Free I Dreamed I Married Perry Mason by Susan Kandel

looked the other way. Lace-curtain Irish. We had to be perfect little ladies. Jean couldn’t stand that. She went through some rough patches.”
    I sipped tea, and she talked about her dead sister.
    â€œJean was a good girl. She really was. But she always felt she was a disappointment to everyone, making one mistake after another, never living up to her potential.”
    â€œThat must have been difficult.”
    â€œIt was. For me, too. She used to see everything I accomplished as an attack on her, as part of some grand plan to humiliate her. But it wasn’t like that. Not at all. I loved my sister dearly.”
    â€œI can see that.”
    â€œJoe changed everything. He worked some kind of magic on her. He made her feel special. And she became special. She truly did. She turned herself around. We didn’t understand at first, how it all happened. It was right after his mother died that they got serious. Maybe he was vulnerable, maybe he saw something in her the rest of us didn’t. Oh, she was pretty, Jean was, and smart as can be. But unpolished, not the kind everybody thought he’d wind up with.”
    â€œFrom what I understand, Joe wasn’t exactly born with a silver spoon in his mouth.”
    â€œTrue. But he was on his way up, and everyone knew it. Jean knew it, too. She was sure they could make something of their lives, if only they stuck together. She wanted to be someone, you see. To show everyone. But it was all for nothing,” Mrs. Flynn said, her smile dissolving.
    â€œDidn’t you ever question his guilt?” I asked, hoping she’d throw me a crumb.
    She looked away, as if to even acknowledge the question would be a betrayal.
    Finally, she said in a low voice, “I did, at first. I didn’t want to believe it. It hardly seemed possible that such a thing could happen, that this boy we all admired so much could be responsible for something so awful.” She grabbed hold of the arm of the sofa, as if she needed to steady herself.I should have stopped her from going on, but I had to know.
    â€œI went to see him in jail that first night, Miss Caruso,” she said, her eyes looking into mine now. “He was devastated. It was as if his soul had up and left his body. I was frightened—he wasn’t moving, wasn’t speaking. I worried about him, I did, but the evidence just seemed to mount.” Her voice rose. “And who else could have done it? Tell me. Who could have wanted to harm her? It was the only explanation. The police insisted. It’s always the husband.”
    I wasn’t about to convince her that there were dozens of other scenarios that could have played out that night. This was the story she’d chosen to believe. I was ready to give up when she caught me off guard.
    â€œThen I found the scrap of paper. It changed everything. Any doubts I may have harbored about Joe’s guilt were gone forever.”
    Mrs. Flynn was a refined woman, but not one to equivocate. She walked over to the roll-top desk, opened the bottom drawer, and took out a very small, very yellowed piece of paper. It was crumbling at the edges.
    â€œRead what it says.”
    â€œâ€˜Meredith Allan. MI6-7979.’” I looked up. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
    She sighed. “Maddy Seaton, Jean’s best friend, told me Jean suspected Joe of having an affair. The police as much as guessed that anyway. That’s usually how it goes. But they couldn’t find any proof. That was only because they didn’t look hard enough. I found that scrap of paper stuck to the bottom drawer of Jean’s desk a few years ago, when I was cleaning it out. The police must’ve missed it all those yearsago when they searched the house after she’d been killed. I had to peel it off the wood. It’s Joe’s handwriting, you see. And Meredith Allan was the richest, most beautiful girl in town. Joe fell in love with