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 51
Saturday afternoon after Aunt Julia’s funeral Connie wanted to spend time with her mother and Uncle James, who she hadn’t seen for almost fifty years although he lived only forty miles away. I was glad she insisted I not come along. “You will be bored to tears with my family. Go home and get some rest. I’ll call later tonight and maybe you’ll want to come over and play.” The woman never ceased to surprise me.
During my drive home from the cemetery, the weather was gorgeous. The perfect afternoon to go fishing. All by myself. My main goal wasn’t to catch a pan full of fish but to lounge in Dad’s old chair under the giant oak.
I quickly changed clothes, grabbed my rod & reel, and tackle box, and walked to the barn to dig a few earthworms for an empty coffee can. I had already walked through the gate that led to the first pasture I would cross to reach the pond when my mind prompted me to visit the barn loft. There was no reason to do so because the Rawlins’ haul had been removed for delivery to Colton in Huntsville. I had learned a long time ago to follow my nose, or gut, whatever was prodding me. I turned around, walked back through the gate, and continued until I was climbing the ladder in the hall of the barn. What I found in the loft shocked me.
The small duffel bag was close to where I had first placed it and where it was when I removed it last week to give to Noah, but not exactly. What was even more troubling was what I found inside the bag. There, I found the coins and the jewelry, but also an envelope sticking out of a Playboy magazine. It was not something I wanted to look at. But, the letter had my attention. I opened it and pulled out one sheet of mauve-colored stationery. It read, “Roses are red, violets are blue, the ‘sidewalks’ are cracked, and so are you.”
The sidewalk’s word threw me at first but with the inside quote marks I understood the writer to mean he or she was using it in a special sense. I immediately knew the author was referring to safes being cracked. Were my secrets (and Noah’s) about to be exposed?
I returned the letter to the envelope and shoved it down my pants pocket. I closed the duffel bag and positioned it like I originally had. For some crazy reason, I felt the best place for me the remainder of the afternoon was sitting in the old oak chair next to Martin Pond.
I was disappointed when I cleared the grove of Douglas Firs great-granddad had planted to form a lane between the original barn behind Martin Mansion and the pond. Luke was sitting in my chair and Tyler was standing and casting for bass not twenty feet away. Neither of them saw me. I started to turn around, but I felt guilty over ignoring Luke’s emails and texts for the past week and a half. Duty or fear or something drove me to join the two teenagers as the tall and lanky Tyler showed off a tiny bass to a disinterested Luke.
“Hey guys. Mind if I join you?” I said when I got within hearing distance and while still watching Luke reading something he was holding in his lap.
“Look Uncle Fred, do you think it’s a keeper?” Tyler said. I was surprised he called me uncle.
“I’d suggest throwing that one back and giving it another year or so to become a monster catch.”
Luke folded some papers and set them down beside the old oak chair and under the lid of his opened tackle box. “It’s good to see you’re still alive. I just knew you had died, or you were ignoring me.” I really liked Luke and now felt bad about not investing time to show him how much I really cared.
“I apologize for not responding. I could say I’ve been very busy, which I have, but that’s no good. Luke, our relationship is very important to me. Can you forgive me?” I meant every word.
It was Tyler who responded. “Uncle Fred, Luke loves you like a brother and needs your wisdom. He’s dealing with some serious shit right now.”
I walked closer to Luke and sat down on the ground next to his chair. “Uncle Fred, have you ever felt like you were wandering around in the dark?”
“Almost all the time.” I said.
“Did you know Tyler is my cousin?” Luke’s question was troubling because now, sitting beside a young man who needed someone in his life to be totally open and honest, it looked like I had lied to him by keeping this dark secret.
“I know that now. I learned that less than two weeks ago. I’m sorry I haven’t shared it with you.”
“You are just like Deidre (that’s what Luke called his grandmother when he was upset with something she had done), and mother and dad. You treat me like a baby, like I can’t handle the truth. I’ll be on warm milk till I’m thirty.” Luke, like me, felt violated by secrets.
“Mother didn’t know that Deidre had gotten pregnant in high school and had a baby.” Luke said.
“Twins.” Tyler added.
“Deidre says she didn’t know until recently that she had twins. Isn’t that a crock of shit? How does anyone, well, a girl, not know she just had two babies? That’s a lie. And, mother and Deidre aren’t being fully honest even now.” Luke said, reaching back down for the letter tucked under the lid of his tackle box. “Here, read this. Proof they are still lying to me.”
I reached out for yet another mauve-colored letter. I had a sick feeling what I was about to read had some kinship to several other similarly-colored letters I had recently read. It took me five or six minutes to read the letter twice. The author was my dearly departed mother, or someone who could match her hand-writing to a tee. “Where did you get this?” I hoped Luke would be honest with me.
“Can you keep a secret?” Luke said.
“I can unless I believe I need to reveal it to protect you or anyone else in our family.”
“Papa Martin. I found it in his middle desk drawer. He doesn’t know I have it.” I turned toward Luke and watched his eyes. He was being truthful or was already an accomplished liar.
“Why were you snooping at Martin Mansion?” I asked.
“I was mad. I figured the old house had a lot to say, especially after what I had just learned.”
What I was still confused over was how Dad would have the letter. Mother had written it to Julia Stewart. No doubt it was written after the twins were born. Mother was confessing how she had hated Johnny Stewart for getting Deidre pregnant, and how sorry she was about how she had treated Julia. In the letter, Mother revealed the names of their mutual grandsons and where they were living, even who had adopted them. I was surprised Mother had been so open with Julia and so seemingly closed with most everyone else. At the end of the letter, Mother again said how sorry she was for the death of Johnny Stewart. Mother even said she was certain that if he had lived he would have made a good son-in-law. Right there, I knew Mother was lying to Julia. Mother, unless she was drunk, which she had never been, wouldn’t say anything positive about the young man who impregnated her high school daughter. I read the letter again. This time I got the impression Mother’s conscience had gotten a hold of her and was making her say stuff against her natural will.
As I was pondering, Luke had gotten up and walked over beside Tyler and begun casting his line and artificial green frog. “Uncle Fred, I really do wish you would answer my question.”
I tried to recall what Luke had asked me as I borrowed his chair. “I’ll try, remind me which question you asked.”
“Twice, in emails this past week. Did you even read my mail?” Luke said looking back over at me and not cracking a grin.
“I did, and again I apologize for ignoring you. There was one about how some scientists are committed Christians. Right?”
“Skip’s brother is in Dr. Ayers’ tenth grade Biology class. They were talking about Francis Collins the guy who mapped the human genome, who is both a scientist and a born-again Christian. This seems to rebut your theory that education, true education, is an antidote to mythical beliefs.”
I was aware of Mr. Collins and what, on its face, appeared to be an ace up the Christian’s sleeve.” My position is a hypothesis and not a scientific theory. Theories, like the law of gravity and evolution, are established facts. I suggest you dig a little deeper into how very intelligent people can be deluded.”
It looked like Luke had snagged a pretty good bass the way the end of his rod was bent. I hoped this diverted his attention. “I’m busy here, don’t really have time to dig right now. Please just tell me.”
“I guess that’s fair. I read a book by Mr. Collins where he described his conversion experience. One day he was walking in the Cascade Mountains. I think out in Oregon. He came upon a frozen water fall and he later wrote that it had caused him to fall to his knees and accept Jesus Christ as his savior. The thing, to me at least, that shows how deluded a brilliant scientist can become was Collin’s statement saying there were three frozen streams of water and that reminded him of the Trinity, you know, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.”
By now Tyler was using a fish net to help Luke bring the five-pound bass onto shore. “I still don’t understand. The man no doubt is extremely intelligent. Maybe he just sees things us common people have trouble with.”
“No, I don’t think so. I suspect Mr. Collins is a master of categorization. When he’s working as a scientist he draws conclusions from repeated testing. He’s constantly working a hypothesis with objective evidence, trying to develop a theory. But he remains open to being proven wrong. Real theories are falsifiable.”
“What does that mean?” Now, Tyler was joining the conversation.
“It means the theory could be proven wrong. Some observed occurrence, something that really happened, that refutes the earlier conclusions.”
“Seems to me if Collins was this smart and cautious in the lab he would think and act the same when he’s in church.” Tyler certainly had a good point.
“Someway, and I certainly don’t understand it, but Collins, and folks like him, simply set aside their critical faculties when it comes to Christianity and their belief in a two-thousand-year-old book. Faith substitutes for logic, reason, and proof.”
Luke had just placed the beautiful bass on his stringer and tossed it back into the edge of the pond when Tyler screamed, “Miss Mossie, my grandmother, she’s dead.” I hadn’t noticed he had pulled his cell phone from his pocket.
I got up and walked over to the young man who seemed to recover quickly. I said, Tyler, I’m sorry for your loss. Were you and your grandmother close?” Maybe I too was unnaturally quick with my question.
“Not really. I never got much of a chance to visit her. But, she sure must have loved me and Dad. From what I know she’s a rich woman and is supposedly leaving everything to Dad.”
Tyler received another text from his father telling him to walk back to Martin Mansion and wait for his ride. “Do you need me to take you somewhere, to see your dad, or where ever?” It was the least I could do.
“No, Rebecca and Angela are coming to pick me up.” It was the last names on earth I expected to hear. My mind raced trying to solve this little puzzle. Carson and Tyler Eubanks were friends with Rebecca and Angela? It just didn’t seem to fit.
“I’m curious, how do you know Ms. Rawlins and Ms. Barber? if you don’t mind me asking.” I couldn’t resist.
“I first met them when we moved to Boaz. Dad already knew them. I’m not sure how he knows them. They have been very supportive. They’re almost like having two mothers instead of one.
My mind was still bouncing from one crazy thought to another while I watched Tyler walk out of sight between the giant Firs.
“Uncle Fred, now that Tyler is gone I want to tell you something.”
“Anything Luke, I hope you know you can tell me anything.” I confirmed my earlier promise that I would not ignore Luke ever again.
“Mama D says that you and your friend Noah started the whole thing.”
I shook my head to make sure I had heard Luke correctly. “Uh, what thing are you talking about?”
“I overheard her and mother talking the other night. I think Mama D felt she should be more open with me, especially after I learned that Tyler was my cousin. She said that you and Noah were in the ninth grade and started doubting God. She said if it hadn’t been for a Ricky Miller, a teacher, that you would have stayed faithful.”
“I agree with some of that, but I still don’t get what Noah and I started.”
“Oh, the whole controversy, that seemed to eventually affect the entire community. Mama D said you and Noah inspired Mr. Ricky to start a club called the Brights and then he opened a place he named to spite his youth pastor brother, Randy Miller. You remember the Safe House and the Lighthouse, don’t you?”
“I do.”
“Mama said what you and Noah did was like the old saying about, ‘but for one tiny nail in a horseshoe’ the war would never have started. I didn’t understand what she meant.”
“She meant that small things can lead to war or something really bad.” My sister, the philosopher.
“She even said the deaths of three of her friends, including the Johnny guy who got her pregnant, would never have happened if it weren’t for your doubts.”
“Well, I guess it’s good to know that some people believe I’m a world-changer.”
“Oh shit, I better go. Tyler says there’s about to be a cockfight at Martin Mansion.” Cell phones, the stupid things, were also world-changers. Again, I hadn’t noticed Luke reaching for his iPhone and reading Tyler’s text.
“What the heck is that supposed to mean?”
“Here’s an update. Seems like the two women coming to get Tyler are in a shout-fest with Mama D.”
“Let’s go.” I wanted to see if my dear sister was going to blame me for her little cockfight.
The Pencil-Driven Life 