Albemarle Affair

By C.M. Albrecht

Instead of finding Corky's mother, the shamuses trip over a corpse, and that's just the humble beginning of an escalating case that climbs to the top of society in this twisted tale.

Can Foster & Hall Investigations go back eighteen years to unravel this tangled web of deception and bring a murderer to justice?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Write Words Inc.
• Release date: Aug 28, 2013
• ISBN: 9781613861141

Book preview

Chapter 1

The Jesperson Building had seen better days. Keely Foster wrinkled her nose at the lobby smell. Well, maybe it gets better up higher, she commented.

You look nice, Parker told her as his eyes moved over the smart white blouse and full blue skirt Keely wore. I like dresses better than slacks.

Jeans and stuff are comfortable, but I don’t look good in slacks, she told him. And thanks for the compliment. Sometimes I think you never notice.

Oh, I notice. I notice, he said with a leer. He pushed his glasses back up on his nose.

The elevator growled but it took them to the fifth floor where they found a pebbled glass door that read: A & E Investments.

Parker Hall opened the door and they entered a large bleak office space with only privacy panels separating the different desks. A strong odor of cigar smoke permeated the room.

A middle-aged matron at the desk facing the door looked mildly up at the pair.

Eh, Foster and Hall, Parker told her. We’re here to see Edie.

Edie? Haw! The woman jabbed a thumb at the space next to her. Right over there."

Parker and Keely looked at each other, and moved to the indicated space.

Sitting behind a cluttered desk in a cloud of powerful smoke sat a sour-faced middle-aged hairless man with a paunch and a big cigar. His tired face wore a harassed expression as he looked up at them. His white shirt was wrinkled and open at the throat and a tightly knotted tie had been pulled away to let the second chin have breathing room. His large dark eyes softened briefly as he looked approvingly over Keely’s slender well-shaped body. Nice outfit, he said in a gravelly voice. I hate that women don’t wear skirts anymore. And he obviously liked her auburn hair and pert nose, but then his gaze shifted to Parker’s six-foot-two hundred-fifty pound frame, his innocent face behind those glasses, and his ill-fitting suit. The man’s expression turned doubtful.

Mr. Edie? Parker said in an uncertain voice.

Edie? Haw! My name’s Ayoobi, the man growled. "What do you want?

Eh— Parker began but Keely got the words out first: We’re Foster and Hall, private investigators, she explained. You left a message on our answering machine?

Ayoobi leaned back and blew out a thick cloud of dark blue smoke that forced both Parker and Keely hold their breaths.

Oh—that. You’re not exactly what I expected. He leaned forward again and studied the pair more closely. You sure you got any experience?

Oh…we’re professionals, Parker assured him. We know what— Parker held out the card he had been holding. Ayoobi took it, looked at it and laid it on his desk amid the clutter of papers that already covered it.

He didn’t look particularly satisfied, but went ahead and said, Sit down.

They drew up a pair of green plastic lawn chairs and sat down facing Mr. Ayoobi.

I own…or at least manage…several restaurants in the area, he told them. The Edie you were looking for died a spinster at the age of eighty-nine, so you can forget about talking to her. His heavy eyelids drooped and from beneath them, he measured the pair. After a moment, he continued:

"Put simply, what I want is an undercover detective to go into Edie’s and find out who’s ripping me off.

Somebody’s ripping you off? Parker said.

Boy, you really are a detective, Ayoobi said. He puffed and blew out another blue cloud.

Parker took a breath and tried again. Well, luckily, he said with new enthusiasm, I’ve worked as a fry cook in the past…before—I mean, before I became a private investigator.

A fry cook? Good. That’s good. You can blend right in then.

What exactly did you want us to do? Keely asked.

Not us…him. I can’t afford to pay two people, Ayoobi said.

Well we could do a lot better job with two of us on the job, she told him. I’ve had waitress experience. Between the two of us, we should be able to wind your case up in less than a week, Mr. Ayoobi. She raised her bare arms prettily. So in the long run, you’d be saving money.

Ayoobi looked at her. Yeah, well maybe. See, somebody’s ripping me off to the tune of at least a hundred dollars a day. You know how it goes?

Both nodded to assure Ayoobi that they knew how it went.

"After a while a restaurant averages a certain income, good days, bad days, it all evens out, and the same with the food cost and labor and all like that. We know what to expect.

Suddenly at Edie’s, I’m running about a hundred dollars a day low. Expenses still the same. Wages still the same. But suddenly I’m down about a hundred bucks a day…maybe more. Maybe it takes me a little time to wise up, but I’m wised up now…and I want it stopped. You wouldn’t believe the narrow margin of profit we have here…and I have people to answer to. He leaned back, grunting. Besides, it just ain’t right. It ain’t right and I want it stopped. Can do?

Absolutely, Parker said with what he hoped sounded like lots of assurance. Keely’s right, sir. With us working together undercover, we’ll wind the case up fast for you…and we can give you a special rate too…for an endorsement—I mean after we successfully close your case for you.

Yeah? What kind of rate we talking about here then?

Keely told him.

Ayoobi actually jerked to his feet spilling cigar ash onto the already cluttered desk. Two hundred dollars each a day plus expenses! He cried. What expenses? I’m the guy got expenses. Look, while you’re working there you’ll be eating my food, wearing my uniforms. Two hun…look. He sat back down and took a puff on his cigar.

Look: I was rich and a big shot I’d call a big agency from the Yellow Pages. Why you think I picked your name out of the Penny Saver? I’m on a tight budget here, that’s why. You’re going to get your meals. Two good meals a day for each of you. You can have anything on the menu…well except the steaks. I let you eat steaks I have to let all the help eat steaks. But hey, two solid meals a day. That’s worth something. I have to put you on the payroll as regular employees, so you’ll get regular wages too, and…

As Keely held up her hand to protest, he raised his voice and went on: Okay, wait. Plus. Plus I’ll tell you what I’ll do. You work for wages and meals, and when you wind the case up for me, I’ll give you a bonus. What do you say to that?

What kind of bonus? Keely asked.

Well…

After a lengthy argument that soon became as complicated as the Israeli-Palestine peace talks, it came down to Edie’s regular restaurant wages…with two meals a day each…for two weeks’ work followed by some vague talk of a ‘nice’ bonus…if the detectives were successful in handing over the perpetrator. Ayoobi still refused to allow himself to be pinned down to a specific figure.

Never one to say yes on the first date, Keely kept at Ayoobi for twenty minutes more until finally she managed to browbeat the commitment of a firm one thousand dollar bonus out of him, and an endorsement…if they caught the thief and put a stop to the theft within their allotted two weeks.

Plan to get lung cancer from all that cigar smoke, Keely said when they were back down on the baking street walking toward their car.

The cancer doesn’t worry me nearly as much as you do. Promising to catch the thief in two weeks, Parker said. His lean face showed his apprehension. I just don’t know, Keelio.

Hey, what have we got to lose? she asked. We can give the job a couple of weeks and still come out all right. After all, this is our first case, Park. This is our chance to show what we’ve got…and unless you know something I don’t know…we haven’t got anything else going right now, so as I say, what have we got to lose? At least we’ll be getting paid over the next two weeks. After all we have an office now. That costs money. We’ve got to generate some kind of income. It’s not great, I admit, but it’s a start. Our first real case. Sure, I know we could fall on our faces—but if we pull this off we’ll have something positive to use as a reference. It’ll look pretty good to list Edie’s as a satisfied client, won’t it? Everybody around town knows Edie’s.

Yeah, that would look good. Boy, I haven’t flipped an egg in a long time, he said as his thoughts drifted back to earlier times.

* * *

They hit it off that first day when Keely came to work in the cafeteria on J Street. Parker was the morning fry cook…or, as he liked to think of himself—a lean mean frying machine. Parker’s first glimpse of her took his breath away and he knew then and there even as he flipped eggs over easy in two egg pans at the same time, that Keely was the one and only for him. But how was he going to be able to talk to her? Him, a tall skinny dude, and downright shy.

As to Keely, she thought this string bean was cute—and interesting. A little voice told her he could just be the one. Of course that was before she had a clue that behind Parker’s innocent and misleading facade of mild-mannered fry cook lurked a wannabe crime-fighting private detective.

* * *

Parker shook his head to clear it. It would be nice to list anybody as a reference, he agreed, loosening up a little. But sometimes you scare me, Keelio. You sounded so sure of yourself up there in Ayoobi’s office.

Keely looked at pedestrians who, clutched in the oppressing grip of the scorching sun, moved like zombies along the sidewalk. Cooking heat waves roiled up from the pavement, dazzling her eyes. A kid walked by desperately trying to keep up with his rapidly dissolving ice cream cone.

Keely turned her blue eyes back to Parker and opened her hands wide and smiled optimistically. Hey, I had to sound sure of myself, Park. But you sounded good too. It was hard enough to get anything out of that Ayoobi anyway. If we’d hemmed and hawed around and said, well, we’ll try, or we’ll do the best we can, do you think for a moment we’d ever talk him out of a thousand-dollar bonus? He probably would’ve decided against hiring us at all. She straightened her posture and shrugged. Anyway, it’s a start for us, and, she smiled, we’ll be eating and paying next month’s rent. Suddenly her smile widened revealing large white teeth. And look at the bright side: we’re really in business now. This is what you wanted. This is what you’ve been dreaming of, having your own private eye business. Besides, obviously Ayoobi runs quite a few places in the area. There’ll be other greedy employees and more dishonesty, that’s for sure. She rubbed her hands together in anticipation as they walked and spoke in a more dreamy voice, Our first big case. We’re really detectives at last. You know, when you first started talking about being a detective I thought you were nuts. I mean I just thought of detectives as either overweight cops or something people play on television…but then—little by little, the idea kind of got hold of me and now I think I’m as big a nut case as you are.

Yeah, Parker said. He scratched his head, smiling, thinking about it. I think you are at that. He laughed as they walked along. Ever since I was a kid I was into this stuff. I read all the detective books I could get my hands on…especially the realistic private eye stuff. But the real clincher was when I read about Francois Vidocq…that came later, by chance.

What’s a Francois Vidocq?

Hey, he was the world’s first private eye. Man, his life makes better reading than most detective novels. He did it all. He was an ex-con. And before he became a private detective he founded the French Sureté and to make it even more romantic, he started his own private agency all his employees were his old ex-con buddies and the real cops hated his guts because he was always a jump ahead of them. And he was real, that’s the neat part. Not just the figment of some writer’s imagination. He paused for a moment and then continued. I knew then and there that I had to be a private eye. That was for me. I know when you met me you had no idea I was on that track, that I was going to be a detective, that in reality my spatula would be a cleverly disguised nine millimeter pistol, and I’d be a man who, in the face of danger casts fear aside like a dirty apron as he becomes flinty-eyed ace private detective, Par

Can it, Hall. You really were a fry cook when I met you. And before you became a flinty-eyed detective the most dangerous thing your spatula ever did was spatter grease on your apron.

Parker smiled, nodding ruefully. Yeah, I bet I’ve scrambled more eggs than the U.S. Army. He fell silent and then after a moment spoke again, You know, that bonus Ayoobi was talking about still sounds pretty iffy, Keelio. I just hope he doesn’t try to renege on his promise.

Keely looked up at Parker. We’ll get it, she assured him.

They reached their old Ford Fairlane just as a slight young man with a big smile was just finishing up his wash job. The pale, slightly faded blue body fairly glowed in the sunlight.

Anthony, Parker said, how many times have I told you I don’t have the money to pay for wash jobs. I really don’t.

Oh, that’s all right, Parker. I just like to wash cars. You can catch up with me when you get a few big cases under your belt. He bent and shoved sponges and towels into an empty pail.

Keely smiled. Well at least you got to finish the job this time, she said.

As they drove off, Anthony stood and watched them with a big smile on his face. Detectives, he murmured.

Chapter 2

There she was! That woman. Corky’s dark eyes narrowed as she stood on the sidewalk in direct sunlight half a block from Edie’s and brushed at the strand of straight dark brown hair that always fell across her eyes. This had to be more than a coincidence. Had somebody learned that she and some of her friends met at Edie’s almost every day after their dance class? What difference would that make? It was no secret. But lately…well today was the third time exactly since Corky had become aware of that woman who was standing across the street in the shade of the bank.

Corky casually stuck one hand in the hip pocket of her jeans while her eyes carefully scanned the busy street. At least the sneaky-looking man wasn’t with Mrs. X today. Corky’s sixth sense assured her that the woman was watching her. There was just no doubt about that. But why? Corky had tried to ignore the woman’s presence at first, thinking her only a little strange maybe. But there was something about the woman, something about the way Corky could feel the woman’s eyes clinging to her, surreptitiously watching her and studying her. Something definitely weird going on here, Corky thought. Weird and a little bit scary.

The woman appeared to be pretty old, maybe forty. A colorless dress clung about her shapeless body and sad dry eyes looked from her face, a face that complained about the heartless way life had treated her, the dissolute face of a drinker maybe. If Corky had not become so conscious of the woman’s stare, Corky would never have given her a second glance—and the thought that she just might be Corky’s mother would never have occurred to her.

But occur it did.

Right out of the blue. No one could have been more surprised than Corky herself.

Crazy?

Of course it was crazy. Corky knew that. She knew her mother was dead. She had always known that, and had absolutely no reason in the world to think otherwise…and besides, even if by some miraculous intervention by the hand of God from on high, Corky’s mother ever did somehow turn up alive, she certainly would not look anything at all like this woman. Not a chance!

Corky had never had a picture of her natural mother to look at, but she did have a very clear picture in her mind of just what her mother would look like, must look like. So this whole idea was patently crazy from the start. There was simply no logical reason in the world for Corky to have got something like that into her young head, and she spent long fruitless moments wondering why and how all this had started in the first place. Yet somehow, crazy or not, there it was and finally, in the end, when she stopped and really thought about it…like it or not…it all sort of fit together in a weird kind of way.

Even while Corky tried to poo-poo the idea on the one hand, the poo-pooing did not work on the other hand, and the matter continued to gnaw at her mind. In some crazy way or another it all made sense no matter what Corky tried to tell herself. She just had a feeling.

When Corky had become old enough to understand, which is to say when she was about ten, her parents sat her down and carefully and thoughtfully explained to Corky that she had been adopted. They made every effort to explain to Corky had they had had the luxury of choosing her rather than just accept whatever baby the Lord might, in His wisdom, see fit to give them.

It had been a tragic case, as Corky understood it. Corky’s birth mother had been brought into a clinic one warm spring morning.

* * *

Hearing all the commotion, Doctor Chubb came out of his examination room. What’s going on here, he asked.

Two men supported a sagging, shabbily clothed, obviously very pregnant young woman between them.

She fell down in the street, the younger man said. She was unconscious. We don’t know exactly what’s the matter with her, but obviously…

Doctor Chubb stepped quickly forward and they laid the woman on a bench. She was very pale and her breathing shallow. Doctor Chubb took her pulse and palpated her distended belly. Without looking up at the nurse who stood behind him he said, We’re in labor, Archer. Get me a gurney.

The woman did not survive the night. She had been malnourished, a street person, homeless and apparently without friends. No one ever came to inquire about her.

Luckily for Corky as it turned out, the good doctor knew a young couple that desperately wanted to adopt a child. And when the Middletons saw Corky it was love at first sight, and Doctor Chubb (who had friends at the state capitol) did not hesitate to pull a couple of strings to facilitate the adoption.

* * *

It all made sense. Corky had never doubted the authenticity of everything she had been told. There was no reason at all to doubt the truth of the story she had always been told. She trusted her parents. Besides, the whole thing rang true and, as she kept telling herself, it all made sense. Yet now she wondered.

When Corky had been a kid, lying tucked in her white four-poster bed, she often lulled herself to sleep at night by imagining that her real mother came to her and gently and lovingly picked her up from her bed and carried her away to some happy place where Corky was very special and her mother was very special…a place like she imagined heaven must be. In her mother’s arms Corky felt calm, safe and protected and serenely happy.

Stupid? Yes. Childish? Certainly!

And Corky would never have breathed a word of her secret little fantasy to a living soul, especially to her parents, because she did not really harbor any dreams of being taken away from them. Indeed, she would have missed them as much as any child could miss its real parents. Right there at home she was already a very special person. She loved her parents and they could not possibly have loved their very own child any more than they loved and nurtured Corky.

It was just a silly little fantasy that helped Corky fall asleep at night. A sleeping pill for kids, that’s all it was: a sleeping pill for kids.

But still—

Why would some strange woman come out of the blue to hang around watching her? Why would the woman lurk around across the street staring at Corky…and what about the ratty little man?

What had Corky ever done that anyone should want to stare at her? She smiled to herself. She had a cute figure, sexy maybe, blossoming. She had good legs and a tight bottom that came as a perk from her dance practice. Guys, even older guys sometimes stared at her. Some stared obliquely and others more directly. That, Corky understood. That was part of life. Sometimes it annoyed her, but more often Corky felt flattered even if she tried not to let the onlooker know it.

But this staring woman and her ratty little partner—what about them? It did not make sense. Corky took in air and stamped her foot in impatience. Silly. There could be a thousand reasons why some slightly unbalanced woman might look at her.

Corky also had another occasional top-secret fantasy. In this fantasy some vague but well-dressed man…but why couldn’t it be a woman? Lots of women produce and direct films these days. Anyway, this person would pick her up right off the street to star in the major new movie he…or she…was putting into production and Corky had just that special look this person had been searching the world over for…and here it was, right before his/her eyes. But this woman couldn’t be a Hollywood producer or director. No way!

Actually Corky’s fantasy had been the catalyst that led to her enrollment in acting classes and dancing classes. Classes her doting parents managed to fit into their budget, good times and bad.

Still, Corky could not possibly explain just exactly what it was that got her started thinking about her mother in the first place. The whole idea that her mother might still be alive had to be only a childish fantasy. Corky realized that, but still…what if? Just what if? She shook her head. She realized that the woman across the street had disappeared. Corky had been so absorbed in her daydream and her memories of yesterday that she had let the woman get away without even being aware of it. She stood numbly for a few moments, trying to sort out the jumble of feelings and thoughts that overwhelmed her.

And yesterday! That had been the crusher.

Finally, sadly, she trudged on into Edie’s and slid into a corner booth where a couple of her girl friends and Bo Markow were already sipping Cokes.

That nice freckled redhead took Corky’s order. Her badge read, Keely. Nice name; it suited her. It sounded Irish, and for some reason Corky had the idea that all Irish woman had red hair and freckles. And Keely always smelled so nice and fresh. But this time, when Corky tried to smile back at Keely, her smile faltered and her eyes glowed wetly.

Something wrong? Keely’s eyes showed real concern.

Oh…I just got something in my eye, Corky said. She got a hanky from her backpack and dabbed at her eyes.

As usual, the restaurant was busy, pungent with the smell of broiling hamburgers, frying onions and seafood, breakfast all day and the noise level was so high that conversation was usually difficult. Just now that was good and Corky gratefully sipped her Coke in silence while the girls went on with school gossip.

Keely nodded wisely and laid the check on the table. She smiled again at Corky. I’m off now, she announced, but if you guys need anything else, Allie will help you.