by Susan Kandel
“You’re obsessed with history, Cece. You think too much in terms of the past. The past is dead. There’s no legacy to protect.”
“There’s a hell of a lot of money,” I said.
He pushed me still closer to the edge. It would be so easy for him to claim I’d lost my balance and fallen. I’d been drinking up a storm. Wine, champagne, you name it. But maybe, after I was dead, somebody would notice this unfortunate habit I’d developed of falling into thin air whenever Burnett Fowlkes was in the vicinity.
“You know, this birthday thing, Burnett, it would get anybody down. Who needs a big party? We could’ve just crawled under the covers and hidden from the world until it was over.”
“Cece. Stop. Your prattle is annoying me.”
Now, that was really insulting. And look at him. Not a hair out of place. I was just a minor prattling problem he was going to take care of before blowing out the candles on his birthday cake. There was only one thing I had ever seen rile him.
“Your grandfather killed Jean Albacco.”
He reddened. “Leave my grandfather out of this.”
“I can’t. It’s just like you said, Burnett. You said he was an octopus. His tentacles reached everywhere.”
“That was a stupid metaphor.”
“Your grandfather killed Jean, and you killed her sister. God, talk about family legacies.”
“Shut up.”
“Jean knew he had defrauded Joseph Sr. out of his share of a fortune. She got her hands on a copy of a letter from a state legislator advising him of impending legislation about the tidelands. And more damning yet, she had a copy of the original partnership agreement between him and Joseph Sr. One plus one makes jail time, doesn’t it?” I’d found that particular piece of evidence yesterday, when Gambino and I had paid a visit to my safe-deposit box on the way home from Lael’s. I’d missed it the first time I went through the papers in Jean’s lockbox. It was folded up into a tiny square and tucked between two yellowed photographs. Too bad—it would have saved me a lot of time.
“That’s not proof of anything. Certainly not murder.”
“Oh, I think it’s enough to reopen the case. Detective Gambino of the LAPD agrees with me. He knows where all the relevant documents are.”
“You bitch.”
“You bastard. You killed a woman.”
“I’m not done yet.”
He smiled that smile at me. I melted despite myself. It was lethal, that smile, the kind of smile that made you complicit in a great big secret, the kind you’d sell your very soul for. I blinked. Oh, Jesus. I knew I knew that smile. Only I didn’t know from where until this very second.
It was Joseph Albacco’s smile.
Burnett Fowlkes was Joseph Albacco’s son.
I started laughing. There was no escaping the irony this time.
“Is something funny?”
“You didn’t have to do this, Burnett,” I said. “You didn’t have to do any of it. It was all for nothing. Don’t you see? You would’ve gotten the money anyway. The oil fortune was yours, Burnett. Even after the truth came out, it still would’ve been yours.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Why don’t you ask your mother?”
“Ask me what?”
Meredith Allan had appeared, as if by magic. But she was no gossamer vision, no Fairy Queen. She was as solid, as cold and hard, as steel.
“Everyone’s waiting downstairs, dear. Everyone’s been looking for you.” She appeared entirely unperturbed by the sight of her son about to murder his dinner date.
“Tell Burnett who his father is,” I said.
“Burnett knows who his father is.” She was walking toward us slowly.
“I don’t think so,” I said.
“Burnett knows how much I love him. That’s what matters. And that I would never lie to him.”
“Then tell him what he needs to know. Tell him he’s Joseph Albacco’s son. Tell him how you were already pregnant with him when you married Mason Fowlkes.”
“Ms. Caruso, give me those bracelets.”
Now she wanted the bracelets. And I knew exactly why. Thank goodness she had dismissed me so curtly when I’d tried to give them back earlier.
“Why does Cece have your bracelets?” Burnett asked, confused. Meredith Allan had spent a lifetime confusing her son, smothering him or ignoring him according to her mood. But that was good. I wanted him to be confused. All I needed was for him to forget about me for a second and to think about her. To think about her and get all mixed up. It had to be a reflex by now. Then, maybe, he’d loosen his grip a little and I could make a dash for the stairwell. It would lead me straight to the elevator. It was my only chance.
“She stole them, and I want them back. Will you get them for me, dear?” she asked.
“No.”
Had he ever defied her before? The look on her face said he hadn’t.
“I don’t want to talk about your bracelets, Mother. I don’t give a shit about them.”
“Burnett! Don’t you dare speak to me like that!”
“Tell me who my father is. Tell me what I need to know.” The hand holding the gun was shaking now, but the other was still squeezing me tight.
Meredith smiled encouragingly. “I’m not angry. Please don’t worry. Just give me the gun, Burnett. I’ll take care of it. Don’t let this woman ruin everything for you.”
“Don’t you mean for you?”
For her. He’d done it for her. It was always about her. I’d had it right the first time. Meredith wasn’t Joe’s alibi; Joe was her alibi. It wasn’t her father who had killed Jean. It was Meredith herself. Her father had been the one who didn’t want to get his hands dirty. They were dirty enough. There was oil under his fingernails, a bad, bad smell he couldn’t wash away. Morgan had done his share. He’d left the mop-up work to them, to his daughter and his daughter’s son and whoever else would follow. Meredith knew that the only one who could be hurt by Jean, or by Theresa, for that matter, was her. Her son would inherit everything anyway. Because he was Joseph Albacco’s son, too. Did Joe know? I had no idea. I knew only this: it always comes down to money, just like Gambino said.
All of a sudden, Burnett let me go. I didn’t matter to him anymore. The money didn’t matter, either. There was no one in the world except the two of them. I tripped as I ran toward the stairs, ripping my silk stockings.
Meredith walked toward her son, her arm outstretched.
“I did it for us, Burnett, don’t you see? I did it to protect us. Jean would’ve destroyed everything, destroyed our name, twisted everything around.”
“You didn’t do it for me.”
“Oh, Burnett. You’re just like Joe. Your brain’s in a muddle, thoughts moving in every direction at once. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. See the world clearly, for once.”
“I do,” he said, then shot her dead. And before I could say or do a thing, he flew off the side of the Oviatt Building, another fallen angel with painted wings.
40
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.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
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.
About the Author
SUSAN KANDEL was an art critic at the Los Angeles Times for five years. She was also the editor of the international journal artext, has taught at New York University and UCLA, and regularly contributes essays and articles to books, magazines, and museum catalogs. She lives in West Hollywood, California, with her husband and two daughters.
You can visit her website at www.susankandel.com.
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Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
I DREAMED I MARRIED PERRY MASON. Copyright © 2004 by Susan Kandel. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub © Edition JANUARY 2009 ISBN: 9780061972935
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