Ties That Bind Chapter 2 – The Best Authority
Della stood against the railing of the upstairs porch, breathing in the sea air, her arms wrapped around her middle. How she loved it here – the house, the beach, Carmel itself, and of course, the man who had given it all to her. Even though it had been six months since Perry surprised her with the house, she still had to remind herself that she wasn't dreaming. They had been back to Carmel four times since January and each time Della was amazed at the progress Martin Hightower, decorator and friend extraordinaire, had made in bringing a treasured memory to life. The last of the furniture, an antique mahogany roll top secretary desk that Martin had found the previous month and Della had fallen in love with had been delivered the day before and both she and Perry were pleased that the house was now completely finished.
The raucous sound of gulls brought Della's attention toward the beach and she smiled as her eyes traveled down to the southeastern corner of the house…the side where the steps ended and a gazebo stood sentinel. Della's smile grew broader as she remembered Perry's promise – the promise made during her hospitalization to build a boardwalk on the 'edge of their kingdom' to remind her of her childhood and summers spent at the Jersey shore. True to his word and in his large, magnanimous way of doing things, he somehow charmed the zoning commission into letting him build not only a ramp and a small boardwalk from the house to the beach, but a gazebo as well to surprise his lady. Completed the previous month, last night she and Perry had celebrated by having dinner, dancing and…
Della's thoughts were interrupted as strong arms wound their way around her slender body and warm breath tickled her neck. A voice whispered tenderly in her ear. "Here's my beautiful girl. I thought I'd find you out here."
"Mmmm…good morning, darling. It's going to be a glorious day."
"Oh, it is now is it?" Perry smiled and kissed Della's soft curls.
"Yes, it definitely is. I have it on the best authority."
"Well then, Miss Street, would you like to enlighten me on whose authority that would be?"
"It's really simple. First, all you have to do is look out here. The sky is the most beautiful shade of blue I've ever seen, there is not a cloud anywhere, and the sun is bright and shining and almost as warm on my skin as your arms."
Perry turned Della around to face him and pulled back a bit. "I am hurt and shocked young lady." His voice held a teasing tone and there was a twinkle in his eyes. "To think that after all these years, I come in second to the sun." Perry lowered his head in part to pretend to be upset and in part to hide the smile on his face.
"You're not listening Mr. Mason. I said the sun was almost as warm." Della sighed contentedly and leaned her head on Perry's chest. "There's never any substitute for your arms. And those hands...I've always wondered how those strong hands could be so gentle and tender…annnnnd if that isn't enough, you're tall, dark, and handsome and those big blue eyes of yours…" Della sighed again.
Her low, throaty voice vibrated against him, reducing the big man to putty as he held the beautiful brunette in his arms. Della raised half parted lips to Perry's and after a series of heady kisses he picked her up in his arms and carried her through the French doors and back inside to their bedroom. Gently he deposited her on the large canopied bed and then began to slowly remove the delicately diaphanous sapphire colored negligee that disguised very little of her soft curves. He took her slippers off one at a time, first massaging then kissing every toe on each lovely foot and then the foot itself. Perry continued his glorious assault on Della's body with his lips and hands and by the time he dispatched his own clothes and lay down beside her, she was nearly incoherent, quivering with overwhelming desire.
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It was a distant, constant pounding that pulled Della from a contented sleep and her lover's arms. Perry groaned in protest at her absence, rolled over, and sighed while she hastily donned the slacks and cotton sweater she had worn the night before, deciding she could answer the door barefoot and sans undergarments dressed in actual clothing with less anxiety and a more civilized explanation than she could dressed in the revealing negligee that lay in a heap on the floor where Perry had carelessly tossed it. As the pounding continued, she marveled that Perry could sleep through it, albeit a bit proud that their recent activities had relaxed him so. But then, they hadn't slept much the night before, hadn't slept much in several nights if the truth be told, so maybe she shouldn't be surprised the incessant knocking couldn't penetrate his suspended consciousness.
She quietly closed the bedroom door behind her and hurried down the stairs. The late morning sun streamed in through windows dressed with fabrics so light-colored and light-weight they could not be called by such a heavy word as 'drapes', and warmed the gleaming wooden floors beneath her bare feet. The knocking halted for a few seconds just as she twisted the knob and pulled the door open.
On the other side of the door, one hand raised to begin another assault, was Dr. Kathy Spencer. Visibly shaking, hair mussed, face pale, Della's childhood friend looked miserable, eyes hollow and shadowed.
"Kathy," Della said in surprise.
"Della…I – I'm sorry to...I need to talk to you." The usually calm and collected Dr. Spencer literally wrung her hands.
Della opened the door wider and took Kathy's arm, pulling her into the house. "What's the matter? Is everything all right?"
Kathy Spencer stepped across the threshold, still wringing her hands. "No…no everything isn't all right. Everything is horrible."
Della closed the door and turned to her agitated friend. "Come in and tell me what's so horrible."
Kathy looked around the house almost apprehensively. "Where's Perry?"
"He's upstairs, asleep." She touched Kathy's arm briefly, comfortingly. "Do you need me to wake him?"
Kathy shook her head vigorously. "No! I just need…oh, Della…I didn't know where to go. I've been driving around for an hour and then found myself on Carmelo Avenue and…" huge tears began to roll down her face.
Della had grown quite concerned by now and Kathy's tears pushed concern to the edge of fear. "Kath, what's wrong?"
Kathy Spencer covered her face with her hands and leaned her head on Della's shoulder. "I can't go home," she sobbed. "David's done something horrible."
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Della poured more coffee into Kathy's cup and pushed it across the table. Elbows propped on the table and head in her hands, Kathy had been weeping and talking and gulping coffee for twenty solid minutes, words halting and jumbled. Della was no closer to understanding what it was Kathy's husband had done that was so horrible, listening with minimal interruptions to clarify certain points, recognizing that whatever it was had shaken Kathy to her toes.
"If Regina Farley survives," Kathy said in acute distress, "she'll be paralyzed and her face will be permanently scarred. We won't know if her vision was affected for a few days. She has two young children…how will she take care of them?"
Regina Farley, Della had learned, was a young mother admitted to the hospital the previous evening with confounding and suspicious injuries her seemingly distraught husband claimed had resulted from a fall down the stairs compounded by an automobile accident on the way to the hospital. But Kathy and the emergency room staff noticed partially healed bruises over the woman's entire body, including finger-shaped contusions on her upper arms, and x-rays revealed an astonishing number of old injuries. After discovering patches of hair that had been pulled out, taking with it pieces of the woman's scalp, blood and skin beneath her fingernails and scratches on her husband's arms, Kathy had herself notified the police. Edward Farley had been questioned and quickly arrested on suspicion of abusing his wife. Shortly after her husband had been escorted from the emergency room, Regina Farley regained consciousness and by squeezing Kathy's hand had confirmed that her husband had deliberately driven their car into a tree to cover up the vicious beating he had given her before pushing her down the stairs.
Kathy's descriptions of the unfortunate woman's injuries and the circumstances surrounding them sickened and angered Della. Having spent many years with the gentlest of men, she couldn't conceive of how a man who claimed to love a woman could intentionally harm her. Not even the raw seediness that sometimes surrounded Perry's cases had shaken her belief that when you truly loved someone, the last thing you would ever do was lay a hand on them. "Does she have family to help her?"
Kathy heaved a sigh and her shoulders twitched in a shrug. "She's in critical condition, in and out of consciousness. Her husband refuses to talk, no friends have stepped forward, and the neighbors know literally nothing about them. The children were removed from the home by a social worker and taken to a foster home."
"Surely you've seen battered women before Kathy, and I suspect far more serious injuries. Why are you so upset by this particular woman's situation?"
Kathy Spencer lifted her head and faced her old friend with eyes so full of misery Della bit her lip in shock. "This particular woman's situation upsets me because my husband knows her husband and has agreed to defend him against the charge of abusing his wife."
Before Della could gather her thoughts to form something, anything, to say, Perry breezed into the kitchen, clear-eyed and rested. "Well look who's here," he said jovially, bending to place an affectionate kiss on Kathy's cheek. "Della didn't tell me you were coming today."
Della coughed uncomfortably and Kathy began to wring her hands once again. Perry helped himself to a cup of coffee and sat down at the table with the two women. It wasn't until he had taken his first sip that he detected a definite charge in the air, a tenseness in the sudden silence of the normally talkative friends. "Did I interrupt something ladies?"
Della and Kathy exchanged furtive looks before Della cleared her throat. "Kathy had a difficult night."
"And David made it worse," Kathy divulged impetuously. Surprised by her impulsive statement but chalking it up to a certainty Perry, as an attorney who rarely, if ever, lost a case would understand her anger with David, Kathy stared at the big attorney expectantly.
"I try to stay out of the domestic issues of friends." He frowned slightly at Della, who frowned right back at him. "But if you feel comfortable telling me about your difficult night, I'll listen."
"A young woman was severely beaten and brought to the hospital last night by her husband," Kathy's words came in a rush, all of her earlier hesitancy gone. "My examination and x-rays confirmed a long history of abuse, and the woman herself confirmed that her husband had beaten her. The police arrested him, and he called David to represent him. David agreed to."
Perry very deliberately lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply before replying. "I see. And you think David should have refused?"
"Of course he should have! This young woman has been horribly abused for several years by her husband. She may not survive this latest beating, and if she does, she'll never walk again. Her face is disfigured and her vision may be compromised. How could David agree to defend a man who would beat his wife like that?"
"How do you know the husband beat her?"
"I told you. She admitted it." Kathy leaned forward urgently. "She regained consciousness briefly and was able to answer a few questions by squeezing my hand."
"She's severely injured?"
"Critically. Her back is broken, her skull is fractured, and her brain is swelling. She survived surgery, but her odds aren't great of surviving another twenty-four hours. The damage is significant."
"The husband denies beating her?"
"Of course he does! Why are you asking such stupid questions?"
Perry studied Kathy Spencer through a haze of expelled cigarette smoke. Della had lit a cigarette herself and was regarding him with an unreadable expression on her face. "Are there records of previous assaults when she sought medical assistance or called the police?"
Kathy was now frowning as well. "I don't know," she admitted irritably. "After they took her to surgery I had to handle removing a bead from the nose of a screaming two-year old, put ten stitches in the hand of the head chef at L'Auberge, and set the arm of a teenage girl who got into her parent's liquor cabinet and thought she could fly."
Perry stubbed out his cigarette as deliberately as he had lit it moments before. "Was the woman's blood checked for the presence of alcohol when she was admitted?"
"Perry!" Kathy exploded, "there is a woman fighting for her life who's been repeatedly beaten by her husband and my husband has agreed to do his level best to prove he didn't. Keep on point here, Counselor."
"Are you saying the husband doesn't deserve a good defense?"
Kathy's face flushed with anger as she turned to Della. "Are you hearing this or have you suddenly become deaf?"
Della wasn't surprised by Perry's questioning – however, she was surprised he wasn't giving Kathy the benefit of her medical experience in such matters. "He's asking pertinent questions," she pointed out a trifle lamely, conviction lacking in her tone.
Perry shot her a look and reached for his cigarette case again. "What did David say when you spoke with him?"
"Not much more than Ed said he didn't hurt Regina and he had agreed to defend Ed."
Perry's eyes narrowed. "You know this couple?"
Kathy shook her head. "Hardly enough to say hello in passing, but David knows the husband. They're both Rotarians. I've met them at Rotary functions, but I've never really spoken to either of them. David's in denial. That man is a monster and I can't believe my husband would consider defending him for one second, let alone agree to actually defend him."
Perry got to his feet slowly. "Kathy, I'm afraid whatever I say from this point on will only add fuel to your anger at David, so I'm going to excuse myself. When you've had a chance to speak with David at greater length perhaps you'll understand his reasoning behind why he agreed to defend this man and we can have another conversation ourselves."
The two women stared after Perry's retreating form, each harboring very different thoughts about his words.
"Lawyers," Kathy almost spat in contempt.
Della swallowed a sigh. In all the years she had worked with Perry she had disliked many, many clients and had admitted to him intuitive 'bad feelings' about many more. But she always left the final decision of whether or not he would accept a case to him, her trust in him absolute. She had a bad feeling about this situation with Kathy and David Spencer. Her friend had wanted immediate validation of her belief that David shouldn't have agreed to defend an accused wife beater and Perry had rightfully refused to give it. Now she did sigh, disliking the position she was in – trying to be and wanting to be a supportive friend, but also recognizing the reasons attorneys had for accepting cases – even those that appeared hopeless.
"Well…?" Kathy said, her irritability now extending to Della.
Well indeed, Della thought, her mind racing ahead to the inevitable conversation with Perry, all the while trying to find something to say that would mollify Dr. Kathy Spencer.