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 50
Wednesday morning, I was eating breakfast with Garrett at the Huddle House when Blair sent me a text: “Sandra Goble is driving Jake’s Tahoe. Towards Guntersville.” I didn’t think that was anything out of the ordinary. Sandra is married to Jake. The Tahoe is his personal vehicle. A couple of minutes later Blair sent a second text: “Sandra just received a call. It’s a woman. Sandra said, ‘you know Jake as well as I do. He can keep a secret.’
This text got my attention. I pulled out a ten-dollar bill from my wallet, slid it over to Garrett, and told him I had to run. In less than five minutes I was standing beside Blair listening to two voices coming from the Open Curtains device secreted to the frame of Jake Stone’s Tahoe. Blair said that Sandra had switched to speaker phone about a minute ago.
“The caller has to be Peyton Todd. They’ve been talking about Natalie and Paige. Did you know that Jake Stone is Paige Todd’s father?” Blair asked.
“No, hell no. Her last name is Todd.”
“I don’t know the full story but Jerry Todd, Peyton’s current husband, adopted Paige. Something about Paige’s total hatred of Jake.”
Adam’s iPad interrupted Blair. It was the caller. Peyton, we assumed. “Tell Jake that we’ve got Kurt by the balls. He’s not going to talk. Too much to lose. He’s also claustrophobic and fears prison worse than Hell itself.”
Sandra responded, “I’ll call you later. I’m pulling into the parking lot.”
I knew what I had to do. I ran to my office and called Mark on his cell. It went to voice-mail. I called his desk phone and Tony answered. “Tony, I have to talk with Mark. Now. It’s critical.”
“Hold on. He went to pee. Too much coffee I guess.”
“Get him to the phone. Fast. Please.” I had no choice but to wait. One minute. Two minutes.
“Connor. He’s now with Sheriff Walls. I went and told him you were on the phone and that it was urgent. He said you’d have to wait.” Tony said.
“Tony, do this now. Go into the Sheriff’s office and tell Mark, ‘X-Ray Sandra. Hot now.’ He’ll know what I mean. This was a long-ago created secret code between Mark and me. We hadn’t used it since our days in Dothan. The idea had come from Bobby. X-Ray meant to listen in on a conversation between a suspect and his friend. ‘Hot Now’ meant the visitor was on site. I hate to say, but we had executed the scheme a couple of times, listening in on a friendly talk between an attorney and his client. Both times a child’s life was at stack. I waited, hoping Tony would come back to the phone.
“Done. Mark looked like I’d plastered a white sheet over his face.”
“Thanks Tony. I owe you man.” I hung up and knew what Mark was doing. He would direct that Sandra meet with Jake in the inmate visitation booth that had been bugged. Sandra and Jake’s conversation would be recorded. Of course, whatever we learned would be tainted. Any defense attorney worth his salt would use the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment to have the information suppressed and thereby inadmissible at a trial.
I knew Mark would call me back just as soon as he could, after Sandra’s meeting with Jake. I walked back to Blair’s office and thanked her for alerting me to Sandra and returned to my office to imagine what words would be exchanged between the Bank vice-president and the Boaz police officer.
It was nearly ten-thirty when Mark called me on my cell. “Man, you floored me. X-Ray was the last thing I expected to hear this morning. I don’t know how you knew but you might have hit the mother-load. From what I could gather, Jake Stone is afraid of Kurt Prescott. Seems like he knows something on Jake. Here’s a twist. Sandra told Jake and I quote, ‘Peyton and Steven have Kurt by the balls.’
I interrupted Mark. “Steven? Did she say Steven Knott?” I asked.
“No. Just Steven. Anyway, Sandra tried to assure Jake, the man is sacred to death, the mighty and arrogant Jake Stone. Sandra told him that even if Roger found out about the money, he would be a dumb ass to say anything.”
I couldn’t just listen. “I bet that’s the source for Horseshoe Creek, the eighty acres and the mansion under construction.” I said.
“Might be that or might be the money Kurt weaseled from Roger’s account to falsify Adam Parker’s autopsy.”
“Oh yea. I forgot about that.”
“Listen, I’ve got to go. The only other thing they talked about was Paige. You know, Stone’s daughter. The girl must hate the man. It seems Stone is hoping to do anything to win back the love of his daughter. It was in this context Stone told Sandra to tell Peyton he would die before exposing Paige, that he would confess to Hawk’s death before hurting Paige.”
“What the hell did he mean by that?” I asked, almost thinking he was trying to protect Paige.
“I took it that he knew something that could incriminate Paige. Seems clear to me, Paige had something to do with Lawton Hawk’s death.” Mark said.
I asked Mark to repeat exactly what Stone had asked Sandra to tell Peyton. After hearing it the second time, I, like Mark, sensed Stone knew the truth about Hawk’s death.
After Mark ended our call, I sat and tried to put the last part of our conversation in context of little Nathan, rather the secret Natalie was keeping from Paige. It took me until nearly five o’clock to realize that I couldn’t come up with a single viable hypothesis as to how Paige and Natalie’s sex with Alex, or their baby-making plot with Adam, had anything to do with the death of Lawton Hawks.
I almost walked inside the war room to pull some string or bounce some index cards around the wall when Camilla called and asked me to meet her at church. For weeks she had been enjoying the Wednesday night fellowship meal prior to children’s choir practice. She had asked me a dozen times to join her. Tonight, I might as well. For some reason, eating with a mostly senior crowd sounded more inviting than feeding crazy ideas into a mind already obese from the fat spun from the Adam Parker case.
The Pencil-Driven Life 