Requiem for Ashes: the first Albert mystery

Nothing made sense to Albert.

Why would anyone want to kill Professor Glenly because of Etruscans? Why did everyone think Tewksbury had done it? And why did the cassette recorder stop working when you spilled beer on it?

Albert didn’t think like most people. He never understood how they could spout their age, or weight, or Social Security Number off the top of their head without looking it up somewhere.

All Albert knew was music.

The orbit of his tiny, coffee-stained universe was elliptical and only rarely collided with the conventional world, generally in the vicinity of a Dunkin’ Donuts. Still, he couldn’t understand why the police failed to grasp the logic of his argument: Tweksbury had just quit smoking. You don’t quit smoking if you’re planning to kill someone – even a history professor.

Like a musical pinball, Albert is buffeted through the sinister underbelly of academe, a world ruled by lust, greed, and twisted envy, whose existence he’d never imagined, and in which he is an unwanted stranger.

If only he could put a face on the figure in the shadows. If only he could cover up the burn mark on his cheek and thigh. If only Detective Naples would stop asking him questions. If only someone would stop trying to kill him. If only someone would explain … everything.