I Dreamed I Married Perry Mason Read online

  Families. I had been thinking about them a lot lately, and they were all scary, every last one of them. Eleanor and Olga. Murderous Morgan Allan, his spooky daughter, Meredith, and her son, Burnett. Joe the liar and his dead wife, Jean, who thought it would be fun to blackmail her sister’s lesbian lover, among others. There was Ellie, who was afraid her daughter would find out about her past, and the Winters clan: a cheating legislator, a fix-it son, and a screwup grandson. Then there was my family—my mother, who could still wound me with a word; my father, who had died before I could prove myself to him; and my daughter, who regarded me as superfluous. What did Tolstoy say? Happy families are all alike. Unhappy ones are each unhappy in their own way.

  Lael’s barbecues were like that, come to think of it, each its own unique species of disaster. I hoped this year’s would be the one we’d all forget. That it would be blissfully uneventful. That the highlight of the afternoon would be one of the children catching sight of a rainbow. That we’d eat, drink, and go home to our wide-screen TVs, those of us who have wide-screen TVs, that is. You never can tell.

  36

  Tomas, the default architect of Lael’s rabbit warren of a residence, opened the front door.

  “Hi, Cece!” he said, jolly as all get-out. I gave him a hug. We were old friends. He and his brother had master-planned my office.

  Tomas’s wife, Rosario, smiled warmly and handed Gambino and me little flags with pictures of Emma Goldman silkscreened onto them.

  “Emma Goldman was a major figure in the history of radicalism and feminism. Lael told us,” said Tomas. “Very interesting.”

  “Emma Goldman spent some time in Buffalo,” Gambino said. “It was there that she first insisted that higher wages and shorter hours were an integral part of the revolutionary transformation of society.”

  “Buffalo,” I mused. “The cradle of civilization.”

  “Everyone’s in the back,” said Rosario. “I’ll take your things.”

  We followed the bluesy strains of “John Henry” out to the pool.

  “Cece!” Lael shouted, making her way through the crowd. The place was packed with Lael’s kids, most of their dads, their dads’ wives and girlfriends and boyfriends, a few neighbors I recognized, Tomas and his crew and their wives and girlfriends and boyfriends, and, over by the bar, the tamale-eating agent from the farmer’s market, wearing a different baseball hat.

  “You’re a sight for sore eyes, Detective Gambino,” Lael said.

  “I can’t believe the tamale guy is here,” I whispered.

  “You think you’re the only one who can pick somebody up?” she asked gaily.

  Before I could open my mouth, she slipped her arm through Gambino’s and said, “I’m being mean. Cece’s got eyes only for you.”

  I wasn’t sure if I should thank her or slap her.

  Lael gave me a squeeze. “You know I love you,” she said.

  “Me, too,” I answered. “I’m sorry for before.”

  “Forget it. This is a party, right? Get some drinks and mingle, you two.”

  We strolled over to the bar and helped ourselves to a couple of Coronas.

  “I guess Annie’s not here yet.”

  “Nope.”

  “I’m going to be calm, cool, and collected when I see her.”

  “Of course you are,” said Gambino, taking a slug of his beer.

  “Are you being sarcastic?”

  “I know better.”

  We sat down on a slightly moldy wooden bench.

  “I dreamed about you last night, Peter.”

  “I dreamed about you, too,” he said, scooting a little closer and risking a splinter.

  “Actually, it was more about your mother.”

  “That’s so romantic.”

  “Gambino, why are you always so…what’s the opposite of nonplussed?”

  “Can I have your attention?” Lael ushered everyone over to a little stage she’d set up behind the pool. “The kids have prepared something on the Labor Day theme, if we can give them our attention for a minute or two. They’ve been working on it all week.”

  “Come with me,” Gambino said, taking my hand.

  The kids filed behind the stained red curtain. There was muffled laughter. Zoe peeked her head through and stuck her tongue out at no one in particular. After yanking her backstage, Tommy made his entrance. In classic adolescent fashion, he looked too big and too small at the same time.

  “Voltaire,” he announced. “‘Work spares us from three great evils: boredom, vice, and need.’”

  Everyone clapped.

  “Man, they ought to post that at the station house,” Gambino said.

  “Zoe, your turn,” prompted Lael.

  All smiles now, she took her place next to her brother. “Tennis, anyone?” she lisped.

  “No, Tennyson,” Tommy whispered in her ear.

  “‘Death is the end of life,’” she recited, giggling. “‘Ah, why should life all labor be?’”

  She hopped off the stage into Lael’s arms.

  “Hi, Mom,” said a voice behind me.

  “Annie!” I turned around and gave her a hug. “Hi, baby. I’m so happy you’re here. You remember Peter, don’t you?”

  “Sure. How are you?”

  “I’m great,” he said. “It’s good to see you again, Annie.”

  “So,” I said, craning my neck, “where’s the rest of your group?”

  “Cece,” Gambino cautioned.

  “They’re helping Alexander change into his swimsuit,” Annie whispered, pointing to the stage.

  “My turn,” said Nina, with all the dignity a ten-year-old could muster. She took a deep breath.

  “‘Most men in a brazen prison live/Where in the sun’s hot eye/With heads bent o’er their toil, they languidly/Their lives to some unmeaning taskwork give/Dreaming of nought beyond their prisonwall.’ By Matthew Arnold, a famous poet of the Victorian era.” She gave a little curtsy.

  “I will recite baby August’s for him,” Lael said, smiling down at him, fast asleep with his pacifier in his mouth. “‘Honest labour bears a lovely face.’ It’s from Thomas Dekker, and I have no idea who he is, so don’t ask. Now let’s eat!”

  Tomas and Rosario were poised at the grill. Gambino went over to place our orders. Nina ushered the kids over to the side yard and passed out printed menus.

  “They’re eating better than we are,” I said to Annie. “Spaghetti and meatballs, roasted baby potatoes with sea salt, green salad with tomatoes, and coffee.”

  “Oh, get a load of this, Mom,” she said, as Tommy marched out with the plates.

  The pasta was a heap of bubble gum tape, generously topped with malted milk balls and strawberry fruit roll-up for sauce. The lettuce and tomato salad consisted of a pile of gummy spearmint leaves and Swedish berries. The potatoes were balls of marzipan rolled in cocoa. And the coffee, served in gleaming white teacups, looked suspiciously like melted chocolate.

  “Are you sure you covered all the food groups?” Annie asked Lael.

  “I covered chocolate, didn’t I?”

  “Alexander’s a chocolate freak already. C’mon, Mom,” she said, taking my arm. “I want you to meet him.”

  Vincent was heading our way, with a tiny Vincent in tow.

  “Hello, Alexander,” I said, putting out my hand. He was clutching a speckled Superball as if his life depended on it.

  “Is that your special toy?” I asked.

  “No,” he answered solemnly.

  “No is his favorite word,” Vincent explained. “No, no, no, all day long. You can ask him if he wants ice cream, and he’ll say no. But he doesn’t mean it, do you, little guy?”

  “No,” he said, clambering into Vincent’s arms. He buried his face against his father’s chest.

  “He’s a little shy sometimes.”

  “He’s beautiful, Vincent.”

  “I’m really lucky. Roxana’s in the bathroom, changing. I hope you have a chance to meet her, too, Cece.” />
  “Of course,” I said, looking to Annie for guidance. I had no idea what I was supposed to say or do or think. But Annie seemed happy, and that was good enough for me.

  Gambino appeared with two plates piled high with hot dogs, pickles, and potato salad and propelled me toward a table in a shady corner.

  “Excuse me,” he said to two women who were going at their corn on the cob like there was no tomorrow. “Can we sit here?”

  They nodded, tight-lipped. I’ve never understood why people serve corn on the cob at parties.

  We sat down.

  “I’m proud of you, Cece,” he said. “That was hard.”

  “Thanks,” I said, leaning into him. His sweater felt soft against my bare arm. “Let’s talk about something else.”

  “There is something, but I don’t know if I want to get into it here.”

  “C’mon, Gambino, you can’t stop now,” I said, sitting up.

  “Man, this potato salad is good. I think there’s horse-radish in it.”

  “Gambino.”

  “There’ve been a couple of breaks in the Flynn case,” he said, chewing enthusiastically.

  “What?”

  “Well, for one thing, they finally picked up Gil, the missing twin. He had a lot of cash and not a lot of alibi.”

  “Alibis are overrated.”

  “They also got a fingerprint.”

  “You have something on your lip.”

  He dabbed at his mouth with his napkin.

  “No, there, I got it.” He had very nice lips.

  “Thanks.”

  “So they got a fingerprint,” I prompted, excited now.

  “Yeah.”

  “And it doesn’t match Gil’s, does it?”

  “No, it doesn’t.”

  “I told you,” I said triumphantly.

  “That doesn’t rule him out by a long shot, Cece.”

  “Wait a second. I thought the place had been wiped clean.”

  “Yeah, well, for some reason Moriarty had the crime scene guys go back in for another look around. And lo and behold, on the dresser in the bedroom they found some prints they’d missed the first time around. Can you believe that?”

  The dresser? They couldn’t be mine. We’d worn gloves. I thought back. Damn. I must have already taken the gloves off when I remembered about putting Mrs. Flynn’s ring back.

  “That’s not all, Cece.”

  “There’s more?”

  “They got some footprints in the mud out in the backyard. One of them was a woman’s boot.”

  I started panicking.

  “Size nine Jimmy Choo with a three-and-a-half-inch spike heel. Ring any bells?”

  “I must try that potato salad,” I said.

  “What the hell were you doing there?”

  “I found the body, remember?”

  The corn enthusiasts were hanging on our every word now.

  “Excuse me, this is a private conversation.”

  “Cece!” said Gambino.

  The ladies went beet red and moved next to a hedge of diseased eugenias.

  “You know, you really are something.”

  “Is that a compliment?”

  “No.”

  “Thanks a lot.”

  “You can’t scam me, Cece. I know you too well.”

  “And you call yourself a cop?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Oh, come on. The easiest people to scam are the ones who think they know you.”

  “Are you telling me I only think I know you?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “What did you say?”

  “Ohmigod, that’s it!” I cried.

  “What’s it? What the hell are you talking about, Cece?”

  “Jean scammed Joe from the beginning, that’s what I’m talking about!” I grabbed Gambino and planted a kiss on his lips. A big fat one.

  “I’d ask for seconds,” he said, “but you look a little scary. Like the cat who ate the canary.”

  “Yeah, me and Jean,” I said, grinning.

  “I don’t get it.”

  “It was a perfect scam, Gambino. Jean was blinking dollar signs when she realized exactly what she’d found among Joe’s mother’s papers. If she could just make him fall in love with her—Joe, I mean—if she could actually become his wife, she’d be sitting pretty when he claimed what was rightfully his. She’d be rich, like she’d always dreamed of. That’s why she sat on the information for so long! Blackmail, man, that was small potatoes compared to this!”

  “Compared to what?”

  “Poor Joe never even knew what hit him. All of a sudden, he was a married man. But the jig was up when Jean found out about Joe and Meredith. She realized Joe might very well leave her before the whole story about the fathers and the oil partnership came out, netting her precisely nothing for her years of trouble. And even if Joe didn’t wind up leaving her, could she have convinced him to institute a suit against his lover’s father? Probably not. So Jean fell back on old habits, trying to squeeze whatever she could out of Morgan.”

  “You lost me,” Gambino said.

  “Listen, I have to go, Peter. I have to settle this.”

  “That sounds ominous.”

  I sprang up from the table, knocking over both our plates of food in the process.

  “Cece, don’t be foolish,” Gambino warned.

  “I have one stop to make before going home, that’s it. Don’t worry.”

  A woman with a purpose, I caught Lael’s eye and waved good-bye. But I wouldn’t be leaving just yet. Because as I sailed through the sliding glass door, little Alexander fell into the deep end of the pool.

  37

  It was like watching a movie on fast forward.

  First, there was the splash. Then, somebody, I think it was Rosario, yelling, “The little boy! The little boy! He’s fallen in!” Then someone was jumping in after him. It was Annie.

  Before I had even allowed that to register, Vincent was there, at the edge of the pool. And then he was diving in. When he came up for air, he was smiling. He had them both in his arms.

  “Vincent!” Roxana yelled. “What on earth are you doing? You know Alexander’s been able to swim since he was three months old! Give me my son,” she said, reaching out for the little boy. “So much fuss. Ah, don’t cry, love,” she murmured into his ear.

  “Alexander can swim, but Annie can’t,” Vincent replied. “She needed me. And I need her. I need you,” he said, looking into her eyes.

  “I need you, too,” she said, crying.

  They struggled out of the water, their arms wrapped tightly around each other.

  “What on earth is going on?” I asked Roxana. “Aren’t the two of you back together?”

  “Me and Vincent?” she asked, laughing. “No way. He’s a nice guy, but please. It’s always been Annie for him. And I’m engaged,” she said, waving a stupendous diamond in my face.

  “Watch it!” I said. “That thing’s dangerous.”

  “Sorry. Anyway, my fiancé’s in Canada until November, cutting an album. Christian rock. He’s gonna be huge.”

  You never can tell. Well, maybe certain people can, if they aren’t running around like certain other people, jumping to conclusions. I looked over to where Annie and Vincent were standing. Annie was my hero. She was sopping wet and shivering. I wanted to go to her, to tell her how much I loved her. But her husband was taking care of her, and everything was going to be fine.

  Gambino came over and put his arm around me.

  “Let’s go home,” he said.

  “One stop first, okay?” I batted my baby blues.

  Gambino didn’t stay long. He said he didn’t want to rush things, the way we had last time. I knew he was right, but that didn’t keep me from missing him the moment he turned to go.

  I watched him pull out. And watched a beat-up blue Camaro pull in. Right into my driveway, like he owned the place. The guy stepped out of his car and started up the wa
lk toward me, cocky as hell.

  “Don’t take another step,” I said, brandishing Mimi as a weapon.

  “Hey, I’m harmless.”

  “I’ve heard that before.” He did look a lot skinnier than I’d remembered. And younger.

  “I’ll pay anything.”

  “How dare you?”

  “I’ll do anything.”

  “Don’t even think about it.”

  “That Testament shirt you were wearing the other morning. I have to know. Is it from the show’s first season? It is, isn’t it? Oh, man, I have to have it. I’m a Govian, a total Commander Gow freak.”

  Never assume.

  After the kid left with the T-shirt and an autographed script I’d found lying around, I put a pot of coffee on and sat down at the kitchen table. There was a stack of mail to open, most of it bills, but that didn’t seem very enticing. There was always shopping. Luckily, it was too late. Only the malls were still open and I had standards, thank you very much. With a dramatic flourish I swept the mail into a drawer and headed out to the garden. Time to euthanize my vegetables. They’d lived a good life. What more can any of us ask for?

  I pulled on a pair of dirt-encrusted gloves and went to work. Big hunks of earth went flying. Buster was sitting ringside, hoping to find a snail to torture. There were plenty of those to choose from. Up went the remains of my once glorious eggplants, polished to an inky sheen, as beautiful to behold as to savor in a cheesy moussaka. Up went the garlic chives, which had begun to confound me midway through the season. Up went the parsley, which I’d had the misfortune to plant a day before a heat wave. Up went the carcasses of my four tomato plants, which had served me so long and so well. That latter operation took the better part of an hour.

  Darkness fell, and I was done. Covered in sweat, I dropped my loppers and my pruning shears and peeled off my gloves. I have to say I found the whole experience, scrapes and all, even more satisfying than planting the seedlings in the first place. Maybe it was because the slate had been wiped clean. Next spring, I’d have another shot at it.

  The tomatoes would be red and unblemished, every one of them. The cilantro would thrive for more than two weeks. I’d conquer those fleshy green hornworms, those squash bugs, and those Mexican bean beetles who attack the underside of leaves, devouring all but the stringy veins. I wouldn’t neglect my oak leaf lettuce such that its tender, thick midribs grew skyward while the outer leaves crumbled into dust. My novelty cucumber plant would yield more than a single deformed specimen. I’d do everything right next time. Why not?