Category: Novels

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 Scorekeeper, written in 2017, is my second novel. I'll post it, a chapter a day, over the next few weeks.

The July 4th Celebrate Boaz concert was successful beyond imagination, at least that of every local resident.  The Boaz Police Chief had to call in favors from his fellow chiefs in Albertville, Guntersville, and Arab for police reinforcements, mainly to direct traffic.  Karla, Kaden, and I took three lawn chairs and a cooler filled with low-spirit drinks and enjoyed three hours of old and current Blues, Country, and even a little contemporary gospel.  I must say, Shania Twain was phenomenal.

Kaden could hardly sit for more than 15 minutes so we put him in charge of hiking back and forth to the multiple food trucks that had inundated the celebration, bringing to us small samples of most every item they offered.

I took Wednesday, the Fifth, off to help Karla finish framing four of her paintings she had sold.  The customer was coming from Chattanooga Friday morning to pick them up.  Karla had taken up both pencil sketching and painting several years earlier to relieve stress and to discipline her to use her hands and fingers.  Two medical specialists had told her this type activity was one of the best ways to significantly postpone the almost inevitable loss of dexterity in her hands from her Rheumatoid Arthritis.

Just before 4:30, and as we were clamping the last frame in place to rest until the glue dried, my cell phone rang.  I didn’t recognize the number.  I answered and the lady said, “Micaden, is this Micaden Tanner?”  I affirmed it was and asked who was calling.  It was Gina Culvert Tillman.  I quickly learned that there was at least one citizen in Boaz who had not joined the unity wagon train encircling the Flaming Five and their fathers.

Culvert was her maiden name. Gina was a former high school classmate and attended the infamous 1972 graduation party.  She was also one of four Boaz High School cheerleaders who had testified against me at my 1973 murder trial. To the surprise of all who knew her, Wade Tillman, the defacto pastor of First Baptist Church of Christ, had married Gina in August 1972.  Gina asked if we could meet today.  I told her I had taken the day off and was busy.  She pleaded with me to meet her at my office at 7:30 tonight.  She said that it was urgent and could be greatly beneficial to my investigations.  I finally told her to tell me exactly why she wanted to meet or I would postpone my availability until tomorrow.  “I am divorcing Wade and need an attorney.  I also have information about Club Eden that you may find interesting and helpful.”  I told her I would see her at 7:30 tonight.  She asked if it would be okay for us to meet at Hickory Hollow.  “I need to keep this very private for now.” 

Gina arrived a few minutes early and we settled at a round table in my study. 

“Micaden, I want to say again how sorry I am for how I greatly mistreated you at your trial in 1973.  I will never be able to repay you and hope that you will know how sincere I am.”

“That was over forty years ago.  I suspect you are no longer a naive teenager.”

“I’m certainly no longer a teenager but it’s up for grabs whether I’m any wiser.  As I said on the phone, I plan on divorcing Wade and I need an attorney.  I want to hire you and please know this is not an attempt to repay you for mistreating you so long ago.”

“Okay.  I’ll accept that.  In fact, I’ll take this approach concerning you.  I’ll believe what you tell me, take it as the truth, until I learn that you are lying.”  I said.

“Sounds good but I will not lie to you, ever again.”

“Now, I’m going to sit here and listen to you for a while.  Why don’t you tell me what’s on your mind?  I’ll interject questions for clarity or mere curiosity.”

“I suspect you know that mine and Wade’s marriage in 1972 was, as they say, a shotgun wedding of sorts.  It was Mom’s idea in total.  Myself, the young and dumb blond went along with it because I was stupid and lazy.  I never did like school, and thought it was a way to avoid having to get a college education and work for a living.  I did like Wade and all but I truly didn’t like the idea of trying to become a preacher’s wife.  I guess you can do about anything if you set your mind to it.”  Gina said.

“From my vantage point it seems you have done quite a good job.  You graduated from the University of Alabama and you have been the poster girl of a serious and faithful preacher’s wife.  Of course, I acknowledge how little I truly know.”

“That last comment is how I remember you, kind of funny while always fully serious.”

“A man has to survive.”  I said.

“My life with Wade has been good.  At least until 1997 when Wendi and Cindi were found.  We had two beautiful children.  However, I do admit that I was either too dumb or blind to not realize who Wade truly was.  He convinced me early on that he had nothing to do with the disappearance of the twin girls.  It was not until their bodies were found in 1997 that I realized I had been deceived by myself and others.”

“What role does the recent Sand Mountain Reporter letter have on your desire to divorce Wade?”

“It is the final straw.  But, you’re jumping ahead too much.  Let me fill in some gaps that you most likely don’t know about.”  Gina said.

Before she continued I asked if she wanted coffee or something else to drink.  She asked for coffee.  I excused myself and went to the kitchen and brewed a pot and brought back two cups with sweetener and cream on a tray.

“Thanks.  In 1998, I became an investigator of sorts.”

“Now, you’ve got my attention.”

“It was after Matt took my deposition in the Murray’s wrongful death case.  You were there.”

“I recall.”

“That night I went home and demanded that Wade tell me the truth.  I’m sure he sugarcoated it a lot but he did admit that John, Randall, and James had killed and hidden Wendi and Cindi and that their fathers, along with Walter and Fitz, had concealed the truth for all those years.  Wade pleaded with me to not reveal anything he told me.  He said since we were married that I could not be made to testify against him.  The marriage privilege he called it.  During this time frame, there were a lot of rumors circulating about what all you and Matt were uncovering and going to use at the Murray’s trial.  He also said that he and his Father had settled their cases with the Murray’s.”

“That part wasn’t true.  Only Walter settled.  Wade was not a part of any settlement.”

“That doesn’t surprise me.  Wade, I’ve learned over the past twenty years, is a master liar.”

“What else did you discover?  As an investigator?”

“Wade had always handled our finances.  Other than a household checking account I never knew about anything.  Maybe that the church had a retirement plan.  But, after I learned he had not been truthful with me in 1972 I began to ponder whether he might still be lying.  So, I started snooping around.  Wade had become very confident in my loyalty and faithfulness.  That was a mistake.  His confidence led him to be a little sloppy if he truly was trying to keep secrets.”

“Tell me more about your snooping.”  I said.

“One night, I think it was the Wednesday night after the Murray’s had been discovered dead at their home.  Wade was at church.  I went to his study and looked in his desk.  He had left it unlocked.  I really don’t know if he ever locked it.  I never went in.  The closest I came was standing just inside the doorway telling Wade to come to dinner or something like that.  I just thought it was where he studied and prepared or reviewed his sermons.  Anyway, in a file drawer on the bottom left side of the desk was a file labeled “Mission Money.”  It was a thick file, one of those that had multiple sections each with top prongs for fastening documents.  I found copies of bank statements in one section.  They were for a church bank account at First State Bank.  The account title was something like ‘Cooperative Program,’ or ‘SBC Cooperative Program.’  The most recent statement was on top and it reflected a $15,000 deposit and an identical $15,000 withdrawal leaving a small balance in the account.”

“Okay, that seems to only reflect that Wade had a copy of the Church’s statement where it collected and remitted the standard 10% of donations to the Southern Baptist Convention’s Cooperative Mission’s Program.”  I said.

“That’s what I thought also until I looked at the next section in that same folder.  In it there was also a stack of bank statements.  These were for a different account at First State Bank of Boaz.  This account was titled ‘Club Eden.’ The top statement contained a $15,000 deposit and it was dated the same date as the withdrawal from the Church’s Cooperative Missions account.”

“Let me jump in.  If you concluded that someway Wade was stealing Church funds for Club Eden then you have yourself jumped way out on a limb.”

“Micaden, give me a little credit.  I’m not that dumb.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply that.”

“Attached to both sets of bank statements were copies of checks and deposit slips.  The $15,000 Coop check was made payable to ‘SBC Missions.’  I knew banks didn’t typically deposit checks to accounts where the check didn’t bear the right account name.  So, I flipped to another section in the big folder.  There, I found another account, ‘Saved by Christ Missions.’  The top statement revealed a $15,000 check from this account to Club Eden.  I matched up the dates and went back through several months bank statements for all three accounts.  I then concluded, probably unknown to everyone except Wade and other Club Eden members, the Church was faithful in paying 10% of its receipts to the Southern Baptist Convention’s Cooperative Program, except that such funds were being diverted to an account controlled by Wade which then was transferred directly to Club Eden’s pockets.”

“You might be correct, but I’m still hesitate to commit to your position.  When did you learn about Club Eden?”  I said.

“Gosh, that goes back to our High School days.  Don’t you remember all the rumors about the Flaming Five’s secret hideout?  From the many times that I went there, black-hooded of course, I just assumed that’s all it was, a place out in the woods Wade and the others carried gullible girls.”

“I know a lot more about Club Eden than that.  My knowledge came during mine and Matt’s investigation during our preparations for the Murray’s case.  Club Eden goes way back.  It was formed in the late 1800’s by the forefathers of the Flaming Five.  It is a legal organization and has been the recipient of embezzled funds from the City of Boaz.  I won’t go into details now about what I learned.  For now, I’m more interested in hearing about your snooping.”  I said.

“At first, I believed I was wrong, concluding Wade could be taking the mission’s money.  Then, I thought, ‘what if Doris the financial secretary was totally in the dark?’  She prepared a monthly check to SBC Missions and gave it to Fitz Billingsley the Church’s treasurer.  He could have switched out the attached envelope to SBC in Nashville before giving the bills and checks to Rita the music secretary that always dropped the mail off by the Post Office on her way home.  If Wade and Club Eden had a secret post office box they would retrieve the check and deposit it at First State Bank not triggering any alerts since the deposit account was simply the fully written out version shown on the check.  I certainly may be wrong on the ‘how’ but I am certain 10% of the monies that all the loving and kind members were dropping into the offering plates every Sunday were winding up in the hands of Club Eden.”

“There might be another source for the money.  It just seems impossible that Wade could pull this off without being detected.  But, I admit, having Fritz as treasurer doesn’t hurt your argument.”  I said.

“There’s something else.  There were other transactions on the Club Eden’s bank statements.  There were copies of deposit slips that were confusing because they only included what appeared as an abbreviation or code as the source.  Repeatedly throughout the statements was a monthly deposit from a ‘BU.’  That’s all that was written on each deposit slip.  You’ll be proud of me.  I figured out that ‘BU’ is Boaz Utilities.”

“How on earth did you reach that conclusion?”  I said.

“From the checks.  There was a monthly check to Steven Carrington.”

“He’s the manager at Boaz Utilities.  Right?”

“He is.  It took me three attempts to figure out Wade’s system.  For the next two weeks while he was at Church I returned to his study.  I was lucky that the desk remained unlocked.  I finally concluded that Wade was paying Steven 15% of all the amounts he was sending to Club Eden.  After seeing the penciled in word, ‘commission’ beside a $2,278 check to Steven I concluded he was an investor.  Of course, he wasn’t investing his own money.  Steven was skimming Boaz Utility money and directing it to Club Eden.  I reached my conclusion by matching deposits from BU to checks to Steven.  For example, the $2,278 check to Steven was 15% of the related $15,186.67 deposit from BU.  Out beside this deposit Wade had scrawled the word ‘investment.’  I went online to learn what the monthly gross revenues were for Boaz Utilities.  For this period, they were averaging a little over $3,000,000 per month.  This was freely available from their website.  I did this calculation for several months and concluded that Carrington was skimming a half percent of gross revenues.”

“Let me summarize what I think you are telling me.  Club Eden has investors of a sort.  At least one.”  I said.

“Let me interrupt you before you continue.  Steven Carrington is only one such investor.  I also conducted the same analysis for several other investors, including Jarod Darlington at Quintard Pharmacy and Roger Venson at the EagleMart SuperCenter.  Now, you can continue.  Sorry.”  Gina said.

“I know for a fact that the current members of Club Eden are Wade, James Adams, Randall Radford, Fred Billingsley, John Ericson, and each of their Fathers.  For your information, I was the only other member of this Club other than these five prominent Boaz families.  And, I never owned any stock. I have never received a penny from Club Eden but apparently the stockholders are getting filthy rich from its operations.  All illegal I highly suspect.  And, in addition, the Club has multiple ‘investors,’ all making huge profits from misdirecting funds that they control.”  I said.

“I think you’ve got it.  But, there’s one thing I haven’t been able to figure out.”

“What’s that?” I said.

“Where Club Eden is spending all its money.  After paying off its investors the Club is writing checks to several other entities.  It doesn’t keep but around $25,000 in its account at First State Bank.  I calculated that the Club is taking in about $5,000,000 per year as of 1998.”

“Let’s shelve that question for now.  It’s getting late.  Why don’t you tell me why you want a divorce other than you’re tired of being married to a criminal?”  I said.

“Since 1998 my loyalty to Wade has diminished greatly.  I’ve not really sought out a special friend, even though I have met a few guys online and chatted.  I got to know one guy quite well but his interest waned after he learned I was a pastor’s wife.  Now, I don’t even have an online friend but I want my freedom.  I want out of this shotgun wedding and away from the crime boss Wade.  I want enough money to live a comfortable life, hopefully for many more years.”  Gina said.

“I’ll be honored to represent you even though it will add mountains of stress to my worship experience as Karla and I attend First Baptist Church of Christ.”

“There you go again with that wicked humor.”

“Actually, my skin has grown thicker than an elephant’s over the years as I have represented the Murrays and withstood the razor eyes of half the congregation as Karla and I remained frequent-flyers in the middle section.”

“How much of a retainer do you need?”

“For a contested divorce, I normally request $10,000.  But, I have an idea.  What if you worked off some of this?”

“That sounds a little seductive but I know you better than that.”

“Sorry, what I mean is, what if you do a little more snooping?  Here’s the kicker which you probably won’t like.”

“Spill it.”

“You continue to live with Wade for a while longer, just until we do a little more research.  This includes you not filing your divorce until you move out.  Do you think you could do this?”  I said.

“How much time are we talking about?”

“This is just a guess, but maybe a month or so?”

“Oh, hell yes.  What’s another month or two when I’ve been in prison for nearly fifty years.”  Gina said.

“For now, we won’t even sign an agreement for my services.  I’ll just have you complete our standard intake form.  But, we can do that later.  Is it okay with you if I buy us a couple of burner phones to communicate?”

“No problem.”

“As we walk out I’ll show you a fake fern on the side porch.  I’ll have your phone with instructions in a box there by this time tomorrow night.  You could come by any time after that and get it.” 

“I’ll call you once I have the phone.” Gina said.

I walked Gina out to her car, pointing out the fern, and told her I appreciated her confidence in my lawyering abilities.  She gave me a hug before getting into her car and driving off.

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 Scorekeeper, written in 2017, is my second novel. I'll post it, a chapter a day, over the next few weeks.

After the Sand Mountain Reporter published my ‘anonymous’ indictment against the five prominent families, I knew the citizens of Boaz would be in an uproar, raving against them.   I could not have been more wrong.  The local community circled their wagons around these five families. 

For the next three weeks, in all three weekly editions of the Sand Mountain Reporter, there was a full-page ad with the title, “Boaz United: Justice for John.”  The ad included a short statement that everyone deserved forgiveness but that in this case none was called for because The Flaming Five had all been acquitted (the Newspaper got its facts wrong) of all crimes against Wendi and Cindi Murray and that not one of the nine men listed in my ‘anonymous’ indictment had ever been charged with any form of crime involving the deaths of Bill and Nellie Murray.  The ad said little about John’s disappearance other than calling for his release and return.

The ad contained five photographs: an aerial view of First Baptist Church of Christ, and frontal views of First State Bank of Boaz, Adams Buick, Chevrolet & GMC, Radford Hardware & Building Supply, and Ericson Real Estate and Property Development.  All five photos were within a large circle in the center of the ad with an upward sloping diagonal phrase printed with the words, “Boaz Loves & Supports You.”

Three-quarters of the way down the page, in bold and large print, was the phrase, “BOAZ IS UNDER ATTACK.” Underneath this title and in regular print was a paragraph that basically urged every Boaz citizen to, as always, shop in Boaz, and to be on the lookout for strangers and for “oddities” as the article put it.

At the very bottom of the ad was an invitation to the annual, Celebrate Boaz, July 4th event held on Billy Dyar Blvd.  The invitation announced that the Flaming Five would be co-hosting along with infamous country music singer Shania Twain.

Along with these full-page ads were separate quarter page ads by the families of the Flaming Five scattered throughout the newspaper.  These ads offered deep discounts on merchandise if accompanied by the ad itself.  The Church’s ad offered something even better, mercy, love, and forgiveness available anytime, at any hour of the day or night, simply by stopping in at the Family Center.  It also included a 50% discount for every new student enrolled in the Upward Bound Bible and Basketball program.

These ads, invitations, and announcements brought a new wave of unity and solidarity. Everywhere I went within Boaz I felt a team spirit enthusiasm.  Mayor Adams and the City Council had also initiated a yellow ribbon program for John revealing their desire for his return.  The City’s website also included an invitation for each citizen to come to City Hall for a small yellow ribbon to wear on their label and for a large one to tie around a tree.  The site also provided a short history of the yellow ribbon stating that during Desert Shield and Desert Storm the ribbons appeared along with the slogan “support our troops,” which obviously implied “bring our troops home.”  The site also included singer Russ Morgan’s lyrics to “She Wore a Yellow Ribbon.” This was a song he had created (he altered the original version in 1917 by George A. Norton titled ‘Round Her Neck She Wears a Yeller Ribbon’).

“Around her hair she wore a yellow ribbon

She wore it in the springtime

In the merry month of May

And if you ask her why the heck

she wore it

She wore it for her soldier who was

Far, far away

Far away, far away

She wore it for her soldier

Who was far, far away

Around the block she pushed a baby carriage

She pushed it in the springtime

In the Merry month of May

And if you ask her why the heck

she pushed it

She pushed it for her soldier who

was far, far away

Far away, far away

She pushed it for her soldier

Who was far, far away

Behind the door her daddy kept a shotgun

He kept it in the springtime

In the merry month of May

And if you ask him why the heck he kept it

He kept it for her soldier who was far

far away

Far away, far away

He kept it for her soldier

Who was far, far away

On the grave, she laid the pretty flowers

She laid them in the springtime

In the merry month of May

And if you asked her why the heck

she laid them

She laid them for her soldier who was

Far, far away

Far away, far away

She laid them for her soldier

Who was far, far away.”

Sitting in my office the end of June, just days before the July 4th Celebrate Boaz concert, I couldn’t help but associate the blind ignorance of the Boaz community with Christianity in general.  It seemed every citizen had been completely misled.  Only a handful knew the truth, and every one of these, rested softly and securely in a large and extravagant Flaming Five related mansion.  The citizens supported these five crime families because it was in their best interest to do so.  It was that simple.  These five families, in direct and indirect ways, controlled the economic well-being of every Boaz citizen.  I didn’t dispute this, but, I knew the real and deeper truth.  The Flaming Five and their families were simply smoke and mirrors.  They acted carefully to convince their audience that they were honest, hardworking, caring, God-fearing people who, blessed beyond compare, simply wanted to make life better for everyone in their community.  This seemed to me related to what Christianity does.  I still felt sad, almost ashamed, to even think of my own Christian journey.  I once, like virtually every Boaz citizen, believed with my whole heart that Jesus was God’s only begotten Son, who came to earth as a baby and grew up to die for my sins to give me eternal life in Heaven with Him and His Father.  But, that ended when I experienced and endured the Murray’s story.  That prompted me to wake up, to start researching, and with ultimately concluding that the Bible is merely man-made, there was no Adam and Eve, and even if there were an actual Jesus, he died and stayed dead just like every other man who had ever lived. 

The primary aim of the "Novel Excerpts" 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 Scorekeeper, written in 2017, is my second novel. I'll post it, a chapter a day, over the next few weeks.

For the past several days I had toiled with the question whether to ‘go public’ with the John Ericson story.  Two separate things determined my decision.

First, I didn’t like that Judith (and ultimately Franklin and the entire Ericson clan) had ignored the second commandment in my ransom letter.  They had wholly failed to publish a letter of apology through Pastor Walter at church.

The second thing that gave me the answer I sought was the foresight I had had when I purchased Oak Hollow.  Technically, Terry Lynn Gaines had purchased Carl and Betty Black’s property from their son and testator Andrew.  Mr. Gaines was the defendant in the first criminal case I ever worked.  It was during my days practicing law in Atlanta with the firm of Downs, Gambol & Stevens.  Gaines was charged with viciously murdering an openly gay man in Loganville, Georgia in 1980.  Because of great lawyering by my boss Greg Gambol, a 35-year criminal defense attorney veteran, the jury acquitted Gaines.  This, despite his confession, “I was obedient to God when I killed Victor Semmes.”  The wise or lucky thing for Gaines was that he had only confessed to Greg and me in privacy under the cool shade of the attorney-client privilege umbrella. The jury never knew Terry had confessed to committing the horrible murder.

My desire that the Flaming Five receive justice had been a long-term project.  Certainly, when Andrew Black contacted me in 2013 asking whether I wanted to exercise my first right of refusal and purchase his parent’s 80 acres, I was at least subconsciously contemplating my future role. 

In 2010, at age 73, Georgia resident Terry Lynn Gaines was elected to the U.S. Senate.  Apparently, he had overcome the stigma of his criminally-accused past and gone on to win the respect of most Republican voters in Georgia.  I attempted to contact Terry with the intentions of respectively, but strongly, suggesting he purchase Oak Hollow in his name.  At first, he wouldn’t accept my call.  Then, I told his assistant that Terry and I go way back, all the way to Loganville and Criswell Park in 1980.  I guess this intrigued him.  Ultimately, Terry agreed to be my strawman, even paying for the purchase at closing, even though I did later secretly repay him the funds.  Our deal was simple.  I would not anonymously leak his Semmes confession and he would transfer ownership in Oak Hollow if I asked him to in the future.  I suspect Terry knew that it was unlikely that I would risk associating myself with such leakage for fear of losing my law license, but acting conservatively caused him to go along. 

I was thankful for my foresight.  Two days ago, I had anonymously mailed a letter to the Sand Mountain Reporter.  I felt I could safely publish the statement the Ericson’s had failed to publish.  I did this knowing that likely at some point law enforcement would eventually turn their attention to me.  I could not hope that every sharp detective would ignore or never discover my motivation for killing every member of the Flaming Five.  But, I was convinced investigators would not find I was, in all practical purposes, the real owner of Oak Hollow.  I was confident they would eventually search Hickory Hollow but never realize how close they were to locating relevant and highly prejudicial evidence.

On Saturday May 27, 2017, the Sand Mountain Reporter reluctantly published my letter.  I had followed my standard procedure in drafting, printing, and mailing this anonymous declaration.  The Reporter made no changes to my writing:

“On Monday night May 15, 2017 John Ericson of Boaz was abducted as he exited the First Baptist Church of Christ Faith and Family Life Center on Sparks Avenue in Boaz.  His family was contacted a few days later and asked to draft and have publicly read a formal apology for John’s rape and murder of Wendi and Cindi Murray in 1972.  The formal statement was to have been read by Pastor Walter Tillman at First Baptist Church of Christ on Sunday, May 21, 2017.  John’s family refused to comply with this request.

At a graduation party on the night of May 25, 1972, John Ericson, along with the other four members of a basketball team known as ‘The Flaming Five,’ repeatedly raped these two sweet and innocent young girls from Douglas, Alabama.  Later that night, early on the morning of May 26th, the Flaming Five murdered these two girls and buried their bodies in a hidden grave that was only discovered in 1997.  The fathers of the Flaming Five were also culpable in one murder, the burying of both bodies, and the ultimate long-term cover-up. 

These ten men framed a young man named Micaden Lewis Tanner.  He was jailed, indicted, and tried for the murders of Wendi and Cindi Murray.  In 1973, a jury refused to convict him.  Miraculously, 24 years later, Mr. Tanner as an attorney, along with his law partner Matt Bearden, represented Bill and Nellie Murray, the parents of Wendi and Cindi, in a wrongful death lawsuit against the Flaming Five and their fathers.  On the morning of Monday, November 2, 1998, the day the trial was to begin, Bill and Nellie Murray were found dead in their bed at their home because of cyanide poisoning.  The lawsuit died alongside the Murrays.  The deaths of Bill and Nellie Murray, along with the rape and murder of Wendi and Cindi Murray, are officially unsolved.

Unofficially, justice has been served upon John Ericson. He has forever disappeared.  But, the mighty wheels of justice do not rest.  There are nine others laying in the wake of this coming ship; nine more are sure to suffer a similar fate.  These nine are Franklin Ericson, Wade and Walter Tillman, James and David Adams, Randall and Raymond Radford, and Fred and Fritz Billingsley.”

By Sunday afternoon, after church and an hour on Facebook, I knew that Boaz, Alabama was fully aware of the severe accusations and clear threats that had been leveled against nine living members of this North Alabama community.  I felt comfortable also that these nine people were experiencing terror like they had never known.

I sat out on my balcony all afternoon.  The clouds were gray and it was cool, nearly cold, Blackberry winter of a sort was passing through even though old timers had said it had occurred nearly a month ago.  I couldn’t help but ponder how fragile civilization truly is.

I was a murderer and everyone thought I was a good citizen, a valuable member of society.  I was educated, a professional, a faithful church and Rotary Club member, and a consistent contributor to multiple hunger and homeless organizations.  Yet, I was a murderer.  As far as I knew no one except me knew the real me.  Of course, I was justified.  I suppose just like Undral Collins believed about himself.

I represented Mr. Collins from 2002 to 2004.  His was a Madison County capital murder case.  Collins was charged with four murders, two men and two women.  He was ultimately convicted and sentenced to death.  He remains on Alabama’s death row.  From his case and others, along with general observations in my own life, I have learned that it often doesn’t take much to provoke someone, provoke them to action.  Most times the action isn’t serious, most time it certainly never rises to the level of bodily harm or murder. 

As criminal defendants often do, they tell their lawyers things they would never tell anyone else.  They have this uncanny knowledge or belief that being open, even spilling the whole can of beans, is therapeutic, even contributory to a courtroom acquittal.  Whether they are truly telling the truth gets muddled up a lot of the time.  Nevertheless, Collins loved to talk.

His first victim was a friend of his mother.  The friend had made an off-the-cuff statement one afternoon over lemonade on the front porch of his mother’s home.  The woman said it was nice of Undral to look after his mother but unfortunate he had dropped out of college.  The woman indicated that Undral was not smart enough to become a college graduate.  Evidence at trial showed Undral had broken into the woman’s house and waited for her to return from grocery shopping.  When she came in her back-door, Collins stabbed her repeatedly with a butcher knife he had taken from her kitchen.  He then set her house on fire and left.

Collins stalked his second victim and shot him from a distance with a high-powered hunting rifle.  Collins told me that this man was arrogant and a bigot.  Collins said that he had visited the man’s church where he was the pastor.  At some point in the sermon the man had said “Jesus was a man’s man, you wouldn’t see him wearing an earring.”  One statement, one seemingly minor provocation, and this preacher’s fate was sealed.

Collins abducted his third victim, a 16-year-old girl.  Her body was never found.  She was collateral damage.  Collins intended victim was the girl’s mother.  She was a teacher at a local community college where Collins had taken a basic math class.  He told me that the woman knew her material but often wandered into subjects she clearly didn’t understand.  Although Collins didn’t have a college degree, he was intelligent and well-read.  This teacher often made statements that reflected her belief in God and His powers.  One evening another student came to class late and shared that her niece was in the hospital.  The teacher said that she would say a prayer for the young girl that she would be healed.  Collins took affront to this because he didn’t believe in prayer and even if he did, how could one truly know if it did any good.

Collins shot and killed his final victim while he was playing golf.  The man was a banker and a former high school classmate of Collins.  He said that the man was “a polished diamond on the outside but a pile of shit beneath the surface.”  One-day Collins was mowing a yard in a well-to-do neighborhood when he saw the banker drive up next door.  He said, “The asshole banker was looking straight at me and would have had to recognize me.  If he didn’t remember me from high school he should have known me from being a customer at his bank.”  Collins said the banker barely acknowledged him even though the mower wasn’t even running at the time.  He was filling it with gasoline.  Evidence at trial showed Collins, two days after this incident, followed the banker to the local golf course and covertly went ahead to the ninth hole and waited.  As the banker completed his final putt Collins walked from behind a tree straight toward the man and made him look at him and call his name.  Collins then shot him in the face.

No doubt Undral Collins was not the only human who was easily provoked.  Surely everyone has heard of murders committed over things as insignificant as a pair of Air Jordan running shoes, and a young girl not being chosen as a cheerleader.  I suppose if the full body of evidence on this subject could be examined these two examples would appear to be BIG things.  

To most every reasonable person what had provoked Undral Collins wasn’t common.  And, it certainly didn’t justify him committing all these murders.  However, was I the only one in the world to believe I was justified in taking justice into my own hands and killing John?  If I was, then just like all the Christians who continue to believe in a literal Noah’s Ark, they haven’t looked at the evidence.

Even though I believed that I was fully justified in bashing in the head of John Ericson, I couldn’t quite get away from the feeling that I was no better than Undral Collins.

The Boaz Scorekeeper, written in 2017, is my second novel. I'll post it, a chapter a day, over the next few weeks.

Late Wednesday night, the 17th, before going to bed, I logged onto Facebook and reviewed John’s Page.  An hour earlier a post had been made to his Newsfeed. It included a photo of Franklin Ericson and Judith standing on the front porch of a small brick house.  There was a woman standing inside the house propping open the front door.  One could speculate that Franklin was handing the woman something.  A check?  The title of the post was, ‘always supporting John’s generosity.’  There was one comment to the post.  It was by Jesse Rickles and said, “thanks to the Ericson’s for their timely and generous contribution to my family’s needs.”

I assumed Franklin and Judith had concocted some crazy story and showed up with a check.  I would never know the amount of the check but that wasn’t the point.  It appeared they were attempting to fulfill the three ransom-note requirements.

Karla and I went to church on Sunday, the 21st.  Lewis was in town so Kaden was with him.  I never saw Walter nor did Wade or anyone else read an Ericson apology letter.  This wasn’t much of a surprise.

I spent most of Monday in the Cleburne County District Court in one of the longest preliminary hearings of my career.  It was a capital case, where wealthy-parents had hired me to represent their only son.  He was charged with killing his girlfriend and her ten-year-old son.  It was rare for me to be hired in a capital murder case.  Ninety-nine percent of the time these defendants cannot afford retained counsel.  In fact, these individuals were usually indigent and were appointed legal counsel by the Court with such representation paid for by the State of Alabama.

Tuesday morning, the 23rd, I arrived at the office before 7:00 a.m. and logged onto the Fidelity Bank’s Online Banking website.  A few weeks prior to abducting John I had created Edward Simmons.  Looking back, it hadn’t been that difficult to create a whole new identity.  I had been in Dallas, Texas at a criminal defense legal conference and sat by a woman (Katherine, not her real name) from Toronto, Canada.  She had recently moved there from Albuquerque, New Mexico.  Over the course of the three-day seminar we talked about our law practices, families, and generally about our lives. 

Her husband Carter (not his real name) was also an attorney who had been paralyzed from the waist down a few years ago in a hunting accident.  Carter no longer practiced law but accompanied Katherine when she went out of town.  The night before the conference ended I had dinner with Katherine and Carter at the hotel’s restaurant.  While eating, Carter appeared to get choked.  Katherine apologized and said this was routine.  She excused herself and Carter and wheeled him to the bathroom.  When they left, I noticed he had left a small bag on the table.  In it was his wallet which contained his U.S. Social Security Card, his Driver’s License, and a Toronto photo ID card. There were also several credit and insurance cards in the wallet. Carter’s passport was in the bag.  After my inspection, I returned the bag to where Carter had left it.  He and Katherine returned a few minutes later and we finished an enjoyable meal without another incident.

The next afternoon’s session ended early and as we walked out into the hallway of the large conference room, Katherine asked me to do her a favor.  I agreed unconditionally.  She said that Carter had been down, even depressed, the past several days and that she could tell that last night’s dinner and conversation had really improved his spirit.  Katherine asked if I would come to their room and visit a few minutes with Carter while she finished packing and before they took a taxi to the airport.

I told her I would be glad to and walked with her to their room.  I sat and chatted with Carter for fifteen minutes or so.  When Katherine had all their bags packed and setting by the door, she went to the rest room and Carter wheeled himself out into the hall. By then the hotel concierge arrived and started loading their bags.  Katherine came out of the bathroom and we walked with Carter down the hall to the elevators.  I walked with them outside the hotel and waited with them as the concierge loaded their bags.  I helped get Carter into the cab, shook his hand, and hugged Katherine.  She asked me to stay in touch and I promised I would.  Just as she was about to close her door she said, “oh, stupid me.  I forgot to turn in my hotel key.  Micaden, do you mind?”  I took her key and the cab drove off.

For a reason I will probably never know, I went back up to the seventh floor and went inside their room.  If I believed in miracles or even less supernatural interventions into our natural world, I would say it was God who directed my actions.  Inside their room was Carter’s bag sitting on a small round table in the corner of the bedroom next to the door leading out onto the balcony.  I took the bag knowing they were already gone and that it would be unlikely for me to find them if I raced to the airport.  I decided to call them but realized I didn’t have a phone number for either one of them.

Ultimately, I kept the bag with Carter’s identity.  I guess you know by now that Carter’s real name was Edward Simmons.

I entered Edward’s username and password and clicked on the ‘Accounts’ link.  I almost fell out of my chair when I saw the account balance was $2,000,000.  I had never been more surprised.  Or unprepared.  I realized then that I had not given very much thought to what I would do if the Ericson’s paid a ransom of any amount.  But now wasn’t a good time to start planning how to benefit the now-extinct Murray family.  Tina walked in and asked me if I had seen today’s edition of The Sand Mountain Reporter.

The Boaz Scorekeeper, written in 2017, is my second novel. I'll post it, a chapter a day, over the next few weeks.

After work, I drove straight to Oak Hollow and went inside the house.  Since purchasing the Black’s property three years ago I had converted the house into an extension of my law office.  I often came here to conduct legal research and draft briefs for my appeals cases.  I also used one bedroom for my writing.  A few years ago, I had started writing short stories.  My ideas had mainly come from the criminal defendants I had represented.

Today, I changed clothes and sat at the kitchen table reviewing the mental plan I had prepared several weeks ago.  I had named it ‘the Kill.’  I had long determined that no matter what John’s family did after receiving my ransom note, that John would die.  That was the only true justice for what he had done.  I never promised his family they would ever see him again. 

Several months ago, I had rented a backhoe and brought it here to Oak Hollow.  I had used it to dig five graves.  They were at the back of the several acres the Black’s had cleared off, about 200 yards behind the barn.  This clearing is also fenced in.  I had bought five old horses and brought them here.  Today, two old horses would die, with one of them being the human kind.

I walked outside and to the barn and found John laying on the floor on his back.  I told him to roll over and to put his hands behind him. I unlocked the cell door and went in, cuffed his hands behind him and removed the shackle from his left hand.  I had him stand up. 

John kept saying that I was in more trouble than I could ever escape.  I just let him talk while I led him outside and down to the back of the clearing. I took one of the horses by its halter.  We walked behind John.  I had him open the gate.  The five graves were right beyond the fence.  When John saw the five holes in the ground he fell to his knees and said, “Micaden, you don’t have to do this.  It’s not too late.  I will pay you whatever you want and will never mention this ever.  Please, please don’t kill me.”

 I walked the old mare over beside the first grave and injected her with 50 mg of Diazepam as a sedative.  In less than five minutes she was laying down on her side.  I then injected her with 120 ccs sodium pentobarbital.  Within a couple more minutes, the old mare stopped breathing.  I had John lay down on his stomach, face down.

The shovel I had chosen was heavy with a long handle.  John kept trying to get up and I kept shoving him back down.  The first blow missed his head completely, hitting his neck below his left ear.  John rolled over screaming.  “God help me, Tanner please stop.”  The second blow was direct.  It centered the back side of his head. He rolled on to his left side.   I hit him again, this time across the face.  Blood began pouring from his nose and mouth.  It took five more blows before he died.

I removed the hand cuffs and pushed him into the first grave.  I used the shovel to cover his body with three or four feet of dirt.  I then used a come-a-long to pull the horse into the grave.  It took me over an hour to shovel in enough dirt to fill the ten-foot hole.

I walked back to the barn and hung up John’s cuffs.  After showering in the house, I drove home to Hickory Hollow.  Karla had my favorite meal.  Slow-cooked pintos and fried potatoes.  We spent the rest of the evening playing checkers with four-year-old Kaden.

The Boaz Scorekeeper, written in 2017, is my second novel. I'll post it, a chapter a day, over the next few weeks.

The next day I arrived at the office early and before anyone else.  I prepared a typed ransom note.  It read:

“John has been kidnapped.  For now, he is safe and sound.  The amount of fear and pain he suffers is up to you.  You can positively affect his situation by doing the following three things:

1.  Before Thursday, May 18, 2017, deliver $100,000 to Jesse Dawson, the girl John repeatedly raped when she was in the 9th grade at Boaz High School.  Jesse, now Jesse Rickles, lives at 3855 County Road 35, Rainsville, AL.  Be sure and take a photo of the certified check with it being hand-delivered to Ms. Rickles.  Post these two photos to John’s Facebook account before the 18th.

2. Before Sunday, May 21, 2017 draft a letter of apology from John to Wendi and Cindi Murray and their parents Bill and Nellie Murray.  Include details of what John did to harm this family beginning with the rapes and murders of Wendi and Cindi on May 25, 1972.  Deliver this letter to Pastor Walter Tillman and ask that it be read to the congregation of First Baptist Church of Christ on the 21st.

3. Before Tuesday, May 23, 2017, wire transfer $2,000,000 to Fidelity Bank Limited in Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands.  This bank’s physical address is: Cayman Financial Centre, 36A Dr. Roy’s Drive, Grand Cayman, KYI-1103, Cayman Islands.  The bank’s Routing Number is 063012136.  You are to have these funds deposited to Account Number is 90003070.

Of course, you can involve family, friends, police and other authorities.  That is up to you.  You are bright enough to realize such involvement might not be in John’s best interest.”

I put on tight latex gloves, printed out the two letters, and addressed two envelopes.  One to John’s wife Judith, and the other one to Franklin, his father.  I folded and inserted the letters into the envelopes and sealed them using an Aqua Ball to moisten the flap.  I almost licked a stamp before realizing what I was about to do.  I threw that one away and then affixed two stamps, again using the Aqua Ball.  I then inserted these two envelopes into one manila folder and drove to the Gadsden Post Office.  With gloveless hands, I carried the folder inside and let the two smaller envelopes slide into the outgoing mail chute being careful not to touch them.

I drove back to the law office.

The Boaz Scorekeeper, written in 2017, is my second novel. I'll post it, a chapter a day, over the next few weeks.

Matt’s auto accident was worse than originally thought.  He spent three days in the hospital and almost three weeks at home in bed.  The doctor said he had suffered extreme brain trauma and risked convulsion and a stroke if he exerted himself.

I covered both mine and Matt’s cases having court appearances nearly every day.  But, I still found time to conduct detailed planning on how I would abduct John Ericson.  I had decided against simply killing him.  That would be too easy and wouldn’t accomplish enough.  I didn’t mind the easy part but I had previously decided that my form of justice would be a combination of civil and criminal justice.  Each of the Flaming Five would pay money for the evil they had committed and they also would pay with their lives.  I doubt any reasonable person would argue this wasn’t what they each deserved.

Four weeks to the day after Career Day, and its vivid reminder of what John Ericson and family had done to Jesse Dawson and her family, I was ready for game one.  I left the office at 5:00 p.m., drove home, and ate supper with Karla and Kaden.  After eating, I told them I had a brief to complete and went to my study.  It was on the back of the house next to the master bedroom where I slept.  Karla and I had not slept together in years.  She blamed it on my snoring.  She now had her own bedroom upstairs in what used to be the loft.  I changed clothes and walked back through the study and out onto my balcony.  By now it was dark.  I walked through the back yard and the 300 or so yards to the barn.  There I backed my 2007, F150 Ford pickup out and loaded my bicycle in the back under the camper shell.

I drove back to the office, parked, and went inside long enough to turn on all the lights.  I then came back out, removed my bicycle, and rode up Main Street, crossing Highway 205. I had twenty minutes or so to kill so I rode past Snead College, the Boaz Rec Center, Corley Elementary School and then circled back toward First Baptist Church of Christ.  I crossed back over Highway 205 and turned left on Brown Street and then right on Sparks.  A block before reaching the church I pulled into the driveway of an abandoned house on the corner of Sparks and Elm Streets.  I hid my bike behind the house under an old tarp that had been left by the previous owners to cover two lidless garbage cans. 

I walked across Elm and through a grove of trees and an assortment of picnic tables and benches that were used mainly by church employees during their lunch hour.  John’s car was parked where it always was on Monday nights, in the parking lot on the west side of the Family Life Center, in parking spot number 275, facing Gethsemane, the informal name that had been assigned to the grove of trees I had just passed through.  And John, I had to assume, was where he always was on Monday nights, inside teaching and coaching the Upward Bound Basketball and Bible program.  I squatted down beside the passenger side door.  It was now 8:55 p.m. and there were no other cars in the parking lot. 

For the past three weeks, I had made this same little biking journey and hid in Gethsemane.  Each week had been almost an exact replica, the only thing that varied was the time John walked out of the west side door of the Center and approached his 2017 Chevrolet Traverse.  The earliest time had been 9:02 p.m., and the latest had been 9:06 p.m.  The kids and the other workers were always gone at the latest by 8:45 p.m.

Tonight at 9:05 p.m., I heard John rattling the Center’s door making sure it was locked.  I could hear his footsteps as he approached his vehicle. It was roughly forty feet from the Center’s door to the driver’s side door on John’s Traverse.  I started inching my way toward the back of his vehicle.  When I heard the beep of his automatic door opener I readied myself at the back corner. I counted ‘one thousand one, one thousand two.’  I knew it took John two seconds after sounding the beep to reach his vehicle and open the back door.  My entire plan could go south in a hurry if John didn’t follow his routine.  He always opened the back door and threw his duffel bag inside onto the bench seat.  If he had opened the front door and sit down in the bucket seat, my job would be much more difficult, if not impossible.  He followed his routine and opened the back door. 

Just as I heard him pull on the door handle I looked around the bumper on the driver’s side and saw him tossing in his duffel bag.  I rushed toward him making far more noise than I had intended but reached him as he was turning towards me.  Our eyes locked together as I lunged the taser in my right hand into the left side of his chest.  He fell back against the open door without saying a word. 

I had not anticipated the level of difficulty it would be to get John’s body inside his vehicle.  Even though John was tall and slim, he probably only weighed 160 to 170 pounds.  It took me three attempts to pick up his lifeless body and lean him back against the bench seat.  Every time I tried to prop him up his feet kept slipping and he collapsed.  I finally figured out that if I turned him face-forward toward the seat that his center of gravity shifted upwards enough for him to lay across the seat.  I then went around to the other side and could pull him completely inside.  I had to go back around and bend his legs upward to close the door. 

I panicked when I could not find John’s keys.  After crawling in the back seat and checking his pockets I realized he probably dropped them when I tasered him.  I got outside and down on all fours and found John’s keys up under the Traverse.  I opened the driver’s door and jumped inside.  The vehicle had been running ever since John had used his automatic door opener.  I backed up and started toward the west side parking lot and onto Elm Street when I remembered that I had forgotten to handcuff John’s hands.  I quickly stopped the vehicle, got out, walked around the Traverse, opened the back door, and pulled his arms and hands from underneath his body and behind his back.  The cuffs finally snapped shut.  I looked at my watch.  It was 9:14 p.m.  It had taken six minutes more than I had planned.  I was soaking wet from sweat and it was still pouring off my face and head.  I got back behind the wheel and drove north on Elm Street.  Only then did I remove my black hood.

It was twenty minutes before I pulled up beside the barn.  This wasn’t my barn at Hickory Hollow.  That would have been way too risky.  I could not have prevented Karla and Kaden from discovering how the Flaming Five were finally receiving their justice.  Three years ago, I had purchased the south eighty acres from the Black’s.  I had bought it from their son Andrew.  When I first purchased their north 100 acres and named it Hickory Hollow, I had asked them for a right of first refusal on their south 80.  They had agreed and I had made sure that Andrew, who lived in Jackson, Mississippi, knew about it.  Betty Black had died in 2002 and Carl in 2013.  Andrew settled the estate and, good to his word, contacted me asking whether I still wanted to buy the remaining 80 acres.  I didn’t really need it, nor have any plans for it but bought it none the same.

Oak Hollow, the name I had coined for the Black’s south 80 acres, was located on Dogwood Trail, just beyond where Leeth Gap Road begins. The northeast corner of Oak Hollow is at the dead-end of Dogwood Trail. There are only four houses on this road.  The Black’s had installed a chain gate swung from two metal poles, one on each side of the road.  Andrew had given me a key to the lock.  The Black’s simple one-story brick home was a hundred yards or so inside the gate.  Another three hundred yards deeper into the woods the Black’s had cleared off a few acres and built a barn.  I had made a lot of changes to the barn since purchasing the south 80 in 2015.  It was this barn that I now sat beside in John’s Traverse with him groaning and lying across the back seat.

I got out and flipped on two light switches that I had installed on the outer wall inside a weather proof cover.  One switch was an outside LED flood light at the top of the roof under the eve and just above the loft door.  The other switch turned on a row of lights down the center of the barn’s open hallway.  I had parked the Traverse perpendicular to the barn’s hallway.  I opened the vehicle’s back door on the driver’s side and told John to get out.  By now he was awaking, but not yet fully alert.  He moaned and I told him, “John Ericson, this is Micaden Tanner, and you have been convicted of rape and murder and sentenced to die.  Now get out of my police car.” 

I knew he couldn’t easily get out of the vehicle, not with him lying on his stomach with his hands cuffed behind his back.  I just wanted to be dramatic.  I had rehearsed over and over the past three weeks what I wanted to say when we arrived at Oak Hollow Prison. 

I took John’s ankles in my hands and started pulling him off the backseat.  When his feet were on the ground I grabbed his shirt at his shoulders with both hands and stood him upright.  He turned and looked at me with a mix of fear and disgust and said, “Tanner, what the hell are you doing?  Uncuff me right now or your ass is dead.”

I replied, “John I don’t think you are in any position to be making such bold demands.”  I pushed John further inside the barn’s hallway and inside a stall halfway down on the right side.  I made him sit down on a metal stool that was in the center of the room and secured to the cement floor.  I then used an extra pair of cuffs to connect his right hand to the stool and removed the first cuffs.  I then had him stand which allowed him to bring his arms and hands around in front of him.  When he stood up he thrust out his left hand towards me to punch my face.  I blocked his punch and told him, “I figured you would try that.  Now, you can do one of two things.  Either you let me put a shackle on your left hand which is attached to this stool and with its chain give you six feet of roaming freedom, or I will leave you just the way you are with your right-hand close-cuffed to the stool.”

John reached out his left hand and I put on the shackle that was lying on the floor next to the stool.  I had previously secured the chain to the stool.  I stepped back toward the jail cell type door that I had built and John let out the shrillest scream I had ever heard.  I turned and smiled at him.

“John, you can shout, holler, or scream as loud and as often as you want.  You are at least a mile from anyone, and in between you and the first household, are a million oak and hickory trees to resist your sound waves.  It’s up to you.”

“Tanner, okay, I get it.  But, be sensible.  Let’s make a deal.  I suspect I know what this is all about.  What will satisfy you?  What about a million dollars?”  John said.

“I appreciate your offer.  That’s about half of what I was thinking.  Two million dollars will be what I demand from your family.  Do you think you are worth that?  Will they pay that?”  I asked.

“Unshackle me right now and we can deal with this tonight.”

“Oh, my funny John.  Don’t you realize that you will never see your family again?”  With that I walked out and locked the cell’s door.  I looked back at John and told him there was water and bread within reach behind him on a table, and under the table was a pillow and a blanket.  “There’s a five-gallon bucket in the opposite corner for your creative uses.”  I couldn’t resist saying as I looked at John’s eyes.  I think he was about to cry. 

I walked across the hallway to a supply room and took a bottle of Lysol Spray and a clean towel.  For the next fifteen minutes, I scrubbed down the inside of John’s Traverse.  Even though I had used gloves I wanted to make sure there was nothing suspicious left in the vehicle.  When I finished, I drove back to the Family Life Center and parked in spot 275.  I got out, locked up, and walked through Gethsemane across Elm and retrieved my bike from under the blue tarp at the abandoned house.  In less than five minutes I was back at the law office and the bike was in the back of my truck locked inside my camper top.  I went inside and turned off all the lights and drove home.  It was after 11:00 p.m. when I walked across my balcony, back through the study, and into my bedroom.

After taking a shower, I lay down across my bed but tossed and turned for at least an hour.  I guess it was only natural to replay tonight’s events over and over in my mind.  Once I finally dozed off, I slept sound the rest of the night.

The Boaz Scorekeeper, written in 2017, is my second novel. I'll post it, a chapter a day, over the next few weeks.

For forty-four years Matt had participated in the Boaz High School Career Day program.  He had graduated Valedictorian from Boaz in 1954, the University of Alabama in 1959, and Emory University’s School of Law in 1962.  Matt practiced in Atlanta for nearly ten years before returning to his hometown and starting his solo law practice in January 1972.  My case in the fall of 1972 was Matt’s first Alabama murder case.

Matt’s forty-fifth Career Day appearance was scheduled for today at 9:00 a.m.  At 8:05 a.m., I received a call at the law office from a nurse in the Emergency Room at Marshall Medical Center South Hospital stating that Matt had asked her to call and tell me to go to Boaz High School to fill his spot.  The nurse also instructed me to find Mrs. Southerland and explain to her that Matt was unable to attend Career Day because he had been in an auto accident.  The nurse assured me that Matt had run off the road, hit a tree, and had a non-life-threatening cut on his forehead that had to be sewn up. She said that he was under heavy medication and wouldn’t be released for several hours.

I grabbed my coat and drove to Boaz High School.  After locating Mrs. Southerland and explaining why I was there, she walked with me to the English Department on second floor where students interested in a legal career would come by to chat with me, Circuit Court Judge Henagar, and District Attorney Charles Abbott. She said there was coffee in the lounge and provided directions.  I told her I would just wait here.

After she left I walked out into the hall and saw Room 201.  My mind jumped backwards forty-six years to 1971, January 3rd to be exact.  I went into the empty room, sat down at the first student desk in the third row, and closed my eyes.  I had a good memory of what had happened in my Junior Year English Literature class the first day after returning from Christmas holidays.

Mrs. Peterson, our teacher, was absent, something about a weather-related delay returning from Chicago.  We had a substitute, a Miss Barnes I believe.  She was a recent college graduate with very little ability to control thirty or more energetic teenagers.  She seriously attempted guiding the class in a reading of Shakespeare’s Macbeth but soon lost control.  John Ericson was the ring-leader in flirting with Miss Barnes.  She was probably only four or five years older than we were and could easily pass for a classmate.  She was, as they say, drop-dead gorgeous.  John, egged on by Randall Radford and Fred Billingsley, asked her if she had a boyfriend.  The more she ignored him and tried to maintain classroom order John continued to badger her.  I remember him saying, “I don’t care if you do have a boyfriend.  After a roll in the hay with me you will never think of him again.”  One of the five or six girls in the class chimed in with, “John, I hear you’re about to be a father. I doubt you’ll have time for Miss Barnes.”   John looked dumbfounded. 

His puzzled look turned to terror when the door opened and two police officers walked in.  One of them asked John to come into the hallway.  At first, he just stood frozen.  Finally, one of the officers walked over to him, took hold of his arm, and walked him outside the classroom.  As the other officer was pulling the door shut, he told Miss Barnes to keep the rest of us in the room until the bell rings.

Eerily, the classroom fell quiet.  The girl, Janice Brewster I believe, who had claimed John was about to be a father, spoke out after a few minutes of total silence.  She said, “Big Bad John is in some deep shit.”  Miss Barnes tried her best to assert control, even warning Janice and the rest of us not to use foul language.  She finally said that we could talk if we were civil and not too loud.  Janice said that her mother had told her that John had gotten a ninth grader, Jesse Dawson, pregnant, and that he was going to be charged with rape, something about him being over 16 years old and having sex with a girl that is more than two years younger.

Fred spoke up and said that little Jesse should be charged and not John, that she looked like she was eighteen and had seduced John into having sex.  Randall said that John had been dating the ninth grader for over a year and nothing would ever have come of this if Doc Yelling hadn’t blabbed to social services who in turn blabbed to an Assistant District Attorney.  Jesse had thought she was pregnant but had learned she wasn’t.

Noise from the hallway roused me up and brought me back to the present.  I looked at my watch and it was nearly 9:00 a.m.  I walked back across the hall and spent the next three hours sitting beside the Judge and the DA in front of a revolving door of students each with some curiosity of what working in the legal field is all about.  After the last group of students left, Mrs. Southerland came and reminded us that a special lunch had been prepared in the cafeteria for all who had come and participated in Career Day.  I thanked her, but declined.  I had a 2:00 p.m. hearing in Guntersville.

During my drive to court, I couldn’t help but wonder what happened to John and his statutory rape charges.  He truly was charged, but like it always seemed for members of the Flaming Five and their families, they were slick as eels, always finding a way to avoid the reality the rest of humanity must deal with. 

Even before John’s preliminary hearing, which is mandated 20 days after an arrest, Jesse Dawson and her mother had told both the Boaz Police Chief and the District Attorney that she had never had sex with John Ericson and that she was not pregnant.  The only thing she would say is that she had had sex with a 9th grade boy, but she refused to disclose his name.   John never spent a night in jail and the charges against him were dropped soon after Jesse’s statement.  I never heard how close John came to facing justice but I do remember that Jesse and her family moved to Fort Payne.  At least that’s what I heard.  I suspect that John’s family was instrumental in showing Jesse’s parents the light, including the opportunities in Dekalb County. 

The only thing I remember hearing John say about this dark little chapter in his life, was during a basketball game our senior year.  Boaz was playing Fort Payne at Fort Payne High School.  As I always did, I rode the bus with the team, not for official score keeping purposes but simply to keep Coach Pearson’s stats report, what he called, ‘The Shit Sheet.’  I was sitting on the bench watching our team warm-up after halftime had ended.  John and Fred were on the court taking long shots from right in front of where I was sitting.  I heard John tell Fred that Jesse Dawson was on the second row behind the Fort Payne cheerleaders.  Fred warned John to leave her alone.  As John took his final shot within my hearing I heard him say, “Our eyes locked a few minutes ago. I can tell she will be up for a quickie right after the game.  She never could resist my flame.”

As I pulled into the courthouse parking lot, I was unreasonably mad at Matt for making me return to Boaz High School.  I doubt that I would have remembered how arrogant and powerful John had been even as a high school student.  Graduation night was not the first time he had raped an innocent girl.  I guess if I knew the truth, there were many young girls who had melted to his flame.

The son of a bitch will not escape real justice.

The Boaz Scorekeeper, written in 2017, is my second novel. I'll post it, a chapter a day, over the next few weeks.

I drove to the law office and sat at my desk for over an hour reviewing letters and motions received since I left.  I had kept up with emails on my phone.  I determined that nothing breathtaking had occurred.  I made a pot of coffee and sat in the conference room.  I took a blank yellow pad and pencil that always sat in the middle of the table and decided to brainstorm what I had learned from over thirty-six years of representing criminal defendants.

I figured the first thing to do was to make two lists.  One would be a list of cases where the defendant was formally charged, tried, convicted, and spent time in prison. I labeled this column ‘Thoughtless.’  The other list would be cases where the defendant won his case.  These cases would include an assortment of defendants: those who were questioned and released, those who were questioned, charged and released, those who were questioned, charged, tried and found not guilty, and finally, those who were questioned, charged, tried and were ultimately released (and not retried) because of a mistrial.  I labeled this column ‘Thoughtful.’

Of course, there was a third list that I wanted and really needed to create but it was impossible.  This third list would be my attempt to name criminals who never got caught.  I imagined this list could be rather long.  These were the guys and gals who were the smartest.  But, again, this list would remain a secret. 

The main thing I was after from the first list was things not to do, things NEVER to do.  These were things that got the defendant in the cross hairs to begin with. I spent nearly two hours creating these two lists.  To be thorough, I would have to review my work journals.  From the first day, I had started practice at Downs, Gambol & Stevens in Atlanta, I had kept a personal journal listing every case I worked on, and including factual details, and instructive legal nuances and strategies. But I would not pursue this level of detail tonight.  That could wait for another day.  Tonight, I simply wanted to come up with two or three key principles my ‘successful’ clients had followed in avoiding prison or, in capital cases, the death penalty.

There were only five cases I could think of to include under ‘Thoughtful,’ and twelve for the ‘Thoughtless’ column.  On a separate sheet of paper, I jotted down the main facts of each case.  After pondering them for quite a while I wrote down related principles. 

I came up with several ‘Thoughtful’ principles.  It seemed the most common element in these five cases were the absence of a body.  I found it nearly funny that all five cases I had listed were murder cases.  I asked myself had I already decided to murder John Ericson.  I let this thought pass through my mind and not take hold.  In three of my five listed cases, the victim’s body was never found.  I decided to engage in hypothetical thinking.  Principle number one—the dead body disappears.  In looking back over my statement of facts for my five ‘Thoughtful’ cases, I saw that in four of the cases there was not even a murder scene to be investigated.  From a criminal’s standpoint, that certainly helped.  In looking over my ‘Thoughtless’ cases, I easily concluded that murder scenes often led investigators to my client.  With modern forensic tests and tools scientists could almost paint a picture of who committed the crime.  From one hair, one footprint, one fingerprint, or a thousand other elements, forensic investigators fed law enforcement teams a rich and steady diet of reliable evidence to pursue one and only one suspect.

One other thing that jumped out at me.  Eyewitnesses.  Obviously, my ‘Thoughtless’ list included case after case where my client was convicted from the testimony of an eyewitness or a witness who possessed testimony that related to my client.  Things such as a witness placing my client in a key location, or anchoring a time line that worked its magic against my client.  But, from my ‘Thoughtful’ list I noted that eyewitnesses also had enabled several of these clients to avoid conviction and punishment.  These cases included testimonies that gave my client an alibi.  It never hurt to be able to verify where my client was, considering the prosecution’s uncertainty over the time of death, or the time the victim went missing.  District Attorney’s always developed theories, and over the years I had learned the importance of countering their arguments with hard evidence, with some of the best being a witness that places my client in a time and position where it was impossible for him to have committed the subject crime.

By now it was nearly midnight and I was exhausted.  I felt I was headed in the right direction.  At a minimum, I had avoided the worst possible scenario, one where I acted spontaneously in meting out justice to John Ericson.  I now knew I had to have a very detailed plan and this plan had to include the use of proven principles.  I was proud that I had uncovered four of these key principles: there is no body discovered, there is no crime scene to investigate, there are no eyewitnesses to the murder, and there are eyewitnesses to testify to the whereabouts of the defendant.

I locked up the office and drove to Hickory Hollow to determine what type sleep a criminal in the making would experience the first night of his new life.

The Boaz Scorekeeper, written in 2017, is my second novel. I'll post it, a chapter a day, over the next few weeks.

We returned from our Kentucky fantasy land field trip late Wednesday after spending most of the day in Nashville touring the Cheekwood Estate and Gardens with its Georgian mansion, 55 acres of cultivated gardens, and art museum.  I figured this event was an add-on since it had been on last year’s schedule but had to be canceled due to an outbreak of the flu across Nashville.

     I dropped Karla and Kaden off at Hickory Hollow and drove to the office.  On the way, I decided to detour past John Ericson’s home.  When I turned on Capstone Drive I remembered that John and his wife no longer lived in the white colonial nestled in the far back corner of Dogwood Lane. Several years ago, they had purchased a 100-acre tract that bordered the south side of Boaz Country Club and accessed it via the extra lot that was south of their home on Dogwood Lane.  I had heard they built a sprawling plantation style home with Olympic size swimming pool and tennis courts.  The only way to see their current home was to travel down the long, paved driveway that started on Dogwood Lane.  I finally realized that if I was going to mete out justice to John Ericson I could not afford to act spontaneously.  Every move I made had to be carefully considered.  I had to have a plan.