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.

Kaden heard a faint knocking at the door and raised his head and opened his eyes to a blinding sun coming in through the half-open blinds on the double windows.  He had been dreaming, really fantasizing, of what life might be like for him if he moved back to Hickory Hollow and joined Trevor Nixon and Dalton Martin to practice law.  His last subconscious thought about continuing Micaden’s fight against Club Eden evaporated as he saw Lewis standing in the doorway holding a tray and what Kaden hoped was a giant cup of hot and black coffee.  His stomach wasn’t ready for Lewis’ standard breakfast of two eggs over-easy, two pieces of nearly burnt but buttered toast, two slices of overcooked bacon, strawberry jelly, and a small glass of orange juice.  Lewis smiled, set down the tray, and walked out.

At 4:45 a.m., Kaden had laid his head down on the library’s round table after completing his reading of The Boaz Scorekeeper. Since he returned from The Exchange Bank late yesterday morning, Kaden had been immersed in Micaden’s story, taking a break to eat a bowl of Lewis’ chili that he had brought to Kaden at 6:00 p.m., and taking a midnight walk along a moonlit lane from the house to the entrance of Hickory Hollow and back.  

Sipping his hot coffee, Kaden moved over and sat down in Micaden’s more comfortable desk chair and contemplated his book.  Kaden believed every word of it, even, surprisingly, accepting what Micaden had done.  Murder, from a strictly legal sense, was not something Kaden knew much about, only what he had learned in his Crime and Punishment class from law school nearly fifteen years ago.  No doubt, Micaden had committed three murders.  If tried in a court of law he would be convicted.  Micaden had known this but was called to action by his response to one overarching question, ‘how much evil would you allow to go unpunished?’  Kaden sided with his grandfather.  John Ericson, Randall Radford, and Fred Billingsley deserved to die.  They had escaped formal justice that was supposed to come from the criminal courts. They also had escaped a semblance of justice they should have received from the civil courts.  But for Micaden, the Flaming Five would have gotten off scott-free.

Probably the most disturbing thing about Micaden’s life story, was finding out now, after his death, that he so deeply loved Wendi, and his Christian deconversion experience her death had brought about.  Kaden couldn’t help but wish that his grandfather had been more open with him and shared every aspect of his life.  Kaden reminisced how Micaden would spend time with him hunting, fishing, woodworking, splitting firewood, playing chess, and talking about life while working in the garden.  Kaden now felt his grandfather was simply protecting him from the brutal reality of life, postponing if he could, what Kaden would no doubt learn as he went to college, and on through life. 

Kaden pulled his chair closer to Micaden’s desk.  It was stacked with manila files and books of fiction all around the edges.  In the center was several books, opened, but lying face down.  Micaden had always been reading several different novels at the same time.  Kaden never understood how his grandfather could keep up with so many characters and disconnected plot lines at one time.  Kaden, without thinking, inserted an index card as a bookmark into each open book and laid them aside.  Underneath was a copy of The Birmingham News dated Friday, December 19, 2050.  Kaden, for years, had thought his grandfather was too old school, continuing to buy an expensive hardcopy newspaper when he could just read it online.  The newspaper was opened to page two with an article above the fold highlighted in yellow.  The title read, ‘Two Boaz Men Dead Two Days After Release from Federal Prison.’  Kaden’s heart raced as he scanned the article then returned for a deeper reading.

The article stated that Wade Tillman and James Adams were granted parole on Tuesday, December 16th and released later that afternoon. They were both 96 years old having spent the past 32 years at Cumberland Island Federal Penitentiary in Georgia.  The two men had been picked up late afternoon at the prison by family members who drove them back to a hotel in Atlanta to spend the night.  The next morning, they had driven to their hometown of Boaz, Alabama.  Wade spent all day at his grandson Warren’s house, and James stayed with his grandson Justin. 

At 6:00 p.m. on Wednesday, they were driven to the Family Life Center at First Baptist Church of Christ.  The previous Sunday, Warren had preached a heart-wrenching sermon imploring his fellow members to exercise true Christian spirit and forgive the two men who had done horrible things but had paid their punishment in full.  After eating a hardy meal, and enjoying a multitude of heartfelt welcome-home handshakes, the men were driven to Creekside Village, an Assisted Living Facility, on the outskirts of town, where they were left alone in their individual rooms around 9:30 p.m.

The two men were found dead in their beds by Village staff at 6:30 a.m. Thursday morning.  There was no sign of struggle.  At press time, the cause of death was unknown.

Kaden had a million questions but stood up, walked out onto the balcony, and smiled.  He had no doubt the deaths were from the hands of the Boaz Scorekeeper.

Final score:

The Boaz Scorekeeper 5

The Flaming Five        0.

THE END

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.

A ‘Not Guilty’ verdict is uncommon, an almost unheard-of thing in a capital murder case.  And, finding a person who has avoided a guilty verdict in two capital murder cases in one lifetime is rare indeed.  Even though I had not received a “Not Guilty’ verdict in either case, I still believed I was a rare commodity.  It was impossible to reconcile the two forms of justice I had received in my two criminal trials.  It was also impossible to understand the role mercy and justice played in the shoot-out at Oak Hollow.

A week after I was discharged from Gadsden Regional Medical Center, Karla drove us to Atlanta where we spent the night and caught a flight to Jackson, Wyoming for a two-week vacation that included two nights at the Trial Lawyer’s College in Dubois.  On Friday night, I was introduced as the only member of the tribe who had truly experienced what it was like to be a capital murder defendant, who had exchanged bullets with four of his accusers, and who had represented capital murder defendants all the way from pre-indictment through death-penalty sentencing.  Friday night, I shared the story of my most recent case, and on Saturday afternoon, sat on a panel with three other non-lawyer, former capital murder defendants, and with two tribe member lawyers who had either won outright ‘Not Guilty’ verdicts, or had won on appeal, or through other post-trial proceedings. The rest of mine and Karla’s time in Wyoming was spent taking day trips to the nearby Rocky Mountains and at night, after grilling steaks over a campfire, sitting by the Wind River behind the cabin we had rented. The night before we were to fly back to Atlanta, Trevor had called and said Wade and James were now locked away at Cumberland Island Federal Penitentiary in Georgia.  Two days later I was in the law office.  I continued to practice law although I did limit my work to murder and capital murder cases

The year 2020 was unique and special for many reasons including the opening of Sparksburg on the site of the old Boaz Spinning Mills.  My client (the strawman of course) did everything he promised, and then some.  He also purchased nearly a city block’s worth of property across the street to the south, razed all the old buildings, and built a huge parking lot with a 100-foot statute named Murray Tower.  At its base, was a four-foot square bronze plaque that memorialized the lives of the four Murrays and the tragic events that ended their lives.  It was a miniature Statute of Liberty. 

Two other reasons 2020 was memorable was the opening of a Home Depot store across from the new Radford Hardware and Building Supply facility on Highway 431, and just north, the opening of Prader Volkswagen on the south side of Adams Chevrolet, Buick, & GMC that had relocated across from Marshall Medical Center.  My strawman was instrumental in the opening of these two new businesses.  However, that would have been impossible without the interest and connections of Terry Lynn Gaines.  By early 2019, when my plans began unfolding, Terry was a veteran U.S. Senator serving as Chairman of the Intelligence Committee, and a frequent contributor to all the major TV news networks.  With his substantial power and growing influence it wasn’t easy to convince Terry to come to Hickory Hollow and hear my demands.  In early January, in the quiet and privacy of my library, Terry signed over title to Oak Hollow, and agreed to fully support my Boaz investment plans. 

Later that afternoon, I was amazed how powerful and persuasive Terry Lynn Gaines truly was.  So much so that phone calls to the CEOs was enough to clinch the two deals.  However, his influence just went so far.  Over the next several months, it took dozens of phone calls and two trips to Nuremberg, Germany to convince Helmuth Katz to participate in the Grand Opening and ribbon cutting ceremony.  A visit from Michael Horn, president of Volkswagen of America, was the final tipping point. 

On a dark and stormy afternoon in late December 2020, 94-year-old Katz stood between his 70-year-old twin-daughters, and cut the golden ribbon for the first new car dealership to open in Boaz since Earnest Adams and his son Eugene started Adams Chevrolet in 1920, a hundred years ago to the day.  I thought I had put five million of Club Eden’s money to good use.

The other million, along with the $43,276.81 of interest earned, was contributed to Castenada Academy.  Nico and Santiago fulfilled their promise and opened the first private Christian school in America dedicated solely to educating Hispanics.  They won a $3,000,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Education, and, along with my assistance, persuaded Terry Gaines to enlist the help of all four Hispanic U.S. Senators, Mel Martínez, Ken Salaza, Bob Menendez, and Marco Rubio, to host a one-day telethon promoting the Academy.  It raised nearly $4,000,000 and enabled Nico and Santiago to purchase sixty acres on College Avenue only a mile west of the Platinum Foods facility, and to build a modern, high-tech campus. Nico and Santiago hired the best teachers from across America regardless of their race or ethnicity.  On a hot and muggy day in mid-August 2021, nearly 2,000 Hispanics from as far away as Fort Payne, assembled in 118 classrooms to experience the beginnings of a world-class education, tuition free, thanks to the Trump Administration’s Charter School and Voucher Programs.     

Karla retired from teaching school in May 2021.  Lewis remarried and moved to Chattanooga in 2031 after Kaden graduated from Sardis High School. Kaden earned a full scholarship to Emory University and was set to stay there for law school but changed his mind, over my objection, and chose George Washington University Law School in Washington, D.C. instead.  After graduating and passing the Bar he worked several years in D.C. for the firm of Hastings and Hoogle before moving to New York City to specialize in intellectual property with the law firm of Bainbridge and Shuttleworth. 

Losing Matt was traumatic, something only mildly tolerable even until now, but losing Karla in 2033 was the single worst thing that I had ever experienced.  I was unprepared for her death.  I suppose I had subconsciously thought after she got sick that she would likely die before I did, but I assumed it couldn’t be worse than the loss of Wendi and the aftermath that followed.  I think it was the trust factor.  She was truly a woman of faith.  She didn’t need evidence for her beliefs.  She said she had faith.  She trusted God completely and she did likewise the same with me, although in one big regard, I didn’t deserve it.

In January 1, 2045, my two law partners, Trevor Nixon and Dalton Martin, gave me a triple dose party celebrating my retirement, my 91st birthday, and of course, the New Year.  Overall, I enjoyed my party but I couldn’t help but feel sad and nostalgic recalling the day Matt was gunned down at Oak Hollow.

A few months after Karla’s death, I started writing this book.  Someway, the pain and difficulty of reliving the rough spots of my life was the antidote to the painful depression I was still enduring from Karla’s death.  My writing was the only thing that got me up in the mornings.  But, it didn’t last.  By 2035 I was in the deepest funk of my life.  I truly don’t know what happened over the next nine or ten years.  However, for some strange reason, my retirement party gave me the push I needed to return to my manuscript.  Even then it was a slow slog.  It took me until early 2046 to complete a full first draft and almost another eight months before finishing.  On October 5, 2046, I completed the final edit and on October 16^th, I held my one and only book, a hardback titled The Boaz Scorekeeper. 

Reading the back cover and flipping through the pages I almost wished I had titled my book, Micaden Lewis Tanner, the Tyrant Slayer, but then was reminded that there were still two members of the Flaming Five who were alive and well, walking, eating, and breathing, albeit in a Federal Penitentiary.  Wade and James had avoided the ultimate justice they deserved.  So far at least.

At 92, I had to reconcile myself to the likely fate for Wade and James.  They would die in prison.  I just couldn’t see the Federal Pardons and Parole Board granting them parole in two years even though both would be 95 years old.  I rationalized that my overall score was better than fifty percent:

The Boaz Scorekeeper  3

The Flaming Five         2.

If there was an afterlife, I hoped Wendi and Cindi, and Bill and Nellie, were all giving me the thumbs up.  But, I suspected that Gina was still not completely satisfied that she had received justice.

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.

I showed Matt my secret hideout.  First, the house with its two converted bedrooms.  One for teasing short stories from my imagination.  The other, for taming runaway and incoherent facts into case stories that would connect defendants to a juror’s heart.  After showing Matt an old wood-fired cook stove in the kitchen, we walked outside onto a small patio with two lawn chairs. I asked him to sit down because I had a confession to make.

I told him that Gina was the only other person who had sat here since I bought the place.  That’s where I began my story.  I went on to share almost every detail.  Ever since I had come to know Matt, over 45 years now, he had been a father figure to me.  He cared deeply for me and was always eager to share his wisdom.  Now, after telling him that I had taken the lives of three men, I regretted not having spent more time with him outside our law practice. I wondered if my life would have turned out differently if I had spent more personal time with Matt. 

We walked down to the graveyard and I shared even more details about the two nights I had abducted John Ericson and Randall Radford.  Matt asked me why I had changed my mind about Fred.  Why I had not brought him here and buried him in one of my pre-dug graves.  I told him that I really didn’t know.  I admitted that at first, I had wanted to dispose of all the Flaming Five at Aurora Lake but eventually concluded it was simply too dangerous.  All members of Club Eden had access and the sons of the Flaming Five, just like they did, used it frequently to camp and just hang out with girls.  But, after John and Randall, my reason and caution went to the wind.  That day I buried Fred at the bottom of Aurora Lake, I acted carelessly, making mistakes that could still land me in prison.

The grave sites were a mess.  The crime scene investigative team had left the graves unfilled after digging up Gina’s body and the two sets of horse bones.  Matt couldn’t believe they had stopped three feet short of reaching John and Randall’s bodies buried beneath the dead horses.  I told him about how I had researched hiding a body by burying an animal on top of the human body, and how this stood a good chance of tricking both the cadaver dogs and their handlers into believing they had found their target. 

We decided we needed a little exercise so we grabbed two shovels that were standing in a pile of dirt and began tossing it back into the grave where investigators had found Gina. After a few minutes, I had Matt follow me back to the house.  I gave him a set of work clothes.  We changed out of our suits and ties and returned to the graveyard.  We spent the next three hours shoveling dirt back into the graves.  We even drove to Farmtown to buy some flower bulbs.  It was almost dark when we finished setting them out.  Matt said he needed to call his wife.  He had left his cell phone on the console in my car so he walked back to the front of the house.  I used a shovel as a rake and started pulling leaves over the graves. 

Bam, Bam, Bam. I heard three shots. Immediately, I ran toward the back door, across the patio, through the kitchen, and into my writing room.  In an old mahogany armoire, I had a Glock 9 mm and a Smith & Wesson 45.  They were fully loaded.  I switched off the safeties and grabbed another clip for each pistol.  I went out the back door and ran around the house toward the front yard.  Turning the corner, I saw Matt laying on the ground in a pool of blood and a black Suburban with four men standing on either end, two at the back of the vehicle and two on the far side of the hood.  I had no doubts.  It was Walter, David, Raymond, and Franklin.

Before I reached Matt, they started shooting at me.  I was maybe fifty feet from them. I raised my 45 and aimed at Franklin Ericson. I had been taught by my Gramp’s growing up that if you’re going to shoot, you need to be aiming at something.  I knew I had to be methodical.  It was as though Franklin tossed his pistol onto the top of the Suburban’s hood.  My bullet centered his heart and in the fraction of a second before he died, his brain ordered his hand to attempt one final return shot.  He died before his action could be completed.

‘Fear no man.’ I could hear Aubrey Kilpatrick tell his son James.  Time seemed to slow to a crawl.  It was like I was experiencing a movie where I was both actor and a movie-watcher.  The reel was rolling at quarter speed.  I had never met Aubrey or James but their story, what had been shared with me by my Dad and Gramp’s, and later through newspaper articles and books that had been written about that fateful day in May 1951, had framed a big part of my mind and heart.  Maybe as much or more than the life teachings of Brother G at Creek Side Baptist Church.

A bullet ripped through the muscle in my left arm, a couple of inches below the top of my shoulder.  I hit the ground and rolled two times to my right and fired two shots just as I stopped.  This time I hit Raymond in his left hip and in the middle of his chest as he fell. 

I got up and started running toward the Suburban, shooting at David who had been standing beside Raymond.  I missed both shots but his last shot hit me in the right side, again, not a wound that would kill me.  My next shot centered his forehead.  I was close enough to see the terror run through his eyes just before my bullet pierced his skull.  

‘Fear no man. Stand tall and deal with trouble head on.’  Walter, by now, had run over behind the old well on the other side of the driveway.  I could barely see the top of his head as he scrunched down beside the round concrete cylinder that capped off the hand-dug well.  I walked toward him and semi-broke my own rule by emptying my clip six feet above his head.  Twenty feet from where he hid, I pulled my Glock from my waistband.  As soon as I did, Walter stood up ready to shoot.  Before I heard his first shot, I saw his pistol raised.  I aimed first for the center of his chest, then for his head.  Both my shots hit their target a fraction of a second after his first shot missed me.  I heard it hit the Suburban behind me, glass shattering.  His second shot ripped flesh from the side of my left chest and the underside of my left arm.  The bullet did minimum damage. 

I walked over behind the well to verify for sure that Walter was dead knowing without looking that what I had learned about shooting and the handling of a gun growing up had prepared me for this shoot-out far better than these guys.

I pulled my cell phone from my front right pocket but it had taken a bullet for me, sparing me from a fourth injury.  I walked toward my car to retrieve Matt’s cell phone, the one he was after when he was gunned down just like Aubrey Kilpatrick. My vehicle was parked forty feet beyond David’s Suburban.  I could see that Walter’s last bullet had busted out the Suburban’s rear window.  I glanced in as I was about to walk on to my car and noticed two bodies, one almost on top of the other.  I opened the rear hatch.  Dale Watson’s body fell to the ground leaving Fitz Billingsley laying face up with a two-foot piece of rope around his neck.  Watson had a hole in his head.  Both were beyond dead.

I walked on to my car and called 911.

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.

On Tuesday morning, the other four defense attorneys cross-examined me until 11:30 a.m.  After my testimony, Judge Chambliss called for an early lunch recess.  Matt and I went downstairs to Drake’s Courthouse Cafe and were just finishing up our apple pie and ice-cream when my cell phone vibrated.  It was Greg. “Good news.  Wade and James are ready to deal. You don’t have to rush back.”

I told Matt, paid our ticket, and nearly ran the three flights of stairs back to Judge Chambliss’ courtroom.  The parties, Greg and his two associates, and Wade and James and their attorneys were all meeting in the Judge’s Chambers.  I didn’t see the three police officers or their attorneys.  Periodically, Federal Marshalls were transferring Wade and James between Judge’s Chambers and a holding cell just down the hall.

Matt and I sat on a bench just around the corner from the Judge’s office.  We speculated on what was about to happen, our positions differed.  Matt thought Wade and James would agree to life in prison if all State charges against their father and grandfathers were dropped.  I just couldn’t see Greg going for that, nor DA Abbott from Marshall County.  I felt like Wade and James could avoid the death penalty, maybe even life in prison, but someone else was going to spend a few years in State prison.

At 1:15 p.m., Greg came out and told us about the agreement and the pleas Wade and James were about to enter.   These two would plea to the murders of Gina Tillman, Alma Castenada, her parents, four counts of kidnapping for sexual exploitation, and conspiracy to commit a hate crime against a specific people group.  They would be sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole in 30 years.  Walter Tillman and Franklin Ericson would plea in State Court to embezzlement and extortion and be sentenced to eight years in prison with the possibility of parole in three years. David Adams and Raymond Radford would plea in State court to two counts of murder in the deaths of Harold Maples and Shawn Taylor.  They would be sentenced to 20 years in prison with the possibility of parole in seven years.  No one would plea to the three hate crimes that occurred in 1901, 1926, and 1946.  The evidence was simply too thin, but the main problem was all the grandfathers and great-grandfathers of the Flaming Five were all dead, except 106-year-old Rudolph Tillman, who had just two days ago suffered a massive stroke and was now in a coma.  The three police officers, Chris Anderson, Paul Thomas, and Edward Hall, would all plead guilty to and were sentenced, like Wade and James, to life with possibility of parole in 30 years.  Dale Watson, like Fitz, escaped formal condemnation and prison in exchange for his cooperation.

At 1:45 p.m., Wade, James, and the three police officers, plead guilty and were taken into custody by the Federal Marshalls.   David, Raymond, Walter, and Franklin would plea Friday in State Court in Marshall County.  By agreement, they could remain on bail. However, DA Abbott warned them to have their affairs in order because Judge Broadside would revoke their bail and place them in custody immediately upon the entering their pleas.

Matt and I left the Courthouse’s parking deck at 2:20 p.m., and drove home telling each other that if we were Fitz Billingsley and Dale Watson we would pack our bags and get lost.  By becoming rats as big as Texas they had escaped felony conviction and prison but had spawned a fiery hatred that would never be extinguished.  As for Fitz, I reminded Matt of Club Eden’s promised punishment for any turncoat.  He asked, “surely the fathers of the Flaming Five would not risk life in prison or even death to carry out the Club’s sentencing.” 

“Are you forgetting the sons of the Flaming Five. They too are members, probably since the mid-nineties.  They are now in their mid-thirties.  I know it seems Warren Tillman is a fine, upstanding man as pastor of First Baptist Church of Christ, but Club loyalty can go rather deep.  I just know that if I were Fitz I would hightail it out of Boaz.”  I said.

As we reached the top of the mountain coming up Highway 431, I knew I had to tell Matt the full truth.  Naturally, I was torn.  I much preferred to let him continue to think I was a better person than I really was.  But, by the time we got to Mountainboro, I was committed to the truth.  He had a right to know the real Micaden Lewis Tanner.  I turned right onto Mountainboro Road and then right again on Cox Gap Road.  In five minutes, we were sitting in the driveway of Oak Hollow.