I Dreamed I Married Perry Mason Read Free Page B

kindly of you. She also remembered how you came to the aid of the many Chinese people in Ventura when they were harassed by the police, including Mr. Wu Chen of Sutton Avenue, who was the husband of one of her oldest friends.
    Now I find myself in trouble. I, too, am innocent of any crime. Perhaps you could help my family again. My wife, Jean, was killed last year. I do not know who is responsible. I was convicted because I had no alibi for the time of her murder. I cannot say where I was at that time because to do so would complicate someone else’s life, perhaps even destroy it. It would be wrong. So I sit here, and the person who killed my wife is free. I am frustrated, but powerless. Will you find out who the wrongdoer is? Will you help me? I await your reply.
    Sincerely yours,
Joseph Albacco Jr.
California Correctional Institution, Tehachapi
    I knew Gardner had read the letter because he’d appended a note that read, “L.P.: follow up. Rings a bell/ESG.” But there was nothing further in the files. I could find no record of the case ever having been written up in Argosy . And Gardner had left the Court of Last Resort not long after the letterhad been received. Had he ever investigated? Why had this case rung a bell? Had the real murderer ever been found?
    Maybe it was the writer’s humility. Maybe it was his willingness to suffer to protect someone else, the unnamed person who could have provided his alibi. So many of the other letters had been so hostile. Joseph Albacco seemed more befuddled than brutal, and convinced, somehow, that Erle Stanley Gardner, a perfect stranger, could straighten everything out. What touched me was his faith. He trusted Gardner enough to place his life in the man’s hands.
    And then, sitting at that old oak desk in Austin, after a long slug of that good Texas coffee, I had a great idea. When I got back home and laid it on her, Lael thought it was insane, but we always thought each other’s great ideas were insane (I tried like the dickens, for example, to dissuade her from helping the father of her youngest child, baby August, with his doomed feng shui business. No one shed tears for him when he hightailed it back to Dusseldorf, except maybe the IRS).
    Anyway, I decided on that day that I was going to find Joseph Albacco. Yes, I know it would’ve made more sense to try to track down one of the people Gardner had actually written about in Argosy, someone he’d actually gotten out of jail. That person would be guaranteed to have stories, great ones. It would have been the logical way to proceed. But sometimes you have to go with your gut. Joseph Albacco’s letter had spoken to me. And if he was still alive, I wanted to meet him. If Joseph Albacco couldn’t put a face on Erle Stanley Gardner, I had a feeling no one could.
    Weeks, then months of wrangling with the good people at the California Department of Corrections ensued. Interestingly, not one of them much liked my great idea. Yes, the prisoner in question was still in their custody. But as I was neither a lawyer nor a family member, it seemed that I had no business visiting him or anyone else at any of their facilities. True enough, if you wanted to get technical about it. Three weeks ago, I managed to get the warden on the phone.
    â€œYour name, how do you pronounce it exactly?” he asked.
    â€œLike the opera singer.”
    â€œI’m a bowling sort of guy myself.”
    â€œCa-Ru-So, as in Kaboom, Rude, So What,” I said, sighing. “It’s Italian.”
    â€œI’m Polish,” he volunteered. “Tam-Row-Ski, as in Tam O’Shanter, rowdy, the winter sport.”
    I thought I might be getting somewhere when he said he had a nephew living in West Hollywood.
    â€œHow fabulous!” I chirped. “Maybe I even know him! West Hollywood’s such a friendly place, and what a Halloween parade, my goodness!”
    He harrumphed. It seemed said nephew’s