Novel Excerpts–The Boaz Scorekeeper, Chapter 88

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.

It was raining so hard Monday morning it took Matt two hours to drive us to Birmingham.  Judge Chambliss delayed the trial until 10:00 a.m. to await a juror who had gotten involved in a fender-bender on Highway 280. I spent most of this extra hour with Greg preparing for my cross-examination.  He reminded me that he had made a deal with defense attorneys concerning questions about my involvement in the disappearance of John, Randall, and Fred. 

At 10:10 a.m., defense attorney Ralph Summerford approached me sitting in the witness chair and asked, “Mr. Tanner, not only did you abduct and murder Gina Tillman you did the same to John Ericson, Randall Radford, and Fred Billingsley.”

I just sat there.  All I had heard was a statement, not a question.

Summerford said, “Your Honor, please instruct the witness to answer the question.”

“Why don’t you first ask a question Mr. Summerford.” Judge Chambliss said.

And, that’s how my cross-examination began, as the wind-swept sheets of rain against the Courtroom windows.

Summerford then asked the Judge for permission to play a video. He had already ruled it was admissible.  This had been decided in a pretrial hearing where Ricky Browning from First Baptist Church of Christ had appeared to authenticate the tape.

The video showed a man dressed in black, like a Ninja, approaching and crouching down beside John’s 2017 GMC Traverse parked beside the church.  It showed John exiting the Family Life Center carrying a duffel bag.  The vehicle blocked a clear shot since it separated the camera from John, it showed him from about mid-head.  He opened the rear door and appeared to toss in his duffel bag. Then he fell.  A few seconds later the man in black comes around to the side of John’s vehicle closest to the video camera, opens the rear door, reaches in, and pulls John’s body towards him.  The man in black closes the door and walks back around, closes the far side rear door and gets in the driver’s seat.  Within seconds, he gets back out and crouches down out of the camera’s view.  Next, the video shows the Chevrolet Traverse backing up and heading to the parking lot exit.  The vehicle stops and the video clearly shows the man in black get out, open the rear door, crawl inside the vehicle, and then return to the front seat and exit the parking lot.

“The man in black shown here in this video is you, isn’t that correct Mr. Tanner?” Summerford asked me when the video stopped playing.

“Absolutely not.” I responded unbeknownst to everyone except me that I was now splitting hairs.  What I wanted to say was, ‘that is in no way the real me.  What you see here is a man who felt he had no choice but to do what the criminal justice system had failed to do.’ But, I knew that being totally honest wasn’t going to be the best route for me today.

Summerford asked Judge Chambliss if he could call Nyles Strange to the witness stand and afterwards recall me.  His Honor granted Summerford’s request.

Greg had prepared me for this. Again, the admissibility of Nyles Strange’s testimony had been decided during the two days of pre-trial hearings.  The defense called Mr. Strange as an expert in human animation, I forgot the technical term.  He could look at a person on video and perform his detailed analysis, including running computer simulations comparing them to actual persons with known heights and weights, to determine the exact dimensions and sizes of the person or persons shown on the video, right down to the person’s shoe size.

The Judge allowed me to sit with Greg at the Prosecutor’s table during Mr. Strange’s testimony. After qualifying him as an expert witness and leading him through his exact methodology, Summerford had Mr. Strange tell the jury that the man in black was six feet one inches tall, wears a size 10 shoe, weighs approximately 210 pounds, is predominantly right-handed, but most likely is ambidextrous.

Nyles Strange was dismissed and I was recalled to the witness stand.

“Mr. Tanner, please tell the jury your height, weight, and shoe size.”

“I am a little over six feet tall, weigh 204 pounds, and wear a 10 and a half shoe.”

“Are you right or left-handed, normally?”

“Right.”

“Don’t you golf left handed, punt a football with your left foot, bat a ball left handed, and didn’t you throw a touchdown pass with your left hand even though you were a tight-end while you played football at Boaz High School?”  Summerford said.  He had clearly done his homework.

“All four of your questions are true, except I thought it was two touchdown passes instead of one.”  I said.

“Mr. Tanner, the man in black shown here is either your identical twin or it is you, correct?”

“I don’t have a twin brother or sister and the video is not showing me.”

“You do admit that on the night of Monday, May 15th, 2017 Mr. John Ericson went missing?”

“I don’t know when John went missing.”

“Why don’t you tell the jury how you felt about John Ericson.”

“I didn’t like him. In 1972, he lied to frame me for a murder I didn’t commit, one I had nothing to do with.  He was a spoiled, arrogant, and evil man.  He and his four friends murdered Wendi and Cindi Murray the night of May 25, 1972.”

“You cared deeply about these twin sisters, especially Wendi, didn’t you?”

“I sure did.”

“Looks like you had plenty of motive to want John Ericson dead.  Please name the other four friends you mentioned.”

“Wade Tillman, James Adams, Fred Billingsley, and Randall Radford.”  I answered.

“These five were not the only ones who, in 1972, said you were responsible for the deaths of Wendi and Cindi Murray, correct?”

“That’s correct, but these five were the ones that forced Gina Culvert, Rickie Bonds, Nyra Gibson, and Darla Sims to lie for them.”  I said.

“So, Gina Culvert, Gina Tillman after marrying the defendant Wade Tillman, said things back in 1972 that hurt you, that sent you to the Marshall County Jail for over six months until your murder trial in 1973.  Is that what you are telling this jury?”  Summerford said.

“In 1997 and 1998 I learned the truth about what happened.  Gina Tillman and the other three young ladies, were threatened and bribed to lie for the five men who murdered Wendi and Cindi.  They really had no choice.  I had no ill feelings at all against them.  I had nothing to do with Gina Tillman’s death.  The U.S. Attorney has already proven that your and Mr. Brunner’s clients murdered Gina Tillman.” I said.

“Your Honor, I ask that Mr. Tanner’s last statement be struck from the record and the jury instructed to disregard it.”  Summerford said glaring at me.

Summerford spent the next hour trying his best to crack me, to find at least one crevice that he could burrow inside to plant a bomb that would dissuade the jury from believing Wade and James were Gina’s killers.  Summerford first accused me of stealing James’ car and using it to abduct and murder Gina.  When the outcome of this didn’t seem to please him, he accused me of planting evidence in James’ trunk, and scrawling the note inside.  He wisely chose to avoid a ton of other evidence including Orin Synder’s testimony showing mine and Gina’s cell phone activity, and the OnStar information revealing the travel of James’ car during Gina’s death ride.

After I explained that I used the barn and jail cell to stimulate my imagination for my short-story writing, I had a convincing feeling that if I were a member of the jury, I could have reasonably concluded that I was hiding something.  I also felt like I was the one on trial.

It was only after Greg’s redirect that I began to feel a little better.

“Micaden, did law enforcement or the State of Alabama’s forensic department find anything at Oak Hollow that incriminated you?”

“No.”

“Yet, they were there for two days when Gina’s body was discovered, inspecting every square inch, including inside your office and barn.  Correct?”

“Yes.”

Greg finished his redirect having me deny everything that Summerford had accused me of. Greg’s final question was, “Micaden, did you have anything to do with the disappearance and murder of John Ericson, Randall Radford, and Fred Billingsley?”

“Absolutely not.” I said firmly.  I hated to lie but once again rationalized I was doing it for the sake of Wendi and Cindi.

During our ride back to Boaz, all Matt wanted to talk about was the man in black.  Matt kept asking, “I wonder who on earth that was?”  And, “don’t you think it is really weird that you are virtually the exact same size as John’s abductor?”

All I could say was, “it’s as though, once again, someone is trying to frame me.”