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 61
It never failed. Every time I saw Regina I was like a kid in a candy story. Forgive the cliché, but the kid wasn’t just any kid. This was a young boy who had never been to any type store, let alone a candy store. But, the smart little fellow had read many an article and story about candy stores, and heard his parents and grandparents share their experiences lingering and sampling. To say I was excited, no not just sexually, when I saw the adorable, drop-dead gorgeous Regina, was the understatement of the year. This seemingly couldn’t be better. Regina made sure it was because she always seemed happy to see me in return.
After I changed clothes, we walked around the pond with Sandi close beside us, but sometimes running ahead to fetch a tennis ball that I kept in a bucket nailed to a fence post. The weather was cool but not cold, so we sat in our two chairs at the end of the pier. We held hands as Sandi, panting, lay between us. For at least thirty minutes we sat and took turns gazing at each other and then toward the stars making their way into the night sky.
“Do you ever have days you wish you could run away?” Regina broke the silence moving her chair a little closer to mine.
“About every day, especially now that I’ve taken on a full-time job. Okay, let’s hear it. What’s going on?” I said using my right thumb to caress her left index finger.
“It seems I’m caught right slap dab in the middle of a pot of competing vipers. Ever since Sandra Donaldson’s murder the website comments have grown more vicious. Directly accusing me and the newspaper of fostering hate in what once was a unified, peaceful little city.”
“How can people be so ignorant? First, this city has always been run by just a handful of families and even though much of the dislike, even hatred, was there, maybe unspoken, but it’s been around all our lives.
“There is a difference now. Ever since I took over the Sand Mountain Reporter you know I’ve been clear about its purpose, to expand the dialogue, to bring in new ideas. You know, locals, most of them, are so extremely conservative politically, and so fundamentalist religiously, they think everything contrary to their staple of meat and potatoes is liberal and therefore an assault on their way of life.”
“What’s the Donaldson murder got to do with it?” I ask.
“A few commenters are saying there are rumors her death could not have been caused by a local, that it had to be a liberal.”
“So, let me see if I understand. Locals don’t believe there are any liberals living in Boaz?”
“Pretty much. Really, they believe there are a few around, Dean Naylor types, they call them, but locals treat them as foreigners. Strange, isn’t it?”
“They actually mentioned Dean Naylor?”
“Yep. Here’s one thing that has me flustered. Two commenters today said the death of Brian Steel is probably the work of the same killer.”
“How on earth could they think that? I thought his death, tragic as it was, was clearly an accident.”
“I thought so too until I talked with Delton today. He said that his source, you know the one in the DA’s office, says there is a possibility Brian’s death was murder.”
“How?”
“During the initial investigation, the State Forensics team found a hydraulic hose had come off its fitting. The clamp that was supposed to hold it tight was loose. They concluded it was an oversight because the company that maintains Sand Mountain Tire’s hydraulic lift system had inspected everything just two days before Brian was killed. Now, it seems that company, Taylor Hydraulics, has produced a video that shows all connections were in perfect order. Seems like a couple of years ago they had started videoing all their inspections. Another accident over in Huntsville prompted them to start this procedure.”
“So, locals are saying that Brian was murdered. I still don’t see the connection with the Donaldson murder.”
“One guy, Tommy Bowden, no Bolton, said Brian and Sandra usually commented on each other’s Facebook posts. He said the two had a big following and always garnered a ton of Likes for every post. Seems like Brian and Sandra, even though they knew each other from high school, didn’t have a real relationship.”
“Funny, you say it that way, ‘real relationship.’ Isn’t that what life has come to? Facebook defines who we are. We know people only from a distance. My book needs to include at least a theory on how this will fit with the coming civil war.”
“Okay, don’t start getting philosophical on me. Now to the scary part. Someone else, I can’t think who, I know she was a girl.” “Most are.” I said.
“Funny. She said everyone needs to be careful, that Boaz might have a serial killer on the loose.”
“And you think that is scary? Are you serious?”
“I know most locals are missing a screw or two, but I’ve never said they were stupid. They certainly have a narrow, often unreasonable way of thinking, but, you know, they might be able to spot a pattern before anyone else.”
“Interesting you say that. I’ve been doing some research that seems to prove religious people are more prone than others to see patterns. One writer I read said that usually the patterns are simple coincidences. He used the example of someone’s praying appears to clearly show God intervened. Like, a person has cancer and then he doesn’t. The writer, and I totally agree, says it shouldn’t be surprising that this would sometimes occur, given the millions of times people pray and the millions of people contract cancer. The writer is also clear that not once has someone prayed for someone who had lost a limb and then the limb grew back.”
“That would make me a believer for sure.” Regina said.
“Me too. But, the writer said that his research does show that these people, these religious, praying people, appear to be better able to spot true patterns. He attributed it to some natural phenomenon, something to do with dopamine levels.”
“Aren’t you cold. I’m freezing. Let’s go in.” Regina said giving me that sexy look in her eyes that always turned me to putty.
The Pencil Driven Life 