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 48
One thing that had created so much of my trouble in the war room over the weekend was real estate, an eighty-acre tract on Bruce Road owned by Sandra Goble and Horseshoe Creek, LLC. If Erica had been correct, that Sandra’s mother had left her a boat-load of cash, why would Roger William’s limited liability company be part owner of Sandra and Jake’s dream home?
Finally, by Monday morning, I had figured out what I needed to do. It was a hunch and probably a long shot, but a will, that is, a person’s last will and testament, normally had to be probated. This is a formal process supervised by the local probate court. If a person dies owning property, there is a formal process of transferring that ownership to the deceased person’s heirs. That process is known as probate. On my drive to Guntersville, I realized a lot of people make special efforts to avoid probate, by doing things, before death, such as creating joint ownership of bank accounts and real estate with their children. If Sarah Goble had done this, then her will probably wouldn’t be at the courthouse.
Judge Mitchell’s secretary was reluctant to even admit Sandra Goble’s will had been probated. I knew that Alabama was one of twenty-eight states that treated wills, and all other documents at the probate judge’s office, as public records. After a few minutes of back and forth with the bitchy secretary, she finally acquiesced, pulled the Goble file, and insisted I sit at a corner table in the Judge’s office while I inspected the will.
It was a quick task. Sarah Brown Goble had left all her property, other than her tangible personal property, to the Natalie Suzanne Goble Trust. The law considered a trust like a living person. It’s a separate legal and taxable entity, like a corporation. It was, in a sense, like Sarah had left her assets to Natalie Goble herself, but with special instructions to a trustee to make distributions on a clearly stated schedule. My guess was that Natalie would receive some of the trust’s income on a periodic basis. The principal of the trust would be distributed, my guess, as Natalie aged into a mature adult. The problem for my task was the trust was simply a beneficiary. Sarah’s will did not include any details about the trust. She, more likely her lawyer, had created that entity before or at the same time he created her will. The Probate Judge’s office wouldn’t necessarily have any information on the details of the trust.
I left Judge Mitchell’s office and walked across the hall to the Records room. This is where deeds, judgments, and all types of documents were entered into the formal records of the County. I knew there was no requirement that a trust document, one that created a trust, had to be recorded. I sat at a computer and quickly learned Marshall County had no record of the Natalie Suzanne Goble Trust. I made a mental note to ask Dalton, Sarah’s will writer, whether he had also prepared the trust. I knew he wouldn’t tell me since that would be a violation of the attorney-client privilege.
After leaving the third floor of the courthouse, I walked across the street to see if Mark was in and to hopefully get an update. I nearly walked out in front of an oncoming car as I pondered the information I had just discovered: Sandra and Jake would likely not have had the money to purchase the eighty acres and build a mansion. I wondered if Sandra had known about the trust before her mother had died. The relevant question remained: why would Roger Williams give or loan Sandra and Jake a shit-pot full of money?
After being buzzed back to ‘Investigations’ by the receptionist, Tony told me Mark was with Sheriff Walls. “He shouldn’t be long. Sit. Want some coffee?”
I accepted, and Tony walked across the large open room filled with a dozen or so heads talking on phones and staring at computer screens. When he returned he asked if Mark had told me the news about Lawton Hawks.
“No. What news?” I asked.
“Russell’s been singing like a bird. I guess he’s decided he favors freedom over family.” Tony said blowing on his hot coffee. I’d already burned my mouth on the blazing brew.
“What’s his story?” I asked.
“That Lawton was about to screw up the Glock deal and got himself killed.” Tony said, walking back across the room to a giant refrigerator. I followed him.
“Russell knew this because of his friendship with Gaston Glock?”
“You want some ice?” Tony had removed a few cubes from the freezer.
“No. Thanks.”
“According to our bird, Lawton got greedy. He wanted credit for bringing the giant gun maker to Boaz. He also wanted a kickback to persuade the City to sweeten the pot, waive some taxes and finance about a half-million dollars of land prep.”
“Any way to verify Russell’s statements?” I asked.
“That’s why Mark is with Sheriff Walls. Mark wants to take a trip to Smyrna, Georgia and meet with Gaston Glock face to face. That won’t happen right now. Too much other to do.”
“What do you mean?”
“Russell is arguing Jake is Lawton’s killer. Something even bigger. He, Russell, is about halfway to throwing his father under the bus. Talks are now at a standstill until the DA decides if he’s ready to make a deal. Your buddy Dalton has Abbott over a barrel. If I had to bet, Roger, maybe Roger and Alex, put the rub on councilman Hawks.” Tony said downing about half his coffee.
“It’ll take much more than Russell’s word to lock up Roger Williams.” I said.
“Russell vows he can deliver the goods, says he can prove everything he’s arguing. Of course, that might just be bullshit.
When Mark returned I shared what I had learned from the Probate Judge’s office. He acted like I had given him a new Corvette for his birthday. “Thanks man, I’ll get a copy of that and set up another interrogation with Jake’s attorney.”
“Here, save you a little time,” I said, handing him a copy of Sarah Goble’s will.
The Pencil Driven Life 