Novel Excerpts—The Case of the Perfectionist Professor, Chapter 23

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 23

 Tuesday morning, I had just sat down with Garrett for breakfast when I received a text from Blair.  “Be sure and come by the office after breakfast.  Deep State.”

For the past month Blair had been working nearly nonstop on scanning all of Adam Parker’s documents to the $5,000 scanner Marissa had approved.  After Blair had spent a week or so reading Adam’s private journals, she got the idea of how good it would be to run a digital search across every document Adam possessed, both at his home and office.  She felt this might reveal connections that would otherwise remain unknown.  I think she subconsciously knew there had to be a better way than what she had seen that one time I had shown her my war room.  Now, with the aid of a powerful note-creating software known as Evernote, Blair was racing around Adam’s brain as though it were the Internet.

I replied to her text with, “I will.  Deep Shit.”  I didn’t have a clue what she meant by ‘Deep State.’

After breakfast I walked across the street and found her sitting in her little office behind the receptionist desk with the biggest smile I’d ever seen.  “Adam had a secret file.  He called it ‘Deep State.’  Here, look.” 

I walked over and stood behind Blair and stared at a folder icon.  It had been labeled ‘Deep State.’  “I’ve heard that term, even recently.  Don’t Trump supporters use it to refer to Washington insiders or something?”  I asked.

“I think you’re right.  The official definition is a group of people, typically powerful government people or agencies, such as the military, who are believed to secretly manipulate the government.”  Blair said rolling in her chair over to an eight-foot table she had me buy a few weeks ago at Walmart.  “Here, this is what made me run a search on Adam’s computer.”

Blair stood up and showed me a journal entry in Adam’s most recent private journal.  It was a short note at the end of his Thanksgiving entry where he talked about his day with Marissa.  After skipping a line, he had written, “RAW and RAND.  Deep State.”

“Could that be Rand Construction Company?  You know, owned by Alex Williams’ father?”  I asked.

“That’s a 10-4.  Fully confirmed.”  Blair had shared with me when I interviewed her last October that she was thinking about becoming a long-haul trucker if I didn’t hire her.  I wondered if she had renewed that dream.

“How so?  You’ve lost me.”

“Last night I finished scanning the last of Adam’s documents.  The first search I ran was ‘RAW’ thinking, ‘wouldn’t it be something if I could kill two birds with one stone?’  I hadn’t had much time to do any research related to that text Hannah gave you and Joe, the R A W one you know.  None other than Adam himself had written R A W and he had written it with R A N D.  See, look again.”  Blair pointed to Adam’s Thanksgiving entry wanting it to sink into my mind.

“Interesting.  You mentioned running something on Adam’s computer.”  I said.

“I don’t know what prompted me to run a search on Adam’s computer.  I guess it had something to do with me knowing that his computer, what was on it, wasn’t fully covered in my Evernote searches.  You don’t need to know exactly how I’m using this totally awesome software other than knowing everything from Adam’s documents are searchable.  Anyway, I ran a search on Adam’s computer to see if he had named any file R A W or R A N D.  He hadn’t.  It was nearly midnight and I was about to head home when I ran one more search, ‘Deep State.’  That’s how I found this folder.

Blair guided me back to Adam’s computer.  She showed me again a folder icon named ‘Deep State.’  “I would never have found it simply by looking at his desktop.  He had it buried deep in his state flowers folder.  Deep state, get it?  Irises are Tennessee’s state flower.”  Blair could be funny.

“So, what’s in this hidden folder?”  I asked.

“There are six subfolders.  The first one is a document, like a journal.  Listing events, phone calls, Facebook posts and comments.  The others all relate to specific individuals.  Look.”  Blair said clicking on the ‘Deep State’ folder.

I saw the six subfolders.  The individual names got my attention: Roger Allan Williams, Russell Adam Williams, Lawton Hawks, Jake Stone, and Jerry Todd.  I couldn’t help but notice.  Roger Allan Williams initials were RAW.

“So, Alex was right.  His father’s initials are the same as his.”  I said.

“Yes, and so is his brother, Alex’s brother.  His name is Russell Adam Williams.” 

My cell phone vibrated just as Blair clicked on the Roger Allan Williams folder.  It was Dalton.  “Blair, excuse me for a second.  I need to take this.”

“No problem.”

“Hey Dalton, what’s up?” 

“I just wanted to let you know that Bobby found the boyfriend.  He’s in Illinois.”  Dalton’s Jackson County client was charged with triple homicide and one of his victims was his sister.  I had learned in my preliminary investigation that she had a boyfriend in town just before she was murdered.  I had been unable to determine who he was.  All I knew was the sister had met the guy online.  It seemed Bobby was still head and shoulders the better investigator.

“That’s good to hear.  You calling to rub it in?  To show me what Sherlock himself was able to do?”  Sometimes I didn’t like Dalton.

“No, just thought you’d want to know.  You would have found it too.  Judge Holt granted my motion to inspect the sister’s cell phone.  That’s how we learned the boyfriend’s name.  Anyway, got to run.”

“Hey Dalton.  Hold on.  I have a question.”  Blair was motioning for me to look at an entry Adam had made in his deep state journal folder.  It read, “Sand Mountain Bank vs. Roger Adam Williams.”  I paused just a second and thought, ‘what the heck, if he doesn’t want me to know he will shut me down.’  “Dalton, I know you represent the Sand Mountain Bank.  You must.  I’ve seen you talking with Kurt Prescott several times when I’ve been in to make a deposit.”

Dalton cut me off.  “And, why would that concern you?  You trying to show me you are in Bobby Sorrells’ league?”

“No.  What I need to know is if you are representing the bank in a lawsuit against Roger Adam Williams?”  I asked.

“Well, that’s public record so I can admit to that.  You know you can go read the court file, see what the lawsuit is about.”  Dalton said.

“Yea, I know, but summarize it for me.  Please.”

“Williams is the single biggest investor in the bank, but he’s just one vote of five on the Board.  He’s been trying to act as though he were the CEO.  Can’t do it.  Kurt and the Board had to take a stand.  We sued Williams last fall.  Connor, we can talk more later, but I’ve got to take Judge Holt’s call.”  Dalton said ending our conversation.

“Blair, can you send me a copy of the documents in Adam’s deep state folders?”  I asked.

“No problem.  There’s six docs.  I’ll email them to you as an attachment.” 

“Thanks.”  I left Blair doing her magic.  I wished I knew half of what she did about computers.  As I walked to the kitchen to pour a cup of coffee I couldn’t help but think the Adam Parker case had taken on another layer of complexity.

After pouring a cup of coffee and warming a cinnamon roll that Blair had brought from home, I walked to my desk and opened my email.  I chose to start with the Roger Williams document she had sent me.

The first thing I noticed, but had missed it before, was that Adam had placed a question mark after his top entry.  The line read: “Sand Mountain Bank vs. Roger Adam Williams?”  I assumed this meant one of two things.  Either Adam wasn’t sure such a lawsuit existed, or, he did, but was unsure whether it had any relevance to his case.”

My last word rippled through my mind.  It was an odd word choice.  Why had I used it?  Was I finally at the point of concluding that Adam was trying to prove something?  Up until now, I guess I had assumed that if Adam’s death wasn’t from natural causes, that it was because someone had a beef against him.  In other words, as Adam was going about his research (I’ll call it, ‘Bullets, Babies, and Bullshit’) he was creating enemies.  Now, I sensed more was going on.  The ‘case’ word transformed into, ‘what case was Adam working on?’  Or, maybe better put, ‘what was Adam trying to prove?’.

One other thing.  This line was the first line on Adam’s document for Roger Allan Williams.  Did that mean it was the last thing Adam had written or the first?  After reading the entire three-page document, I concluded the line was the last.  Adam had used the principle of adding the most recent information to the top of the document.  Thus, the first entry would be the last line or paragraph of the document.

I flipped again to the third page and reread Adam’s first entry: “Roger Allan Williams dropped by my office today.  He didn’t like last week’s SMR article.  Said I was a disgrace to humanity.  Used polite language to threaten me if I attempted to publicly argue his son was unfit to be governor of Alabama.  This RAW is a perfect asshole.”  Adam hadn’t dated this entry, nor any of the others in the three-page document.  I guess he assumed no one would read this but him and all he needed to know was the order he became aware of the information.

It didn’t take Blair five minutes to email me a link to the Sand Mountain Reporter article.  I had figured Adam was referring to our one and only local newspaper when he referred to ‘SMR.’  The article was titled, “Local Professor Links Brain Damage to Religious Fundamentalism.”  It was published in the Saturday, October 7th edition.  Adam’s hypothesis was that a functional impairment in a brain region known as the prefrontal cortex promotes religious fundamentalism by diminishing cognitive flexibility, and curiosity, creativity, and open-mindedness. 

Adam acknowledged that he wasn’t the originator of the hypothesis, that Dr. Kramer Dickson from the University of Tennessee had posited this several years earlier.  What was original with Adam was whether functional impairment of the prefrontal cortex could arise from extreme religious indoctrination.  The reporter’s final quote got my attention.  She had asked Adam, almost in jest, what positive result could come from his research.  Adam had responded, “maybe a requirement that politicians be properly evaluated before including them on a ballot, to determine whether they are fit for the office they seek.  Trump comes to mind.”

I again reread the article, this time noting a paragraph where Adam quoted Dr. Dickson: “Based on previous research, the prefrontal cortex is known to be associated with something called ‘cognitive flexibility’.  This term refers to the brain’s ability to easily switch from thinking about one concept to another, and to think about multiple things simultaneously. Cognitive flexibility allows organisms to update beliefs considering new evidence, and this trait likely emerged because of the obvious survival advantage such a skill provided. It is a crucial mental characteristic for adapting to new environments because it allows individuals to make more accurate predictions about the world under new and changing conditions.” 

In another paragraph, Adam had related the term ‘cognitive flexibility’ to his own hypothesis, “Religious fundamentalism refers to an ideology that emphasizes traditional religious texts and rituals and discourages progressive thinking about religion and social issues. Fundamentalist groups generally oppose anything that questions or challenges their beliefs or way of life. For this reason, they are often aggressive towards anyone who does not share their specific set of supernatural beliefs, and towards science, as these things are existential threats to their entire worldview.”

As I pondered Adam’s visit from Roger Williams, I concluded it was an overreaction.  Adam was just an unknown Biology professor at a small and nondescript college.  I chuckled at my thought that popularizing Adam’s hypothesis would garner Alex Williams great support.  Alabama was its own type of deep state, deeply entrenched in Christian fundamentalism.  It’s an absolute requirement that political candidates are fully indoctrinated in the Christian faith.  This seemed too simple, too irrelevant.  I couldn’t help but wonder if there was something else Roger Williams didn’t want Adam Parker to know about his political son.

After a call from Joe I couldn’t get Dalton’s lawsuit off my mind.  I decided to drive to the Marshall County Courthouse and look at the public file. 

I knew most of the ladies in the Clerk’s office.  This was a benefit.  As usual, they let me borrow a desk in a little office beside the Circuit Clerk’s office.  After thirty minutes of reading Dalton’s Complaint and Roger Williams’s Answer, I felt I was wasting my time.  I closed the file and pushed it aside.  In doing so I bumped the mouse that was attached to the computer sitting on the desk.  The computer screen came to life and the cursor was blinking, inviting me to enter a name or file number.  I couldn’t resist.  I typed in Roger Allan Williams and clicked enter.  One case listing appeared.  It was the Sand Mountain Bank case.  I returned to the search page and this time entered, “Robert Alex Williams.”  There were no results.  Finally, I entered, “Russell Adam Williams.”  This time the screen lit up with hits.  I quickly noticed each of the case listings referred to a criminal case.  The County’s system was simple.  The first two letters of a civil case were CV and CR for criminal cases.

I did a quick review of each case.  They were all drug cases, anything from misdemeanor marijuana possession all the way to drug trafficking.  It was interesting to see that Russell hadn’t been sentenced to a day in prison.  I guess it helped having a wealthy father.  The final case was different.  It was an assault case.  The only one of the eleven cases listed that involved violence.

After having one of the clerk’s pull the court file, I learned that Russell Adam Williams, age thirty-two, was charged with second degree assault, a Class C felony.  The file contained the Indictment and I was shocked to learn the victim was none other than Robert Alex Williams, the defendant’s own brother.  Normally, court files don’t contain a copy of the Incidence and Offense Report, and this file was no different. I wanted to know what had happened.  I called Mark at the Sheriff’s office and he referred me to his partner, Tony.  Within five minutes he had both read me the entire report and emailed me a copy.  It was nice having friends in high places.

The report was written by the arresting officer, Jake Stone.  This told me that most likely the incident had occurred within Boaz City limits.  It seemed on the afternoon of Friday January 27th, over a year ago, Boaz Police officers had been called to the headquarters of the Rand Corporation in the Boaz Industrial Park.  When they arrived, they found a badly beaten Alex Williams slouched against his car in the parking lot.  He said that his brother was the attacker.  Roger Williams had seen the beginning of the attack from his third story office window but by the time he could reach the parking lot, Russell had fled.  Stone later arrested Russell at William’s Bar (no relationship) on Highway 431.  The case had been disposed of by guilty plea in September.  Russell was sentenced to ten years in prison, which was suspended pending successful completion of a drug rehabilitation program.

I drove back to the office knowing one thing for sure.  Wealthy families are not immune to spawning at least one black sheep.

Saturday morning came too quickly.  I wouldn’t have dared to tell Camilla.  We had planned on going to Nashville first thing, but she had been called in to cover for a vacationing Barbara who had delayed her return trip from the coast until noon.  At least I had this morning to continue my RAW pursuit.

Since Tuesday I had fallen head first into a deep state, at least that’s what Blair called it.  She claimed it would be the deciding factor in the Adam Parker investigation.  In Adam’s deep state file for Russell Adam Williams I had learned he was a former executive with Glock, Inc. of Smyrna, Georgia which was the United States headquarters for the Austrian based gun manufacturer.  It seemed Russell had introduced his brother, Alex, to Gaston Glock, the grandson of the company’s founder.  Adam hadn’t written much else about Russell.

I had also learned that Adam Parker wasn’t opposed to pushing the envelope.  It confirmed everything Marissa had said about her father and everything I had observed about him since I began the investigation.  Adam Parker was a determined man.  He had installed a device he had acquired from Open Curtain; I loved the name.  From my separate research, I learned the device was dual purpose.  It was designed to be placed on a vehicle.  It would track the location of the vehicle and it served as both a receiver and a transmitter of human conversations.  The technology was so advanced it canceled all other noises.  Adam’s entry to document his action read, “Open Curtains installed: RAW, RAW, RAW.”  I could only conclude that Adam had someway been able to attach an OC to all three vehicles the Williams trio drove.

Since Camilla had to go into work early, I ate breakfast with Garrett.  I was glad I had called him Wednesday night and assigned him the task of learning what he could about Russell Adam Williams.  After motioning my order to Gloria, I sat down and noticed Garrett had a sour look on his face.

“You feeling bad?”  I asked.

“Simply, soul sick.”  Garrett had an uncanny ability to make his point and do it with alliteration.

“I’m all ears if you need to talk about it.”

“Oh, you’ll hear it alright.  I figure the news will have the same effect on you.”

“Okay, you’ve got my attention.”  I said.

“Glock, Inc.  You know, the gun manufacturer.  First, the bottom line.  It seems they are contemplating building a facility in the Boaz Industrial Park.  One like their Symrna, Georgia operation.”  Garrett said pushing his plate back.  It looked like he hadn’t eaten a thing.

“How on earth did you learn this?”  I asked.

“Gina.  My main source, as always it seems.  Don’t ask me how she knows so much or has ways of finding out.  If guns being built in Boaz, you catch those three ‘b’s? aren’t bad enough, the deal seems to hinge on whether Alabama will approve a $50,000,000 contract to purchase roughly 60,000 Glock 34’s.  That’s their most accurate long-range pistol.”

“You haven’t said, but I’m assuming those guns are for Alabama’s teachers?”  I asked.

“You’re correct.  Here’s a kicker.  You know from the news we’ve heard that the proposed legislation makes it strictly voluntary for teachers to decide if they want a weapon in their classroom.  From what Gina is hearing, Alex Williams is going to propose an amendment.  It would be mandatory for every Alabama teacher to become a gun-toting ninja.”

“That’s one way to put it.”  I said.

“Here’s the part that might get closer home in your Adam Parker case.  Two things.  Roger Williams owns the Industrial Park property that Glock is considering.  And, Russell, you know Roger’s other son, seems to be the key link in making all this happen.  Gina has found out that Alex and Russell basically hate each other but are trying to set aside their differences to achieve their mutual goals.  Russell and Gaston Glock are tied at the hip.  This gives Russell an inside advantage to be named CEO of Glock-Boaz.  As to Alex, Gina suspects, although she’s yet to confirm, that Alex’s political pocketbook will explode with dollar bills if Alabama contracts with Glock.”

I spent the next hour listening to Garrett.  It seemed this subject, guns, had him seriously depressed.  He finally admitted that it was Gina he was worried about.  He felt she was positioning herself inside a danger zone.  Garrett said she was expanding her Creationism research, from the part where she is trying to determine why so many people believe that Genesis is virtually a science book, into an attempt to determine if there is a connection to guns and violence.

After breakfast, I walked across the street and sat at my desk in the war room for another hour trying to visualize a scenario where Adam Parker had become an obstacle along the Williams’ road to securing the Glock deal.

It was noon when I walked out of the war room and picked up my phone (I was adamant about having no technology in the war room) and saw Camilla’s text: “I have to work all day.  Sorry.”  I immediately called her and learned that Barbara had decided to stay in Gulf Shores until late Sunday and that there was nobody else to cover her afternoon appointments.  I told her not to worry, that we could hopefully make our Nashville trip next week.  After our call ended, I couldn’t help but feel bad about not telling her that one of the main reasons I wanted to go to Nashville to begin with was to meet with Marissa.  My Adam Parker case demanded it.  I always felt I walked a fine line between work and my relationship with Camilla.  I reminded myself that I didn’t own the beautiful Camilla and that she could walk away at any time. At a time she felt I wasn’t giving her all the attention she needed.