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 34
It had been a little over a month since I had heard, via the Open Curtains App, about the hot water Roger Williams had gotten himself in concerning Tommy Lee Gore. The intensity of this relationship was about the only thing that kept me sane over the past four plus weeks.
Bobby Sorrells had always referred to this stage of an investigation as Antarctica, after the extremely cold continent at the south pole covered by an ice cap up to 13,000 feet deep. Bobby had been right. No matter how strong a case develops, it seemed before it was ever resolved there was a period that every aspect turned to ice. Rigid, frozen.
The only thing in the case that had any movement at all over the past month was the level of threats that Tommy Lee had spouted off to Roger. I had caught three more phone conversations where the ex-con had promised he was going to either kill Roger’s wife, blow up his lake house, or tell the world about Alex’s baby baking inside the adorable Natalie. I hated the baby baking analogy.
I was glad it was Friday and Camilla and I had another weekend planned in Mentone. I regretted we hadn’t returned since May, especially after I had made such a strong commitment to at least a quarterly weekend get-away.
Just as I was closing my desktop computer in my office I heard Blair running down the hall. When she turned inside my doorway I could tell something was wrong. “Listen to this.” She handed me Adam’s iPad and the ear plugs she was using. She said, “It’s Jake Stone in his police cruiser.”
“The ambulances just left. It’s bad. At least six kids and four teachers dead.” It sounded like he opened his car door and got out because that was the end of the audio. I removed the ear plugs from the iPad and turned up the volume.
“What’s going on? All I heard was several people have died, kids and teachers.”
“The notification came about thirty minutes ago, maybe longer. I’m sorry but I ignored it. The many notifications we’ve been receiving have lulled me into ignoring them until about an hour before I leave every night. At that time, I’ll do my review of all our drivers.”
A squeaky sound came from the iPad. I figured it was from the police radio, the Boaz dispatcher was saying in a high pitch voice, “Officer Stone maintain position; Chief on his way.” I then heard Jake say, “10-4.”
For the next five minutes or so I heard him call his wife, Sandra. He told her about the shooting at Boaz Intermediate School and that it had occurred right as school was letting out for the day. If I was a crying man I think I would have shed tears for those who had come to such a sudden and horrible death. I breathed a prayer for their families.
“Stone, what happened?” This had to be Chief Gaskin. I assumed he was either standing beside Stone in his car or was in the passenger seat of Stone’s cruiser.
“I was the third officer on the scene. Car four was in the area and was here in less than two minutes from the command. Someone in the school’s office alerted us. I don’t know if it was a 911 call or direct. The shooter was waiting in that red Ford pickup over there. When the last bell rang, and the kids started coming out, he, the shooter, walked towards them. One of the teachers said it was like he waited a minute or so before firing.”
“How on earth did we disable him?” The Chief asked. “I’m not sure yet but sounds like it was some daring police work. Problem is, to me at least, it violated protocol. Officer Tinsley shot the shooter, kids and teachers everywhere. I don’t know how he did it. He’ll probably pay like hell for it, but I’m convinced he saved a ton of lives. But, that’s not all. There’s even a bigger problem.” Stone said.
“What are you talking about?”
“Several of the teachers and possibly all the kids except two were killed by friendly fire. Teachers killing teachers and students. I’ve had a bad feeling about arming teachers ever since the beginning.”
“Oh my God. Please be making this up. This can’t be true.” The Chief said.
“It is. Sounds like it was mass chaos. It’s beyond tragic.”
“I really don’t want to ask, but I have to know. Who are the victims?” The Chief asked.
“All I know for sure is that the twins are dead, Alex’s girls. Emma and Ella. When I saw them, I was in such a shock I came back here and called Roger. I wanted him to know so he could go and tell Alex and Erica. It’s devastating.”
“I’ll call Alex as soon as I leave. Do we know the shooter?” The Chief said as the same dispatcher sounded out a request for an update.
“Hold on Karen. Be with you shortly.” Stone said. “The man’s name is Tommy Lee Gore. I’ve seen him around. A low-life ex-con. He’s worked some for Roger at his horse farm.”
I could tell the Chief left and Stone started talking to Karen, the dispatcher. I looked at Blair and just shook my head.
The Pencil Driven Life 