court of Last Resort
(William Morrow, 1952); and Richard Senate's invaluable
Erle Stanley Gardner's Ventura: Birthplace of Perry Mason
(Charon Press, 1996), illustrated by John Anthony Miller. My appreciation goes out to Senate and Miller, who have devoted themselves to keeping the Gardner flame burning.

Finally, I'd like to thank the people I live with: my daughters, Kyra and Maud, for all their sweet, funny ways; and my husband, Peter Lunenfeld, for everything, and a whole lot more besides.