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 63
Regina and I went to church Sunday morning and afterwards grabbed each of us a salad at Wendy’s drive-through. We ate at the bar without much conversation other than a little dialog over Pastor Warren’s sermon. She left at 1:00 p.m. with me still a little pissed that she hadn’t told me earlier about a surprise Board meeting at the newspaper.
I decided to use this time following-up on a lingering question I had ever since Micaden made such a big deal out of it at the Romanov preliminary hearing. The issue had bothered me enough to cause me last Friday morning before I left the courthouse to make a copy of the photo that had been introduced by District Attorney Abbott, the one Regina had discovered at Aurora Quik-Mart. I had also made a copy of Reyansh Johar’s photo.
He was the authenticating witness for the photograph that allegedly was made by the Quik-Mart’s security system.
Having Johar’s photograph available was unusual, or so I had heard. Judge Broadside had a new policy of having his bailiff photograph every witness who testified in his courtroom. Apparently, the Judge had been dupped a couple of years ago in a highly publicized drug trafficking case—so I was told by Nancy Teegle, Judge Cannon’s court reporter.
I drove to Aurora and went inside. The clerk, a woman of Indian descent, maybe thirty years old wearing a sleeveless top that was low cut revealing a healthy cleavage. She was waiting on two men who seemed to be regulars and were flirting, asking her if the owner was going to bring back the girly magazines. As I considered whether to buy a Payday or a Baby Ruth candy bar, I recalled a girl in college who was not really a friend, but we had shared several classes. She was from India and always wore a sari with a choli top, a long skirt called a lehenga and a dupatta scarf. The entire outfit was called a gagra choli. It was strange that this unique memory flooded my mind.
After the two men left I introduced myself, borrowing some credibility from my courthouse affiliation, embellishing it just a little. She was cordial and spoke very good English. She didn’t resist cooperating in the least. What she said confounded me. The Aurora Quik-Mart doesn’t have a security system and she had never seen the man in the photo that had been identified in court as Anton Romanov. Furthermore, Reyansh Johar never worked at the Quik-Mart. She said she had seen him but was sure he hadn’t worked here during the five years she had managed the store for Belton Howard who also owned a large poultry operation across the road. I asked her if she had any idea how I might find Mr. Johar. She said, “Indians are a pretty close group around here. I could ask around for you. Try to gain you some contact information.”
I left my card, paid for both candy bars, thanked her profusely, and returned to my truck. All I could do was sat there. I was no longer interested in the taste of something sweet. My mouth was bitter and strangely, I wanted it to linger. For the first time since I returned from Washington, D.C. to live in Boaz, as far as I knew, Regina had deceived me. I continued to sit with my windows up, without starting the engine, with the interior air becoming hotter and staler. What was going on? Why had Regina lied? I started feeling nauseous, so I walked back inside the store and bought a Coke. I was just about to walk out when the clerk said, “Mr. Shepherd, try this number.” I walked back to the counter and she handed me an index card with ‘Lakeview Tackle & Grocery, Guntersville (256-582-1949).’ I looked at her and she said, “I think your Reyansh Johar works there.” Again, I thanked her and returned to my truck.
Just as I was pulling out onto Highway 179 my phone vibrated. It was Ginger. “Hello.”
“Hi Walt. I know this is short notice but Zel and I are in town and wanted to know if we could see you. It’s rather important. We’ll make it worth your time.”
“What time are you thinking about?” I said.
“Could you possibly meet now?”
“I really don’t have any plans the rest of the afternoon. Regina is at the newspaper, at a meeting.”
“I know, she is with us now. The Board meeting just ended. Can you meet with us here, in a few minutes?
“I can be there in about twenty minutes.” I said.
“Okay, see you soon.” Ginger said.
As I drove back to Boaz all I could think about was how quick life could change. My mind wanted to go crazy and speculated the deeper meaning of the connection between the Quik-Mart, quick that is, and my thought about how quick things could change, but I avoided that surreal pondering. Not only had I just learned that Regina had deceived me, she had lied under oath at the court hearing. And now, I learned there is a connection between her, the Sand Mountain Reporter, Ginger, Zel and the Constitution Foundation. That’s also deceiving. Why on earth had Regina not told me that Ginger and Zel are on the Board at the newspaper? I realized they might not be on the Board, but something is up. I someway pushed all of that aside, trying not to jump to any conclusion, hoping and praying, of a sort, that Regina had a good and redeeming reason for lying.
The Pencil-Driven Life 