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 41
I had just warmed a Stouffer’s dinner, Lasagna Italiano, apparently still mentally rooted in Italy, when I heard my desktop computer ping with an email notification. I started to ignore it but then my iPhone did its thing telling me I’d just received a text.
It was from Luke. “I just sent you an email.” That’s kind of why I had decided to ignore it.
I got up with my dinner and walked to the converted front bedroom, logged on to Google, and clicked the email icon. Luke’s first words were, “I’m very sorry I caused such a firestorm yesterday at lunch. I wished you had come fishing with Tyler and me, instead of Papa and Ed (I didn’t know why Luke referred to his grandfather, Deidre’s husband, as Ed). They were in a nosy mood, especially Ed. Seems like he’s caught wind of the fact that Tyler and you are from the same village.”
I turned my attention to the lasagna sitting on the corner of my desk. For a long time, I had the crazy habit of reading part of a document and either closing my eyes or walking away. My goal was to imagine or anticipate what the writer said during the remaining portion of the document. Here, I was certain that what followed was another question from Luke about Christianity, a question that likely had been spawned by the curious Tyler. I would have continued eating my Stouffer’s if there had been twice the amount of ricotta cheese.
Luke surprised me. He said that after Papa and Ed left him and Tyler alone at Martin Pond, Tyler asked if he could live at Luke’s house if he ever needed a place to stay. Luke went on to reveal that his father had leukemia and might not make it. Again, I stopped, ate one final bite of the almost cheese-less lasagna, and, instead of forecasting Luke’s final paragraph, my heart went out to Tyler. A ninth grader, without father and mother (I didn’t know but suspected she was either dead or unfit since Tyler lived with his dad). I couldn’t imagine how I would have made it during my high school years without my wonderful parents.
I walked to the kitchen for a glass of milk and almost sat back down in my recliner in the den. Something drew me back to my desktop. In his final few sentences, Luke had said, “how do I comfort my friend? It seems all I know to say is the stuff I’ve grown up hearing and believing all my life. Things like, ‘God is in control,’ and ‘You can trust God, He will give you peace beyond understanding.’ I feel like such a hypocrite to now say this stuff, especially knowing what Tyler does and does not believe.”
Luke closed his email with, “Thanks Uncle Fred for being real.” I was surprised Luke launched into a long P.S. “I almost forgot, Tyler’s grandmother’s nickname is Mossie. She’s about dead too, so he can’t go live with her if something happens to his dad.”
I closed my desktop, returned my dirty dish to the kitchen, dipped a heaping bowl of Brier’s Black Walnut Ice Cream, and settled into my recliner. It was almost 2:45 a.m. when I awoke. It was like my mind had reached out its big hand and shook my shoulder. Apparently, while I had been in deep sleep, the big computer between my ears had been at work. The name Miss Mossie came to mind. I had read enough articles by neurologists and psychiatrists to know that the brain stores, as groups of neurons, all our long-term memories. These experts concluded that each memory is stored in the brain area that originally initiated it.
Someway my brain was telling me, as it had been regurgitating Luke’s letter while I was sleeping, that I had an earlier experience with, not Mossie, but Miss Mossie. Oh, the wonder of high tech computers. It was then I vividly recalled Mama Martin often speaking of a Miss Mossie every time I visited her and Papa Martin in Cincinnati when I was growing up. I guess my mind was also trying to determine if there was a connection between this half-century plus memory and the recent experience I had where I learned, from Noah, that Carson Eubanks, had known my grandparents.
For the next three hours I tried to regain sleep in my recliner. I may have dosed a few minutes. I knew what I wanted to do but had to wait until a more reasonable hour to make the call.
Bobby Sorrells was the best private detective I had ever worked with. He lived in Dothan, Alabama and was a former police investigator until he formed his own agency probably twenty years ago. I had used him several times in criminal cases over the second half of my legal career. I’m pretty sure Dalton still used him because there was no one more in demand for capital murder cases in Alabama than Bobby Sorrells.
I knew Bobby was an early riser. During one case, he had stayed in mine and Susan’s home for nearly two weeks as he tracked down leads. When I had gotten up at 6:00, Bobby was always out on the back porch drinking coffee and reading a biography.
He answered on the second ring. “Hello, Bobby Sorrells here.”
“Bobby, Fred Martin in Boaz, how are you doing?”
“Hey Fred, longtime no see. Good to hear from you. You’re up earlier than normal. It’s only 5:45 a.m. down here in Dothan.” I could visualize Bobby reading a thick tome about Thomas Jefferson or James Madison. The man loved history. I think how broadly read he was helped him be a better detective. Bobby knew as much about what psychologists referred to as ‘the human condition’ as anyone I had ever met.
We caught up on what was happening in each of our lives and he let me describe what I needed. I laid out everything I knew about Carson and Tyler Eubanks, including how my own sister was Carson’s biological mother. I relayed to him about Carson growing up in Cincinnati in the same neighborhood as my paternal grandparents, and that his mother and Tyler’s grandmother, was referred to as Miss Mossie. Bobby was excellent at tracking people and learning their innermost secrets. What I had always found intriguing was the extent of information he was able to learn online before he ever went out into the field, as he called it.
Before hanging up, Bobby said he would be passing through Boaz in a few days to meet with Dalton, my cousin. Bobby told me what he could about a case he was working. He said that just last week Dalton had mentioned engaging me to lend my insurance expertise to an estate case that seemed to involve a life insurance fraud claim. I wanted to pursue this subject in depth because I knew Dalton was working Elton Rawlins’ estate, but Bobby received another call. He promised to see me in a few days with at least a preliminary response to my question.
I showered, called Connie, and talked with her for nearly an hour before I drove to work.
The Pencil Driven Life 