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 Boaz Safecracker, written in 2019, is my seventh novel. I'll post a chapter a day over the next few weeks.
Book Blurb
Fred Martin, a 1972 graduate of Boaz High School, returns to his hometown after practicing law and living in Huntsville for over thirty-five years with two goals in mind. First, to distance himself from the loss of Susan, his wife of thirty-seven years who died in 2013 of cancer. And second, to partner with his lifelong friend, Noah Waters, to crack the safes of Elton Rawlins and Doug Barber, two men who got under their skin as high school football players.
Little did Fred and Noah realize the secrets the two old Mosler safes protected. Who murdered three Boaz High School seniors in the fall of 1973? Is a near-half-century-old plan to destroy Fred’s sister and steal the inheritance from a set of 44-year-old illegitimate twins still alive and well? How far would Fred’s mother go to protect her family?
What starts out as an almost innocent prank turns life-threateningly serious the more Fred learns and the more safes he cracks. All the while, he falls in love with Connie Stewart, his one-date high school classmate who may conceal a secret or two herself.
Chapter 11
Last week when I met with Pastor Caleb and he mentioned the church’s Mosler safe, I was glad I hadn’t revealed my connection to the oldest safe manufacturing company in America. At the end of that meeting I had made a mental note to review Papa Martin’s journals on the specifics of what he had recorded about the Mosler safe sold to First Baptist Church of Christ.
The sale had taken place in 1899, June. I thought it an odd, even a rare, coincidence that the transaction had taken place the same month in which Papa Martin was born. Not only had he, starting in 1919 when he first went to work for the Mosler Company, began recording the make and model of every safe sold since its inception in 1874, but also the name and address of the buyer. Sometimes, if he knew, he would write out a narrative, placing the buyer in a sort of story frame.
When I arrived home from the Fishermen concert last night, I had found Papa’s 1899 to 1904 journal and the June 23rd entry that listed the Model T20 Mosler safe the church had purchased. It was the same model Mr. Whitman had purchased for his Thomas Avenue home in 1924. Papa had written, “this was the first safe purchased by anyone from the area in which I grew up.” Papa had told me over the years that he would sometimes go back through his journals, after he learned new information and add a little to the original entry. He must have done this with the church’s original narrative because running vertically along the edge of the page he had written on October 28, 1979, less than a year before he retired, “Mosler has now sold six safes to the Boaz area. They were purchased by: First Baptist Church of Christ, Edward Fenns Whitman, City of Boaz, Radford Hardware, Doug Barber, and Boaz High School.”
I was surprised I had never read this entry. For whatever reason, when I had originally discovered the First Baptist Church of Christ entry, I had ignored the vertically aligned add-on. I reread Papa’s last entry and noted he had not said there were no other Mosler safes in and around the Boaz area. He would have no way of knowing that. There was always the possibility, maybe even likely possibility, of someone moving into the area with their own Mosler purchased when they lived in Scranton, New Jersey, or Boise, Idaho, etc. And, it could just as likely be that someone, a long resident of the Boaz area, bought a Mosler, used, via Ebay, Craigslist, or through some other used equipment venue.
I was glad I had discovered Papa Martin’s listing of local Mosler purchasers. But, the only one I was interested in, right now at least, was the one I had known about for nearly eighteen years, the one owned since the early seventies by Doug Barber. It too was a Model T20 (was there any other kind?). The thing I hadn’t known was where Barber’s safe was located. It was just as likely located at his home or his pharmacy. It was a stroke of luck that in 2015 Doug had engaged the highly capable firm of Water’s Security to upgrade his outdated system at Good Neighbor Pharmacy. Noah had finished up the installation himself and, late one night, being all alone, had thoroughly inspected every inch of the sprawling drug store. There was no Mosler safe to be found. That meant only one thing, the Model T20 was somewhere in Doug and Angela’s house on Debbie Street. It was there, I would be paying a little visit in less than six hours.
This adventure was much riskier than my visit to the Rawlins on Thomas Avenue. Doug was still in town, working. However, I was thankful he had mentioned last night that he would be a bachelor for nearly a week, since Angela had left mid-afternoon for a multi-day visit with her sister in Montgomery. This news had accelerated mine and Noah’s plans by at least a couple of months. I had called him last night and we had carefully crafted a plan. He would stakeout Doug as he worked at the pharmacy and if he chose to head out during our target times Noah would confront Doug with the excuse his alarm system was pinging, anything to delay Doug from encroaching upon my private time.
Heaven itself was the real reason Noah and I decided late afternoon that it was a go. Yesterday, the weather forecast was mixed, there was a thirty percent chance of rain. Today, Heaven blessed the righteous and the burglars alike with an easily modified forecast, racing the probabilities all the way to a hundred percent. By the time I arrived at Willard Avenue and tucked a borrowed car behind a thick hedgerow next to the Boaz Golf Club, I realized our plan had flaws. It was quite a walk to Doug’s house on the far end of Debbie Street. I wished I had arranged for Noah to drop me off at the corner of Eugene and Debbie, but that would have created its own set of issues. As I walked along the edge of Debbie in pouring rain I prayed no one would see me. Surely, mine and Noah’s cause was somewhat righteous.
I was thankful Doug and Angela liked their privacy. They had a six-foot wooden fence around the enclosed pool at the back of their house. I was also thankful Noah had loaned me his scanner. It wasn’t the typical police scanner. This was a device Noah had created and for which he had obtained a patent. He, at my request, had declined to market it. It was touch and go whether it was legal. Before using the device, I had conducted a quick inspection attempting to determine whether the house had a burglar alarm. I hadn’t seen any signs.
In less than a minute I had tripped the back-door lock and was inside the kitchen. The small scanner looked like an iPhone. It was indicating there was no active alarm systems in the house. Some relief was in order but only a real burglar would know the feeling of dread, trepidation, and outright fear that came close to disabling the most determined man or woman once he or she was illegally inside another’s home.
After searching the master bedroom and bath, and a large study, my stomach turned nauseous. I concluded the safe was either not here or was hidden behind a wall. The latter would kill the chances of success since I didn’t have the combination and was going to have to cut a hole in the back of the safe. That would take nearly an hour. I quickly scoured the other two bedrooms, another bathroom, and the den. I turned towards the back-door entrance to call it a day when I saw the door beside the pantry. No way would someone put a Mosler masterpiece out in their garage. I hesitated to look but was drawn by curiosity. I walked over and opened the door. I didn’t have to walk inside and look around. I saw it along the outside wall, across from the entrance to the breakfast nook as you entered the house.
Within two minutes I had removed about twenty boxes from around the safe and had rolled it away from the wall enough for me to access its back side. I had thirteen hundred degrees piercing the thick metal of the outside wall for ten minutes when I heard a car driving by. Doug’s garage doors were closed. For the first time, it dawned on me the doors had windows and my torch would be lighting up the entire garage. Burglars are so dumb, especially this one. I lucked out when the car rolled on down the street as the rain continued to pour. I locked the handle on my high-priced torch and propped it temporarily. I walked over and used my duct tape to seal cardboard over the three narrow windows.
The thick plate steel fell outside the safe at 5:45, fifteen minutes before Doug was scheduled to close the Good Neighbor Pharmacy. I had to hurry. It didn’t take long for me to peer with flashlight inside the safe. It was loaded down. This was a problem. I had to someway reach through with a short flat-headed screwdriver all the way to the front door and trip the plate that held the combination locking system in place. After another three minutes of trying to squeeze my hand between boxes that were stacked beside and on top of each other, I finally felt the safe’s front wall. After a small miracle occurred, I looked at my watch: 5:55. I hadn’t figured on the two layers of thick duct tape Doug had used to keep the locking mechanism in place. The contrary thought quickly raced through my head that maybe Doug had read enough to know that the back-door method was the only feasible way for a burglar to gain access via the safe’s front door.
Whatever. I rolled the safe, using all my strength, to a better access position and pulled open the front door. I started opening and discarding box after box. Most of them contained old pill bottles, filled with multi-colored and multi-shaped pills. A few boxes had an assortment of jewelry, pocket watches, and earrings, all looking cheap, almost common. I found two flatter type boxes containing some rare looking coins each inside its own plastic sleeve. I tossed them into an extra bag I had brought along, maybe subliminally believing Doug’s safe wouldn’t be as tidy as Elton’s.
The time was 6:03. Doug was now talking with Noah. Our agreement had been if I hadn’t called his burner phone from my burner phone by 6:00 p.m., that he would walk inside the pharmacy if the front door wasn’t locked. If it was, then he would wait on Noah to come out. I had already determined there wasn’t a usable rear door on the backside of the old building. I couldn’t see Doug walking down the narrow alleyway dodging old and unused dumpsters, and two disabled Volkswagen bugs.
I reverted to plan B. I would grab everything I thought might contain something valuable and zip them up in my extra bag. There were two accordion file folders, several regular manila folders, three black journals that reminded me of Papa Martin’s, and a heavy box that I quickly opened to find a Smith & Wesson 38 caliber pistol. It too was old. For good measure, I grabbed an old King Edward Cigar box that contained an assortment of coins, rings, gold necklaces, and a locket I didn’t take time to open.
At 6:09, I was back in my borrowed Malibu and turning left on Pleasant Hill Road. I dialed Noah’s burner phone, but he didn’t answer. I concluded he was still talking with Doug, maybe inspecting the security system’s control panel in a storage room next to the rear door. At 6:15, I made my second attempt to reach my best friend, hoping he hadn’t run into any clichés. “I’m leaving, walking across the parking lot. Doug’s still inside. Is everything a high-five?” I was glad Noah could stay on our agreed-upon script, at least with the last statement.
“Yep, no real issues. But, change of plans. The train car’s full of junk and needs sorting. I’m returning to base and will forward an update when the tracks are clear.” I knew there was nothing really to gain by meeting Noah and dividing up the haul. I felt it was safe for me to exchange my Malibu for my truck at Tyson’s crowded parking lot and drive home with the loot. If there was anything worth keeping Noah and I could decide how to divide and conquer later.
At 7:04, I pulled under my prefab carport beside my hundred-plus-year-old home. It was still pouring, but not as bad. When inside, I shoved my tool bag onto the top shelf in a closet next to the kitchen. I laid the extra bag on the oak-planked table, another piece of ancient furniture built by the long-gone, but never forgotten, Stonewall Martin.
The Pencil-Driven Life 