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 Case of the Perfectionist Professor, written in 2018, is my sixth novel. I'll post a chapter a day over the next few weeks.
Book Blurb
Late on New Year’s Eve in the small town of Boaz, Alabama, Snead State Community College teacher Adam Parker was found dead slumped over in his car. A preliminary investigation indicated the fifty-year-old biology professor died of a heart attack. Marissa Booth, Adam’s daughter and Vanderbilt School of Divinity professor, didn’t agree.
Four days later, Marissa hired the local private detective firm of Connor Ford to investigate her father’s death. She declared local police officer Jake Stone had likely murdered her father. She pointed Ford to a multi-month Facebook feud between Adam and several local people, including Stone and Boaz City Councilman Lawton Hawks. The controversy allegedly related to Adam’s research that contended that, in layman’s terms, long-term indoctrination caused actual genetic mutations that directly affected future generation’s ability to reason.
Over the next year, Connor Ford discovered multiple and independent sources of motivation to quiet and possibly murder the controversial professor. Ford learned that a civil lawsuit and widespread public outcry had effectively run Adam out of Knoxville, where he was a biology professor for over thirteen years. Ford also learned that Adam had become the number one enemy of Roger Williams, a self-made local businessman, and his son Alex, who is a Republican candidate for governor of Alabama. Adam had discovered Alex and Glock, Inc., the Austrian-based gun manufacturer, was exploring not only the possibility of setting up a large facility in Boaz but also supplying pistols for Alex’s highly touted and controversial ‘arm the teachers’ proposal.
Connor Ford has his hands full enough with these suspects. Add in his need to determine whether Lawton Hawks and Jake Stone are friends or foes of Roger and Alex, which accentuate the pressure no normal small-town private detective can handle.
Will Connor’s discovery there is a link between Dayton, Tennessee, and the 1929 Scopes Monkey trial and a rogue group of CIA operatives bend Connor and his two associates to the breaking point?
Read this mystery/thriller to find out if Adam Parker was murdered and how, and what role the long-standing controversy between science and religion had in destroying the life of a single perfectionist professor.
Chapter 57
For some reason when I woke up today, I had a strange feeling that November 6th, election day, was going to be eventful for more than the Alex Williams governor’s campaign.
Yesterday, after Erica left I had intended to drive straight to Guntersville and the Williams’ lake house. I had convinced myself that if I finally got another chance to speak directly with Paige that I would be able to tell whether she was lying. I never got the chance. Blair’s call had diverted my attention.
Sunday afternoon before leaving the office I had left her a note describing my searches and what I had found. I had also left her an assignment: “See if you can find anything that tied Paige to either Roger or Russell. Be sure to look at each of their travels and conversations in the Open Curtains App.”
Just as I had passed through the red light at the Highway 431/168 intersection heading for Guntersville, Blair had called and said, “Bingo, I think you’ll want to see this. Are you heading in?” I turned left at the next red light and drove to the office.
As soon as I walked in Blair’s office she motioned for me to sit down and handed me a headset plugged into Adam’s iPad. It was Paige talking. I paused the audio and removed the headsets. “Give me some context.”
Blair told me that Roger was in his Cadillac and it was Friday night December 30th. My mind reminded me that this was only two days before the body of Adam Parker was found slumped over dead in his car behind the Science Building at Snead College. Now, during this phone call, Roger was sitting somewhere within Guntersville State Park. He no doubt was using his speaker phone. Blair surmised that Paige had called him earlier and that he was at a party at the lake house. He had dismissed himself and went for a ride, returning Paige’s call.
I again pressed the play icon and listened to the audio three times. Paige was offering Roger a deal. She was clear in what she wanted: Alex and an invitation to move into the governor’s mansion when he was elected in November. At first, Roger had laughed out loud saying, “young lady, I don’t make deals without knowing I’m getting something valuable in return.” This is when Paige slithered into the power position. She shared what she knew about Adam Parker and his research, including the book he was writing that would expose, via science, most everything Alex stood for; the book was scheduled for publication before the end of May. Paige also (no doubt learning much from Adam, the man she called her friend) shared how Lawton Hawks was stabbing Alex in the back, pretending to his face to be his number one fan. The call was nearly fifteen minutes long and ended with Paige promising to silence both Parker, with Lawton’s help, and then, later, remove him from the equation.
Even though Paige never said how she would fulfill her promises, I interpreted her proposed actions to be less than honorable. By the time the call ended, Roger promised to meet with Paige the following day, Saturday, at Meadowlark Farms.
When I ended the audio and laid aside the headsets Blair said she had looked but Roger had not driven the Cadillac at all on Saturday. She surmised that he had probably driven his Ford truck and it wasn’t equipped with one of Adam’s handy little Open Curtains devices.
It was nearly eleven-thirty when I arrived at the lake house. I was too late. There were no cars in the driveway. And, no one inside unless they were ignoring me. I had walked around the house twice, both times ringing front and rear doorbells. On the drive back to Boaz I called Amy to determine if she had seen either Natalie or Paige. Again, I was too late. It had been less than an hour earlier that the two girls had arrived and picked up little Nathan. Amy verified the two had returned her car and drove off in Paige’s Mustang.
I had wasted most of Tuesday afternoon riding around Boaz, including past the home of Peyton and Jerry Todd four times, hoping I would find Paige. She was nowhere to be found. I gave up at 4:30 p.m. and dropped by the office to learn Blair hadn’t discovered anything new. After she left at 5:00 I sat in the war room until a little after 7:00.
My time was fully fruitful. I solved the case. At least in my mind. I imagined that Paige, by December 29th, was already manipulating Lawton Hawks. Someway (it was still hard to imagine she was giving her body to Camilla’s father) Paige had him on her string and convinced him to help her kill Adam. The other man, the one who helped Lawton get Adam out of the tan-colored Nissan van, had to be Jake Stone.
Later, nearly a month after Adam’s death, Paige killed Lawton Hawks. During these four weeks she was probably bedding Alex and setting him up for Erica. Paige was truly playing both sides to the middle. Before leaving the war room the only thing I couldn’t quite figure out was how the cunning Paige had allowed Natalie to get the best of her concerning little Nathan.
Camilla was waiting on me when I arrived home. We warmed two Stouffer’s Lasagna’s and watched election results laying on the couch. I was intent on showing Camilla I could multi-task.
It was almost midnight when Connie Simmons conceded. The democratic candidate for governor had given Alex a run for his money, making much hay out of Alex’s philandering, positing that he was a liar and a con. Connie even had said in her concession speech that she feared for Alabama’s future.
I nearly pushed Camilla off the couch when WBRC switched its newscasting to Alex’s headquarters in Montgomery. He was about to give his winner’s speech. There, standing behind him was Paige Todd. She was holding little Nathan. This was strange enough, but stranger still was the absence of Natalie.
After taking five minutes to silence the crowd, standing behind the podium and with a somber face Alex said, “this should be the best day of my life, winning the hardest fought race to become Alabama’s next governor. Unfortunately, this afternoon, I lost one of my best friends. The young Natalie Gore drowned while swimming at the Radisson Inn here in Montgomery.”
Camilla and I both got up and stood in shock. Looking back and forth at each other and the TV, neither of us saying a word for what seemed like minutes. I couldn’t say anything, and I couldn’t hear anything. But, I could think. My mind raced to complete the puzzle. I knew beyond doubt (sorry Bobby, the evidence will support me) that Paige (and possibly Alex) were directly responsible for Natalie’s death.
This was the worst nightmare of my life. Had Natalie confessed how she had manipulated Paige, which had resulted in her producing little Nathan? Someway, I didn’t believe that’s what had happened. Getting rid of Natalie probably had been part of Paige’s plan all along. Or, could it have been part of Roger’s responsibility. I knew they had to have made a deal. It had all, seemingly, worked out for Paige and Roger. Paige, by being on stage with Alex during his speech, strongly indicated she was in place to become the next Mrs. Alex Williams.
Camilla shook me and said listen. Alex was sharing how Mrs. Simmons had declared for months that Alex had fathered a child with the now deceased Natalie Gore. Alex pulled out from inside his coat a piece of paper. And said, “thank you for all who voted for me. That showed you trusted me. Here, I have little Nathan’s birth certificate and I’m making a copy of it available to the press. Nathan’s father was Adam Parker. It’s right here.” Alex held up the certificate. Something else Mrs. Simmons got wrong. Natalie Gore wasn’t the mother of little Nathan, she was merely the surrogate. The biological mother of this precious little boy (now Alex had Paige with Nathan standing beside him behind the podium) is Miss Paige Todd, who, as of last Friday, is my fiancée (I had forgotten his and Erica’s uncontested divorce was finalized less than a week ago).”
I had heard enough. I turned the TV off and led Camilla upstairs. We made love for the first time in nearly a month. Afterword’s, I felt guilty knowing that I had used my sweet and kind woman as an antidote to the virtual nausea every cell of my being was experiencing. After Camilla went to sleep I tossed and turned thinking about nothing but how, no doubt, things were going to play out. Roger and Paige both had gotten what they wanted. There was no real evidence that could be marshaled against either one of them. That is, if Jake Stone kept his mouth shut. As the sun slithered its way through the half-closed blinds, I had no doubt Jake would exchange his freedom for a loving relationship with his only daughter.
The Adam Parker case was resolved. In a sense, Adam Parker, the perfectionist professor, had solved his own case.
THE END
The Pencil Driven Life 