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.
Wednesday night after dinner Kaden and I were in the barn trying to build two window boxes for Karla. A year ago, she had shown me a picture from Pinterest and asked me to make her two. She even gave me the dimensions and what materials to use. As Kaden carefully routed the final decorative support, ‘Gina’ vibrated in my pocket. I had tagged the burner phone ‘Gina’ the day I bought the matching pair at an EagleMart in Pell City when I was there for a court hearing at the St. Clair County Courthouse. I removed the phone, walked outside, and answered “Micaden the scorekeeper.” This was Gina’s green light. If ever I didn’t answer this way she would know she could not talk openly.
“We have to meet. You will not believe what I found.” Gina was shouting.
“How about tomorrow here at Hickory Hollow?”
“What time?”
“Two-thirty okay?”
“Yes. Before I go, here’s you a morsel to feed on. Club Eden is in bed with a few select Boaz police officers working to discourage, what they call, Hispanic citizenship. I got to go. Bye.” Gina whispered.
On Thursday at 2:30 p.m., Gina and I sat down at the round table in my study.
“Before I tell you about my discovery let me set the stage. You may know some of this but let me paint a full picture. I have gathered this information over a lifetime with Wade. Club Eden was responsible for starting the local poultry industry. Somewhere around 1920 or 21 the grandfathers of the Flaming Five had gone to Butts County Georgia for a family reunion of sorts and learned what a group of their distant cousins were up to. They were raising chickens in confinement, instead of simply the backyard or barnyard chickens the grandfathers were used to around Boaz. Within a year after their return, Club Eden had set up Boaz Poultry, Inc.” Gina said.
“Okay, that’s an interesting chicken story but what does that have to do with your case or our quest to weaken or destroy the five mighty powers?” I said.
“Be patient. I’ll get there. But first, let me finish the history lesson. Club members saw chickens as a way to make money off the backs of both farmers and Boaz citizens. The Club developed a business plan that was almost futuristic for its time. They contracted with farmers to grow the chickens in specially designed barns and they hired a man from Sweden to design and build an operation to process the birds once they were grown. The Swede was an expert in meat production. Boaz Poultry processed its first batch of broilers in 1924. There were 39 employees to start with. The poultry industry was good to the Club even though they quickly had competition in Cullman. Over the years, Boaz Poultry employed more and more people but the time commitment began to wear heavy on the Club. In 1965, it sold the entire operation to an Atlanta conglomerate, Platinum Foods, but negotiated a 99-year lease on the processing plant location. It appeared to be a sweetheart of a deal: total relief of all work and time commitments while still enjoying a guaranteed monthly income. What the Club never negotiated or even anticipated was the revolutionary influence Platinum Foods’ employment practices would have on Boaz demographics. By 1970, there were more than 800 Hispanics working in Boaz at the poultry processing plant. Along with their families, but excluding those who lived outside Boaz City limits, there were nearly 4,000 Hispanic residents. This fact did not mix well with the Club’s white race mentality.
“I bet you are going to tell me that the Club killed every one of them.” I said.
“No, the Club, at least this time, was smarter than that. They were also very subtle. The Club handpicked four police officers, patrol officers, to make life difficult for Hispanics. For a while, the officers simply targeted Hispanic drivers, stopping them just for being Hispanic but always having a pretextual reason, something like a broken taillight. Yes, if they didn’t have a broken taillight when they were stopped, they would after the officer walked by the Hispanic’s car with his Billy Club on his way to interrogate the driver. As time went on, and their ‘pay’ increased, the officers began planting illegal drugs and alcohol. This has gone on for over thirty years and continues to this day.”
“Again, how do you know all this?” I said.
“As I said, part of this I pieced together over the years Wade and I were married, but a lot of the details came from Wade’s office, the Club Eden’s bank statements, and a series of personal handwritten journals I found on bookcases stuffed behind Wade’s Bible commentaries. Micaden, you could ask me right now what made me look for the journals.”
“Okay, why did you look for Wade’s journals?”
“Two weeks ago, Wednesday night of course, I was in Wade’s study and noticed that he had inserted the latest Club Eden bank statement into his folder. There was a new type of transaction. It was a wire deposit for $100,000 from a bank in Moscow, Russia. This was all I had until I listened to my latest tape.”
“Tape? Have you been recording Wade?” I said.
“Yes, and more than Wade. After I found this deposit I bought a high-tech audio recording system online and hid it in Wade’s study. Not his home study but his church study. I bet you didn’t know that behind Wade’s church office there is a private study that is only accessible through a hidden door, one behind an automatic bookcase behind Wade’s desk. It was by accident I discovered it but that was several years ago and a whole other story. Anyway, after I received my order, I installed it in the secret study during lunch while everyone was out of the office. The recorder is voice activated and automatically sends a transcript to a designated email account you set up if it has a Wi-Fi connection. Here is the transcript of a meeting last Wednesday night.”
Gina slid a typed document over to me. I read it twice. There were four speakers. Gina also let me hear the audio. The transcript was a perfect match to the words spoken. It was clear that the meeting was to discuss Fred and Wade’s decision to implement the latest phase of what the Club had dubbed its Clean-Up Boaz campaign. From the tape and transcript, I learned that Fred and Wade had authorized their select Boaz police officers to start secretly seizing the most attractive Hispanic females during their illegal traffic stops. James Adams had expressed his strong disagreement, saying “sex trafficking? Other than your Triple M murders, this is the most dangerous and insane thing the Club has done in fifty years. You are going to bring in the Feds and send the rest of us to prison.”
“What on earth are the Triple M murders?” Gina asked.
“A more specific question. Do these murders include Bill and Nellie Murray? I bet they do. I’ve known it all along but have had no way of proving it.” I paused for a moment and said, “oh my gosh, the third M is Harold Maples. I just know that too.”
“He died of old age. Wade conducted his funeral. I was there.” Gina said.
“He certainly died old. He was 92 or 93, but I would bet a million dollars he didn’t die because of old age.”
We returned to Gina’s audiotape. Over the next five minutes or so tempers continued to rise. Finally, during a particularly heated exchange between James and Wade, James said: “If you two don’t stop this immediately you may find yourselves at the bottom of a lake just like Randall and John.” Fred responded, “sounds like you are admitting to killing our two brothers.” James then said, “absolutely not, but I’m mad enough right now to kill the two of you.” After a minute or two of silence the meeting ended with James threatening to expose Wade and Fred to the full membership. The last statement before the meeting disbanded was James saying, “you two need to reread the Club’s bylaws. You do remember taking an oath almost half a century ago where you swore never to divulge Club ‘business or non-business, or anything even remotely related to the Club.’ Don’t you two remember what the punishment is for breaking your oath? Let me quote, ‘punishment includes the branding of a cross on the forehead, and the option of death by hanging but only by unanimous decision.’” Wade then made a smart-ass remark, “King James, I’ll be sure to note all this in my diary.”
“It seems all is not well within Club Eden.” Gina said.
“Let me keep this transcript. Also, can you send me a copy of the audio recording? I want to try to figure out how we can use this. Good, good work Gina.” I said.
Gina left and I just sat staring out the window. I almost thanked God for such a wonderful blessing, a goldmine discovery.
Richard L. Fricks 