Write Along

By Ellie Oberth

Carl Danby returns to tackle yet another unusual case.
Dennis Bernard is thirty years old. He believes in the family curse—many relatives never live to see their thirty-first birthday. Worried about Dennis’ well-being, his girlfriend hires the Hudson Detective Agency. The case is assigned to Carl Danby, but how does one investigate a curse?
Danby hits the streets with his tag-along sidekick, Junior. To make matters worse, the boss has also assigned a famous mystery writer to dog their footsteps so she can observe how a private detective operates.
To Danby’s dismay, the mystery writer doesn’t quietly sit back and watch Danby and Junior at work. Instead, she throws herself into the investigation with various theories and explanations.
As Dennis’ birthday fast approaches, will the detective trio be able to keep him alive?
This story is 19,968 words with additional material at the end of the book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ellie Oberth
• Release date: Apr 9, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005824372

Ellie Oberth

A Chicago resident, Ellie Oberth’s love of mysteries began at an early age with an introduction to the works of Agatha Christie.She’s a life-long member of Sisters-In-Crime National and also a member of the Chicagoland Chapter where she served as Secretary in 2009 and served as Treasurer from 2010-2011 and 2017-2019..These days, when she’s not busy writing, she’s travelling. Ellie pops up in the most unusual places. She’s been known to scour the beach at midnight with a flashlight, looking for a place to bury the body or tramping through the deserted woods with the same goal in mind or...For more current activities, visit her blog at www.ellieoberth.blogspot.com

Book preview

Write Along

Ellie Oberth

Smashwords Edition

Copyright April 2022 by Ellie Oberth

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and didn’t purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

From the case files of the Hudson Detective Agency

Case #3

A Danby Mystery

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Dedication

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To my brother, Steve

(Long live Walter London)

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Editor:

Jennifer Oberth

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Proofreader:

Renae Oakes

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Cover photo by Canva

Cover Design by Ellie Oberth

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Write Along

When I arrive at the office on a chilly May morning, Wanda catches my eye.

Mr. Winstone wants to see you right away. Wanda is big and blousy and full of herself. She guards the boss from nuisances and I’m afraid I’m the biggest nuisance at the agency as far as he’s concerned. A smirk forms on her face. He has a surprise for you.

This can’t be good. My immediate supervisor, Paul Winstone III, despises me. Unfortunately—for him—he’s only the boss of our Chicago division, and the big guy in charge of the entire international conglomerate thinks I walk on water. So the Turd routinely comes up with ways to make my life miserable, no doubt hoping I’ll quit. Fat chance.

I enter his office with trepidation.

Looking up, he catches my eye and his lips curve into a devious smile. Carl, I want you to meet Glitter Chance. He motions toward the other occupant in the room. She’s a best-selling mystery writer and she’ll be shadowing your investigation.

Glitter Chance is a gal in her late twenties with blonde hair sporting flame-red tips. Dark blue eyes, heart-shaped face, apple-red talons, maybe five-five or five-six. Our office is in downtown Chicago and it’s mid-May. We’re experiencing sixty-degree weather with a cold wind blowing off the lake yet she’s dressed in shorts and a tank top.

I listen to the Turd drone on about the gal. It seems Glitter desires to break out a new series featuring a private eye. And lucky me—I get to be her muse. It’s laughable how I can be anyone’s role model. I’m just plain old Carl Danby—pushing sixty, balding, knee injury, irritable—and the older I’ve gotten, the less patient I’ve become. The whole office calls me Gramps. Nowadays, my go-to response is to roll my eyes, a bad habit I’ve picked up from my eleven-year-old niece, Annie. The urge has become irresistible so I’ve stopped resisting.

The Turd breaks into my thoughts as he pushes a slim folder into my hands. Here’s your new case.

Glitter follows me to my office, chattering all the way. My greenhorn assistant, Elmo Clark, is already present, fussing with the computer. The boy makes up for his lack of experience with sickening enthusiasm. Junior—I refuse to call anybody Elmo—is into technology in a big way while I’m just an old-fashioned gum-shoe. Junior’s go-to investigative technique revolves around his handy-dandy forensic kit full of the latest gizmos and gadgets and whatnot. My big investigative tool is my mouth. Ask questions and listen. If you let someone babble, the lies always surface. I’m trying my best to make something of the boy, but Junior is all for the newfangled methods—forensics feed his soul.

I make introductions. Lacking a good poker face, Junior’s awe is apparent. Next to the novelist’s glamour, my partner appears nerdy at best. Five-ten with black hair styled in a buzz cut, right now his dark eyes are laser-focused on the novelist.

My mom’s a big fan of your cozies, Junior’s saying.

I’m thinking if my dear wife were still alive, she’d be thrilled, too. Betsy loved mysteries.

I’m eager to get started. Glitter’s excitement is evident. She heads off to the lady’s room and Junior takes the opportunity to inform me that the gal currently writes about a feline sleuth—a lioness if you can believe it. A crime-solving duo of a lioness and her lion tamer. Gimme a break!

Flipping open the folder reveals a single sheet of paper with the client’s name and contact info. No clue what the case is even about. I slap it shut when Glitter returns. No details. Let’s go meet the client.

Amy Peterson resides in Park Ridge, a little suburb northwest of downtown Chicago. The house is on the modest side, a one-story brick near the Cumberland exit off the I-90.

Amy greets us at the door with a welcoming smile. Slim build, curly red hair that bounces when she moves, green eyes, taller than Junior’s five-ten. I wonder if Junior notices these things; I should quiz him later. I don’t possess an eidetic memory but I’d ace any test involving description. I’m trying to mentor the lad, but the Turd partnered him with me to more or less—definitely more—discredit me in the hopes I’ll screw up and give him grounds for my termination. I’m the Moriarty to his Holmes, the Voldermort to his Potter, the Lex Luther to his Superman.

I don’t know what I did wrong to deserve his wrath unless it’s the way I embrace the old-school method of private investigation. In all fairness, it could be the way I brush aside his suggestions and work a case my own way. Or the way I privately refer to him as the Turd which probably leaks out in subtle ways.

I banish my long-winded thoughts as we enter Amy’s living room which is decorated in a modernistic style—black and chrome is the going motif against dark pink walls. An enormous painting of yellow flowers adds another splash of color to the room.