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 the Preliminary Hearing and my light-bulb moment, Matt had filed an Ex Parte Motion with Circuit Judge William Stivender requesting he order James’ Impala seized and transported to an independent lab in Atlanta. The Judge denied Matt’s secret motion but offered to grant the request if DA Harper agreed. Harper had no choice knowing that if he refused, Matt could use it against him at trial simply by asking Detective Morrow on the witness stand whether there was a forensic search of James’ car. A ‘no’ response would empower Matt to include in his closing argument a statement such as “Detective Morrow admitted that James’ car was never considered as a source of evidence for Gina’s murder. There was no forensic evaluation of the car. You heard Mr. Tanner testify that Gina called him from the trunk of James’ car. Ladies and Gentlemen, the Etowah County’s Sheriff’s Department and DA Harper were either incompetent in their failure to fully and properly inspect James’ Impala, or they were attempting to railroad my client.” Of course, DA Harper agreed to Matt’s request.
I never believed James’ Impala would still be available. I was shocked to learn that Deputies located it parked in the Used Car lot at Adams Chevrolet, Buick & GMC. Matt had spoken with one of the Deputies who stated that James’ son Justin tried his best to stop them. “He was white as a ghost, even tried calling his lawyer while the rollback was loading the Impala.”
The Impala was taken to Montgomery to the State Department of Forensic Sciences. Their team found no traces of Gina in the trunk, but determined someone had used bleach to clean up or destroy any incriminating evidence. The trunk was a total bust. However, the OnStar system delivered a mother lode. It was General Motors OnStar headquarters that delivered the goods. Their system in the Impala maintained only two weeks of data. Headquarters kept a permanent record. Judge Stivender issued a subpoena to General Motors’ OnStar Department to provide all statistical data for the Impala, “since it was first put into operation.” This data was latitude and longitude numbers, location information. The State Lab’s technicians fed this data into a mapping program, like Google Maps, to create a real-time illustration of where James’ vehicle had traveled on Saturday, November 4, 2017. The evidence was clear. James’s Impala had gone from Wade’s house by the Church on Sparks Avenue, to Club Eden’s cabin at Aurora Lake and then to Oak Hollow at the dead-end of Dogwood Trail.
However, we still had a problem. We couldn’t prove Gina was in James’ car at any time it was traveling. The defense has a right to see all evidence prior to trial. On January 22, 2018, Matt and Trevor met DA Royce Harper in Montgomery to inspect the Impala and query the Department’s staff. Matt and I had talked before his visit. I had a gut feeling that Gina would have tried to leave her mark, something that would not have been so easy to destroy. She had dropped her ring at the cabin. I knew she had done this intentionally. Her wedding ring was a cluster of diamonds that were so arranged to have made a sharp cutting instrument. Again, luck was on our side. Matt had carried a magnifying glass and spent nearly an hour scouring the inside of James’ trunk. DA Harper had become impatient and pissed, even calling Judge Stivender complaining. He had Harper put Matt on the phone. Matt was told he had 15 minutes to conduct his inspection. It was a miracle moment. Lying inside the trunk, Matt finally spotted it. ‘Gina 110417.’ The scribbling was not overhead on the underside of the trunk lid but on the inside of the driver’s side quarter panel close to where the trunk’s floor joins. Gina’s last act was something only a true Ninja warrior would do. She used the only weapon she had. With her diamond ring, she told the world where she was moments before she was murdered.
After Matt shared this information and left me in Interrogation Four, my mind couldn’t do anything but visualize Gina in James’ trunk frantically scratching out her farewell message. I was confident it would be enough to catch her killers and set me free.
The Pencil Driven Life 