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 Stenographer, written in 2018, is my fourth novel. I'll post a chapter a day over the next few weeks.
Book Blurb
Walt Shepherd, a 35 year veteran of the White House’s stenographic team, is fired by President Andrew Kane for refusing to lie.
Walt returns to his hometown of Boaz, Alabama and renews his relationship with Regina Gillan, his high school sweetheart, who he had ditched right before graduation to marry the daughter of a prominent local businessman. Regina has recently moved back to Boaz after forty years in Chicago working at the Tribune. She is now editor of the Sand Mountain Reporter, a local newspaper.
Walt and Regina’s relationship transforms into a once in life love at the same time they are being immersed in a growing local and national divide between Democrats and traditional Republicans, and extremist Republicans (known as Kanites) who are becoming more dogmatic about the revolution that began during President Kanes campaign.
Walt accepts two part-time jobs. One as a stenography instructor at Snead State Community College in Boaz, and one as an itinerant stenographer with Rains & Associates out of Birmingham.
Walt later learns the owner of Rains & Associates is also one of five men who created the Constitution Foundation and is involved in a sinister plot to destroy President Kane, but is using an unorthodox method to achieve its objective. The Foundation is doing everything it can to prevent President Kane from being reelected in 2020, and is scheming to initiate a civil war that will hopefully restore allegiance to the U.S. Constitution.
While Walt is writing a book, The Coming Civil War, he is, unwittingly, gathering key information for the Constitution Foundation.
Will Walt discover a connection between the Foundation and the deaths of three U.S. Congressmen in time to save his relationship with Regina, prevent President Kane from being reelected as the defacto head of a Christian theocracy, and the eruption of a civil war that could destroy the Nation ?
Chapter 39
I hadn’t seen DeeDee since Mother’s funeral. We had talked twice on the phone. The first time was the day after President Kane told the world what an unpatriotic coward I was. She had been only mildly sympathetic, saying I had always had a way of being on the opposite side of the majority. Our second conversation was yesterday afternoon when she called and asked if she could drop by this morning around 11:00.
Sandi and I had just returned from two laps around the pond and were sitting on the back-porch steps when DeeDee drove up. She was driving what looked like a brand-new Buick.
“Don’t ask how much it cost. It’s not mine.” She said from beyond a lowered passenger side window.
“How much did it cost?” I said standing up and walking around the rear of the car and on towards her opened door. I noted the shiny red vehicle was a Buick Lacrosse.
“The list price on the window sticker was thirty-two thousand and sixty-five dollars. I just peeled it off yesterday.
“Why are you driving it if it’s not yours?”
“That’s why I wanted to see you.” DeeDee said fumbling with her iPhone and reaching back onto the front passenger seat for a shoe box.
“I have a new job. The car is furnished.”
“Okay. Merck or Pfizer?”
“Neither. I am working for Justin Adams’ gubernatorial campaign.
“What? Are you crazy? He’s a crook. And, his father is no doubt headed to a federal prison. Finally, he is President Kane’s twin brother. Tell me you are joking.” I said pulling Sandi away from DeeDee. I couldn’t help but notice her expensive pants suit.
“Justin is not his father. I’m surprised you of all people would condemn him by association.”
“As they say, ‘the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.’”
“Walton, you can think anything you want. I’m excited about what Justin is going to do for Alabama.”
“I’m not even going to ask how you got involved. You asked to see me. What’s up?” I said taking the shoe box from DeeDee and motioning for us to go inside.
“First, I have a message for you. Frankie will be released from jail sometime today.” DeeDee said laying her cell phone on the counter, removing her suit jacket, and walking towards the half-bath right off the kitchen. “Give me a minute.”
When she returned she said, “Justin said Warren had spoken with Vann about the meeting the two of you had with Frankie. Seems things have moved rather fast. The Judge set a bond.”
“It sure pays to have friends in high places. Also, it sure sounds like you are an insider. What role are you playing in the campaign?” I asked.
“Campaign manager of course. What else would I be doing?” DeeDee said rolling her eyes as though any idiot would know this.
“Sorry, I forgot it’s been, what, nearly twenty years since you comanaged Bob Riley’s campaign? That was in 2002, right?”
“Yes, and 2003 until the election that November.”
“Oh sister, sister. If you needed a job why didn’t you just go back to selling drugs?” I asked, pouring out the rest of the coffee after DeeDee declined.
“Not much future in that. The competition is too intense for this stage of my life.”
“So, the governor’s race is going to be a piece of cake, no competition there no doubt.”
“Walt, this could be my time. Even though Kevin and I would enjoy camping and fishing if he retired. He’ll be sixty-six in January. However, he’s making more money than ever before. I see him staying on with Caterpillar for another ten years. You probably don’t know but they’ve made him Sales Manager for the entire Southeast. He’s traveling every week. So, I needed something to do.”
“What did you mean, ‘this could be my time.?”
“I see Justin winning the election. He has the deep pockets behind him. Stuart Tinsley from Selma is Justin’s strongest competitor, but he is tainted, or will be when the news hits the streets.”
“I assume you have some inside scoop?”
“Yes, and you’re not hearing it from me. Back to me. Justin will have a couple of years under his belt in 2020 when Kane wins re-election. Obviously, you know how tight these two guys are. I think it’s only natural that Justin move on up.”
“Like George and Louise on the Jefferson’s?
“I hadn’t thought of them in a while.”
“That show was hilarious. Just like the Justin Adams show will be.” I said.
“Again Walt, you have this uncanny ability to pick the wrong side.” DeeDee said removing the lid on the old shoe box she had brought.
“‘Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth.’ Gandhi.” I said standing straight and saluting DeeDee.
“I get it. I won’t ever change your mind.”
“And, me yours. So, what’s in the shoe box?” I asked.
“Letters, Mother’s. I found this box in her grandmother’s trunk she had since she was 16. The trunk was in her closet at Brookdale.” DeeDee said wiping a tear.
“Letters. From who?”
“Mostly from you, while you were in college, a few from your days teaching in Maryland. There’s also a couple she wrote, apparently never mailed.”
“Did you read them?” I asked.
“Not really, just scanned the envelopes. Maybe glanced at one or two.”
“Okay, what’s the smoking gun?”
“Not one from what I saw. I’ll leave it to you to find the keg of TNT.” DeeDee said reading a text she just received.
“Is that our boss?”
“Yes, and I have to go. Late lunch at the State Park. I’ll let Pastor Warren know I told you about Frankie.”
“Sis, I think you’re making a mistake but what in hell do I know?”
“Right, see you little brother. Take care.” DeeDee said typing a response to the text.
She walked around to the kitchen side of the bar, pulled her suit jacket from the back of a bar stool, hugged my neck, and walked out the back door.
For the next hour I walked back in time, back forty-plus years. The last letter I read was dated January 18, 1973. The envelope was addressed to me. It contained a five-cent stamp but had never been mailed. The letter inside was written by my dear mother. She told of being in Guntersville that morning. She described the feeling she had, a ‘spirit pulling me,’ she called it. She had gone to Guntersville to shop at Hammer’s Department Store. They were having a big sale all week long. While there she overheard a group of ladies talking about the Micaden Lewis Tanner trial going on in the courthouse.
Mother knew one of the ladies. She was ‘high society in Albertville,’ Mother wrote. The spirit pulled Mother, and apparently the group of women, to go sit in on the trial. It so happened that it was Friday and almost as soon as they sat down, right behind Sara Adams, according to Mother’s letter, the jury foreman was announcing they were hopelessly deadlocked. The letter went on to describe how distraught Mrs. Adams was, quoting her as saying, ‘oh my, oh my dear James.’ Mother ended her letter describing the feeling, she said, ‘God spoke to me,’ that she ‘caught’ about Micaden.
Mother wrote, “‘I was able to see him after the Judge ordered a mistrial. Micaden and attorney Matt Bearden were hugging each other. I couldn’t hear the words but Micaden, I know since I had lots of experience reading the lips of your deaf grandmother, I know Micaden said, ‘the Flaming Five are evil. They are just like their fathers. And, if they have sons of their own they will not have a chance.’”
I don’t know why Mother wrote me this letter. Nor, do I know why she wrote her post script, “Walt, I know you went to school with Micaden. Maybe the two of you someday can get to know each other. I think you would like him.’”
A few minutes before 2:00, Regina called and said that Delton, her crime reporter, had sent her a text, ‘Frankie Olinger has been released.’
The Pencil-Driven Life 