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 34
After my appointment with Cynthia at Sand Mountain Tire, I called Noah and asked if I could borrow the key to his parents’ house. We had planned on moving the two duffel bags Sunday afternoon, but my mind was craving an intimate look tonight. The only other possible thing that could have distracted my quest was an evening with the lovely Connie but she, along with Rebecca and Angela, were headed on their quarterly adventure to Oneonta and Oh-So-Good Barbecue.
Noah didn’t present any opposition. He did suggest I park my car in the garage and pull the shades when I was inside the house. He said his parents had a slew of nosy neighbors.
I pulled inside the garage and manually closed the heavy overhead door. The only other exit was through a narrow room filled with gardening tools and two long shelves holding a ton of quart jars containing everything from green beans to peach pickles. I walked through the half-open side door, across the small back yard, and onto an unlocked back porch. At first, I thought the key Noah had given me was the wrong one. Finally, I got it to work in the old lock that was probably installed when the house was built in the early 1920’s, according to Noah.
The house was small and had that old person’s smell, probably a combination of rubbing alcohol and Vick’s Salve. The kitchen was large for the size of the house. The metal cabinets reminded me of Mama Martin’s in Cincinnati but were, I’m sure, a much lower quality. The gun cabinet was in a long narrow, pine-paneled room around the corner to my left. Before touching the cabinet, I walked over to the rear wall and pulled the shades on four windows that looked out into the small back yard and the two-story garage apartment that looked like it could fall in at any moment.
I used the other key Noah had given me to unlock the bottom drawer of the gun cabinet. Other than a few, mostly empty boxes of 12-gauge shotgun shells, the duffel bags had the giant drawer to themselves. I reached for the first one and felt the pistol. I probably should have told Noah to be careful with the bags. He apparently, in a hurry, had simply tossed the bags in the drawer, the risky one landing upside down.
I started to unload the bags onto the kitchen table right outside the small den but decided against it. There, I would have to turn on another light and the window above the sink didn’t have a shade. I opted instead to sit on the floor with my back to a ratty looking couch across from the gun cabinet. I sat the gun-toting bag upright and opened the second one. My mind was like a laser. I had to open and read the contents of the manila envelope titled, ‘Confidentiality Agreement.’
The first thing that struck me when I saw the document was that it was mauve-colored, the same identical paper, or so it seemed, that I had found in both Rebecca and Angela’s safes. Before reading, I flipped the pages. There were three. Back on the first page I sensed what I was holding had been prepared by an attorney. The first part set out what lawyers referred to as ‘the whereas’ section. This is where the parties, here, Elton Rawlins, Doug Barber, and First Baptist Church of Christ, disclosed the accepted facts of their agreement. What I was holding was a contract, an agreement between the parties for each to do and to refrain from doing certain things. The whereas section consisted of two statements.
“1. Whereas Elton Rawlins and Doug Barber are Deacons at First Baptist Church of Christ and believe they possess incriminating information concerning: a) the misuse of member contributions and theft of purported payments to the Southern Baptist Convention, and b) other misconduct by members of the Church’s deacon board;
2. Whereas First Baptist Church of Christ believes it possesses incrimination information concerning the disappearance of Esmeralda Gomez and the death of Johnny Stewart.”
I knew it was typical of confidentiality agreements to couch the language in hypothetical terms. None of the parties truly admitted anything. The purpose of the contract was to keep things secret, whether they were true or not. The mere fact the allegations went public was so negative, the parties, or at least one of them, were willing to pay to keep mouths shut. As I read the remainder of the agreement, what was odd was that the church was willing to pay Elton and Doug a substantial sum of money, two-hundred and fifty thousand dollars each, for their eternal silence. This told me what the two men knew, or thought they knew, that was incriminating on the church, was far worse than what the church knew, or thought it knew, against Elton and Doug. The document was signed by these two men and by Walter Tillman as church pastor, was notarized by Nancy Frasier (odd, I thought), and was dated May 27, 1974. It didn’t take me long to recall this was the same date that had been hand-written on the bottom of the Rebecca Rawlins’ letter I had seen in her and Elton’s safe. The thing I couldn’t recall was whether Angela’s identical letter contained the same date.
I returned the agreement to the manila envelope and laid it on the couch behind me. I then pulled out the accordion folder labeled, ‘Deacon Deeds.’ It contained five manila files each with its own confidentiality agreement. These documents were clearly written by a lay person to the law. I recognized the names of all the men: Walter Tillman, David Adams, Raymond Radford, Fitz Billingsley, and Franklin Ericson. I thought it odd there was a confidentiality agreement between Walter Tillman, the former pastor, and his church. These five agreements were all dated November 29, 1973, and all concerned events and circumstances involving Ricky Miller and the Safe House. None of these agreements were couched in hypothetical language. All admitted wrong doing, including innocuous things as spreading false rumors, to such serious actions as assault and attempted arson. As I closed these five files all I could think about was the bravery of Ricky Miller. He stood up to these five strong and prominent men, and, virtually the entire community, to simply exercise his constitutional right of free speech. In his case, free speech came at the ultimate price.
It didn’t take long for me to recognize the pistol that had pointed straight at me when I opened the church’s old Mosler could pass as the twin of the one I had taken from Doug Barber’s safe. They both were Smith & Wesson 38 caliber ‘Chiefs Specials,’ and of similar ages.
The remaining contents of the two duffel bags were mostly large manila envelopes containing photos of various church events, including shots from two or three different Vacation Bible Schools. One envelope contained the most photos. They were of Randy Miller’s youth group. I found myself in one of the pictures. It was probably taken in 1970 or 1971. The good condition of the basement in the old sanctuary almost made me sad given my recent visit to the decaying structure.
I almost didn’t open the final manila envelope. I was tired of looking at photos of mostly smiling teenagers. Curious me couldn’t go the final mile. The contents of this one seemed out of place. They were minutes to a secret Deacons meeting held in late October 1973. I couldn’t make out the actual day since it was so smudged. The only way I knew the meeting was secret was because the secretary had admitted as much in his opening notes. The names of every deacon in attendance was listed, including the five prominent men who later entered into confidentiality agreements with the church. The actual meeting notes were short, the secretary, a Harold Maples, had hand-written, “the Deacons discussed the necessity of honoring God by persuading a select group of our neighbors to confess and repent of their wayward actions.” Maples’ final statement read, “the Deacon body voted unanimously to take whatever action is needed to stop Ricky Miller from operating the Safe House and from polluting the minds of young, but naive teenagers.”
I had seen enough for one night. I loaded the files, folders, and envelopes back into the two duffel bags, along with the unloaded pistol, and locked them back in the gun cabinet’s bottom drawer. As I backed out of the garage, I saw an old woman next door standing on her back-door steps, waving. I hoped she was senile enough to think I was Noah and had a right to be visiting his parents’ home. I certainly hoped she didn’t call the police.
The Pencil Driven Life 