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 Case of the Perfectionist Professor, written in 2018, is my sixth novel. I'll post a chapter a day over the next few weeks.
Book Blurb
Late on New Year’s Eve in the small town of Boaz, Alabama, Snead State Community College teacher Adam Parker was found dead slumped over in his car. A preliminary investigation indicated the fifty-year-old biology professor died of a heart attack. Marissa Booth, Adam’s daughter and Vanderbilt School of Divinity professor, didn’t agree.
Four days later, Marissa hired the local private detective firm of Connor Ford to investigate her father’s death. She declared local police officer Jake Stone had likely murdered her father. She pointed Ford to a multi-month Facebook feud between Adam and several local people, including Stone and Boaz City Councilman Lawton Hawks. The controversy allegedly related to Adam’s research that contended that, in layman’s terms, long-term indoctrination caused actual genetic mutations that directly affected future generation’s ability to reason.
Over the next year, Connor Ford discovered multiple and independent sources of motivation to quiet and possibly murder the controversial professor. Ford learned that a civil lawsuit and widespread public outcry had effectively run Adam out of Knoxville, where he was a biology professor for over thirteen years. Ford also learned that Adam had become the number one enemy of Roger Williams, a self-made local businessman, and his son Alex, who is a Republican candidate for governor of Alabama. Adam had discovered Alex and Glock, Inc., the Austrian-based gun manufacturer, was exploring not only the possibility of setting up a large facility in Boaz but also supplying pistols for Alex’s highly touted and controversial ‘arm the teachers’ proposal.
Connor Ford has his hands full enough with these suspects. Add in his need to determine whether Lawton Hawks and Jake Stone are friends or foes of Roger and Alex, which accentuate the pressure no normal small-town private detective can handle.
Will Connor’s discovery there is a link between Dayton, Tennessee, and the 1929 Scopes Monkey trial and a rogue group of CIA operatives bend Connor and his two associates to the breaking point?
Read this mystery/thriller to find out if Adam Parker was murdered and how, and what role the long-standing controversy between science and religion had in destroying the life of a single perfectionist professor.
Chapter 1
I saw her the moment I opened the door. She was standing on the far side of the waiting room looking into the eyes of Thomas Jefferson, sitting reposed in a reproduction painting by Steve Penley. One he had produced for his 2008 book, The Reconstruction of America. Whoever she was, I agreed that Mr. Jefferson’s eyes could transport you to another world.
It was the second time in the last two days I had eaten at Pirates Cove Cafe, then walked across the street to the new offices of Connor Ford, Private Investigator, and found someone mesmerized by the mysteriously intelligent eyes of Mr. Jefferson. Yesterday, it was a woman from the Sand Mountain Reporter wanting to sell me a year’s worth of print advertising. She had read about me in her own paper, how Marshall County’s only brick and mortar private detective had a newly renovated office. Today, it was probably the Reporter woman’s twin sister from WQSB radio. My mind hadn’t changed. This type advertising didn’t work.
“Good morning.” I said, always wanting to be polite, but hoping it was someone waiting to see Blair, my secretary. She, too, was new. I refused to get caught up in another lecture on branding or the pitfalls of social media. I think tomorrow I will walk around to the rear of our building and enter through the back door. A little extra walking won’t hurt.
“Hello.” She said. I had startled her, which reminded me, we needed to get the door-ding thing installed to announce someone’s entry. My first impression. She was attractive, not beautiful, but handsome in a feminine sort of way. She was wearing a gray cashmere sweater. Warm for my office but wouldn’t win a playground fight against the icy wind and light mist outside. Then, I saw her overcoat, laying across one of the leather chairs along the front wall. Already making herself at home. Damn salespeople.
“I don’t see Blair, my secretary at her desk.” I figured she was back in our kitchen making coffee. It wasn’t yet 8:00 a.m. I made a mental note to remind Blair to stop by the kitchen and make the coffee on her way in from the back door, before walking to the front to open the main door.
“She’s making coffee I think. She let me in. I figure I’m a little early. I was standing outside when she, Blair is it? opened the door.”
I always could kick myself when I jumped to a conclusion without fully exploring the issue. Usually, there’s one or two things yet to consider, even when I’ve done a thorough analysis. “I’ll tell her you’re still waiting.”
“Are you Connor Ford?” She had walked towards me. I could see her bright green eyes. But, I also saw they were narrowed, rigid, cold, hard.
“I am. And, you are?”
“I’m Marissa Booth. I came to make an appointment. Is there any chance I could meet with you now?”
Normally, I would have said something like, “I’m busy on a case right now. Why don’t you make an appointment?” I tried not to let someone’s looks persuade me one way or the other. Sometimes I failed. Marissa was more than pleasant to the eyes, my eyes, and she had that look of quiet desperation.
“Let me check with Blair. Maybe I can adjust my schedule.”
At Blair’s insistence, I returned a call to attorney Dalton Martin, my best friend since high school. He had worked as an associate with the local firm of Bearden & Tanner for several years. He had recently made partner. I was happy for him. I was also happy to return his call. We had a good working relationship. We did each other favors all the time. His firm didn’t have an investigator on staff, choosing to use one from out-of-town when they had a big case, which left me with quite a bit of work to do on what Dalton called his “meat and potatoes” cases.
I wasn’t really surprised when Dalton said he had called to tell me late yesterday he had given my name and card to a lady who had dropped by his office. Her name was Marissa Booth. I thanked him and said she hadn’t wasted any time, that she was sitting in my waiting room as we spoke. I was about to reveal my slight, but growing, frustration over the number of collection case investigations he had thrown my way since the end of October, when he said, “I doubt it will be much of anything, but at least it’s something different. Her father was found dead Sunday afternoon and she’s a little suspicious. The police have kept it quiet. Probably figuring it was just a heart attack.”
Dalton filled me in with just a few basic facts. He didn’t know much. The victim was Adam Parker, a teacher at Snead State Community College here in Boaz. He was found slumped over in his car behind the College’s Science Building. Dead.
I told Dalton I appreciated the referral and would keep him updated if hired and assuming Ms. Booth granted me permission to do so.
I buzzed Blair over the intercom and asked her to see our early morning visitor to the conference room.
I swiveled my chair and opened Flipboard on my computer to see the morning’s news headlines. I hated when I relapsed. Trying to keep up with national news was not only a waste of time, it was depressing to say the least. My hero, Thomas Jefferson, would die a double death if he could see what the American people were choosing as national leaders. Pitiful, deplorable.
Marissa was already seated when I walked in. “I’m very sorry about your father. I just heard. My friend, attorney Dalton Martin, told me. I’m not sure what I can do for you. If warranted, the police will investigate.” I said, sympathetic towards Ms. Booth but also not wanting to waste a lot of time. Thankfully, I had a solid inventory of cases to work.
“I don’t trust the police. I know my Dad was murdered. He was healthy as a horse.” My first impression of Marissa in my waiting room had been positive. Because it was based on looks. But now, I wasn’t impressed at all. She seemed the modern American, clueless about reason and logic, oh so willing to jump to the conclusion she wanted to reach, without properly considering the evidence, or lack thereof.
“That’s three big claims. I suspect you are more correct about your father’s health than the other two. Do you mind telling me why you don’t trust the police? I assume you’re speaking of the City of Boaz police?”
“I am. Jake Stone, police-officer Jake Stone, is an idiot and an asshole, probably a criminal.” Marissa said opening a small box of Kleenex she had pulled from her purse. I let her gather herself. A long minute or so later she relayed a few more facts, facts to her. Stone had recently made some derogatory comments about her father on Facebook. Something about his research project on abortion. Seems like Stone also knew Marissa’s father had supported Doug Jones in the recent Alabama Senate race. Stone and a few of his buddies had been damning Jones over his recent vote rejecting a Republican bill that would have banned most abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy.
“Let’s say for arguments sake that you are correct, that you cannot trust Jake Stone. That doesn’t mean his way of thinking, his animosity towards your father, has or will infect the entire police department.”
“You may be right but, for me, the best position, the safest position if I want to know the truth, is to not trust the Boaz police.” She dabbed her eyes again. Even with her sadness and grief and a hefty dose of anger, her eyes were mesmerizing, in a different sort of way than Mr. Jefferson’s. I felt she had to be a warm and passionate woman, especially under normal conditions.
“You also said you believe your father was murdered. What are your reasons? I assume you have some objective evidence?” I asked, again anxious to finish this meeting and get back to my desk. The new office carried a heavy mortgage. I needed to work on active cases.
“Mr. Ford, I live in Nashville, so I’m not attuned to the local heartbeat, but I do know my father. He and I are close, were very close. We talked by phone nearly every day. We also shared emails and texts. Adam Parker was a perfectionist. That was both a curse and a blessing, especially for a biologist. That’s what he has taught the last two years at Snead College. I was aware that he had never fit in around here. He never said, but I fully believe, he was afraid. There’s three people that I believe had something to do with his death, or they know somebody who did.”
“Dalton, my friend and the attorney you saw yesterday, said your father was found slumped over in his car. Couldn’t it have been a heart attack?” I asked.
“I guess it could, but I suspect it was triggered by something other than his own body. I’ll hopefully know in a couple of days. I’m having an autopsy conducted.”
“What exactly are you wanting me to do? I assume you are here because I’m a private investigator.”
“Correct. I want you to determine what happened to my father. I’m not a rich woman but I can afford to hire you, with my salary and the inheritance my late grandmother left me.”
“What do you do? Where do you work?” I asked.
“I’m a professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at Vanderbilt University Divinity School in Nashville. Please Mr. Ford, please help me.”
“Call me Connor. I’m not your elder.”
“Connor, will you take my case? I need answers. I loved my father. I know he could be a pain in the ass, but he loved the truth. I will never be able to live with myself if I don’t do everything I can to learn exactly what happened.”
“How long are you in town?” I asked.
“For a week. I must deal with his house. Thankfully, he was only renting but he had it packed with his research materials, a few thousand books and a boat-load of journals and documents.”
“All I can promise right now is that I will consider taking your case. I need a few days to think about it. What would be helpful would be for you to provide anything you feel is even remotely related to the cause of his death. Things like texts, emails, letters, Facebook posts and comments. You see what I mean?” I asked.
“I do. I’ll be back by tomorrow with some things I’m confident will persuade you. Changing the subject, but what is your fee. If you accept my case?”
“I work off a retainer. I charge $150 per hour for my time. I also charge $60 per hour for Joe’s time. Joe Carter is my assistant, an apprentice investigator. Finally, I charge $25 per hour for any time Blair is working on a specific research task directly related to your case. Not for typing a letter but bulldogging and gopher work. I also charge for all expenses related to the case. I would request you sign a written agreement and pay a $10,000 retainer to begin.”
“That sounds fair.”
“I appreciate you coming and again, I’m very sorry for your loss.”
“Thanks Connor. I look forward to working with you. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Since Marissa’s car was parked out back, I walked her through the kitchen and the file room to our building’s rear entrance. We didn’t have enough parking out front, especially with our neighbor, Pirates Cove, consuming most of the few spaces along the one-way street.
The Pencil Driven Life 