Note: It is said in baseball that a team lives and dies by it's pitching. Tiger fans learned that was all too true this fall as the bullpen killed our chances for a World Series Championship.
TCOT Absurd Assumption 18
Della stood up from the chair, reaching for the ceiling in a languid stretch, and despite her left arm being a little sore from the blood test Perry decided she had to have that morning, bent and touched the floor without much effort, palms placed flat on the sculpted carpet.
A piercing whistle from long ago approved of her accomplishment. "Wow."
Della straightened quickly and shook already tousled ash blonde curls, startled for the second time that the whistler was a boyish version of Paul Drake Sr. and not her beloved friend himself. "Your father used to knock," she said, slightly shaken.
"This is my office," Paul Jr. reminded her, grinning impertinently.
"So it is."
"Where did you learn to do that?" No wonder Perry…he shook his head to rid himself of that horrifying vision.
"Endless hours of standing at the ballet barre."
Paul gave her a contemplative look. "Yes, that explains it."
"Explains what?"
"How every movement you make is graceful and polished."
Della blushed becomingly. "I doubt that…"
"I should have figured it out sooner. Or you could have told me sooner."
"I don't talk about it. Ballet wasn't something I particularly liked. Kind of like how you felt about the Boy Scouts."
Paul struck a pose, one hand over his heart, one hand in the air, and began to recite:
I promise to do my best
To do my duty to God and my country,
To help other people, and
To obey the Law of the Pack.
"Not bad since my career as a Boy Scout ended at webelo. Anything else you haven't told me Mystery Woman?"
"It might do you well to remember that pledge when dealing with Perry."
"He only thinks he's God. He's really just a dictator with a God-complex and I should rebel. Tell me about those endless hours of ballet."
"If I tell you, I won't be a Mystery Woman any longer, just the boring old woman who loves you."
Paul pulled her into a quick hug. "I love you, too. You could never be boring, and you definitely aren't old."
"My gallant gentleman."
Paul walked over to his father's desk and pulled open a drawer. "What are you doing here so late on a Friday night? If you leave now it will be six-thirty before you get home." In the old days, the stories went, as Perry's secretary Della rarely left the office before seven, and often stayed up on cases for days at a time, but as the Defendant he knew she had promised to be home by six every night.
"Perry wanted information on the Gordon Foundation. I'm waiting for him to come back from a deposition…what are you doing here?" Their chaste good-night kiss the night before and breakfast of champions that morning had been well…the word wonderful came to mind…and driving to work together made her nostalgic for those rare, special workday nights they slept over at each other's apartments or when Perry got up early and drove to her apartment first thing in the morning to take her out for breakfast, before she had any coffee. Sometimes he was a glutton for punishment.
"I came to take out a little insurance policy. Bobby Lynch's family lives in Acton and I don't want to make the trip there unprotected." After talking to an ex-wife Sgt. Stratton had clued him in to, he got the distinct impression the Lynches were nothing if not anti-social. Bobby married and divorced the former Luanne Strabler in Nevada, which was why Paul hadn't found her himself, and because of that she hadn't interacted with his family much. The time he spent talking with her in the bar where she hoped to launch her musical career wasn't completely wasted. He found out where the Lynches lived. And he had Luanne's telephone number.
"Acton? I just read something about Acton…" she took a few steps over to the table and fanned out a pile of papers resting next to the IBM Selectric typewriter. "Here it is. The Gordon Foundation has a solar power project in Acton. I'm not familiar with it so I'll need to do some more research."
Paul snatched the paper from her and scanned the data quickly before thrusting it back into her hands. "That's got to be our tie-in – Bobby Lynch to the Foundation project in Acton."
"And to Paula." Della bit her lip. She hadn't meant to say that. At least not so quickly.
Paul headed over to the desk again. He bent from the waist, removed a false bottom from the drawer and pulled out a blued steel revolver Della had no idea was there. He spun the cylinder and tucked the gun into the waistband of his trousers.
"You'd better talk to Perry about that," Della warned, nodding toward the gun on his hip. Paul Sr. had carried a gun in a concealed cross draw shoulder holster, and on occasion Perry had worn a gun in a belt holster at the small of his back, but to see Paul Jr. with a gun filled her with maternal dread. Perry would blow a gasket. If she told him.
Paul strode purposely toward the doorway, waving off her words. "I hope I won't have to use it, but I know exactly what to do with a gun. See you in court." And he was out the door.
Della sighed and sat down in front of the typewriter, glancing at her wristwatch as she did so. Perry should be there any minute to take her home, where Val's dinner of paella awaited…
Paul banged back into the office, headed straight for the desk, opened the drawer, pulled up the false bottom, and scavenged for items that rolled around noisily and made Della smile from the recognizable sound.
"Bullets," Paul confirmed, walking briskly past her and dumping the overlooked items into his pocket.
Della sighed again. Oh heavens. She might have to tell Perry about the gun after all.
The crisp white Gran Reserva Spanish wine Perry selected for dinner Friday evening was a perfect complement to Valerie's excellent paella (Bart and Carter had been more successful in locating saffron threads than a rutabaga), as was the sweet Malaga dessert wine served in Della's sparingly used etched sherry glasses along with a caramel topped vanilla custard flan prepared in little ceramic dishes Val called ramekins. If nothing else, Della decided, having her family around meant she would be well-fed, as well as constantly schnockered.
Dinner conversation centered on the coming weekend and if Perry and Della would be able to accompany everyone on a trip to the ocean or whether preparations for the upcoming preliminary hearing would send them to the office or keep them closed in the den all day. Perry had moved his luggage into the den on Thursday night amid mixed gazes of approving and disapproving eyes, but there were no direct words spoken to Perry or Della about the predictable event, and he merged seamlessly into the ebb and flow of daily life at Della's house.
Della slept better than she had in months, possibly years, Thursday night.
Friday night was another story altogether, however, as no one had given any thought to the curiosity of a cat prone to random nocturnal visits.
Finding the cat in bed with him in the den brought forth an alarmingly feminine scream from Perry, and as everyone came hurrying down the stairs to investigate the strange noise, Chief streaked by them, tail exploded, into the kitchen, and out his cat door.
Perry could be heard cussing up a storm in the den, and when Bart flipped on the overhead light, he was revealed in just pajama bottoms hopping around on one foot, repeating "shit, damn, hell" over and over, interspersed with "damn cat", "broken toe", and "heart attack".
Della was the first to laugh – she usually was when it came to Perry. No one else quite knew when it was all right to laugh around Perry, who needed time to process a situation before being able to laugh at himself. Miscalculations in timing meant that his family had been on the receiving end of thunderous looks and a lightning-quick temper more times than they could count, but never Della.
Perry limped over to the sleeper sofa and sat down on the edge, yanking the thrown-back covers over his legs. "How in hell did that cat get in here? I closed the door."
"Wiggle your toes, Perry," Henny commanded. "If you can wiggle them, nothing is broken."
Perry glowered at the assemblage of pajama-clad relatives (all except for Bart, who was in shorts and t-shirt and holding Valerie's pink terrycloth robe in front of him) and wiggled his toes. "It hurts."
"You'll live," Bart announced. "Back to bed, everyone. Morning comes early."
Della lagged behind. "I'll close the door tighter," she said, laughter still very apparent in her voice as she switched the light off. Moonlight streamed in through the window from above wooden privacy shutters. "Chief likes you. You should be honored he wanted to sleep with you."
"Did you feel that way about that careless kitten of Helen Kendal's or the caretaker's cat?" Perry asked irritably, heart still pounding from the scare, feeling every beat painfully in the toes he'd stubbed on the metal frame of the fold-out bed. He had never had a pet, so finding the cat in bed with him had been traumatic and he'd leapt up and out immediately. He was much more comfortable with human beings in bed with him, preferably of the female type and named Della. He rubbed his face and ran his hands through his hair. "Don't answer that. I already know what you're going to say."
"Do you need a slug of whiskey?"
"No, I don't need a slug of whiskey."
Della continued to linger, a smile trembling at the corners of her mouth. "Good. Because as you know, I don't have any whiskey."
"What I need to know," he went on grumpily, despite his own smile beginning to betray how foolish he felt, "is if I'll wake up again with a cat in my armpit."
Della giggled delightedly. "What I wouldn't have given to see that…"
"I believe you said something about making sure the door was closed more tightly...?"
"You might have to lock the door. Cats don't like closed doors and because the doors in this house have handles and not knobs, Chief figured out how to open them."
"Isn't that clever of him," Perry muttered, punching one of the pillows. The bed, although a fold-out, was comfortable, and sleep had come very easily snuggled beneath sheets and blankets that smelled like all of his best memories.
"Yes it is clever. Does your bruised ego need a make-it-better kiss?"
Good Lord.
Miss Della Street was flirting with him.
He may have stopped breathing again.
"That depends on where it is you think my ego resides." He had meant to be flirtatious as well, not crude. Crudeness had always been a turn-off for Della. Had he been crude? The last thing he wanted was to be crude. He wasn't generally a crude person. With his men friends he could be crude, but not with women…
She giggled again and Perry was glad he was partially covered by rumpled bedclothes. Who was this flirty girl who looked so much like Della Street, barely dressed and drenched in moonlight? "The ego, Mr. Mason, according to Dr. Freud, resides in your psyche."
"And how do you kiss a person's psyche?"
Della moved through the shaft of moonlight that split the room, her beauty causing it to instantly cower shamefully behind a cloud. She came to a halt in front of him, bent from the waist, draped her arms over his bare shoulders, and kissed him. For long moments her lips teased and tasted, parried and sparred, invited then disinvited, nearly driving him insane. He never wanted the kiss to end, wanted to plunder the depths of her mouth for all eternity, but she wouldn't allow it. Her laugh was soft and tender when she ended the kiss, removing his hands from her hips (when and how they got there was a complete mystery to him) and stepping back toward the door.
"That's how," she whispered before turning and exiting the room, pulling the door closed softly.
Come to find out, Della had always kissed his psyche. And very possibly she had always flirted with him and he had never realized it.
For the second time in two days he had to sit uncomfortably for a length of time before moving.
And everyone was so sure he was taking advantage of Della's situation.
Friday morning Perry and Della had eaten their breakfast of champions alone in companionable ease, but Saturday the kitchen was a hub of activity when Della finally emerged from her bedroom. The sight before her brought forth an involuntary gasp.
Perry was making waffles. Perry only made waffles once a year, on their anniversary. In June. Perry hadn't made waffles in five years.
That she knew about.
Four years ago there had been no waffles because of a very important appeal before the Court, and Perry couldn't get away for their anniversary. When the hearing portion of the appeal had ended, Aunt Mae's doctor recommended 'round the clock care and all their energy had been directed at finding the most suitable place for her to reside and be treated for the dementia so brutally robbing her of her personality.
Three years ago…well, three years ago Mae was fighting a bad cold, Della was working sixty hour weeks because Gordon Industries had just bought a small components company, Perry's friend Max Parrish had moved to LA the month before, and Della had accepted a dinner invitation from Bryce Hummel. Their anniversary celebration was postponed until the Fourth of July holiday – when she had shown up with Paul Jr. and spent two nights hugging the edge of Perry's bed because the boy might hear them if they got any closer, which was as good an excuse as any to camouflage her confused state of mind. Perry was understandably bewildered by her behavior, but didn't create any scenes, and on the third night she crossed the invisible line she'd drawn between them and they'd made love slowly and with a quiet gentleness that made her cry.
Because she knew it would be the last time they made love.
"There's the sleepyhead," Bart boomed as Della entered the kitchen. "It seems my little brother, even at his advanced age, can still surprise me. He's making waffles."
"We're eating dinner early," Perry pointed out. "With a big breakfast no one has to worry about lunch."
Della climbed up onto a stool and thanked Henny with her eyes for the mug of coffee she placed in front of her sister-in-law. Usually Della was one of the first to rise, but the healing kiss to Perry's ego had definitely jostled her own psyche and she hadn't fallen back to sleep until nearly dawn and then the aroma of percolating coffee had pretty much forced her out of bed a few hours later. She and Perry had a lot to do and if there was any hope of breaking away for a trip to see the stormy ocean, they needed to get started as soon as possible.
For some reason Della wanted to spend time at the beach. She had issued several subpoenas the day before, running to the courthouse to wait for an available judge to sign them and then meeting Paul literally on a street corner to hand them over to him for delivery. Perry was at the LA County Recorder's office procuring a copy of the Gordon pre-nup himself since the boy hadn't gotten around to it yet, for which Della assumed blame because of her request to gather information about Collier and Adelaide Jessup, and just that morning for information about Lou as well, which a) Perry didn't know about, b) would be more difficult to dig up since all she knew was the girl's first name – and it might not be her real name – and c) was the reason Paul was on a street corner when she gave him the subpoenas. She still had the solar power project in Acton to research, as well as Perry's notes about his meeting with Katherine Gordon and Ken Braddock to type up. Perry would want to start the Prosecution Attack, i.e., what they called setting the scene with the witnesses the DA would most likely call to the stand and brainstorming a list of probable questions. Della played the witness and Perry played the Prosecutor of course, and every conceivable bit of expected testimony would have several contradicting explanations when they were done.
Perry would pace, because there was still one major piece of the puzzle missing for him, and that was who had hired Bobby Lynch. Possibly the reason Perry had been so successful as a criminal attorney was that he didn't merely prove his clients innocent, he typically fingered the true murderer in doing so. While he might use legal slights of hand in regard to evidence and events in cases, to rearrange them as it were, he would never suppress or corrupt evidence (well, not for more than a couple of days anyway), and when it became clear to him who had committed a crime and why, he felt it his duty to share what he knew – eventually – usually in grand fashion during the preliminary hearing, because truth be told, Perry was profoundly bored by the jury selection process and preferred not to perform in front of a jury. It was a matter of pride for him to avoid that boredom and conclude his cases in the preliminary hearing stage, thereby saving the People unnecessary trial costs. He estimated his approach to defending his clients had saved the good People of California several millions of dollars – minus a few thousand for the handful of cases that had progressed to jury trials whether by design or happenstance.
Carter was at the stove, trussed up in a filly apron once again, frying bacon and scrambling eggs, the two things he could actually cook. His grandmother had controlled the kitchen the first thirty-eight years of his life, and if either he or his father dared to prepare food, it was with strict instructions as to what was right and wrong, which resulted in bland eggs and soggy bacon – that is until marriage and children had taught him about the joys of salt and pepper and crispy bacon. He had run with it, and on occasion had actually been known to – gads! – liberally apply hot sauce to his eggs.
"You look better in that apron than I do, Carter," Della commented after a big sip of piping hot coffee.
"If I keep getting compliments, it might make its way into my luggage."
Della choked on her second sip of coffee. Carter making a joke? Had she fallen into The Twilight Zone? Wasn't being accused of murder enough of a shock to her system?
Henny patted her husband's behind affectionately and even Bart cleared his throat uncomfortably at seeing the display of playful affection. Val laughed wheezily, and patted her own husband's behind.
Perry raised his eyebrows. Della was concentrating on her coffee, studiously avoiding his gaze. She had seen, he knew she had seen everything, but maybe behind-patting fell underneath another article in the contract. If so, he could live with operating under the article they had breached for as long as it took to figure out where behind-patting fell.
All he could do was hope it wouldn't take two years this time.
The first batch of waffles was divided between the ladies and Bart, who had no cooking chores. Della had almost forgotten how good Perry's waffles were, a recipe he claimed to have received as payment from a client and improved upon, and she had no doubt about either claim. Winifred Laxter had not paid him, not directly, and Perry couldn't resist tinkering with recipes. She had decided many years ago that vanilla extract was his secret ingredient, along with ice water. Perry claimed his waffles were good because he made them with love – possibly the only truly mushy thing he had ever said. She couldn't argue with that claim either, because deep in her heart she'd known it to be true.
But even knowing that deep in her heart hadn't kept her from…she couldn't follow that path. Not now. Not when her entire life was in his hands. If she ever wanted any other part of her in his hands again, she had to play the game very carefully.
But what game was she playing? Della excelled at cards and board games, but human games baffled her. The proof was that the one human game she tried to play she lost badly; soundly trounced, thoroughly thrashed, skunked, humiliated, demoralized. Why she thought she could play another game with the highest of stakes scared the life out of her, but if she won, there would be life again.
And to feel alive again was worth the risk.
Della saw the ocean, and Perry was glad he tagged along, despite preferring desert scenery. The need to organize his thoughts and go over the Prosecutor Attack a couple more times took a back seat to admiring the awe inspiring power of the surf, even if it meant being not perfectly prepared for Barbara Scott. He attempted to show enthusiasm, because he was glad to be there, but other thoughts occupied his mind, and Della saw right through him.
Della tried to think things through the way Perry would. He was fighting for her, had made promises to her, and because he was Perry Mason, he kept his promises. He insisted that she go to the beach because they were able to accomplish a lot very quickly, and if he didn't let her relax, Valerie might smack him. And if he stayed behind, Valerie would surely smack him. Perry tried to avoid being smacked whenever possible.
They had made quick progress, due largely to Gordon Industries and the Compaq desktop computer with a word processing program called WordStar ported to DOS…and that was where she lost him. He did wind up admiring the machine and the program immensely, as it allowed her to quickly revise documents and print them out on letter-sized paper edged with holes that snaked through a dot matrix printer…and he was lost again. Tear off the holes at a perforation, and viola! a perfect document in a quarter of the time it would have taken her to completely re-do the entire document, as well as a superb cat toy in the long strings of discarded holes if Chief's antics were interpreted correctly. There was even what she called a spreadsheet program incongruously named Lotus that automatically lined up columns, added, subtracted, alphabetized, and for all he knew accepted data telepathically. He missed the clack clack of her old manual typewriter, but the newer keyboards of electric typewriters and now computers allowed her to have longer fingernails, which was something she had always wanted and he came to realize he always had too.
Upon their return from the beach, after stopping at a supermarket for more supplies, including gin, pearl onions, and anchovy-stuffed olives for martinis, Perry and Della holed up in the den for another two hours reworking the Attack before Valerie burst in on them and demanded that they stop working and help with dinner preparations.
Usually when Bart made his specialty of deep-fried chicken, his family ate at an enormous coffee table covered with newspaper, but Della's coffee table was far too small to accommodate six of them, plus Kay-Kay, whose night it was to check on the Defendant and who would arrive early due to the long drive back to her family in Covina, so Val covered the kitchen island as well as the oak pedestal table with five day's-worth of newspapers and laid out paper plates, napkins, plastic dinnerware and several candles. Della appreciated the candles, as she had once set a table at Valerie's house the very same way. She just hoped no one put any of the candles in the refrigerator when cleaning up. Bart was mixing the martinis. Things could get dicey.
The chicken was superb, the onion rings sublime, but it was Della's savory cole slaw that made the meal. No one cared that they were greasy up to their elbows and could hear arteries clogging with each passing second. Kay-Kay declared she had never eaten a better meal and begged for recipes, positive her finicky sons would love everything. She watched Bart like a hawk preparing the cocktails because her husband would buy her diamond earrings if she made him such a martini.
Kay-Kay left after desert, which was hand-packed raspberry sherbet, to make her report to Janet, and when the kitchen had been thoroughly scrubbed and left with open windows to air out, Henny declared it was time to play poker.
No surprise, Della was the ultimate victor, collecting all 300 wooden matches staked for the game. What was a surprise was how she burst into tears following her victory and couldn't be consoled and couldn't tell anyone what the matter was.
Because nothing was the matter. The matter was all good. The matter was great, and she simply couldn't admit what caused her tears.
She was facing a charge of murder, and all she wanted was for the day to never end.
Sunday began with a no-fuss breakfast at eight and four hours of working non-stop on the Attack. Della had organized Perry's rebuttal for every bit of conceivable prosecutorial testimony imagined, and all of Della's research and Paul's pilfered police reports were contained in color-coded folders. Perry had paced for forty-five minutes, still unwilling to pin the murder of Arthur Gordon on any one of the most likely suspects, and was understandably keyed-up. It had to be someone in the man's dysfunctional family. There was nothing in his business dealings that led Perry to think any of his colleagues would want him dead. He made too much money for them. No one would kill the cash cow if there was no hope of inheriting some of the milk, even if he was cold and calculating in his business dealings.
For dinner Della marinated an enormous flank steak in a vinegar, Worcestershire and dry mustard mixture and called it a London Broil. Della wept again during dinner, claiming it was because the marinade made the beef melt in her mouth, but not even gullible, literal Carter bought that excuse.
Perry suspected Della's weepiness involved him to a certain degree, and kept a fair distance between them, even when closeted together in the den. The breach of Article III had been titillating, though possibly premature. Maybe the kissing should have waited until after the preliminary hearing…but then the past three nights wouldn't have ended so beautifully and he wouldn't have slept as well, so he put that silly notion right out of his mind.
There was tension between them all that food, drink, or games couldn't eradicate fully. It was decided the Sunday Night Movie on ABC would be diverting, and they all settled down with bowls of cheese popcorn to let the problems of non-existent people overshadow real life, and for two hours everyone's attention was sidetracked from Della's predicament – except for when a teaser for the local news station mentioned the hearing. But the instant the movie ended, silence descended, and first Mr. and Mrs. Street and then Mr. and Mrs. Mason went to bed.
Perry and Della cleaned up Bart's mess from the popcorn silently, and just as silently he walked her up the stairs, stopping short of entering her bedroom, leaning in for a silent, tender kiss. It was more than he expected, less than he wanted, but the fact they were kissing at all was a miracle in itself. Even though the kissing had been her idea, Della was tentative, eyes guarded and apprehensive.
"Everything's going to be all right, Della. You have my word." Kissing Della only made the need to touch more than her lips all that more reckless, and then everything might not be all right.
Her fingers trailed down his cheek gently. "Are you upset with me?"
"Why would I be upset with you?"
"We didn't work as much as you wanted today. And – and I…I've been crying a lot. I know you don't like it when clients cry."
Perry drew in a breath and let it out slowly, as her fingers, feather soft, caressed his face, sending shivers through his body. "Baby, if you want to cry, go ahead and cry. We worked plenty today. The only thing I don't know for certain is who hired Bobby Lynch, and I'm counting on Paul to come up with something to connect the dots. I didn't somehow miss a phone call from him today, did I?"
Della shook her head, avoiding his eyes and a confrontation. Did he have to call her baby? It was the first endearment he had ever used for her, long ago before she knew he was the man she would spend more than half her life with. Hearing it now made her long for those simpler days.
"Della, he knows you have faith in him. He won't let you down." Perry was counting on that.
Della looked at him then. "That's a switch – you defending Paul to me."
"There's no use in criticizing him now." It wasn't any use. No use at all. "He's all we've got." He trusted himself enough to brush a stray curl from her forehead.
Della bit her bottom lip to keep it from trembling. "I'm sorry for crying. It wasn't about…about the hearing. It was about other things…" Things like I don't want to be alone tonight in that huge bed…things like you're being so nice and you've called me both darling and baby but you probably don't even realize you did and I want to cry and…oh hell! Tears welled in her eyes.
"Della, if anyone is entitled to a good cry, it's you." It had taken thirty years, but he finally knew how to deal with her tears. And it wasn't that he didn't like it when clients cried, he just knew that usually those who cried were insincere. There wasn't anything insincere about Della Katherine Street. Her tears sprang from deep, honest emotion.
She shook her head vehemently, blinking furiously. "No, I shouldn't have…not as much as I did…I'm not worried, really I'm not. Other things…"
"Other things…?"
Her fingers slapped his face lightly and he laughed. "Other things."
"Tell your attorney about these other things."
"My attorney doesn't need to know about them. He needs to concentrate on the hearing tomorrow."
"Then tell me."
She folded her arms across her chest and he knew he would get nothing more out of her. "I haven't figured out who you are yet. When I do, if I do, maybe I'll tell you." She felt light-headed and weak, tempted to follow the path of the waffle, because she had tried to stop loving him, had willed herself to stop, had done everything she could to stop…and her failure to stop was elephantine in its grandeur.
Perry couldn't believe his ears. Had he really heard that word?
Maybe.
When Della said 'maybe' what she really meant was 'eventually yes'. Oh baby, figure it out soon. "I hope I'm your friend, Della." He had once been her boss, her friend, and her lover. Today the best he could hope to be was one out of three, but he would gladly take it.
"You are," she whispered, placing her hands palms down on his chest over his wildly beating heart. She lowered her head and smiled. Her heart was beating just as wildly.
Inviting Perry to spend the night with her would be the best bad idea in the world. She knew it and he knew it. Sorting through the chaos of what they felt for each through intimacy – something at which they were exceptionally proficient – and exploring the baser aspects of those feelings the night before her preliminary hearing was outright crazy. He wouldn't say no if she asked, his willpower as frazzled as hers, his emotions as jangled as hers, his attraction as staggering as hers. He would forget Robin Calhoun, forget the awful years of separation, forget what loomed tomorrow…but she couldn't. She wouldn't talk about it, but she wouldn't forget. Long ago he had been the sensible one, and right now she needed to regain her crown of sensibility.
"Good night, Perry," she whispered, applying the tiniest bit of pressure with her hands against his chest.
He hadn't expected to be invited into her bedroom, so being pushed away wasn't as severe a blow as it could have been. A blow to be sure, but one he had to take in stride considering the circumstances. He knew it, and she knew it. "Good night, baby."
Perry left Della at her bedroom door and made his way slowly to the den, which was silent and lonely. With the walls seeming close enough to touch from the center of the room, he decided he needed someone to talk to who wouldn't judge him, someone who held Della in as high esteem as he did, and could understand all the conflicting emotions the past week had brought to light.
And so Perry Mason, feared and revered Attorney at Law, went in search of Della's cat, prowling around the yard calling for Chief in an urgent whisper. It was unfathomable why he felt he needed the cat, but when Chief poked his grey head with the big black tabby 'M' through the egress hole in the fence, Perry nearly danced a jig. Chief trotted happily into the house with him, and was a great 'help' as Perry washed up in the downstairs powder room and opened the couch into a bed, keeping up a constant conversation in increasingly incredible variations of 'meow'.
When the cat curled into his armpit again, purring louder than a drum corps, Perry finally settled down. "Chief, old buddy, old pal, you are just what the doctor ordered."
Chief trilled deep in his throat and twisted his malleable feline body so that he was almost on his back, staring up at the newest object of his affection, listening to an outpouring of profoundly impassioned past memories, current insecurities, and dreams of a happier future.