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 56
At 4:20, I shot up out of my recliner like I had been stung by a wasp. Angela was at Rebecca’s. It was a long shot but one I had to take. For weeks now, my mind had been feeding me subtle urges to return to Debbie Street to determine whether the virtual twin to the pistol I had removed from the church’s basement was still resting in its original box. I didn’t believe my uninvited visit would prove productive. I knew the Sand Mountain Reporter had not printed anything about a burglary at the Doug and Angela Barber residence. But, I also knew Angela couldn’t help but know.
I grabbed my burglar bag from the kitchen pantry and was out the door in less than a minute. During the drive, I pondered how odd it was that my mind was always working behind the scenes. I didn’t know where I was when the thought arrived that I needed to approach Angela’s house from a different direction. Last time, walking up Debbie Street from a not-so-good parking spot along the edge of the golf course, was simply too risky. At work last week, out of the blue, I had looked at Google Maps on my iPhone and saw that the gods had truly smiled on me. Debbie Street backed up to a patch of woods. Clear Creek and the railroad track cross these woods. Further back is Fox Run Apartments. The plan that mysteriously appeared last week, was to drive to Coosa Road and leave my car parked in the residents parking lot at Fox Run Apartments. I would hike through the small patch of woods, cross the railroad tracks and Clear Creek, and appear in Angela’s back yard with hardly a chance anyone would see me. Piece of cake.
Other than a heavy-set older man walking an equally heavy-set bulldog, I didn’t see anyone as I entered the Fox Run parking lot. I passed the front two buildings and parked in one of two empty spots along the south side of the six-apartment building along the rear of the complex. It was only fifty feet or so to the edge of the woods. I pulled on my black toboggan after crossing the railroad track. The creek was mostly dry, thus resolving the only issue I felt I might incur in the woods.
As always, burglars, criminals, fail to anticipate all relevant variables. It shouldn’t have happened. I had forgotten the tall wooden fence around the Barber’s pool. I saw it when I reached the edge of their back yard. The fence spanned almost the full length of the sprawling ranch house forcing me to tiptoe through a neighbor’s yard until I reached the front of a detached garage that I didn’t remember.
Ignoring known facts was also a common career flaw for many burglars, including me. Reason and logic would say I shouldn’t be here. I already knew it was unlikely that Angela would still be using her old Mosler. Heck, someone, yours truly, had burned a rectangular-shaped hole in the back of the safe. I assumed it would still be in her garage but be empty. I couldn’t recall exactly what my little demon had said during my drive over. Something like, “I just talked with a still arrogant Doug. He’s watching and daring you to return.” I had always liked a challenge, and I had my own dare for the asshole Doug: “fly on down here. I can still invade the world that rejected you. I’ll be in and out before you arrive.” I was becoming more delusional by the day.
I was a little surprised Angela hadn’t installed an alarm system, especially after my prior burglary. But, I was glad I had brought Noah’s device, what he referred to as Eagle Eye. Not only could it detect the presence of any security system, it now could discover gold and silver. Bloodhound nose. Noah’s term. When I relayed my idea a few days ago of returning to Doug and Angela’s, he had confessed he had tweaked his little patented, but not-yet-promoted, toy. He had said the best security systems used either gold or silver to cast the internal, most sensitive cogs and levers. “All I had to do was install a nose. The damn thing already had two eyes.” I hadn’t asked any questions.
Almost effortlessly, after an easy breach of Angela’s back door, I found the near-perfect pistol box on the top shelf of her bedroom closet. Fortunately, the old Smith & Wesson was resting soundly on the soft velvet liner inside the original container. I was almost back out in the hallway when Eagle Eye pinged. It sounded more like a sniff. I almost laughed out loud. I removed the cell phone like device from my pocket. Noah had asked me to bring him a souvenir, thinking Angela might have a solid gold or silver ring or watch. The latter is what he hoped for—something else for him to dissect.
The ping and sniff grew louder when I turned toward an old mahogany wardrobe, armoire, I think their called. I pulled open the two tall doors and saw nothing but clothes hanging across a rack. The pinging sniff grew even louder. I laid Eagle Eye Bloodhound Nose down underneath the clothes and started feeling around behind several hat boxes according to the pictures. Just as I started to remove my hand, my mind had sent a sensation of a giant rat trap tripping and slicing through my left hand’s middle finger, I felt something hard wrapped up in what seemed to be a silk scarf or handkerchief. It was neither, maybe a cut out piece of an old dress. The item was a silver locket. Inside, was the smiling face of the woman I had lived with for nearly forty years. The woman who, I guess like the rest of us, kept at least one secret. I didn’t dare linger looking at her gorgeously sexy body.
All I could think about as I turned left on Coosa Road exiting the apartment complex was how Angela (and probably Rebecca) had been able to access Connie’s house, which had a decently sophisticated alarm system, and remove the silver locket which seemed to be trying to tell me a story. Crossing Highway 431, I kept wondering if Connie had left the locket sitting on her nightstand, or maybe the kitchen counter for anyone with sticky fingers to grab, or whether the two little witches had magical powers to open old, but reliably secure, Mosler safes.
The Pencil Driven Life 