DISCLAIMER: None of the Perry Mason characters or trademarks herein are mine.
The usually cheerful sun in the California sky seemed to have an ugly sneer this morning. The ugly beams brought tears to Paul Drake's eyes as he stepped out of his car into the small black parking lot of Lemming Burgers. Drake found himself yawning, fighting off the lazy desire to crawl back into his car and just snooze in the parking lot. The loud boom of a radio's bass from a passing car helped speed the rude awakening. Still, Drake wished he was back in bed. It wasn't that he was normally a lazy person. It was just that the mere thought of another one of Perry Mason's wild goose chases made him tired.
Drake forced himself to cross the parking lot. He stopped to quickly study the small building he was approaching. It was a small brick shack, about half the size of the tiny parking lot. A sign in front of the shack read: "Lemming Burgers. Home of the Lemming Burger." How original, Drake quipped to himself. Below the lettering there was a rough outline of the mythical creature wading down into a series of waving lines in order to drown itself. Drake wondered if the picture reflected the feelings of customers after eating the Lemming Burger.
Drake pushed open the glass door and walked towards the counter, where he encountered an acne-covered teenager more dazed and bedraggled than he was.
"Can I help you, sir?" chanted the teenager.
"I need a coffee," mumbled Drake. He hesitated before adding, "and to talk with Dabney Lemming."
"I'm sorry, sir," said the teenager. "I can't do that."
"What?" spat Drake. "Get me the coffee?"
"No, sir," said the teenager. "I mean..."
"I need to speak to Dabney Lemming," said Drake again. This time he was ordering it rather than mumbling it.
"He's very busy, sir," said the teenager. "Is there anything...?"
"What's going on here?" barked another man, walking up behind the boy. "Can't you even take a simple order right?" The man was stout and balding, with hairy arms sticking out from beneath rolled-up sleeves of a business shirt with necktie. He turned to Drake. "What do you want?"
"Are you Dabney Lemming?"
"Yeah. What do you want?" the man barked again.
"My name's Paul Drake. I'm a private investigator working for Perry Mason, the attorney at law."
"What's that got to do with me?"
"Do you have an office we can talk in?"
> > > > > >
Lemming led Drake past the counter into a cluttered room that could have done without the clutter. Without the clutter, the office would have made a pay phone booth look spacious. With the clutter, the office did the same to the inside of a cell phone.
"Make it quick," snapped Lemming.
"Do you know a Janet Redding?" asked Drake.
"Yeah," said Lemming. "She's a waitress here. Why?"
"Perry Mason thinks she may be important to his latest case," said Drake.
"She's a good girl," said Lemming, still snapping but at least being charitable now. "There's no way she could be getting in any trouble to need a lawyer."
"Mr. Mason would just like to talk to her," said Drake.
"She doesn't need to talk to any lawyer," grumbled Lemming. Drake would have liked more than anything to throw out his fist, catch Lemming square on his pug nose, and add the obnoxious manager to the clutter on his office floor. Instead, he took a deep breath and kept his professional demeanor.
"Is Janet Redding here right now?" asked Drake.
"No, she's not," said Lemming.
"When does she come in?" asked Drake.
"That's none of your business," said Lemming.
"When does she come in?" repeated Drake, more anxiously this time. "Mr. Lemming, a girl's life is hanging in the balance here!"
Lemming said nothing. He just leaned back in his small chair. He couldn't lean very far back because the wall was less than half-an-inch behind him. Drake pulled out a business card and hurled it at the greasy manager.
"When she comes in, give me a call," he said. Lemming just grunted. Drake shrugged, yawned again, and headed for the manager's office door. He was almost out when, to his shock, a thin young woman appeared in the doorway. She had long, curly red hair, piercing green eyes, and an amazing figure, and she was carrying a cardboard box. When she saw Drake, the green eyes widened and the lovely jaw dropped in a look of frozen fear.
"Janet Redding?" said Drake. "I'm Paul Drake. I'm a private investigator for..."
Janet Redding didn't even wait for Drake to finish. She dropped the box on Drake's foot, turned, and ran.
Drake grimaced in momentary pain. He then hastily removed his foot from beneath the box and then kicked at it, sending it out the doorway. He ran through to see Janet Redding vaulting over the service counter with all the grace of an experienced gymnast. He leaped through the air, nearly tripping over the box he had kicked and landing stomach first on the counter. He again grimaced in pain. As he looked up, Janet was pushing her way through Lemming Burger's glass door.
Drake scrambled over the counter. He briefly struggled to regain solid footing, and then he burst across the room and burst through the glass door as swiftly as he could. Janet was already on the other side of the parking lot.
Drake sprinted across the parking lot. Janet stopped only for seconds to regain her breath and then took off again, in a wild and panicky run. Drake struggled to keep up. His legs ached and he was desperately huffing for breath. Janet raced across the street, heedless of the cars that were narrowly skidding to a halt to avoid her. Drake had no choice but to pursue in the same fashion. Across the street, Janet ran down the paved sidewalk and disappeared around a corner.
When Drake rounded the corner he could see Janet a few feet ahead of him. He tried to scream for her to stop, but he was panting to hard to get the words out. He increased the speed of his run, only to trip and crash headfirst into the asphalt.
Drake felt dizzy and his head throbbed as his lips kissed the road. He concentrated all his energy into lifting his head. The throbbing increased. Drake could taste the blood running out of his cracked lip.
With pain surging through every muscle, Drake lifted himself to his feet. He could no longer run. He just limped his way down the street. When he came to an intersection, he looked in every direction, but he could see no sign of Janet.
Drake felt like crying as he stood panting and desperately trying to figure out a plan. He simply picked a direction and tried to run again. As the pain stopped his slow hobble, his mind began to clear. He couldn't catch his witness by foot now. She had lost him. But if he could find her home address, he wouldn't need to run anymore. Janet could race all she wanted. She'd get tired eventually. And eventually she'd need to go home.
Drake laughed at himself and allowed himself to drop to a sitting position in the soft grass beside the road. All he needed to do was look her address up in a phone book and wait for her. It was that simple. And first he could take all the time he needed to rest.
> > > > > >
Perry Mason got off an elevator and smiled once again at the face of the Anders & Anderson receptionist.
"Mr. Anderson is waiting for you," said the receptionist.
"Thank you, ma'am," said Mason politely, nodding and moving to Jack Anderson's door.
As he pushed the door open, Jack Anderson was reclining peacefully in the chair behind his desk. As soon as Mason entered the room, Anderson jumped out of the chair and extended his hand to Mason. Mason shook it.
"My secretary, Ms. Street, said you wanted to see me," said Mason.
"Of course," said Anderson. "Have a seat."
Mason did so. Anderson returned to his own seat.
"Now," said Mason. "What is it I can do for you?"
"It's not what you can do for me," said Anderson. "It's what you can do for Helen Carmichael."
"I'm already doing everything I can for Helen Carmichael," said Mason.
"Not the way she tells it," said Anderson. "Not after her last appearance in court. I understand she tried to fire you."
"And what makes you so sure she didn't succeed?" asked Mason.
"She didn't know what she was saying," said Anderson. "She's just upset about what happened in court. What happened when you called her to the stand. She thinks you don't know what you're doing. But I know you better than that."
"Do you?" asked Mason.
"We're two and the same, Mr. Mason. Men of business. It's out whole life." Anderson reached beneath the desk and pulled out a glass and a bottle of scotch. "Can I get you something to drink?" Mason declined.
"Mr. Anderson, I do have work to do."
"Of course," said Anderson. "Let's come to the point. Helen had a talk with her friends. They all agreed firing you was a good idea. They came to me to see if I could recommend a good lawyer. A better lawyer than Perry Mason. I told them they were making a mistake and that there was no better lawyer than you. You're the best possible legal defense Helen could get." He took another sip of scotch. "Helen and her friends are very fascinating women."
"I noticed," said Mason.
"Interesting creatures," said Anderson. "And they're certainly... eh... well endowed."
"Did you really invite me here for a business meeting just so you could tell me that?" questioned Mason.
"I want to help you," said Anderson.
"How do you plan on helping me?" asked Mason.
"I need to convince Helen that you're still the only lawyer that can help her," said Anderson. "That little clique of wannabe models isn't going to do that, but I think I can. But I have to be able to tell Helen you still know what you're doing."
"So that's what this is all about," said Mason. "You want me to tell you why I had Helen confess that the anonymous letter was true."
Anderson's eyes lit up and a wide-grin spread across his face.
"We understand each other so well," said Anderson.
"Then you tell me why I did what I did," suggested Mason. Anderson's grin didn't fade. In fact, he laughed heartily.
"Mr. Mason, I'm simply asking the same question the whole world is right now," said Anderson. "What exactly was going through your head when you interrogated your own client?"
"First of all, I wish you wouldn't put it that way," said Mason. "Police interrogate. Lawyers examine and cross-examine."
"Touche'," declared Anderson, laughing again. He tilted the bottle of scotch towards Mason. "Are you sure you won't have any?"
"No thank you," said Mason. "Was there anything else you wanted to ask me?"
"You still haven't answered my first question," said Anderson.
"You're right," said Mason. "I haven't."
"Come on, Mr. Mason," said Anderson. "Don't be like this. You and I are too much alike. What motivates you, Mr. Mason? The same thing that motivates me. If you're going to succeed at your business you have to keep steadily striving at it."
"I hope it's not just that," said Mason.
"What then?" said Anderson.
"I'm not in this just for the business," said Mason. "I'm in it to help people. I entered law to search for justice. As a boy, I would read stories of men and women who were given the death penalty for crimes they may or may not have committed. And I decided to try to stop that. I decided to help protect the innocent. To fight for truth and justice."
"How long have you been a lawyer, Mr. Mason?"
"Some years now," said Mason. "It seems like it's been my whole life."
"And all those years you've committed yourself to helping people," said Anderson. "I'm trying to help someone, too. I just want what's best for Helen."
"That's very generous of you," said Mason. "But I don't see how talking to me is going to do that. I've already agreed to do everything I can to help her."
"Then let me in on the defense," said Anderson. "Tell me what your strategy is so I can take part in this. Are you trying to get Helen to enter a guilty plea? Are you trying to reduce the charges and lighten the sentence?"
"Mr. Anderson," said Mason. "The only way I can help Helen is by proving someone else killed Bill Anders. And the only way you can help me is if you have any idea who that someone else is."
"It wasn't me," said Anderson. "I'll tell you that much. I was speaking at a seminar in front of at least one hundred people at the time."
"That's true," said Mason. "But that still doesn't change the fact that you knew about Helen's plot to kill Bill Anders."
"Are you implying something?"
"How could I be?" said Mason. "I'm only here because you requested this meeting."
"I just want to help Helen in any way that I can," said Anderson.
"Perhaps there is some way you can do that," said Mason. "Tell me more about your partner. What motivated him?"
"Not business," said Anderson. "He wasn't like you and I, Mr. Mason. His life wasn't fully devoted to business. That was my job. I kept the business running smoothly. Bill, on the other hand, was, well, easily distracted. He could afford to be. Not only did he have all of the money he could want, he had all of the women he could want."
"If he wasn't devoted to business, what was he devoted to?" asked Mason. "Certainly not his women."
"That's exactly it," said Anderson. "Bill Anders wasn't about devotion. He was about living for the moment. He had everything that attracts women. Money. Charm. Rugged good looks. Women would come after him, and he'd let them. Can you really blame him? But Bill Anders wasn't looking for devotion. He was just looking for a good time. The problem with women is, they want different things out of a relationship than men do. You date them more than once, and they expect you to marry them. They think it's true love, and that it's going to last forever. When it doesn't last forever, but ends suddenly, they take it personally. They think if it's no longer love it must be hate, even when some claim they still want to be friends."
"Are you saying Bill Anders wasn't a louse?"
"Oh, no," said Anderson. "Bill Anders was definitely a louse. But have you ever noticed that women like louses? They go for bad boys. They like the challenge. They think their different than any other women have been, and that they are going to tame the beast. They try to make men into something they're not, and when they fail, hearts get broken. It wasn't really Bill's fault, if you think about it. All these women were just asking too much of him. And that was the problem between Bill and Helen. She just wanted too much from him."
"We could sit here and discuss the difference between the sexes all day," said Mason. "But I do have business to get to."
"I just want to ask you one more time, Mr. Mason," said Anders. "What is your strategy with this case?"
"Like you said," said Mason, "we're both men of business. So you should realize that this business is business between Helen and I, and none of your business. Good day, Mr. Anderson."
As Mason left the room, Anderson poured himself another glass of scotch.
> > > > > >
Mason turned to the receptionist outside.
"I feel I should know your name by now," he said.
"Ms. Bellridge," said the woman. "You're the lawyer representing the woman they think killed Mr. Anders?"
"I am," said Mason.
"I don't know if it will help you," said Ms. Bellridge. "But business didn't always run smoothly between Mr. Anders and Mr. Anderson. Right before Mr. Anders went on his last business trip, I heard raised voices coming from behind this door."
"Do you know what it was all about?" asked Mason.
"Probably some matter of business," said Ms. Bellridge. "They were always arguing over business decisions. They always had two completely different points of view. It was nothing new. I think their last argument had something to do with some kind of big merger."
"Thank you, Ms. Bellridge," said Mason. "You've been a wonderful help to me. Now if I could just talk to you a little longer..."
> > > > > >
There were about ten different Janet Reddings living in Los Angeles according to the telephone book. Paul Drake chose the four closest to Lemming Burger and called them. Three Janet Redding's answered. One was twelve, one was fifty, and one was ninety years old. Paul Drake decided to try the house he had received no answer at.
As Drake sat in his car across from Janet Redding's house, he began to yawn once again. Feeling tired and restless, something compelled him to get out of his car and walk across the street.
Drake tried the door handle. It was unlocked. As he entered the house, he began to study his surroundings carefully. He found a play program on the ground advertising a nearby community theater's production of "The Mousetrap." Drake picked up the program to study it, only to be interrupted by the sound of the door handle. The footsteps that followed sounded nothing like Janet Redding's nimble tread. They sounded more like the footsteps of a football line-backer.
Paul Drake quickly hid himself in the nearest closet. He tried to hold his breath and listen to the sounds around him. He heard the sound of heavy footsteps. He heard the sound of heavy breathing. Then he heard the sound he had dreaded the most. He heard the sound of the doorknob turning.