Novel Excerpts—The Case of the Perfectionist Professor, Chapter 56

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 56

 Monday morning Camilla left me in bed.  She had the 7:00 a.m. early-haircut shift at the Salon.  After she pecked my cheek she had said, “I’ll be glad when this case moves out of your head.  You are nearly worthless around here.”  If I hadn’t seen that sly little smile I would have feared for my life.  My life would be over without Camilla.  I hated myself for how I allowed a case to dictate every cell of my being.

I had dozed back for nearly an hour and had just walked downstairs for coffee when I heard someone knock on the side-porch door.  I opened the door without much thought, standing there barefooted, wearing only a pair of gym shorts.  It was Erica Williams.

“Uh, hi Erica.  Sorry, I wasn’t expecting you or anyone.”

“I should be the one apologizing.  I should have called instead of dropping by.”

“That’s okay.  Let me get dressed.  Come on in and fix you a cup of coffee.  I’ll be right back.

After I put on some clothes I found Erica sitting out on the back porch sipping her coffee.  “What’s on your mind?”  I really didn’t know what to say.

“I just had to talk to someone.  You are the only one I could think of who would come close to understanding.”

“Okay.  I’m listening.”  I said as I sat down in the swing.

Erica’s tears were rolling down her cheeks.  “For some idiotic reason I drove down earlier this morning to the lake house.  I knew that’s where Alex would be.  In his other three elections, that’s where we always stayed the weekend before voting day.  I guess nostalgia got the best of me.  Maybe I felt sorry for myself.  Living alone in our big house and on the verge of divorce.  It’s funny how good memories can push out the bad.” 

“Maybe there is still hope for your marriage.  I’m sure Alex would love to have you move into the governor’s mansion with him.”  As soon as I said it I felt bad, like I was belittling her, as though she was Alex’s pet dog.

“He doesn’t need me.  He has his two little playmates.”

“What does that mean?”  It seemed a perfect time for a question.

“I knock on the door and who the hell do I see?”

“Are you talking about this morning at the lake house?”

“Natalie Gore.  And damn it, if Paige Todd wasn’t standing in the background.  Both still in their nightclothes.”

“Natalie and Paige are with Alex?”

“Surprised?”

“Kind of.  Yea.”  I said.

“And to think those two used to be my dear and precious baby-sitters.  Where did I go wrong?”

“Don’t beat yourself up.  It’s not your fault.  Alex is fully to blame for not being faithful.  Not to be too personal, but he’s a damn fool not to be satisfied with you.”  I said wanting her to feel better.  She was, no doubt, equally gorgeous to my dear Camilla.

“Thanks for the compliment but I’m partially to blame.  Of course, I greatly underestimated the cunning Paige.”

“I’m not following you.”  I was clearly confused.

“Paige is an opportunist if there ever was one.  Someway, this was after Alex started banging the sweet and adorable Natalie, Paige came to me with an idea.  Again, someway, she knew that Alex was a player.  I think she mentioned Gabby Taylor from Guntersville.  She’s one of Alex’s former girlfriends, he also got her pregnant.”

“I know a little about that.”  I said.

Paige said I ought to teach Alex a lesson.  After a while, a few weeks I guess, I shared with her something I should have kept to myself.  I told her of Alex’s promise to pay me every time he strayed, every time he had an affair.  Anyway, I was so mad about Natalie getting pregnant I went along with Paige.  By then we had worked a deal.  Also, by then, I had already decided to leave Alex.  Anyway, my mind couldn’t think straight.  I know I’m not making a lot of sense.  Paige persuaded Alex to join her in our bed.  That puts it bluntly.  She wooed Alex.  He’s a sucker for a hot young body.  Paige’s plan worked like clockwork and I, by previous arrangement, caught the two of them in bed.  This was late January, maybe the first of February.”

“I’m guessing Alex had to pay up and you shared with Paige.”  A real detective is always working the puzzle.

“That’s right.  Here’s what probably brought me here this morning.  Not only was Paige an opportunist, she liked to run her mouth.  When I gave her my check for $100,000, her mouth couldn’t be quiet.  She said, “like taking candy from a baby.  Sex with older men can be a goldmine.”  I then asked her, “so, Alex isn’t your first payday?”  The only thing Paige would say is, “no, but he’s the easiest.  Sometimes they want to hold on to their candy, especially the old hawks and eagles.”

“So, Alex wasn’t Paige’s first quest?  Is that how you interpreted her statements?”  I asked.

“Yes, and, even though she wouldn’t ever fully admit it, I concluded later that she had been referring to Lawton Hawks when she made her bird comment.”  Erica said.

Erica and I talked another hour at least.  She shared how she believed Paige was probably up to something else but couldn’t put her finger on exactly what. 

After she left all I could do was speculate how Paige had somehow conned Lawton Hawks, or at least had attempted to.  Before going upstairs to shower and dress for the office, I convinced myself that Lawton had gotten the best of Paige.  Not considering the ugly possibility that the two had sex, but focused on how Lawton might have learned about one of Paige’s little schemes.  I thought a lot about it, but still had trouble convincing myself that Paige could have killed Lawton Hawks.  Driving to the office, I pondered whether that was what Paige was thinking when she told Erica, “sometimes they want to hold on to their candy, especially the old hawks and eagles.”