The primary aim of the "Novel Excerpts" blog category is to showcase my creative writing, specifically from the novels I've written. Hopefully, these posts will provide a glimpse into my storytelling style, themes, and narrative skills. It's an opportunity to share my artistic expressions and the worlds I've created through my novels.
The Boaz Scorekeeper, written in 2017, is my second novel. I'll post it a chapter a day over the next few weeks.
After James and Wade left, I knew that I only had a short time, maybe a day or two at the most, before I would be arrested. I also knew that I could not let fear rule my thoughts and actions. I had to start developing a plan. One that would both defend myself, and expose James and Wade as the real murderers of Gina Tillman. Thinking logically would also enable me to realize that it was more than possible that investigators would dig up John and Randall, while they were uncovering Gina’s body.
Someway I had to gain access to Gina’s email account, the one she had set up for her hidden audio-recorder to send transcripts of voices from Wade’s semi-secret study. I pulled Gina’s file and found the transcript she had given me, the one where James was red-hot against Wade and Fred for continuing the sex trafficking. The transcript was simply an email. Gina had told me that the audio-recorder automatically sent her a full transcript of everything said, 30 minutes after the last voice activation. I had suspected that she had set up a unique Gmail account to receive the transcriptions. I was right. At the top of the transcript was Gina’s name, Gina Tillman, and beside it, her Gmail address, unvarnishedtruth_finally1972@gmail.com. I had to give it to Gina, she was spot-on in naming the account that received verbal communications from Wade’s secret study. I couldn’t help but gloat a little about how Wade, James, and Fred thought they were so clever in holding their secret meetings, locked away from the world. They were confident in knowing they could be totally open, even brass. Yet, truth be, they were being recorded all along, every word, to be exposed to the world at some future date.
I was confident that Gina had used her Google account to create this new Gmail account. I was aware that one could create multiple Gmail accounts within his own Google account. Gina had shown me how she had set up a unique Google account and one email account each for Wade, James, and Fred. She had done this handy-work on Wade’s home-study computer. Somehow, I needed to access Gina’s Google account and unvarnishedtruth_finally1972@gmail.com.
I walked to my desk and accessed my Gmail account which was already open. I clicked on my photo in the top right corner and clicked the ‘Sign Off’ button. A new screen appeared giving me the option to sign back into my account or ‘another account.’ I clicked on the last option. Next, I was asked for either an email address or phone number. I looked again at Gina’s file for the law firm’s standard intake form. Matt and I had always been very careful to complete this form with every new client. It contained empty boxes for us to fill in contact information. One such box requested the client’s email address. Gina’s intake form revealed her email address as ginaculvert1972@gmail.com. Pretty standard method she had used, other than using her maiden name instead of her married name. That probably said more than I could ever know. I entered this address. I knew I would get stumped. Google was asking for Gina’s password.
I tried to guess several times, for nearly an hour. I got frustrated and was about to give up when I remembered something Gina had said when we were together during our trip to Gadsden. For some reason, Judith Ericson’s name had come up and I got the courage to ask Gina about her relationship with Judith. I had told Gina what Nate Baker, the New York Times reporter, had said his investigators had learned. I shared with Gina that Nate had said she and Judith took frequent trips, every Wednesday in fact, to Huntsville and that they always wound up at the Huntsville Hilton. After I told Gina this, what to me now seemed a bizarre story, Gina had burst out laughing. “So, you and Mr. Nate thought that Judith and I were lovers. That is hilarious. I guess his investigators never followed us inside and to the employees’ locker room where we changed clothes and became waitresses for the next six hours.” Gina had explained to me that she and Judith so wanted to be normal people that this was their way of escaping their carefully choreographed lives in Boaz, enabling them to rub shoulders with people they didn’t know, those who only expected them to be great waitresses.
I pulled out a phone book and found a number for John and Judith Ericson. I called Judith and told her what was going on. She said that she had heard that Gina was missing. I could tell by her voice that she was frantic. Before I could tell her, Judith said that Gina had told her that she was leaving Wade and that I was helping her. I told Judith I desperately needed her help. I gave her a very short and top-level version of why I needed Gina’s password to access her email. Judith said she didn’t know. She asked me to give her a few minutes to ponder and if she thought of something she would call me back. I thanked her.
I sat back down at my computer and kept attempting to guess Gina’s password. Within five minutes or less Judith called me and said that she had an idea. She said that both she and Gina had to set up an online employee account at Hilton. It wasn’t an email account but just a place on the restaurant’s internal system to use to communicate with its staff. Judith said she remembered twenty or more years ago when they were setting up their accounts how they had laughed about how creative they were in completing Hilton’s online form. Judith said she chose her nickname as ‘Sugar’ and Gina chose ‘Spice.’ And, they used these nicknames within their passwords. Judith said hers was sugarbaby1972 and Gina’s was spicebaby1972.
With Judith still on the phone, I typed in spicebaby1972 in the slot where Google was requesting the password for Gina’s Google account. Bingo. That was it. I profusely thanked Judith for her help and told her how much Gina loved her. She was crying when we hung up.
Looking at the computer screen, I realized I wasn’t home free by any means. There was Gina’s email account, her regular one, ginaculvert1972@gmail.com. I walked up front to Tina’s desk and used her computer to toy around with my own Google account. I learned that when I signed out of my active Gmail account it showed my other Gmail accounts. I returned to my desk and signed out of Gina’s regular account. There was a listing of her other Gmail accounts including the unvarnishedtruth_finally1972@gmail.com. I clicked on it and once again was faced with needing a password. I tried ‘spicebaby1972’ but it didn’t work. Think Micaden think. When Gina first came to me she talked about being ready to be released from prison. When Gina dropped by Hickory Hollow she was wearing a flowery blouse. During our ride to Gadsden we had talked about how she loved flowers and her intentions of moving to Atlanta to work in her Aunt’s florist. Gina had even said that her favorite flower was a red rose. Prison, flower, rose. I typed in every combination of these three words and as expected came up with total failure. I glanced again at Gina’s intake form and saw that I had written ‘Ginja Ninja’ in the box labeled ‘Other Names.’ I remembered when I had asked her that question she said that this was a nickname from High School and that as far as she knew she had not been called that, at least to her face, since she graduated. I recalled that she had been rather sympathetic toward that name, at one point saying, “if only I had pursued this character.” When I asked her what she meant she said that during High School she had a reputation for being, as she put it, ‘loose’ or ‘easy.’ She admitted that she was. She explained that her cheerleader teammates started referring to her as a Ninja because she was so limber, flexible, and overall athletic. She said the Flaming Five started calling her Ginja Ninja, with the insinuation that she was good in bed. She hated that reference and secretly hoped that she could someday become a real Ninja, not a warrior really, but someone who stood her ground and wouldn’t take crap off anybody.
For the next hour, once again, I tried every combination of Ginja Ninja, prison, flower, and rose. I was just about to give up when I again became extremely lucky. After typing in ‘ginjaninjarose2017’ my computer screen opened to the sought-after email account, unvarnishedtruth_finally1972@gmail.com. I took Gina’s password to mean that the abused Gina became a real ninja, and rose to confront her demons. I noticed that the very last email that Gina had received from her auto-recorder was Saturday morning, November 4, 2017, yesterday morning. I read the transcript of James and Wade’s conversation in his church study. Just as Gina had told me during that frantic call yesterday morning when I told her to flee, James and Wade were on to her snooping. They were now clearly aware of the threat that she posed. I reread the transcript again and again imagining I was Gina reading it for the first time. I felt just a sliver of the terror she must have felt as she realized the transcript was at least thirty minutes old, and that James and Wade were likely coming for her any minute. I sat back in my chair, shut my eyes, and tried to visualize Gina rushing and desperately trying to grab Wade’s ‘Missions Money’ Journal and get to her car.
After a few minutes, I stood up and remembered what I had told James and Wade just a few hours ago. “You two idiots have my full permission to bring your best shot. But, you better be ready to pay the piper if you’re going to play this song.”
I knew I was facing another long and difficult road. I would be arrested and charged with Gina’s murder. But, this time, I had some solid ammunition to return fire.
At the time, I couldn’t have known how silly I was, how ignorant, no, stupid, to think I could ever stand up to the two remaining members of the Flaming Five, and to their families.
The Pencil-Driven Life 