The Case of the Hesitant Hostess Extended MMStory

by N Burnham

Picks up a little over four months after Perry and Della's harrowing experience in my other Fan Fiction story, "The Case of the One Eyed Witness." Seems like our favorite couple are not quite out of the woods as another disgruntled person from their past seeks revenge against them. Forgot I wrote this back in the summer of 2009! So happy to share with you now :)

1. Chapter 1

The Case of the Hesitant Hostess Extended-Chapter 1

I am trying to write all of my stories in chronological order and have them tied back to TCOT One Eyed Witness as when Perry and Della finally become a couple. TCOT One Eyed Witness takes place in February 1958. TCOT Hesitant Hostess aired in April 1958 with the following as its plot:

When Albert Sanders is charged with the murder of Kim Lane, Perry offers to defend him free of charge because he knows Sanders is still devastated over the accidental death of his wife and children eight years before. The solution to the case hinges on a heroin smuggling ring operating out of a dance hall. My extended version of this story picks up in June of 1958, two months after Perry clears Albert Sanders of murder charges and 4 months after the ordeal I presented with Della's kidnapping in TCOT One-Eyed Witness Extended. Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy! I wrote this in the summer of 2009 and it took me forever to find it today :)

He woke up in a cold sweat. His heart was racing and he was having trouble catching his breath as he tore at his soaked white undershirt with his fingers. This happened to him at least twice a week. He needed a drink. Hell, he needed more than a drink he needed to be drunk. What he wouldn't do to feel the slow burn of bourbon down the back of his throat or to feel that familiar burn in his stomach. Drink after drink he could toss back knowing that, eventually, he would feel nothing. All of his senses would be dulled and peaceful sleep would finally come to him. He looked over at the clock on the nightstand. It read a few minutes past midnight. He stood up and began taking off the sweat drenched undershirt and boxer shorts. No, he wasn't drunk and that was definitely the problem no booze to push away the pain and nightmares.

He walked over to his dresser drawer and took out a clean undershirt. When he reached into another drawer to take out a clean pair of boxer shorts, a woman's handkerchief fell onto the floor next him. He bent down to pick it up. After turning it over in his hands several times, he walked over to his desk and left it there. Then, he put on the undershirt and boxers as well as a pair of slacks and a button down Oxford-style shirt he had laid across a chair in preparation for his job at the music store the next day. Grabbing a pack of cigarettes and matches from a table, he walked over to the French doors that led to his apartment balcony.

It was a clear June night in Los Angeles. He lit a cigarette, tossed the match off the balcony, and took slow drags off of it as he looked out across the city. In his mind, he was a condemned man. God had left him here to suffer for his mistakes. Had he paid the price for his sins yet? That was a question constantly plaguing his mind. Would God welcome him to heaven when his time came or would the suffering have not been enough and he would be cast to the depths of hell? He placed the cigarette between his lips and gripped the balcony railing tightly. Then, he looked up at the night sky skewed by the lights from the city around him. He couldn't believe he had ever wanted to move here. That damned job. If he hadn't needed it so badly nothing would have changed and he wouldn't be standing here alone with his mouth desperately thirsting for a drink.

It had been 8 years since he lost everything that mattered in his life... 8 years since he fell asleep behind the wheel of his car causing it to crash through a guard rail and flip into an embankment. His wife, who had dozed off next to him in the front seat, was thrown through the windshield and killed instantly. His son and daughter, also asleep, were in the backseat and were not so lucky. As the car flipped, a section of guardrail penetrated the back door of the vehicle pinning his son through the stomach and impaling him to the backseat. His daughter had been blasted by shards of broken glass one of which imbedded itself into her neck, just nicking her jugular vein. And he? Well... he suffered a broken leg, a fractured collar bone, many cuts and many bruises, but he had lived. The policeman investigating the accident actually came to the hospital the next day and told him how lucky he was to have survived such a horrific crash. `Lucky?' he wanted to scream at him. Was he lucky to be responsible for killing the woman he had been in love with since the age of 14? Or maybe he was lucky to have stayed conscious just long enough to hear his son crying out for help... crying out for his mother in the darkness as he sat helplessly pinned... slowly bleeding to death and watching as his own blood mingled with that pouring from his unconscious sister.

Blinking back tears and resisting the urge to throw up, he tossed the cigarette over the balcony and ran his fingers across his face and then through his hair. He felt very tired all of a sudden and walked back into the apartment. He sat down at his desk, took out a pen and paper, and began to write a letter. When it was completed, he put it in an envelope, wrote the name "Perry Mason" on it, and then wrapped the woman's handkerchief protectively around it. He stood up, picked up a blazer he had resting on the back of a chair, put it on, and then slipped the letter inside the interior pocket. With one final look at himself in the dresser mirror, he wondered again if God thought he, Albert Sanders, had suffered enough for his mistakes on this earth.

Tears clouded his eyes as he walked back across the room, through the balcony doors and, leapt, head first, to his death on the streets below.