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 49
I had just passed the north entrance to old Country Club when my cell phone rang. The deafening sound reminded me how much I hated crickets. And, how some habits are hard to break. I had for years switched my phone from vibrate to ring every time I hit the shower. This morning I had forgotten to switch it back. I pulled the phone out of my jacket pocket and saw the smiling and sexy Connie with her back to the gorgeous waters of the Gulf. I was thankful I had snapped this shot, over Connie’s protest, Sunday morning after our tour of my first-floor hotel room.
“Hey baby. How’s Aunt Julia?” I knew immediately I shouldn’t have asked this question. Why else would Connie be calling me but to deliver the bad news?
“Oh Fred, she’s gone, and I feel so helpless. In many ways she was my rock.”
“I’m so sorry.” I let Connie stay silent; she was probably crying. I wanted to honor her way of grieving. I was just about to tell her I would come when she said, “the nurses are getting her ready for the funeral home to come pick her up. They said Mother and I could spend as much time as we wanted with her before she was moved.”
“I’ll be there in about five minutes.” I said, torn between needing to see Noah and needing to comfort my girlfriend.
“No, you stay in bed. I really need to deal with this alone. Please don’t take that the wrong way.” I could hear someone whispering in the background. “You go on. I’ll come back up in twenty minutes or so.” Connie explained that her mother was leaving the Chapel to go get a cup of coffee in a vending machine since the cafeteria hadn’t opened.
“Don’t worry about me.” I had no choice but to do some explaining myself. I filled Connie in on what I was doing.”
“I’m sure it’s just some mix-up. Noah doesn’t seem at all the type to commit a crime.” I thought I heard Connie whisper again, this time, to herself, “oh God, help me.” Then, what at first seemed out of the blue, Connie said, “sometimes people will fool you.” I bit my lip and didn’t respond. “Fred, you there?”
“Baby, I’m here, just listening.”
“Fred,” I didn’t understand why Connie kept calling me by name. “Do you believe in Karma?”
I had to be honest even though I sensed, for some odd reason, I needed to stretch the truth a little. “No, I really don’t.”
“Well, that was a stupid question to ask an atheist.” Ever since Doug Barber’s ‘Death’ class I had been open with Connie about my beliefs. Surprisingly, she hadn’t judged me. She certainly hadn’t rejected me.
“Right now, I’m thinking Doug might have been wrong. You remember that Sunday night this subject came up?”
“I do. He stuck to the Christian Bible and that a person’s acceptance or rejection of Christ determined where he would spend eternity in Heaven or Hell. He definitely believed that God would forgive all sin as long as the person was saved.” Obviously, I could pass Bible 101.
“All I know right now is that I hope Aunt Julia is finally at peace, that she’s free from the heavy load she’s been carrying around for nearly half-a-century.” I guess there was something about seeing her aunt die that was making Connie, now, take a long, hard, look-back.
I started to again stay silent, but I felt Connie was wanting to have a conversation, almost like she was needing me to assure her things were going to be alright for her and Aunt Julia. “Don’t you think, maybe, we are all carrying around some type of burden?” That sounded too clinical, like I was trying to be a psychologist or a psychiatrist.
“It’s amazing what a mother will do for her children, especially if she has only one child. And, for Aunt Julia, especially since her son was Johnny Stewart, the fabulous Johnny Stewart.” I could tell Connie had gathered herself a little. I could no longer hear her crying and sniffling.
“Johnny was the best running back ever to play at Boaz High School. If he hadn’t died I have no doubt he would have played college ball, maybe even pro.” I was intentionally keeping our conversation on the safe side, but sensed Connie was heavily burdened herself.
“Fred, Johnny was a thief and a busybody. Aunt Julia did everything she could to protect him.” Why was Connie telling me this? Gosh, she had a weird way of grieving.
“That’s news to me.” I said, being alert to going within ten miles of a certain photo I had seen less than an hour ago. It seemed Johnny might not be the only thief in the Stewart family.
“I’m a little surprised you didn’t hear about Johnny, Allan Floyd, and Tommy Jones breaking into First Baptist Church of Christ. It was Fall of 1973. Well, they didn’t break in. They overstayed their welcome. Hid out after everyone else had gone home after Wednesday night prayer meeting.”
“It seems I missed out on a lot when Susan and I moved to Auburn.”
“Unlike Aunt Julia. I bet she’s told me this story a hundred times. She knew I would keep it private. Now, look at me. Fred, please, please don’t repeat what I’m telling you. Can you do that?”
“Baby don’t worry, your secrets are safe with me.” I felt like such an ass.
“It was such a stink at the time. Uncle Bill was Chairman of the Finance Committee and was put in a bad spot. What Johnny did affected him forever, changed his and Johnny’s relationship the few weeks he lived after the burglary. If that’s what you call it. But Johnny, just like on the football field, seemed to always have a way of getting out of a tight spot.”
I interrupted Connie as if to let her take a breath. “I’m curious as to why Johnny didn’t go to jail, along with Tommy and Allan.”
“Knowledge is power, you should know that. Apparently, the trio scavenged Pastor Walter’s office on the third floor of the Education Building. Aunt Julia showed me the copy.”
“The copy of what?” I asked.
“Minutes of a closed meeting with the Deacon Board. The trio fired up the copier. Brave little idiots.”
“I take it the minutes disclosed something important.”
“It was really weird, something you might never think would go on in a Southern Baptist Church. Well, the resolution, not the affair, that’s pretty common I hear.”
“What affair?” I was good at asking questions.
“Randy Miller and Jennifer Grantham. He was the youth pastor and Jennifer was the wife of Peter Grantham, the Associate Pastor. Seems like they had the hots for each other, Randy and Jennifer that is.”
“You mentioned a resolution. Seems like I recall Randy Miller was the youth pastor until the late eighties.”
“Yep, that’s right, until he was found dead in the burned-out Lighthouse. The minutes disclosed a cover up. From the document, both Randy and Jennifer appeared before the Deacons and asked for forgiveness.”
“I’m often confused, but did this have something to do with Johnny, the trio, not going to jail?”
“Absolutely, according to Aunt Julia. Remember, knowledge is power. A deal was made, Uncle Bill could be persuasive, even cunning. It was like he was the public face of him and Julia, while she was the private bulldog.”
“Okay, but I’m hearing new topics being introduced. I’ll not put on my lawyer hat.”
“Talking about weird. All three conspired to keep the money.” Connie said, no doubt fading in and out of coherency.
“What money? Which three?” I thought of four stacks of cash safely secure in Connie’s safe.
“Aunt Julia felt she didn’t have any choice. There had been nothing said during the negotiations about what else the trio, the three teenagers, had stolen. I think, Aunt Julia thought, Pastor Walter and the Deacon Board were scared to mention anything.”
“What did the three burglars take?” All burglars ask these type questions.
“A bunch of cash. Aunt Julia made Johnny swear he would never mention it again. She locked it away in a safe, Uncle Colton’s from Fort Payne.”
I had to declare. “From what I’m hearing, Aunt Julia kept the cash locked there. Probably till this day. Right?”
“That’s true. I have no doubt about that.” Connie said. I then had no doubt myself that someway the money I had seen was the money that Johnny and friends had removed from God’s house.
“It’s funny how circumstances change our beliefs and actions. After Johnny was murdered, Aunt Julia needed some money. Fred, this is kind of personal, but she had a burr in her saddle after she learned Deidre was pregnant.”
I was now in Guntersville, passing by the new Publix on my left having just crossed the causeway. “Wait, are you saying Aunt Julia knew Deidre was pregnant with Johnny’s baby?”
“I guess I opened this can of worms, didn’t I? Aunt Julia worked thirty, no forty years, for Dr. Corley. She learned a few weeks before the burglary that Deidre had come to see the doctor, thinking she might be pregnant. Well, it seemed later, I’m not really sure, Deidre turned up at Dr. Calvert’s, another local doctor, both great doctors with superior reputations, and this time your sister was pregnant.”
“Wait a minute. How would Aunt Julia know this?” I had slipped my lawyer hat on after all.
“The two doctors had impeccable characters but it’s obvious two of their employees didn’t. Rachel Roden, she later married Doug Barber, worked for Dr. Calvert. She and Aunt Julia were two peas in a pod, their friendship went back to elementary school. Even though she was just a secretary and not a nurse, she did some snooping around and found Deidre’s file. Aunt Julia put it together that Johnny had to be the father.”
“How did she do that?” How, when, why, what, always fed me great questions in the courtroom.
“Fred, maybe you need to go in and see Noah. It was like Connie realized I was sitting in the Marshall County Jail’s parking lot. I realized something to. She didn’t want to continue this conversation.
“I’m fine. The deputies may not have finished processing Noah. You were about to tell me how Aunt Julia learned she was going to be a grandmother.” That sounded too flippant.
Connie hesitated a full minute or more. “Brace yourself.” Another pause. “Your mother told her.”
“Aunt Julia went to see my mother?” I asked.
“Oh yes, remember I said Aunt Julia was the private bulldog, Uncle Bill was the public bulldog.”
Now I had my full lawyer’s outfit on. “What do you know about that meeting? I bet it wasn’t too friendly.”
“I was never clear when the meeting took place. But, it almost turned violent when Aunt Julia accused your mother of killing Johnny.”
“What?”
“Someway your mother’s hatred of my dear cousin had become more than private information. Obviously, it was just a horrible rumor.”
“What was?”
“That your mother someway was involved in Johnny’s death.” I hated how things that were impossible of being true someway, at least to a few people, transformed into reality.
“What did you mean a while ago when you said Aunt Julia needed to use some of the money?”
“This was later, but remember, she was a bulldog and learned that Deidre had left town. It was after Christmas; Aunt Julia took a trip. This is when she discovered your mother’s plan to conceal her daughter’s pregnancy.” Connie whispered to a faint voice I could hear in the background. “Fred, I’ve got to go. Mother says Aunt Julia is ready for us.” What a strange way of putting it.
“I understand, you go, and maybe we can finish this conversation later. Connie, please know I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Thanks, Fred. And yes, Aunt Julia discovered your sister had twins.” I knew that was one question you really needed to ask. Talk later, bye for now.”
After our call ended, I felt sick. My poor mother had to live with the local rumor that she had killed the father of her two illegitimate grandchildren. I got out of my car for some fresh air and walked to the side entrance of the Sheriff’s Department. I thought to myself, “How much easier and simpler my life, and Noah’s, would be right now if we had never, ever, thought about cracking Elton Rawlins and Doug Barber’s safes.”
The Pencil-Driven Life 