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 36
I didn’t hesitate walking into Connie’s foyer. It was now established between us. When the front door was cracked open, that was my signal to come in.
“I’m in here. Waiting.” She must have a camera or sensor or something to tell her I’d arrived. The kitchen is half a house away, beyond the great room. When I walked through the archway into the breakfast nook I saw her slipping off a mitten and laying it on the counter beside the coffee-maker. “Good thing I delayed cooking the biscuits.”
“I’m sorry I’m late. Deidre called, and we had the worst argument we have ever had.” Connie poured me a cup of coffee and walked it to me. She almost handed it to me but set it down on the counter beside me.
“Here, let me make it all better.” She moved her body in close to mine and reached her hands and arms around my waist. “I’m glad you came, and I’m happy we have become friends. Let’s don’t talk about your argument for now, just hold me.” My mind switched gears faster than a lightning bolt.
“Thanks for inviting me and I hope you know I’m enjoying every second I get to spend with you.” Connie was nearly as tall as me. She raised her head and poured her mysterious blue eyes into mine. She smiled, and I pulled her even closer, feeling her breasts pressing against my chest. At the same instant we both moved for the other’s lips. The kiss was long and passionate.
“Wow, you are a good kisser.” She pulled back and reached over for my cup of coffee. “We better focus on breakfast for now. A few more kisses like that and we’ll never get to the yard.”
“Maybe that would be a good thing. I could come back Monday afternoon for the chores.” I took a sip of coffee, set it down, and again pulled Connie into me. This time as we kissed I let my right hand move down her back and onto her firm and shapely rear. I pressed firmly, and she didn’t resist positioning her body closer. She let out a soft moan when she felt how excited I had become. I slipped my left hand inside her pink top along her lower back and was surprised when she pulled my shirt outside the work shorts I had worn. I moved my left hand higher and noticed she didn’t have on a bra.
The pace and direction I hoped we were traveling quickly ended. “Okay Fido let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” About that time the oven timer went off. “Saved by the biscuits. They’re better when their hot.” I almost responded with a rather crude remark but didn’t. But, I had to question who had been saved.
“Thank goodness I’m saved. I was beginning to get nervous, the way you were beginning to take advantage of me.” I hoped Connie could take my joking.
“It’s a good thing both of us are not as slow as you. I have to say I’m thinking there is hope for you after all. Now, sit down and let’s eat. We have a mountain of work to do today.”
Breakfast consisted of biscuits and fresh honey from the bee hives I had no idea she had. And, bacon, eggs, and grits that were better than Mother’s.
For the next four hours I was reminded of how much I missed Susan. She, like Connie, was a yard’s person. During the summer, on Saturdays, Susan became a drill sergeant barking out order after order of what needed to be done. By 1:30, I had used Connie’s John Deere to mow and vacuum nearly three-quarters of an acre. And, I had edged both the front and rear sidewalks. I was about to crank up the Stilh blower when she motioned me to follow her to the pool where she had apparently been high-pressure washing for the past hour. She was carrying a tray of lemonade.
“Let’s rest. We’ve got time. We’re making great progress.” Connie said as I sat in a lounge chair lined with a soft, flowered cushion. She handed me a glass of fresh-squeezed lemonade.
“You have a beautiful place here. I hope I’m not out of line but maybe we could go swimming together sometime. Say right now?” I don’t know if it was the tartness of the lemonade or the gentle humming of the pool’s filter, but something spurred my boldness.
“Fred is a quick learner. I love it. Here’s an idea. Why don’t we finish up the yards, maybe take a nap to restore our energy, grill out some steaks late afternoon, and then see what happens. Who knows, a nighttime swim might make for a romantic evening.”
“I love a woman with a plan.” Heck, what was I to say. Connie’s ideas were perfect.
I wasn’t expecting her response. “Sometimes my plans are disastrous.”
“Care to share?” I asked.
“Fred, don’t you think it’s odd that we are together? I mean, I guess it’s okay for me to say this. Is it just a coincidence that we are seeing each other, or do you think it is God’s plan, His somewhat twisted way of showing He works in mysterious ways?” Connie’s words were bouncing off me like my mind was wearing heavy armor. I was fully confused.
“I hope you know I like the fact we are working on a wonderful relationship, but I don’t see what’s odd, weird, mysterious, whatever, about it.”
“I spent a year encouraging Angela and Rebecca to make their peace with Deidre. Your sister. Now, it’s kind of like I’m being rewarded with you.”
“For sure, you are one lucky lady, but what’s the deal over Deidre?” I asked, more confused than ever.
“Unlike you, after we graduated in 1972, I stayed in Boaz. For two years, attending Snead State. This was when your sister was away, supposedly in Europe as an exchange student. Surely, you know that Angela and Rebecca had the hots for Johnny Stewart. But, my darling cousin, fell for the sexy Deidre. While I was a sophomore at Snead, Angela and Rebecca were seniors at Boaz High. After Johnny was killed the two of them went berserk, blaming Deidre for his death. I think if she had been in town for much longer, you know she moved to Cincinnati at Christmas 1973, Angela and Rebecca would have killed her.”
“Wait. I thought you said Deidre went to Europe as an exchange student?”
“That’s what your mom wanted everybody to think, but don’t you know it’s rather difficult keeping a secret in a small southern town?”
Once again, I felt like the most stupid man in Boaz. It seemed everyone knew the very things that I should have known. I was about to respond to Connie’s question when her iPhone vibrated on the lemonade tray.
“Sorry. It’s Angela. I better take this. She’s still having a hard time with Doug’s death.” Connie answered the call and walked away and towards the pool house across from where we had been sitting. I laid my head back and pondered how Angela and Rebecca had found out the truth about where Deidre had moved. As I wondered whether they had also learned that she was pregnant with Johnny Stewart’s baby, Connie returned and sat back down beside me in a matching lounge chair.
“Are you okay with a little change of plans?” She asked.
“As long as it keeps me close by your side my lovely, I’m good.” I was sounding like a star-struck teenager.
“Angela wants me to run over for a few minutes. Let’s do this. While I’m gone why don’t you use the blower to clean off the front and rear sidewalks, then you take a shower and change clothes. By the time you’re all spiffy looking, I’ll be back.”
“Whatever your pleasure my madame.” No doubt the gorgeous Connie was leading me by a leash.
“Oh, use my shower. It’s bigger, and the one in the bath in the hallway doesn’t have much pressure.” Connie stood up and reached out her hands for me to stand. I complied. She gave me a quick kiss and walked away, towards her garage. Before she was out of eye shot she turned and said, “if you like big and thick towels, they are on the top shelf in the linen closet. Make yourself at home.”
As soon as I heard Connie’s Camry start and pull out, I went into racing mode and headed for the front sidewalk. In less than ten minutes every inch of concrete, including the driveway, was free from dirt and cut grass. I must be living right or something because the gods were raining down blessings on me. They had given me the perfect opportunity to itch a scratch I had ever since discovering the sensor at the bottom of Connie’s linen closet when she had sent me after her First Aid Kit.
I put the blower in the garage, fetched my pants and shirt from my car, and walked to the master suite. The only other time I was in Connie’s bathroom I hadn’t noticed the door across from the double vanity. I suspect I had been focused on walking through the first room of the bathroom into the showering area where the linen closet was. I stopped and opened the door and entered a large walk-in closet. On three sides were shelves and clothes racks. Connie sure had a lot of clothes and shoes. I walked over to an old cedar chest that sat along the left wall underneath a ton of cubby holes filled with shoes. I knew the wall behind the chest housed the linen closet in the showering room. That odd-placed sensor had my attention. I gently pulled the chest out away from the wall and saw a single slim white wire coming through the wall. I traced it towards the hallway that would be behind the back side of Connie’s walk-in closet. I roughly measured the depth of the closet and then walked outside into her bedroom. I walked off the same distant and noticed the extra space, maybe three feet, before I reached the doorway leading out into the hall. I returned to the walk-in closet and proceeded to gently move Connie’s clothes back and forth, so I could see the wall that normally would have backed up to the hallway. In the far-right corner I noticed another sensor. It too had a small white wire protruding out its side. I traced it back to the left side of the back wall and found the edge of a door, the type that opens by sliding inside a specially created wall. The door moved easily. I almost wasn’t surprised. The sensors had alerted me to the fact there was something Connie had hidden. Seeing the giant Mosler resting inside the hidden room was exhilarating. Until, I realized that given my recent track record of uncovering long held secrets, I almost became nauseous while thinking if I ever looked inside this safe, mine and Connie’s relationship might be ruined forever.
“You alright in there?” Damn, Connie was home. She hadn’t stayed at Angela’s the full hour. I rolled the door shut and straightened her clothes, trying to return them to an equal distance between hangers. It was as though the crooks on the hangers were eternal guards protecting the world’s secrets.
When I turned on the shower I yelled. “Come join me if you want.” Nice touch Fred, but it’s way too desperate. As I stripped down and stepped underneath the scalding water, I kept telling myself that I had to play this cool. I needed to act as though I would be just as satisfied if Connie and I didn’t spend any time the rest of today fooling around. Who on earth was I kidding?”
The Pencil-Driven Life 