Chapter 21
Perry very quickly outlined what he wanted on a pad of paper Oliver Velting produced from beneath the counter. The older man's leathery face split into a wide grin as the attorney's intent became clear, and he nodded with approving understanding when Perry finished scribbling and tore the sheet from the pad and handed it to him.
"I know what I'm asking is out of the ordinary, but it will mean a lot to Della. I hope we'll be leaving Friday morning," he said apologetically.
"Not a problem, Mr. Mason. I'll have it ready Thursday afternoon, you can count on it. My son will help me."
"Thank you, Mr. Velting."
The permanent crinkles around Oliver Velting's eyes deepened. "It's the least I can do for the little gal who gave me this." He reached up and removed the jar from its place of honor in the shadow box and set it on the counter in front of Perry Mason. "Without this, I might not have discovered my love of rocks. And I sure as shootin' wouldn't have survived grieving for Bernice."
Perry picked up the jar carefully and spun it slowly in his hands. The stones shifted and made comforting clinking noises against the glass. Although they were small, the stones were indeed pretty as they tumbled, and he was once more amazed by the woman who as a child had been wise enough to recognize the mesmerizing power of these stones, had harnessed that power, and with a pure heart had shared the power.
He handed the jar back to Oliver carefully and the older man replaced it in the shadow box just as a customer walked up behind Perry holding an impressive set of bookends made from an enormous geode cut in half and he wandered away from the counter to inspect the treasures Oliver Velting had brought back from his travels. Thirty minutes later he was back at the counter talking to the shop owner and another former mill employee when Della entered carrying several large bags and wearing a very becoming straw sun hat with a trailing scarf, and large dark sunglasses. She stood in the doorway for a moment while her eyes adjusted from the bright sunlight outside to the ambient lighting inside, and smiled when she saw the three men standing at the counter, hands in pockets jangling whatever it was men kept in their pockets that jangled, relaxed and enjoying their conversation. All three men watched her approach, each with a different kind of smile on their lips.
"Mr. Velting, Mr. Wexler," she greeted the two older men respectfully. "Lovely day, isn't it?"
"Hotter than you-know-what, but since I'm upright and breathing, I'll take it," Oliver Velting responded. "Sorry I missed your grandma's funeral. Had an appointment this morning."
"Mr. Velting, don't apologize. It was greatly appreciated that you came to the visitation." She sidled up next to Perry and held something out to him.
Perry looked down at what was in her hand and then at her face, her expression partially obstructed by the brim of her outrageous new hat and unreadable behind the lenses of the sunglasses. Without a word he took the five bills he had given to the check-out girl at Skogmo's and returned them to his money clip.
"The argument ended when it became clear I would walk out without buying anything," she explained. "They work partially on commission at Skogmo's."
Recognizing a brewing storm between the lawyer and his secretary, Oliver Velting and Jerry Wexler shuffled unobtrusively down to the end of the counter, leaving Perry and Della by themselves.
"I didn't know if they would take an out of town check from you."
"Perry, Miranda has shot off her mouth all over town. There isn't a soul over the age of five who doesn't know Grandmother left everything to me. I think my check would be accepted just about anywhere within a hundred-mile radius."
"You let me pay at Lorna's," he pointed out.
"That's because I ran away without my purse. And I was mad at you." She smiled briefly. "You didn't like it when I blurted then."
He was highly amused with her, despite his vexation at her inbred stubbornness. "Even blurting has its place."
She pursed her lips and spun to the two gentlemen standing at the other end of the counter. "It was very nice seeing you…" her words trailed off. She pulled the large sunglasses partially down her nose to get a better look at something that had caught her eye. She abruptly pushed the sunglasses back into place and smoothly carried on. "Your shop is marvelous, Mr. Velting. I wish we didn't have to run off, but Perry and I have a lot to do before we leave for California."
Oliver Velting winked at Perry Mason. "It was a pleasure seeing you again, missy," he said with sincerity, genuinely enjoying her surprise at seeing the jar of pretty stones so prominently displayed.
Perry relieved Della of most of her bags and bade the two older men good-bye as she led the way out of the rock shop. As they crossed the street to the Galaxie, passing cars tooted their horns and Della waved. She stood next to the car as Perry opened the trunk and placed her bags inside, fanning herself with a beribboned straw palm fan pulled from the depths of one of the shopping bags. Even dressed in clothes purchased in this town she stood out as different, and Perry couldn't help but notice how every person who passed by, male or female, gave her an admiring look.
"I don't want ice cream," she announced. "It's really too hot. I'd like a drink instead."
Perry shut the trunk and mopped his forehead with the back of his hand. "All right. I wondered why you hustled us out of Mr. Velting's shop. Where would you like this drink?"
She nodded up the street. "There are only two choices: Peter Stanton's place or the Elks Club. You aren't an Elk and I don't want to face Miranda right now, so I think I'd prefer to go back to the house." She laughed at the exaggerated expression of disbelief on his face. "I know. I'm as surprised as you are. There is plenty of fresh lemonade and Father has some vodka stashed in a kitchen cabinet with all the other booze he doesn't keep in decanters. Doesn't that sound good?"
"Drinking lemonade spiked with vodka under the weeping willow with a beautiful lady? How can I say no to that?" He moved around the back of the car and opened the driver's door for her. She laid her hand on his arm briefly before ducking her head and gracefully seating herself behind the steering wheel and sliding over so he could climb in.
Perry started the car and pulled away from the curb. Della took off the sun hat and tossed it into the back seat. "Mr. Velting's shop certainly is interesting," she commented offhandedly.
Perry turned on the blinker at the intersection of Allegan and Sherwood and waited while several cars passed them in the opposing lane. "Yes, it certainly is. I'm afraid I lost track of time looking at everything."
"I probably should have looked around a bit, but…"
"But you saw your pretty stones," he interrupted, "and it surprised you."
She yanked off her sunglasses and looked at him, eyes narrowed. "What do you know about my pretty stones?"
Traffic cleared and he was finally able to make the left-hand turn onto Sherwood Street. "Is there a street in town named after your family?"
"Street Street? That's a bit ridiculous, isn't it? Answer me, what do you know about my pretty stones?"
"I was thinking more along the lines of Street Avenue, or Street Boulevard."
"This town isn't big enough to have an avenue or a boulevard. Perry, tell me what you know about my pretty stones"
He reached over, plucked her hand from where it rested in her lap, and brought it to his lips. "Mr. Velting told me how a little gal with big eyes and a head of curls handed him a jar of stones so he wouldn't be sad about his wife. He took the innocent advice of a child and it helped him. How did you know to do that? He said you were all of six."
She cast her eyes downward and lifted her shoulders in a small shrug. "I don't remember much about when I was six."
"Della, don't fib. Mr. Velting told me a story that would make a grown man cry and it's all because you did something astounding as a child. You should be very proud of yourself."
She raised her head and stared straight ahead out the windshield as she began to speak haltingly. "I – I found them at the lake when I was five. Father rented a cottage and we stayed for two weeks every summer. I spent hours and hours sitting in the water where piles of stones had washed up, picking out the prettiest ones and putting them in an old wooden box. The day we were to leave, Father said he wouldn't allow me to haul a dirty box of rocks home and I cried and cried when he dumped them onto the ground and threw the box into the garbage. June yelled at him, I mean really yelled at him, and he yelled right back at her. I'd never heard either of them yell like that." She gave a slight shudder. "It was awful. I laid down on the grass and sobbed pitifully. June and Father went into the cottage and I could still hear them yelling at one another."
"Oh baby," he breathed, at once thrilled that she was telling him something about her childhood and devastated by the painful memory.
She took a deep, shaky breath before continuing. "I remember laying there in the grass crying and trying to gather my stones, when suddenly Grandmother was there, on her knees, helping me. She had rescued the box from the trash and scrubbed it clean. For over an hour we crawled through the grass looking for all my stones and putting them back in the box." Her eyes glistened with unshed tears yet again. "That's when I knew my stones were magical and I thought they were the most beautiful things I had ever seen. When we got home she gave me six canning jars and I divided the stones between them. I tied my hair ribbons around the lids – that made Grandmother mad – and hid the jars in my closet in that wooden box. At Christmas I gave the jars as gifts to June, Grandmother, Grandma Bitty and Aunt Mae."
"And then Mr. Velting's wife died," he prompted when she paused.
Della nodded. "Mrs. Velting was in the garden club with Grandmother and Mr. Velting worked at the mill so I had known them all of my little life. Mr. Velting was very sad, and I asked Grandmother if I could give him a jar so he would smile again."
"Mr. Velting said your grandmother nearly busted her corset laces she was so proud of you."
Della laughed and wiped her eyes. "That sounds like Mr. Velting."
"Well, I admit I added the part about busting corset laces, but that's the gist of what he told me." He braked the car at the four-way stop and turned to look at her briefly. "So you do have a good memory of your grandmother."
She was quiet as a single car passed through the intersection and didn't speak until Perry completed the turn onto Morrell Street toward her childhood home. "I guess I do," she admitted with a hint of wonder, as if she had never considered the events surrounding her pretty stones to be anything but traumatic.
"Where is the sixth jar?"
"Huh?"
"The sixth jar. Where is it? You only gave five away."
"It broke when I was twelve."
"Oh." He turned the car onto the inclined driveway of the Street estate and was glad to see only Jameson's Buick Riviera, Carter's Chevy Belair, and Henny's ancient Ford Custom Coupe parked in front of the house. The wake was officially over.
"You sound disappointed."
He pulled the Galaxie up behind Carter's aqua and white Belair convertible and killed the engine. "I am. I was hoping you would give the sixth jar to me if you still had it. How did it break?"
"I threw it against the wall."
"Della! Why did you do that?"
"Because the magic was gone."
Perry turned in the seat to face her. She was sitting ramrod straight as far away from him as she could get, still staring out the windshield, refusing to look at him. Her tears had evaporated and the muscles along her finely sculpted jawline were tense. Perry knew instantly why she had thought the magic had worn off her stones. "You were saving it for her, weren't you? The sixth jar was for your mother."
"Yes." The single word was heart-wrenching, somewhere between a sob and a whisper.
"But she never came home." Perry didn't think he had ever felt hate for a person as much as he felt for Della's mother. He realized he was gripping the steering wheel hard enough to snap it and relaxed his fingers a bit. "Such a gift," he muttered.
"What?"
"Take the money, Della. Take it, and take the mill, the house, the furniture, the jewelry…take everything. Take it and liquidate it and be done with these people and this town. Not one of them is worthy of a kind thought or backward glance from you, least of all your mother, and it would serve them right to lose what they assumed would be theirs."
All the tenseness in Della's face drained away and she regarded him with shining, tender eyes. "Well, we know what the man who loves me thinks. Let's hear from my attorney next."
Perry drew in a huge breath and expelled it slowly. This woman beside him, this intelligent, sometimes inappropriately funny, infuriatingly independent, warm-hearted, monumentally strong woman he couldn't imagine not loving, had lived among people unable to give her love and yet she had somehow managed to conquer them all. As her lover he wanted her to hit them where it hurt most, spit on them, and return to California without a single regretful thought. He should have listened to her – this was a terrible place – and today he wasn't sure anything he had learned about her was worth the pain and anxiety she had suffered. How had a little cocoon named Maeve living among such repression and destined to become…well, Miranda Allensworth… become instead the beautiful butterfly that was Della?
"I do love you," he said quietly.
"I know you do."
They stared at one another for long seconds, each totally absorbed in the other's eyes, knowing that even if Perry sometimes spoke harshly to her or she hid within herself from him when she was troubled, it didn't mean there wasn't committed love and respect between them.
Perry reached out and very gently drew an invisible line down her cheek. "Your attorney advises you to do what makes sense to you. He won't judge you, and he won't try to talk you out of anything that isn't perfectly legal. He will guide you and protect you and take care of your best interests."
Her smile was slow to form, playing sweetly across trembling lips. "That sounds a lot like what the man who loves me does."
"Well, they talk to one another occasionally," he admitted with twinkling eyes and a flash of dimples.
She suddenly became exceptionally warm from the inside out, his utter attractiveness and proximity creating a heady mixture of scorching desire. "It's sweltering in here," she said, somewhat flustered.
Perry immediately flung open the door, reached across the seat and half-dragged her out of the car and into his arms. She melted into him, raising eager lips to his with a low moan. The kiss was slow and long, their tongues dipping and dancing, intimately exploring familiar but exciting depths until neither one could breathe without gasping.
"Is there anything I can say to change your mind about the ice cream?" Perry whispered in her ear as his lips left hers to explore the silken skin of her neck.
Della went limp with helpless laughter and he crushed her to him, burying his face in her hair and taking a deep, cleansing breath of…her.