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 48
Wednesday night I got the shock of my life. After a monotonous meal of green beans, mashed potatoes, and fried chicken in the Fellowship Hall, Connie asked me, out of Dad and Deidre’s hearing, if I wanted to come to her house and spend the night. I nodded and smiled as Pastor Caleb appeared from nowhere and announced Prayer Meeting would be delayed fifteen minutes.
I couldn’t tell for sure if Connie was serious. I already knew she didn’t understand much about being romantic. To me, her invitation was too brazen, almost in the camp of a ‘do you want to come over and fix my lawn mower?’ A true romantic would have simply asked me to come over for coffee and cake and allow time, touch, and talk to brew up a natural overnight retreat under the sheets.
We did have coffee and cake but then Connie led me to her bedroom. I tried to slow her down but, just like in Gulf Shores, she was a wildcat that went right for the throat. Once again, the rendezvous was pure sex, not anything akin to true intimacy.
I woke up around 4:00 next to the lovely Connie’s naked body. At first, I thought she was initiating sex again, but my mind finally realized someway her iPhone had also decided it would sleep with us. It was the intermittent vibrating next to my lower stomach that had confused me.
In less than five minutes Connie had dressed and was heading out the door. It was Aunt Julia. Connie’s mother had called and said that her sister might not make it to dawn. I offered to go with her. I wanted to do everything I could to comfort her since I knew she was almost as close to her aunt as she was her mother. For whatever reason, Connie made me stay behind.
It only took the light of Connie’s Camry backing out of her driveway to wake up my little demon. With him, her, whatever it was, came an overwhelming guilt. How on earth could I violate the trust and freedom Connie was now so willingly providing? The little demon convinced me that what Connie didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her. Or us.
In the mid-sixties, Mosler Company had developed a unique safe-locking device (it was a safe-opening device). Their research and development department had been tasked with creating a way for the Company to open any one of their safes no matter the combination the individual owners had selected. Gus Mosler’s objective was to provide an alternative to the cost and aggravation for the customer who lost or forgot their three numbers. I was happy Papa Martin had started including this information in his journal.
By 4:20 a.m., I had drunk half a cup of coffee from Connie’s automatic machine. It was odd she always set it to start making at 4:00 a.m. Without knowing Connie’s combination, I dialed in the three numbers, rotating left or right in between. The thought raced across my mind that I wished Doug Barber’s safe had been manufactured as late as Connie’s.
I pulled open the door. It seemed lighter than I recalled from my last adventure in the church’s old basement. The first thing I saw, surprisingly, was four stacks of neatly wrapped cash. I started to pull back the plastic on one end and thumb through the bills to get a rough estimate of how much money the lovely Connie had tucked back. But, I didn’t. The last thing I wanted or needed was for her to discover her safe had been cracked.
I returned the bundle to its home and removed a small box. It contained a familiar locket, one like I had seen Rebecca wearing when I had met with her several weeks ago in Connie’s dining room, less than fifty feet away from where I stood. It was also just like the one Dad had shown me, the one revealing a naked Deidre, the one Mother had taken away from my hormone-spewing sister. Like the cash bundle, I returned the box to its little home.
My hands felt clammy as I removed a manila envelope. Why did everyone place one of these in their old Mosler? I was sweating because I was afraid Connie would return, suddenly and unexpectedly like she had before when I was supposed to be taking a shower after finishing up her yard work. Unsurprisingly, the envelope contained a photo. It was odd at best. It was Connie and her cousin Johnny posing with their four hands balancing a lidless box. I couldn’t tell exactly what it contained. The photo wasn’t high quality. I turned the photo over and read in Connie’s perfect hand-writing. It could be no one else’s. “FBCC’s payment for mistreating Uncle Bill.” I flipped the photo for another look.
Then, it hit me. The photo was taken in First Baptist Church of Christ’s basement. Connie and Johnny were standing in front of the safe. Looking carefully, I could barely see the front two heavy rollers at the bottom of the safe. I guess my legal training kicked in. “Who had made the photo?” I slipped the photo back inside the manila envelope and felt another thin sheet of paper. I had missed it before. I removed the maybe five or six-inch square single sheet that no doubt had been cut out of a newspaper. Along the right edge was hand-written, again by the lovely Connie, “SMR October 16, 1973.” No doubt it was an article from the Sand Mountain Reporter. The title was “Three Teenagers Caught Red-Handed.” I read the article and was confused. Apparently, Johnny Stewart, Allan Floyd, and Tommy Jones had been caught coming out of the church’s office three hours after the Wednesday night prayer service had ended. Two thoughts slithered through me. One, Connie wasn’t implicated at all, and two, the article specifically stated that nothing was stolen. I returned the single sheet of newspaper print to the inside of the manila envelope.
The only other thing in Connie’s safe was a file folder containing three pages of medical jargon. The report was dated September 27, 1973. After noticing the pages were out of order I came to the last page, which really was the first page, and noticed that it was medical records for Deidre Martin. The only non-medical language I could understand revealed that Deidre was not pregnant even though she had been sexually active. It was then I recalled that Connie had shared that Aunt Julia had worked for Dr. Luther Corley for over forty years. I concluded that Aunt Julia had not been against violating someone’s privacy by sharing some very personal information. Damn this was odd. Why would Connie have these records?
Just as I returned the file folder to the inside left corner of the old Mosler, my cell phone vibrated in my back pocket. I knew it had to be Connie. I suspected it wasn’t daylight yet, figuring it was not quiet five a.m. I closed the safe’s door and pulled out my phone. It wasn’t Connie. It was Lorie Waters.
“Hello Lorie, what’s wrong, something isn’t right, or you wouldn’t be calling this early.”
“It’s horrible. Noah has been arrested. He left for Huntsville around 4:15, to finish up for the final inspection at the Boeing plant. He just called. There was a drug checkpoint in Owens Crossroads.”
“I’m totally confused. Arrested? For what?” I was just about to throw up. Searches and arrests go together like marriage and honeymoons. Of all days for this to be happening. Our plans no doubt had gone to hell. After his inspection, Noah was headed to meet Colton Mason to deliver a certain package containing some certain coins and some certain jewelry. All removed late yesterday afternoon from the barn loft behind my cabin.
“Noah asked me to call you. He says he needs to see you ASAP.”
I told Lorie I would get dressed and try to see him. She said that Noah had said he was calling from a squad car and that the Deputy was letting him borrow his phone. Noah was being transported to the Marshall County Jail in Guntersville.
After spinning the locking mechanism to reset the combination, I closed the pocket door and tidied up Connie’s clothes along the upper and lower racks. In ten minutes, I had showered and was turning north on Highway 205. All I could think about was a connection between the old Smith & Wesson stolen from Noah’s parents’ house and Pastor Caleb’s recent discovery that the church’s safe had been cracked.
The Pencil-Driven Life 