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 3
Blair buzzed me a few minutes after eleven o’clock. I had just returned from the Marshall County Courthouse in Albertville where I had testified in a divorce case. Marissa was in the waiting room asking if she could see me or whether she needed to make an appointment. At least, this time, I had a choice. It wasn’t a difficult decision.
“Good day Mr. Ford. Thanks for seeing me.” Marissa said, standing in my doorway holding two leather briefcases.
“I’m Connor. Remember? Yesterday, I’m not your elder?” I said motioning her over to the oak table.
“Some habits are hard to change. Dad ingrained that Mr. stuff in my head from a little girl. He said, “until you establish a friendship it is Mr. and Ms. If it’s strictly business, then stay strictly formal.” She said, still standing but having opened both cases.
“Then, consider us friends. What do you have for me?”
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to leave all this but wanted to give you a hint at the type of information Dad produced, cataloged, and retained. This brief case.” Marissa stood more in front of the dark-colored brief case. “This brief case contains a chronological stack of email correspondence between Dad and Jake Stone. You can see here, Dad attached articles supporting his arguments.” She handed me an example. The email listed three different attachments. There was probably thirty pages, in addition to a two-page email.
“Looks like your father was thorough.” I said.
“He was a perfectionist. You’ve heard of a type-A perfectionist. They perceive anything less than perfection as failing. Who else do you know who would have kept such records? Ninety-nine percent of people, even if they referenced supporting data, would not have gone to the trouble of printing out the documents and creating a physical file. I won’t go into Dad’s indexing and cross-referencing system. Let me just say. It was thorough.” Marissa said, finally sitting down across from me.
“Adam Parker sounds like an interesting man. I wish I had known him. I suspect he would be the type to get under your nerves after a while. I bet he wouldn’t get along with the temperamental type.”
“Not just a moody person, but someone, say, the disorganized, flaky, oversensitive type would have made him claw the wall.” She stood and pulled out a journal from the tan-colored brief case. “Dad was a multi-layered person. He had what he called his public life and his private life. Privately, he kept detailed journals. Here, he would be more emotional. Don’t let that statement mislead you. Even his emotions were logical and well-reasoned, if there is such a thing. Here, here’s an example from back in the summer: ‘Mr. Stone’s outburst, including his use of damn and idiot stirred my anger. That enemy of reason. I somewhat regret my own response, one virtually dripping with sarcasm. Some of my peers might even label it an outburst: ‘your reference to the Bible is unpersuasive. Where’s your evidence I should care what the Bible says?’”
“That was emotional? I don’t even catch the sarcasm.” I said.
“I think he was engaged in a little game he liked to play. By himself. It’s almost like he was saying, ‘surely Jake Stone couldn’t be serious to root his anti-abortion arguments in the Bible.’ Fortunately, Dad was a much better communicator in his public life than his private.”
“Marissa, I’m enjoying our little chat but at this rate we will be here till midnight. Why don’t you show me some things that convince you Jake Stone can’t be trusted, maybe even had something to do with your father’s death.” I said. Always, the bad guy of sorts.
“I can tell you are not much of a chit-chatter. I’m not either. I’m new at this. I’ve never had a reason to seek out the services of a detective.”
I didn’t respond. Verbally. But, I did nod and gaze toward the two open brief cases.
“Okay. I see. Look here.” She pulled her iPhone out of her dark wool jacket pocket. “The two of them, Dad and Stone, first started communicating on Facebook. Dad wasn’t one to waste much time, but he did use social media in his professional life. Mostly keeping up with his Biologist colleagues. Several weeks ago, it seems Stone tagged Dad in a post. Here, read it.” She tapped her iPhone screen a few times and handed it over to me.
“Liberals like local Biologist Adam Parker don’t value life. They think it’s okay to abort a baby at any time. Like that damn Democratic Senator who stole the election from the God-fearing Roy Moore.”
“Did your father respond to this?” I asked.
“Scroll on down, fifteen or twenty comments.” Marissa responded.
I finally found it. Here it is, ‘Mr. Stone might spend some time reading and researching facts.’ Well, I can tell Adam Parker wasn’t the type to respond to an attack with emotion.”
After a few more similar examples, Marissa showed me on Facebook where Adam had issued his challenge to Mr. Stone. Asking him to engage in civil dialog via email. To his credit, Stone had agreed. She had me read Adam’s first response to Stone’s assertion that life begins at conception just like the Bible says. I could see how Jake Stone would get upset. Adam’s writing was academic, narrowly focused, completely sterile to most Southerners. He defined fetus and referenced several peer-reviewed articles that argued a fetus wasn’t even remotely viable until at least twenty weeks, thus it wasn’t a living person. Before this time, it was more like an organ and that we (Americans) don’t make women or men donate a lung, a liver, a heart, eyes, any body part, whether we are dead or alive. It’s strictly a matter of choice.
Adam also listed a few reasons why a woman might have an abortion after twenty weeks. He first cited a statistic. Only 1.3% of abortion procedures occur after 20 weeks gestation. From scanning one of the articles attached to Adam’s first email, I gathered that the vast majority of these, post-twenty-week abortions, occur because of the discovery the fetus, call it ‘baby’ if you want, has a fatal, or near-fatal condition. Although there are several earlier screenings a woman can have in her pregnancy, the most comprehensive and revealing test is an amniocentesis, which can’t be performed until the 16-week mark at a minimum. The article’s author wrote: “The optimum times are between 16 and 22 weeks. This test can diagnose chromosomal abnormalities, neural tube defects, and some genetic disorders. However, an amniocentesis is an invasive and risky test (with a chance of causing miscarriage), so many women wait to receive results of earlier screenings before deciding to undergo one. For those women who are experiencing routine pregnancies initially, this is likely the first time they receive any sort of actual diagnosis of fetal anomalies that could be fatal.” My eyes were growing weary.
“You see what I’m saying?” Marissa asked.
“Uh, I’m not sure. I do see that your father believed in details, sticking with a science type argument.”
“Absolutely. This is just the type of argument that people like Jake Stone would find offensive. He and his type are not interested in facts, real evidence. They are so anchored to the Bible, that’s all they know, all their brains will hear and acknowledge. There’s many sophisticated words for this syndrome but the most common one is brainwashed.” Marissa said, again standing and digging down into the stack of documents in the dark-colored briefcase.
“I don’t want to hurt your feelings but all you’ve shown me so far is two people having a semi-friendly discussion.”
“All you’ve seen is the beginning. It gets much worse. I’m looking for the first threat. Here it is.” Marissa pulled out a thick document and flipped to the last page. “Look at Stone’s post-script in his email responding to Dad’s argument over the right of a woman to choose.”
She handed me the document already folded to the relevant page. ‘You and your type don’t belong in Boaz, Alabama. In fact, you don’t belong anywhere on the planet. Nature has a way of destroying the weak and insane.’ I read it twice. “Well, I have to admit, that is much different than anything you’ve shared before. It’s tangible evidence he, Jake Stone, believed your father’s position on abortion was unacceptable, and he wasn’t welcome around Boaz, but it’s still far from indicating Jake had any intent on murdering your father. I’m sorry, but unless you’ve got something much stronger, I can’t in good conscience take your case.” I said this with a little sadness. I liked Marissa. She obviously loved her father.
“Would you at least withhold your decision until after the autopsy is completed?”
“I don’t foresee that changing anything.” I said.
“Please Connor. And, please read more of these emails. If you will, I think you will gain a better sense of Mr. Stone’s growing anger and disgust with my father. Can I leave these two briefcases?” I could see tears start to form in Marissa’s eyes.
I couldn’t quiet put my finger on it, but this woman had a subtle, almost innocent, way of persuasion. It was like she disarmed me while I was in my sleep. I reached down and made sure my Ruger SR9 was still in its holster on my right side. “Okay, I’ll wait till the autopsy is finished. Also, I’ll read some more, but I’m not promising to read everything you brought. Please don’t take this as any type of commitment to take this case.”
“I take you strictly at your word. Here’s my cell number if you need to call. Also, I’ll let you know when I hear from the autopsy.” Marissa said sliding a business card across to me.
The Pencil Driven Life 