The Boaz Scorekeeper, written in 2017, is my second novel. I'll post it, a chapter a day, over the next few weeks.
The Friday after Labor Day, Tina buzzed me over the intercom and said a Cynthia Radford was on the phone claiming to have important information. I took the call.
She said she was the ex-wife of Raymond Radford and asked if we could meet. She said it was important to meet in secret and asked me to come to her lake house in Guntersville. She suggested we meet in the Marshall Medical Center North parking lot and she would drive us to her cabin. I told her I needed to know what this was about. She said she might have information that could help Matt and me with our wrongful death case against the Flaming Five. She used that phrase.
Over coffee at her kitchen table she thanked me for coming and said I had to make her a promise before she would tell me what she knew. I told her I wouldn’t know unless she was more specific. She asked me if her son Randall could ever be prosecuted again for the deaths of Wendi and Cindi Murray? I told her no, since Randall’s case had been dismissed by the prosecutor back in 1973. I thought she would catch my lie but she didn’t. It was wrong of me not to be truthful and explain that double jeopardy didn’t attach until an actual trial had begun. That certainly hadn’t been the case. Instead of being truthful, I rationalized, believing that real justice might be fulfilled if I learned what Cynthia had to say.
She said that she divorced Raymond in 1976 but their troubles started several years earlier. She told me that he had protected Randall by helping dispose of the bodies and covering up their deaths. She also said that Wade, James, Fred, and John’s fathers also were involved.
I asked her why she had not disclosed this information before. She said because she was trying to protect Randall, just like Raymond did, but just in a different way. She described how Randall had come home late Saturday morning all panicky. He first told us that there had been an accident and two girls were killed. After Raymond asked him why he hadn’t gone to the police Randall came clean saying that he would go to jail if they found out what he, John, and James had done. Randall was rather incoherent but he did say that he and the others had done a very stupid thing and felt like they had to get rid of the evidence. He told us that the two girls and their car were hidden in some woods down Little Cove Road. Raymond and Randall left and didn’t return for several hours.
Cynthia stated that Raymond and the other fathers were involved in moving and burying the two girls. She said that she had never known where the graves were but said that it made sense when the bodies were discovered at Pebblebrook. She asked me if I thought it was God that had caused Bradley Vickers to bulldoze the wrong lot. I told her that I doubted that was what happened.
Cynthia then told me how she found out about Raymond’s involvement with bribing Nyra, Darla, Gina, and Rickie. She said Randall had told her that Raymond and the other four fathers coerced the cheerleaders to give false testimony in exchange for college funding and periodic payments over ten years to begin after the Flaming Five had been cleared of all criminal charges. Fred’s father, Fitz, had handled the money and the payments.
Cynthia went on to tell me how Raymond had gotten involved with Darla’s mother eventually marrying her after divorcing Cynthia. I could tell that Cynthia was greatly motivated by revenge from having been scorned by Raymond. She told me that she hoped the Murray’s lawsuit bankrupted Radford Hardware and Building Supply.
Two weeks later I had Cynthia retell her story on the record. She submitted to a deposition in our law office. Raymond’s attorney, Kerry Fox, was dumbfounded. I almost felt sorry for him. Not only were the stellar reputations of the Flaming Five and their fathers in the cross-hairs, but the assets of five rock solid institutions were exposed to hurricane-force winds.
The Pencil Driven Life 