The Case of the Empty Bottle 
	
	Della Street had just turned the heat on the stove to begin supper when the phone rang.  Glancing at the clock she could practically bet her bottom dollar on who the caller was.  Tossing the dishtowel over her shoulder she answered the phone, “Hello?”
	“Della,” Paul Drake said and didn’t wait for her to answer back, “Get down to the office, open the private door and wait for a new client.  Perry’ll be there after we run down a lead.” 
	“Paul, I can’t tonight,” she insisted.
	“Perry says different.  Now, do I tell Perry that you can’t do what he says or do I get to live another day?” Drake asked.  Della sighed.  She’d done the same thing to him when it was just as important, so she could hardly protest.  
	“All right, I’ll be down there.  Who am I waiting for anyway?”
	“Karen Pierce,” Drake said, “short brown hair, green eyes, wavy…”
	“Yeah, yeah, as usual, see ya later,” she said and hung up.  With a sigh she turned to her guest, “Sorry, we’ve got to go down to the office.  But don’t worry you’ll get to eat when we get there.”
	The toothless infant giggled at her and bounced up and down in the seat.  Della hurried and grabbed the stuff left by Janie Meadows for the baby and her coat and got down to the office.  

	Perry Mason entered the private door and was going to start barking orders when he stopped.  Della and Karen were busy keeping a baby occupied.  He thought a second.  Karen didn’t have a baby; at least he didn’t think she had a baby.  “Who’s this?”
	“Oh Perry, uh this is Kevin Meadows,” Della answered.  “I was sitting when you called.”
	“Hmm,” he grunted and gave the baby a tickle on the belly.  “Well, if we can focus on the case at hand, I don’t think it’ll be long before Tragg is here.”
	Della took Kevin from Karen and set him back in his bounce seat.  He gurgled loudly before Della handed him his teething keys to keep from making too much noise.  She took two steps and he promptly threw the keys on the floor.  Glancing over at Perry she wondered how she could stretch two ways at once and decided to pull Kevin’s chair closer to her at the desk.  Perry nodded and looked at Karen, “I want all the details.”
	The brunette took a deep breath.  She’d been practically hysterical when she’d arrived but getting to play with the baby allowed her a few minutes to calm down.  “I wanted to talk to my ex-husband.  I knew he always spent Tuesday nights at home because Wednesday’s were early mornings at work.  I pulled up in the drive, shut off the car, got out and went in the house.”
	“Did you knock?” Mason asked.
	“Yes, but there was no answer so I opened the door,” she admitted.
	“How?”
 	“The key was still in the same spot it always has been so I used it.”
	“But why did you think it would be okay for you to just go in?” Della asked from her chair taking notes.  
	“Because I’d done it before.  We were amicably divorced.  There’s no reason I would want to kill him, I still loved him,” Karen revealed.  
	Mason looked at Street.  It sounded a bit fishy but things had been fishy before.  Still Perry’s trademark was faith in his clients no matter how goofy their story was.  “So you’ve been there before like tonight?”
	“Yes,”
	“And that would explain why your fingerprints would be certain places?” Mason asked.
	“I suppose.  I wasn’t careful with what I did or didn’t touch,” she said. 
	“All right,” Mason said just as a bang on the outside office door interrupted his interrogation.  “Open up Mason, it’s Tragg,” the growling detective announced.  
	“Stick to what you’ve told me,” Mason warned before going to open the door to let him in.  
	Homicide Detective Arthur Tragg and Sgt. Bryce walked back in with Mason.  “Well, it’s always so convenient to find your clients this close to home.  I hope we haven’t interrupted anything?” Tragg groused.  He just loved to find Perry and Della at home with the prime suspect.  
	“Nothing at all, just consulting my client, telling her about her rights, all that kind of legal stuff,” Perry replied with a belying smile. 
	“Oh yes, can’t forget the law,” Tragg said and pointed at Bryce, “read her her rights and take her downtown.”
	He nodded and led Karen Pierce out the door.  Tragg stayed behind a second, “I’ll be sure to tell Hamilton Burger that business has fallen off so badly you two have started a nursery to keep the office open.”
	Della cleared her throat sheepishly, “Oh, it was an emergency…”
	“It’s all right Della,” Perry said to make sure she didn’t think she was in trouble.  
	The baby started to get fussy and Tragg waved Della away, “Let me, I like babies… even if they are yours.” 
	He picked up Kevin and cuddled him a moment or two and the baby quieted.  “Yeah, see I’m not so bad…”
	After a minute or two he handed Della the baby and admired her, “You know he looks good on you.  Why don’t you two get married and forget about all this law jazz?  Make it easier on the guys that have to work for a living.”
	Mason winced inwardly.  Although Della had never complained, it always bothered him when people suggested marriage and babies.  While it had been no secret that she’d been in a bus accident last summer, her precise injuries hadn’t been made public.  Even Paul junior wasn’t fully aware of how badly she’d been hurt.  There were several times that Perry wished he could pull people aside that they spent a great deal of time with and just tell them what happened so they’d drop the subject.  But then he was always afraid they’d actually say something to Della about how sorry they were and then they’d suggest adoption or fostering and all the stories about all the people who were just like her and how they lived swell lives despite the fact they couldn’t have children of their own.  In the end it became easier to just smile and give them the excuses they always gave like it wasn’t the right time or there was still time or there were too many cases to solve than to actually deal with the pity of people who were told the truth.  Mason cocked his head, “Maybe we just want to make sure you’ll always have something to complain about Lieutenant.  After all, I wouldn’t want to miss seeing my favorite police detective on a weekly basis.”
	“Weekly, sometimes daily,” Tragg complained and before turning to leave he gave the baby one more belly jiggle, “Cute kid.  Take good care of him.”
	Della smiled back, “I will, don’t worry about that.”
	After Tragg left Mason turned to Della, “I take it you were sitting when Paul called?”
	“I couldn’t just leave him and his mother won’t be back until late tonight.  Her aunt is in the hospital and they won’t let babies in,” Della explained.  “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have brought him but I didn’t know what else to do.”
	“It’s all right,” Mason said and looked at the little boy who gave him a wide-eyed stare.  He often got that look.  Must be his voice or the tone or something about him, Mason thought.  He took Kevin from Della and started to bounce him and then stiffened.  “Uh… I think we have a problem.”
	“Huh?” Della asked at Perry’s expression and then by the way he held the baby away from him and the wet spot on Perry’s suit jacket arm she figured it out, “Sorry, I’ll get him changed and take him back to my place.  Wanna come play papa for a while?”
“I should really get on this case,” Perry began, but then at Kevin’s 
gurgling expression he said, “But that’s what I pay Paul Drake for.  You get him changed and we’ll go home.”
	
	Perry manhandled the bounce seat and the diaper bag while Della followed with the baby and his travel basket as they started up the elevator to her apartment.  “How did you manage all this stuff by yourself?”
	“I dunno, just did,” Della shrugged.  
	Mason got out first and pulled his keys out to open her door.  She instructed, “Just set this stuff in the bedroom.”
	Della pulled Kevin out of the basket and kissed his nose as she set him next to her shoulder to carry to the sofa.  “You’re such a good baby, yes you are…”  
	Mason came into the living room to watch Della as she cooed and coddled Kevin.  He hesitated before moving over to the china cabinet she used as a bar and pulled out a tumbler and the bottle of Scotch.  “Want some?” he asked.
	She shook her head, intent on the baby, “Better not.  You go ahead though.”
	He started to pour and then decided against it.  He put the stopper back in the bottle and set it back.  “Maybe just some water?” he said questioningly.
	“Sure, want me to get it?” she replied not realizing he really meant it for himself.  
	“Oh, no, you sit tight.  I’ll get it,” Perry answered and headed into her kitchenette.  It was so small.  No wonder she preferred to eat and cook at his apartment.  
	When he came out Della had put Kevin on the sofa and was playing patty cake with his feet.  It made the three month old giggle wetly.  Milk spittle started to spew.  “Uh-oh, Perry hand me that washcloth…”
	Mason leaned over the back of the couch to watch as she wiped the milk spit from his mouth.  He sniffed.  It caught Della’s attention, “Don’t tell me he needs changed again?”
	“No, just what’s that smell?”
	“What smell?  I don’t smell anything but the baby powder.”
	“Ah, that’s it.  Smells good,” Mason said and reached forward to take the baby’s tiny hand.  Kevin had a good grip on the finger and Perry’s face, usually so focused during a case when the facts were sketchy, relaxed into a gentle smile.  Della admired the view from where she was.  She sighed, “Perry, I think we need to talk.”
	Mason’s face tightened up again but he didn’t look at Della, “Yeah…”
	Della insisted, “Can you look at me when we talk?”
	Perry met her eyes.  She began, “Ever since the accident anytime children or babies or family or marriage comes up, you get very tense.  I know what you said at the time, and I know you’re sincere but…  I’m okay.  It’s okay that I can’t have a baby.  It doesn’t bother me to be around kids, I love looking after Kevin and Pud and anyone else that I get to sit for.  But I also love sending them home to their own parents.”
	Perry paid close attention to what she was saying and how she was saying it.  She was relaxed, calm, completely at ease.  It convinced him more than her words did.  “Della, I just wish people would leave you… us alone.”
	“I know.  I don’t like people asking questions or assuming they know how to run our lives either, but the only way we’re actually going to avoid them is to go off and be on a deserted island.  Which, I admit, isn’t a totally bad idea,” she said with a smile and let her hand run down Perry’s shoulder.  “But until we buy that island we’ll just have to put up with the situation.”
	Mason’s expression softened again, his blue eyes twinkled, “I just get frustrated trying to figure out how not to punch people in the nose.  Lt. Tragg is one thing, he was just teasing, but there are other busy bodies at parties and such…  They aren’t teasing they’re just nosy and mean.”
	Della chuckled, “You know Gertie said the same thing.  I guess she gets asked the same questions at the hairdresser downstairs.  They don’t have the gall to ask me personally so they ask Gertie knowing she’s a gossip.  Gertie finally got so annoyed she asked me what to say last week.”
	Mason was surprised, “What did you tell her?”
	Street shrugged and gave him her best cat ate the canary smile, “I told Gertie to say that if they are so interested in getting to know us better she’ll take down their names and I’ll contact them about giving a sizable donation to our favorite charity, one grand minimum.”  
	Mason hid his smile, “You hit below the belt Miss Street.”
	“No, I just know how to make people shut up,” Della answered and with a friendly tug on his jacket lapel pulled him close enough to kiss her deeply.  
	When they parted Mason agreed, “That you do Miss Street, that you do.”