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 53
Saturday night at Connie’s was not much better than being alone. She was the most aloof I had seen her since we had started dating. I attributed her mood to Aunt Julia’s death and funeral. However, Connie had wanted to play. Regrettably, once again, she non-verbally insisted we race to the finish line. I hated quickies.
By Wednesday afternoon I knew something was up with the lovely Connie. Her mood had remained quiet and distant. Between appointments this morning I had called and tried to ask her what was going on. I almost begged her to tell me what I had done to upset her.
At 3:30 p.m., I had just left Sand Mountain Tire & Battery from picking up a couple of new-hire forms when my iPhone vibrated. I didn’t recognize the number.
“Fred is this Fred Martin?” The voice sounded familiar, but I couldn’t place it.
“Yes. It is.”
“Fred, this is Sheriff Wayne Waldrup. Is now a good time to talk?” I didn’t know law enforcement types could be polite.
“It’s good. What’s up? Is Noah alright?” My stomach turned semi-nauseous when I thought about the dangers inside jails.
“I have some good news and some bad news. First the good. Noah is being released. Someone planted the pistol in the trunk of his car. I guess his being a security expert paid off. Lori, his wife, brought me a video filmed the night before his arrest. It shows what looks like two women planting the pistol. They someway had a key to the trunk of Noah’s Maxima.”
“Thanks for the good news. The bad news has me worried.” I said.
“Hold on. It’s not bad for Noah, it’s just bad overall. I hate murder cases.” The sheriff seemed hesitant to unveil the bad news.
“I’m back at the office and have an appointment waiting. Sorry, to rush you.” I was frustrated enough with Connie and wasn’t interested in playing cat and mouse with the sheriff.
“The pistol seized from Noah’s trunk. The planted one. It’s the murder weapon. That gun killed Doug Barber. I just heard back from the Department of Forensic Sciences in Montgomery. The tech guy said he was certain the bullet removed from Barber’s head was fired by the old Smith & Wesson.”
“Before I have to go, may I ask you one question?” I could be polite too.
“Sure. I’ll answer if I can.”
“Who were the two women who planted the gun? You said they looked like women.”
“Don’t know. Yet. But, the Department will analyze that video. They’re high tech. Might be able to pick up some clues.”
“Thanks Sheriff for calling me.”
After our call ended I sat in my car and reviewed our conversation. Two things flooded my mind. The two women. Who were they? My mind someway connected them to the surprise appearance of a certain duffel bag in the barn loft. What swept those thoughts away was the connection between the pistol, which most certainly was used to murder Doug Barber, and First Baptist Church of Christ. How on earth did that gun find its way inside the old Mosler down in the church’s basement? Was someone trying to frame Pastor Caleb or someone else in a leadership role?
I grabbed my briefcase from the seat beside me and walked across the parking lot to Alfa’s front door. A new thought appeared. “What if I was wrong? What if it was the other way around? What if someone in the church murdered Doug Barber?
I wasn’t productive the rest of the day.
Thursday morning, I resisted gut-wrenching fear and drove to Huntsville. It was something I should have done last Saturday. Before going to bed last night, I had sneaked out to the barn loft and removed the duffel bag, placing it in the trunk of my car.
Colton Mason was waiting on the front porch of his house when I arrived. I got out of my car and started to open the trunk when another man, one much younger than me and Colton, came around the far side of the house. No doubt, I was surprised.
“Hey man, it’s cool. That’s Harley, met him in jail.”
“Nice to meet you Mr. Martin.” Harley looked like a fish out of water. He was probably in his late thirties, and well-dressed. Nice blue pin-striped shirt, dark tan pants, and expensive-looking shoes. His face was fresh-shaved.
“Uh, nice to meet you too. What’s going on Colton?” My thoughts were still solidly centered on how I had been busted.
He quickly responded, leaning sideways on a porch post. “Insurance. And, it’s not costing you a dime. You know I’m well known around Huntsville. I don’t need to be seen taking a flight to anywhere. Harley’s done a good job keeping a low profile.”
“I thought you said you met him in jail.” I said, feeling a hair less stressed.
“Oh, I did. Harley was the best jailer I ever had. It’s kind of a long story and he needs to leave if he’s going to make his connections. Where’s the goods?” Colton would have made a good attorney, or ship captain.
I came close to driving away right then and there. It must have been something in Harley’s eyes. I knew it was dangerous making life-changing decisions based on subjective feelings. While Colton was talking, Harley had walked over and shook my hand. Our eyes had met. He hadn’t looked away. His handshake was firm, his jaw set, his eyes determined but not at all dark. Colton wasn’t the only one leaning. Man was I leaning on the subjectivity straw.
I chose to stay. I walked back to my car, opened the trunk, and removed the coins and jewelry I had acquired from the Rawlins haul. The only difference was they were now in a backpack I had purchased at Staples, one of those fancy (and expensive) one’s school kids are buying.
Colton walked to my car and handed me a Wells Fargo money bag. I took it and handed goods valued (by Alfa) at $560,000 to the only career criminal I would have trusted in a million years. My legal mind knew I was laying a beautiful path for a career prosecutor to follow, just amble around blindfolded and pick up the breadcrumbs the dumb ass Fred Martin had left behind.
I stopped at Burger King in Harvest on my way back to Huntsville. The money bag contained the promised $100,000. The other $200,000 would be (I hoped) deposited within a week to a Cayman’s Island bank account Noah had discreetly opened nearly two months ago. Although Alfa’s underwriting department had been ultra-conservative in the value they had placed on the coins and jewelry, I knew, like Colton knew, and obviously his Italian cousin knew, the haul was worth up to three times that amount. Three hundred thousand for Noah and me was a fair price. I didn’t have a clue what Colton and Harley were getting out of the slimy deal.
I ate a Double Whopper and drove to downtown Huntsville and toward the Regions Bank office tower. There was one other reason I had come to Huntsville.
The circle of my life was rather small when you looked closely. Vanessa Reed had worked for the law firm of King and Hart, P.C. in Huntsville for forty-six years. I knew this because Vanessa was from Boaz and had gone to work for Bart King and Jeff Hart right out of high school. She had met her future bosses when she was a snotty-nosed first-grader visiting her uncle’s cabin on Lake Guntersville. The King’s owned the cabin to the south and the Hart’s owned the cabin to the north of Dixon Whitaker’s. Bart and Jeff were from Albertville and were ten or twelve years older than Vanessa. They were like the brothers she never had, and as good brothers often do, they hired their little sister after she graduated high school, and after they moved their law offices from Guntersville to Huntsville in 1971.
Vanessa, initially, had full intentions of going to law school and becoming partners with Bart and Jeff. But, other things distracted her along the way. Although she did graduate from the University of Alabama in Huntsville with a degree in Criminology, by the early eighties she had become addicted. Addicted to forensics and especially DNA. Also, my dear Susan was another distraction.
Vanessa and Susan had been inseparable in high school and quickly renewed their friendship when we moved to Huntsville and I began work at King and Hart. Even with their busy work lives, the two spent time together every week, talked most every day, and for three years, at night, worked on their master’s degrees at Vanessa’s alma mater. Susan’s death in 2013 was almost as equally devastating to Vanessa as it was to me. There was something rare about our joint grieving process that encouraged me to now ask her a big favor.
For years, Vanessa, ever as bright as either Bart of Jeff, had micromanaged both civil and criminal discovery for the firm. I knew from my own practice, she had multiple contacts in the forensics field, including independent labs who conducted ballistics testing.
We met at Pints & Pixels three blocks from Regions Tower. It was a bar serving American food. Neither Bart or Jeff would dare dart the doors here since they had long ago given up their wild and crazy drinking days, both on doctor’s orders. Vanessa had arrived first and secured us a corner table.
She rose from her chair when she saw me walking towards her. “Fred, so nice to see you. This is kind of exciting. It’s not every day an old friend calls and requests a secret meeting.” Giving her a hug reminded me of Susan. The woman I had shared a bed with for over forty years.
“Good to see you too Vanessa. What’s it been? Nearly four years?”
“Ever since you moved back home. I’ve often thought about calling you when I was in town visiting mother, but I figured you would reach out if you needed to or wanted to.”
“By the way, how is your mother?” It was the polite thing to ask.
“Not too good right now. She broke her hip a couple of weeks ago. That’s hard on anyone, especially a ninety-year old.
I decided to jump right in. I felt like Vanessa would help me but I wasn’t sure. “I need a favor, and if you can’t, it’ll be okay. We’ll still be friends.” I sounded like a teenager.
“Fred, you should know I would do anything for you. Of course, anything that our dear Susan would have approved.”
“That’s a tall mountain to climb but I think she would give us the go-ahead.”
The waiter came and took our orders. For me, a Club Soda, for Vanessa, a Gin and Sonic. Appropriate name from a place with dozens of pin ball machines. A gamer’s dream.
“I still can’t believe you quit practicing law. Selling insurance? That’s got to be boring.” I think Vanessa recognized I was having some difficulty hearing her over the dinging of the machines being played by both men and women, mostly well-dressed, allowing office-rooted anxieties to release into the ether. “Follow me, there’s a little deck out back no one hardly uses.” She signaled the waiter what we were doing and led me down two rows of 1970’s looking machines, around a corner, and down the side of a room filled with billiard tables and players.
Outside, there were four tables. All empty. “Okay Fred, now spill it. I don’t have all day, even though I wish I did. Better idea come back to the office with me and talk to Bart and Jeff. They’d probably let you work part time to start until you could get situated.”
“Thanks Vanessa but I’m anchored in Boaz. My favor, here it is. “Can you get one of the private forensic labs you work with to do ballistic testing on an old Smith & Wesson 38 caliber pistol?” Even with Vanessa, a dear friend, one I felt I could trust with any confession, my forehead broke out in sweat. Revealing secrets was a land mine full of risks.
“By the look on your face I assume you’re after privacy. Probably don’t want Bart and Jeff to know. Right?”
“That would be best.” I had to be honest. Damn, what a hypocrite.
“Question.” Vanessa paused as the waiter finally brought us our drinks and walked away, not even smiling. He probably didn’t like having to serve guests outside. Too much extra walking. “You certainly don’t have to answer it because I’ll do the favor either way. Does this pistol have anything to do with the fireworks that’s been going on in Boaz?” I wasn’t certain what she was referring to.
“Uh, maybe.”
“Mother, even at ninety-plus, faithfully reads the Sand Mountain Reporter. She’s also still an avid fan of local gossip, even though she often misunderstands what someone says. It can get funny; her creating newer gossip. Even if she can barely hear, her vision, with the help of Dr. Davis, is remarkably strong. She’s been keeping me filled in. First, Elton Rawlins dies in that mysterious car wreck in Foley and then Doug Barber is murdered. There’s got to be a connection.” I could see the wheels turning in Vanessa’s head. This stuff, crime, mystery, intrigue, was what she lived for. Bart and Jeff were fortunate to have such a bulldog on their team.
I looked deep into Vanessa’s eyes and took the leap, believing I could trust her fully. “I don’t know for sure, but I have a hunch this pistol had something to do with a 1973 triple murder. Let me just say that I’m not supposed to have the sweet little Smith in my possession. I’m kind of in a quandary, but I want to know the truth.” I was confident Vanessa would realize there was a puzzle piece missing.
“Fred my dear, you’ve been away from the game too long. What can ballistics tell you without a bullet?”
“I hear you. You’re exactly right. I have another hunch, a lead on where the murder bullet or bullets might be. But, I wanted to see if you would do me the favor before I pursued the lead. It’s risky. Risky with a capital R.” In ninety-nine percent of cases, even fifty years ago, bodies, murdered bodies, were required to be autopsied. If bullets were extracted, they were then examined, most subjected to ballistics testing of some sort. I had recently learned from my new friend, Nancy Frasier, at the Boaz Public Library, that someway there had been some mix-up, she called it a snafu, over the three bullets that were removed from the bodies of Johnny Stewart, Allan Floyd, and Tommy Jones in late 1973. She said the forty-four-year-old rumor was that someone within the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences had been paid a handsome sum to ‘lose’ the three bullets. Nancy had long suspected the bullets were hidden somewhere in Boaz. Her statement last Friday shook me a little like she was some way inside my head. “If I was guessing, those damn bullets are locked away in the guilty party’s safe.”
Vanessa and I finished our drinks, mostly talking about Susan, when she received a call from Bart King. He needed her back at the office as soon as possible. We made our exit and walked across the parking lot to my car. I opened the trunk and handed her an old Aigner purse of Susan’s. Vanessa peeked inside and said, “Nice piece. I’ll make up a good story. Don’t worry.”
She gave me a quick hug, told me she loved me, and walked away. I drove to Boaz missing Susan like I hadn’t in years and realized she wouldn’t approve of what I was doing, especially of what I was planning.
The Pencil Driven Life 