Chapter 11

Emmett Childers had been Katherine Street's attorney for thirty-seven years, following the untimely demise of his father Eugene in an accident caused by his younger brother Edison, who also lost his life. The elder Childers had been Katherine Street's husband's attorney and then hers since the premature passing of her husband Walker, and she felt it important to keep her affairs as private as possible. Therefore, she entrusted her interests with Eugene's eldest son, fresh out of law school and barely ensconced in the office his father had so proudly prepared for him at his firm. He had admirably managed her modest holdings coming out of the Depression into an impressive portfolio and remained devoted to her even in death.

It had been his client's wish that a specific list of people be contacted for the reading of her will on the second day following her passing. She never explained to Emmett why the reading had to be on the second day, and he had never asked. One of the main reasons he had been her attorney for thirty-seven years was his ability to go about his business without prying questions. So he had dutifully contacted everyone on Katherine Street's list and arranged a reading for ten o'clock Saturday morning at the Street mansion.

It was now ten minutes to ten, and Emmett Childers announced that all but two people expected had yet to arrive. With some grumbling, Carter had rearranged the furniture in the parlor to face Katherine's intricately carved five drawer mahogany writing desk where her attorney was now seated. Henny was making sure that anyone who wanted coffee got a cup, Della was downing cup after cup of that coffee and yawning, and Perry was trying his darndest not to as he scanned the collective heirs to Katherine Street's fortune with open curiosity.

Henny Vander Velde had arrived at eighty-thirty and bustled about the kitchen preparing coffee and laying out assorted cookies and biscuits dropped off the previous day by the mass of townsfolk wishing to convey their condolences. Jameson and Carter were surprised to learn that she had actually been called by Emmett Childers to attend the reading, and was not there simply in her capacity as an employee.

Lawrence and Sarah Allensworth arrived at nine-forty, and were introduced to Perry as the parents of Della's life-long friend Miranda. Sarah Allensworth was also the daughter of Katherine Street's life-long friend Esther Dalrymple, who had passed away eight years before.

Eve Wyman floated down the stairs at quarter to ten, dressed in a sinfully expensive dove grey silk dress and a smug smile, with no lingering signs of the previous day's malady. She alternated coy glances toward her ex-husband and Perry Mason as she collected a breakfast of cookies and coffee before seating herself front and center in the red velvet love seat.

Perry lost his battle with a yawn just as a powerfully built man dressed in an impeccable blue suit appeared in the doorway. Hiding behind the pretense of the yawn, he studied the new arrival carefully. The man could be his own relative. Tall and long-legged, gifted with lustrous wavy black hair lightly shot through with grey and piercing blue eyes, the man exuded confidence. He entered the room with an unapologetic swagger, and headed straight to the coffee service Henny had laid out on the sofa table.

"Garrett," Della said in quiet surprise, lifting one eyebrow.

"Who's Garrett?" Perry recovered from the prodigious yawn and leaned toward Della. She smelled like Palmolive soap, a breath of freshness in the stale, stuffy parlor and wore a simple sleeveless white eyelet blouse, a grey-blue skirt sprinkled with tiny embroidered daisies and flat white shoes. He had commented on the outfit upon collecting her from her room to escort her to the meeting, and she had given him a small smile and a terse explanation that it was something she had 'left behind' and been forced to wear because the clothes in her suitcase consisted of shorts and bathing suits and negligees meant for lounging at the lake house and not for attending readings of wills or accepting company hell bent on being recognized for conveying their condolences in the passing of the great Katherine Street. The addition of gold dangle earrings and the gold charm bracelet he had given her on their second anniversary transformed the outfit from teeny-bopper to sophisticated and he longed to methodically divest her of every stitch by candlelight with Sinatra crooning in the background.

"Garrett Kirby," she replied out the side of her mouth.

Perry's eyes narrowed. "So that's Mae's ex-husband, huh? Handsome devil."

"I'd forgotten how much you resemble him in build and coloring."

"There is a superficial resemblance," Perry admitted. "He's in good shape."

"Garrett was always very concerned with his looks. It's rumored that he colors his hair. Aunt Mae said one of the reasons he wanted a divorce was that he didn't think she would age well."

"The cad," Perry seethed. "Would she be upset with me if I punched him in the nose?"

Della gazed at him with affectionate amusement. "It wasn't the only reason, and she would be mortified if she knew you knew." She squeezed his arm. "But thank you for the sentiment."

"Just say the word and I'll be more than happy to re-landscape his face."

"I wonder why on earth he's here. I don't really know why any of these people are here. Father and Carter will get the house and the mill. She probably bequeathed that damn piano to me."

"Did your grandmother have cash assets?"

Della shrugged. "She could have, I suppose. I always got the impression that the bulk of whatever the mill netted was re-invested, but I didn't actually pay much attention when they talked business. She held all the shares except for a few Aunt Mae inherited from Grandpa Sherwood that she signed over to Garrett in the divorce."

That surprised Perry. "Really? That's very interesting. Who's this?"

Della turned and suddenly stiffened at the sight of a small, bird-like grey-haired woman in a floral print dress standing in the parlor doorway. The woman made a beeline for Eve Wyman, brushing past Jameson Street without so much as a glance. "It's Bitty Sherwood, my step-grandmother. She kidnapped me when I was four and held me for ransom."

Before Perry could respond to that forthrightly delivered bombshell, Emmett Childers clapped his hands together loudly. "Everyone that Katherine Street wished to be summoned is here now, except for Mae Kirby, who could not attend and Junelle Barton, who respectfully declined to attend. Please sit down."

"Perfect word, summoned," Della whispered to a still-speechless Perry.

There was a bit of shuffling as the gathering of apparent heirs settled themselves in chairs that Carter had arranged in a semblance of a semi-circle facing his grandmother's desk. Emmett Childers stood, pulled an eyeglass case from the pocket of his suit coat and very deliberately slid a pair of reading glasses onto his aquiline nose. He unfolded several pages of thick cream-colored paper and cleared his throat. "Katherine Street was a no-nonsense person," he began, and rattled the papers in his hands. "She instructed me to skip over formalities and legal jargon and get right to the point."

He lowered his head and glanced at what everyone assumed was the last will and testament of Katherine Ann Jameson Street, then peered at the assemblage before him over the rim of his glasses. "Della gets everything." He abruptly re-folded the sheaf of papers, sat down, and removed his glasses.

No one moved, no one spoke, no one breathed.

"Catch her," Garrett Kirby shout echoed in the cavernous parlor, "she's going to pass out!"

Della stared at Perry, mouth slightly agape, hazel eyes huge in her pale face. Carter and Jameson were attending to a limp, shell-shocked Henny while Garrett Kirby and Eve Wyman had managed to lift Bitty Sherwood back into the loveseat from which the elderly woman had fallen. Lawrence and Sarah Allensworth were still seated on the sofa, watching and waiting anxiously, wondering if they dared sneak out in all the commotion.

Perry regarded Della soberly. "It appears you won't have to work now."

Della's expression cleared and hardened. "I suppose I won't," she replied coldly.

Perry was instantly remorseful of his words. "Della, I didn't mean –"

"Be quiet," she hissed. "Mr. Childers, you can't be serious, but if you are, I declare right here and now that I don't want anything from my grandmother."

Emmett Childers removed his glasses and leaned his arms on Katherine Street's writing desk. "I'm quite serious, Della. Your grandmother's entire estate is now yours. The mill stock, the house and its contents, the property, her liquid assets, her earthly possessions; all of it is yours. She was adamant in her instructions."

Perry rose to his feet and placed his hand on Della's shoulder. She shrugged it off irritably. He replaced it and held on more firmly. "If you don't mind, Mr. Childers, I'd like to read Mrs. Street's will. I'm an attorney."

Emmett Childers sat back in the carved mahogany chair and laced his fingers over a slight paunch. He smiled at Perry Mason. "I know very well who you are, Mr. Mason," the attorney said. "You are more than welcome to read Katherine's will. However, it is merely a formality. The substance of her bequest to Della is in the form of a letter and several supportive documents." He nodded toward the sheaf of paper he had laid on the desk. "The letter is addressed to everyone she requested to be present."

"That bitch!"

All eyes swung toward a red-faced, furious Eve Wyman, who had uttered the expletive. "She promised! She was supposed to give me the rest of the money for –" Della's mother suddenly clamped her lips shut and lowered her head. Bitty Sherwood, recovered now from her swoon, put her arm around her distraught step-daughter.

"The rest of the money for what, Evie?" Jameson Street ceased patting Henny Vander Velde's hand comfortingly. Carter seized the hand and held it tightly in his own. Jameson looked around the room in bewilderment. "Did my mother make promises to all of you? What's going on here?"

Emmett Childers pushed back his chair and stood. "Jameson, I think you had better read your mother's letter. It explains everything."

Della's father passed his hand over his face in frustration. "I'm in no frame of mind to read anything now, Emmett. My mother, to whom I was completely devoted, has reached out from the grave and slapped my face. And she invited all these people to bear witness to my humiliation."

"Oh Jameson, don't be so dramatic," Bitty Sherwood spoke for the first time. "Katherine humiliated you your entire life. You were just too devoted to see it."

Jameson Street spun on his former in-law. "Be quiet, Bitty. I can't conceive of why you are even here."

"Can't you? Think hard, Jameson."

"I know why," Della offered in a small voice.

"We already know how smart you are," Eve Wyman said tartly. "Let your father figure everything out himself."

Jameson Street lowered himself to a chair slowly, all color draining from his face. "She paid you." He opened his mouth to speak again, but nothing emerged. He gulped visibly and stared at his ex-wife. "She paid you to leave. She paid you to divorce me and abandon our child. And she paid Bitty a ransom when she took Della..."

Eve Wyman calmly ran her hands over her expensive silk dress. "Very good, Jameson. Now we know where Maeve got her brains."

Carter made an unidentifiable noise. "Maeve! I had forgotten all about that."

Henny Vander Velde shook her head in confusion. "Who is Maeve?"

"I'm Maeve." Della told her. "My name was changed when I was two."

Sarah Allensworth expelled a breath that she probably had been holding for many years. "You have no idea how difficult it was not to slip and call you Maeve when you were a child. We all thought Miranda might, but she never did."

"Was the whole town in on this little name conspiracy? What difference would it have made to tell me my name was changed?"

"Katherine didn't want you to know," Sarah Allensworth replied, as if that made perfect sense.

"She didn't want you to know a lot of things," Eve Wyman added mysteriously.

"Obviously, if she paid you to disappear from my life." Della gripped the edge of the piano bench, which she had inexplicably selected as her seat for the will reading. "You had no interest in meeting me, did you? Grandma Bitty called you and told you about Grandmother."

"That is not true. I saw your picture in the paper."

"Perhaps you did, Mrs. Wyman," Perry interjected. "But that was merely a convenient coincidence. You weren't planning to contact Della until Mrs. Sherwood contacted you and you decided to initiate a last-minute connection with the daughter you abandoned before the woman with the money passed away. You were covering all bases."

"You've been a criminal attorney too long," Eve told him breezily. "You misinterpret the most innocent of intentions as suspicious."

"I don't think so," he replied slowly. "How much did she pay you back then, and what did she promise to pay you upon her death?"

"None of your business." Eve Wyman smiled engagingly at Perry Mason. "I don't have to explain why I did what I did or what transpired between me and my mother-in-law."

"The letter explains everything," Emmett Childers repeated for the benefit of anyone who might listen.

"I forbid that letter to be distributed until my attorney has had the opportunity to read it," Eve Wyman said quickly. "I'm fairly certain Katherine slandered me."

"Libeled," Della corrected her mother.

"What?"

"Slander is verbal. Libel is a written state – "

"Yes, yes, yes," Eve Wyman interrupted impatiently. "I still insist that my attorney read that letter before any other eyes see it."

Emmett Childers pursed his lips slightly. "The letter is an adjunct document to Katherine Street's will. The will was duly witnessed and filed. It states that Della is to receive the entirety of her grandmother's estate in standard legalese. The letter explains why in Katherine's words. I assure you that the utmost attention was paid to the construction of the letter. It was witnessed and notarized three months ago."

"All that is neither here nor there," Eve Wyman said with confident finality.

Della held out her hand. "I'd like to read it."

Her mother gave an exclamation of exasperation. "Did you not hear what I just said?"

Della visibly prickled. "I don't give a rat's –"

"Mrs. Wyman," Perry hurriedly interrupted Della. "The tort of libel is extremely difficult point of law. You must prove that the written statement was false and made without adequate knowledge as to the validity of the statement. But most importantly, you must prove that the statement caused harm and be able to quantify that harm. You as much as admitted that your mother-in-law paid you to divorce your husband and leave town. We all heard it. You have no legal right to impede the distribution of that letter before it has been read."

"I also insist upon my attorney reading the letter before it is distributed," Garrett Kirby announced. His voice was not deep, but it was commanding. Perry could tell he was accustomed to getting his own way, much the same as he himself was. "I made no incriminating statements."

Della's hand dropped to her side. "I'll play your silly game," she said to all assembled. "Since I'm the sole beneficiary of Grandmother's estate, I insist that my attorney read the letter before anyone else's attorney."

Emmett Childers handed two sheets of the cream-colored paper with satisfaction to a grinning Perry Mason.