Chapter 3

E

Della took a dainty pull on her cigarette and stared down at the page taken from Perry's little notebook, and the perfect block letters he had used to write the name. MAEVE. Her real name was Maeve Marie, the first name a combination of two sister's names, the second name that of an unknown grandmother.

Della had never liked the fact she was named for two nasty grandmothers on her father's side of the family, two women who by all accounts begrudged each other the air they breathed. She had always felt no one cared enough about her eminent arrival to give her a name they liked, a name they dreamed about for their child, a name that wasn't so quaint and different from those of her contemporaries. Therefore names had fascinated her since childhood, when she daydreamed about being called Belinda or Julia, and never so much so as when Perry had given her a crash course in his family history several years ago before she attended Thanksgiving dinner with the entire Mason clan. A preponderance of alliterative name pairings had intrigued her, and made remembering a great number of people a snap.

"You already know my parents were Lloyd and Lyla. My father's middle brother, Gerald is married to Ginny – not Virginia, just plain Ginny. Then there is my oldest uncle, Frank. He's a widower."

"Did Uncle Frank's wife's name begin with an 'F'? Maybe Florence or Francine or Fiona?"

"No," he had replied, a twinkle growing in his eyes. "Her name began with a 'P'."

"Oh," she had said, disappointed.

"It was Phyllis."

Della felt herself smiling and stealing a glance at Perry, remembering that time, when their feelings for one another were raw and virtually unspoken; when they stole kisses in the office and sought ways to be together outside of the office to steal more kisses; when he told her she could say stop whenever she wanted, but she never did because she never wanted him to stop. And now here she was, closer than she had ever imagined she could be to another person, and she wasn't sure who she was anymore. Her eyes again dropped to the scrap of paper on the table.

E

She felt empty knowing that her identity was so clouded. Had her father and grandmother made the name change legal, or was she still Maeve Marie and not Della Katherine in the eyes of the law? Would she have to go through the motions of legalizing the change after so many years, or should she continue life with the name this woman had given her? Her smile faded to a frown. How had no one ever slipped and called her Maeve? How had she lived her entire life not knowing something as important as this? Should she believe this woman when she said she had been too young for marriage and motherhood and incapable of standing up to her mother-in-law?

Perry watched his secretary lost deeply in her thoughts while Paul doggedly asked a litany of questions which Eve Wyman answered in a calm, careful manner. He knew Paul's questioning had begun out of concern for Della, but as they continued steadily through cocktails and dinner and now into after-dinner coffee, Perry suspected that Paul was enjoying Eve's company immensely and the questions were a means to prolong the evening. He had to admit that she was a good conversationalist, bright and alert and clever, flirtatious but not overtly so, animated and friendly, yet demure and serious when appropriate. She was extremely attractive, was aware of the fact, and used it to her advantage. She was also hiding something, Perry would bet his practice on it.

The cigarette Della had lit and taken two tiny drags on had burned almost completely to ashes, forgotten as her thoughts consumed her attention. Perry leaned over, plucked it from her fingers and stubbed it out in the ashtray. He then pushed his chair back, got to his feet, and held out his hand to her. "Dance with me," he said quietly.

Della looked up with unfocused eyes and blinked once. Her smile returned. "Gladly," she replied just as quietly.

Without a word of excuse to Paul and Eve Wyman, Perry escorted Della onto the dance floor and took her into his arms. She nestled against him closer than she might normally in public, and he followed her lead, pressing her slenderness to his chest as he settled into a smooth waltz. His lips grazed her forehead.

"I thought you could use a break from that episode of 'This is Your Life'."

"Shhh, don't say anything. I'm savoring the silence."

Perry grinned into her soft curls. "I think Paul is smitten. Our usually laconic detective is positively giddy."

"What is your impression of her?"

Perry hesitated.

"That bad?"

"Nooo," he said slowly. "I really don't want to commit to anything based on dinner conversation."

"Dinner conversation? You call that eloquently sad story she told dinner conversation?"

"We did put her on the spot, darling. You must admit she's comported herself admirably in the face of a lot of personal questions."

Della leaned back and tilted her head to see his face. "Good grief, that's the vaguest, most conciliatory thing I've ever heard you say. You size up people with great accuracy every day. If she was a potential client would you think she's being truthful or would you be suspicious of her?"

Perry led her around nearly the entire dance floor before answering. "I would be suspicious of her," he admitted finally. "I don't think she's told us the exact truth. Everything sounded rehearsed and dull."

Della pursed her lips. "I thought so. It's all so much to take in. My head is spinning."

Perry tucked her back into the security of his arms. "I know, baby. We'll get everything down on paper tomorrow and –"

She shook her head vehemently. "No, we don't have time to waste on this if we're going to get out of town on time Friday night. You have a full day tomorrow, and I have a staff to prepare for our absence."

"There is nothing wasteful about getting to know your mother, Della. If you won't do it tomorrow, we'll do it at the lake."

"You're crazy. Do you really expect me to take dictation on my vacation?"

"How exactly do you want to handle it, then? Don't you want to be able to ask your father and grandmother and especially Mae about what Eve has told us?"

"I don't know what I want. I need time to process everything. I just found out I'm a completely different person than I thought I was."

"How's that? Just because your name was changed? We'll make sure it was done legally, because frankly, I don't think I could get used to calling you Maeve." He smiled down at her.

"If I had known the truth from the beginning, if those closed up people would have told me…how could no one have told me?" Her voice caught and she cleared her throat. "If I had known why she left…why didn't Aunt Mae tell me? Of all people…she should have told me."

The lovely waltz came to an end and the musicians filed from the orchestra stand for a break. Perry held Della close as the other dancers around them drifted from the dance floor back to their tables. "I wish I could tell you, Della. Remember, we only know Mrs. Wyman's story. We'll pay Mae a visit when we return from the lake and get her version of your childhood."

Della rubbed her eyes wearily, leaving faint smudges of mascara. "Will you take me home now? I've got a bit of a headache."

"I was about to suggest that we say goodnight. I'm sure Paul won't put up a fight if we ask him to drive your mother to her hotel."

Della flashed a wan smile. "If my head wasn't about to explode I'd say something terribly snide to him about how friendly he's being toward her. Will you stay with me?"

Perry slipped his arm around her shoulders, inordinately pleased that she was turning to him and not away from him during this very personal ordeal. "Whatever you want, darling."

"So what's their story, Mr. Drake?" Eve Wyman asked, nodding her head in the direction of the dance floor.

"Perry's and Della's? It's a very boring story. Boy likes girl. Girl likes boy. Boy and girl keep to themselves."

Eve frowned ever so slightly. "Are you saying you don't know anything about their relationship?"

Paul lit a cigarette, shook out the match and leaned back in his chair. "I won't say I know nothing. I know exactly as much as they want me to know."

"Isn't it rather odd for friends not to know such things about one another?"

"Not at all. They want privacy and I give them privacy. And they extend the same courtesy to me."

"You, Mr. Drake, are as frustratingly obtuse as your attorney friend."

"And that is why I'm his friend."

Eve regarded Paul with a speculatively perturbed look. "As her mother I'm naturally curious about her personal life, Mr. Drake. I'm not sure I like the fact that my daughter appears to be romantically involved with her boss –"

Paul's derisive snort interrupted her words. "Mrs. Wyman, you have no more motherly instincts than I have. You are interested in Perry yourself and want to know exactly how far their relationship goes."

Eve Wyman fought to hold the flush creeping across her cheeks at bay. "You couldn't be more wrong, Mr. Drake," she denied coolly, sipping calmly at her champagne cocktail.

Paul took a deep drag on his cigarette and smiled at her through a grey haze of exhaled smoke. "I think I couldn't be more right," he drawled. "He's always been irresistible to the female population at large, damn him, but for the most part he's unaware of it. I'm not saying he hasn't been around the block a time or two, but he doesn't toy with women. He's selective." Paul nodded, pleased with that description of the attorney. "And the woman he has selected is Della. For several years now."

"That's all very interesting," Eve Wyman matched his drawl, "and I must say it makes me feel slightly better about my daughter's involvement with him."

"Whatever you say, Mrs. Wyman," Paul Drake replied agreeably.

"Tell me your story, Mr. Drake. You've listened so intently to my story tonight. I'd like to hear yours."

"Oh, my story is even more boring than Perry's. I'm an inveterate womanizer. I like women – lots of women. You see, I get bored easily."

Eve Wyman set down her champagne glass as her eyebrows curved upward in interest. "You and I actually have quite a bit in common, Mr. Drake. I bore easily as well."

"This evening just keeps getting better and better," Paul declared, picking up his own cocktail glass and draining it in a single gulp.

Della rolled from her left side to her right side and sighed mightily.

"Della."

She started at the sound of his voice, having almost forgotten that he was lying beside her. "I'm sorry, darling," she apologized softly.

"If you can't sleep, why don't we both just give up trying and talk this out. Or write it down as I suggested earlier."

"No, you need your sleep."

"It's becoming quite obvious I'm not going to get any sleep."

She sat up and pulled her knees close to her chest. "I'll go out into the living room so I won't disturb you."

"Don't be ridiculous."

"I thought we agreed that I could be ridiculous." She laid her head on her knees and smiled at him in the semi-darkness.

"Perhaps, we did, but I didn't think being ridiculous would keep you up all night, and therefore, me." He patted the mattress next to him. "Come here and tell me what's bothering you the most right now."

She settled herself on her side in the crook of his arm; her head resting on his shoulder, one of her legs nestled between his. "I don't know where to start," she began.

"Your name?"

"Maeve isn't completely heinous, and she did put thought into it. I appreciate that. What bothers me about the name change is that I had absolutely no idea. How could no one have ever slipped and called me Maeve?"

"I have no answer for that. But I'll tell you this: I much prefer Della over Maeve. I would go so far as to say Della is my favorite name."

"Aren't you gallant, Mr. Mason."

"I do what I can to please."

Della kissed his shoulder. "You do please me," she told him. "But I think now that the original shock has worn off, my only concern about the name change is that it was done legally."

"That's a cinch. Paul will have that information for us first thing tomorrow morning."

"Good old Paul." She traced idle little circles on his broad chest with her fingertips.

He stifled a sharp intake of breath as her nails continued their patterns, barely grazing his skin. "Yes, good old Paul." He hoped she hadn't picked up on the current running between the detective and her mother when they returned to the table to offer their good-nights. "How angry are you at Mae for not telling you anything about when you were born, or anything about your mother?"

"I'd prefer if you wouldn't refer to that woman as my mother."

"She is your mother, Della. That fact is all but irrefutable. Paul should have confirmation of that as well rather quickly."

"I know, but calling her my mother is bestowing an honor on her she doesn't deserve and one which she certainly didn't earn. Just because she gave birth to me…do you understand what I'm saying?"

"As frightening as it is, I understand completely what you are saying."

"You missed your calling," she said dryly. "You should be a vaudeville comic."

"Vaudeville is dead," he reminded her.

"Sarcasm is sadly lost on you. That was not a compliment."

"Stop deflecting. What is it that has you tied up in knots?"

She didn't answer immediately, and when she did, it was in such a quiet voice he almost couldn't hear her. "I don't know."

Perry hugged her tightly to him and kissed her forehead. "Oh, baby."

"I've spent my entire life not thinking about her, so I don't know what to do now that she's here. Should I be happy? Should I be angry? Should I have thrown her out on her ear and gone on blissfully with my life, or was taking her to dinner and listening to her tell a story I can't possibly confirm or deny actually the right thing to do? I just don't know."

"And you don't like not knowing." He didn't like her insular approach to painful subjects, the way she excluded him from her thoughts as she dissected, categorized, diffused, and buried them and she would probably not understand how happy it made him that she was sharing her thoughts with him at this moment.

"No, I don't, not about this particular situation. I don't trust my reactions or my intuition…I feel…alone."

"One thing you definitely aren't, Della, is alone. I'm right here." He felt a warm wetness on his skin and realized she had begun to cry. Her tears made him feel helpless, and he had to find a way to conquer that for her sake.

"Yes, you are, and I'm so lucky, Perry. I can't explain it yet, not even to myself."

So she hadn't really entrusted him with her deepest thoughts after all. A thought came to him, one that he wasn't particularly pleased about, but he had to put it out there, in case it was what she needed in order to come to grips with this new development in her life. "Do you want to go to the lake by yourself? Maybe some time alone will bring everything into perspective." Meeting her mother was something he was willing to let her brood over by herself if she felt the need.

Della snuggled deeper into his arms. "Oh God, no. That's not an option at all."

Her lips were salty from tears as he tasted them for long silent moments. "You don't know what it means to me to hear that," he breathed huskily.

"You don't know what it means to me to be able to say that."

"You're not alone, Della. I promise you'll never be alone." She let out an unexpected, enormously vocal yawn and he chuckled. "Does that mean you might be able to get some sleep?"

She nodded against his shoulder, stifling another yawn. "Just don't let go of me, okay?"

"Never, ever, ever," he vowed.

The phone rang and without thinking he grabbed it and placed it against his ear. "Mason."

There was scratchy silence for a moment, then the sound of a throat being cleared, and an unfamiliar male voice spoke. "Is Della Kath – is this Della Street's residence?"

Perry rolled his eyes at his lapse of decorum and shot a glance at the closed bathroom door, behind which could be heard the shower. "It is. However, she's unavailable at the moment."

Another few seconds of static greeted his words. "I see. Did you say Mason? Are you Perry Mason, her employer?"

"Yesss," Perry replied carefully. "Who might you be and why are you calling so early in the morning?"

"I'm her brother, and I might ask you why you are answering my sister's phone so early in the morning, Mr. Mason."

"We have an appointment and I came by to pick her up. She doesn't have a car and I didn't want her taking an early bus." The fib emerged smoothly, based somewhat in fact. He dug into his memory for Della's brother's name, but it eluded him.

"I see," the voice said again, unconvinced. "When will Della be available to speak with me?"

"Not for quite a while, I'm afraid," Perry fibbed again. Carter. Her brother's name was Carter. "We're running late as it is, and we have a very busy day ahead of us, Mr. Street. You can tell me whatever it is you're calling about and I'll pass it along to Della."

"Mr. Mason, I know about your…involvement with my sister, but I don't think that entitles you to be privy to family matters."

"Let's cut the crap, Mr. Street. I'm going to find out anyway why you called, so you may as well tell me directly. You can be assured I'll tell Della." There was no way in hell he was going to allow Della in her current state of mind to talk with her tightly wound brother.

The long distance connection crackled and hissed once more as Carter Street absorbed Perry Mason's words. "All right, Mr. Mason, have it your way. Would you please tell Della that our grandmother is in the hospital and is not expected to live much longer than a few hours. Our father would appreciate it if Della graced us with her presence as soon as possible."

Perry was momentarily stunned at the unexpected request. "I'll tell Della when she's available," he promised in as formal a manner as Carter Street's tone of voice.

"See that you do, Mr. Mason." Then Carter Street hung up the phone.

Perry slowly placed the receiver in the cradle. He stared at the instrument with his lips pursed in thought, then turned on his heel, strode across the hall, and jerked opened the bathroom door without knocking just as the shower was turned off and Della pulled back the curtain. She let out a little yelp.

"Good grief, Perry, when did you come in here?"

"Your brother just called," he blurted. Damn, he was no good at delivering monumental news, always charging in like a herd of elephants.

"Carter? What on earth…why did you answer the phone?" She grabbed a towel from the bar and wrapped it around her slender, dripping body, stepping from the tub at the same time.

"I wasn't thinking. It rang, and I was there, so I picked it up. Della, your grandmother is in the hospital and your brother said she doesn't have much time left."

Della hugged the towel tightly around her. "And?"

"And your father has asked for you to come home."

"I see." She moved past him to stand between the sink and the commode.

"Is that all you have to say?" It occurred to him that her brother had said those very same two words twice in their short conversation.

"Yep." Della reached for a bottle of pink lotion that sat on a glass tray on the back of the commode. She calmly poured a dollop into the palm of her hand and lifted one long, elegant leg to rest on the lowered lid. She bent forward and began to calmly apply the lotion.

"I know you don't hold much affection for her, but she's dying. Can't you muster the tiniest bit of grief?"

"Nope." She lowered the one leg, lifted the other, and slathered it with the fragrant pink lotion as well.

Perry ran his hand through his hair. Maybe this news on top of her mother's unexpected appearance was simply too much for her. "Darling, we have to call the airline – no, we'll call Byron and have him fly us."

"Where do you get this 'we' stuff? She's my grandmother and I'm not going anywhere. Not until tomorrow, that is, when we head to the lake for two glorious weeks." Her hands were now rubbing the lotion up and down her arms unhurriedly.

He grasped her slippery lotion-covered upper arms and shook her gently. "Della, look at me."

Her eyes were large and surprised when she did as bidden. "What's your problem?"

"At this moment my problem is you. Your grandmother is dying and your father has asked for you. They may not be your favorite people in the world, but they are your family and they are reaching out to you. You're going if I have to drag you all the way by your hair."

"I'll be screaming the whole time," she warned, her posture stiff and defiant. "We have far too much to do, and I'm not happy about giving up a single day of our vacation."

"Scream all you want. We are going."

She dropped the towel from her body and turned her back on him. "Get out of my bathroom. I have to finish dressing."