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, while he falls in love with Connie Stewart, his one-date high school classmate who may conceal a secret or two herself.
Chapter 2
“Room 201, second floor, all the way down the hall. On the left.” Ms. Gilbreath said guiding me to my post for today’s Career Day. I hadn’t been inside Boaz High School since I graduated in May 1972. I couldn’t believe Betsy Gilbreath was still working in the office. She seemed old forty-five years ago. She must be in her late eighties.
I walked up the stairs, down the long-crowded hallway buzzing with kids of all sizes and shapes. I found my destination and sat down at the front desk in a room of empty chairs. I was glad I was early and had a few minutes to regroup my thinking.
Last night after returning from 200 Thomas Avenue I had changed clothes and driven to the parking lot of the Sand Mountain Stockyard in Kilpatrick. Noah was waiting on me, sitting in his truck parked between two giant livestock haulers. We had divided another type of haul with him taking the coins. I kept the jewelry, not worried I had given my best friend since elementary school over ninety percent of the value. At 11:30 p.m., Noah had sent a text saying, “product delivered and secure.” He had driven to his storage unit in Hokes Bluff. I had made my delivery to a similar facility in Guntersville.
“Hey Uncle Fred.” The voice startled me back to current reality. It was Luke Sullivan my grand-nephew. My niece, Gabby, is the only daughter of my only sister, Deidre.
“Hi Luke. Are you looking for career advice?” It was the first thing that came to mind. He just smiled and said he already had his future fully planned.
“No, I think I’ll stick with being a fireman, that’s all I’ve ever wanted to be. Other than being a garbage truck driver when I was five.” The tall and lanky kid with curly blond hair and a face full of acne just stood beside Luke, totally expressionless.
“Good to see you. I forgot Career Day is for eleventh and twelfth graders.”
“Just one of a million stupid rules around this backwards town.” Luke was a good kid, with one younger sister. Gabby and Brad, her husband and Luke’s father, were good parents. Both had good, but demanding, jobs. When they weren’t working at their day jobs they were assisting with the youth group at First Baptist Church of Christ. Luke and Miranda, his sister, were usually within a stone’s throw no matter what the group was up to.
A wave of boys and girls came in the room a minute or so before 9:00 a.m. They were busy chatting and jostling each other. I asked Luke, “how are things with you? Still liking high school?”
He looked at his older peers and walked closer to me and farther away from the loud group. “Do you think we could talk sometime? Maybe today?”
“Sure thing. Anytime.” I was surprised Luke had approached me. I couldn’t remember a time he and I had ever really talked. Our relationship was defined by the routines of family get-to-gathers. Ever since I had moved back from Huntsville three years ago, Mother had made sure we ate with her and Dad at least once every week.
“What about after you get finished with Career Day?” Luke said, his face more serious now.
“Okay, that’ll work. I don’t have any appointments until this afternoon.”
“Can you meet in the gym around 10:30?” Luke asked.
“That’s perfect. I’m here until that time so it will be just a few minutes after. If that’s good with you.”
“See you then.” Luke and his lanky and listless friend turned and walked out into the hallway.
I spent the next ninety minutes with six groups of six to fifteen students, rotating in a new batch every fifteen minutes. Each meeting I followed the same outline. It was impossible to grab their attention and motivate them towards a career in insurance. Even though I explained to them the importance of insuring cars and homes for a small, monthly premium, while transferring the risk of loss to an insurance company. I tried to illustrate how the laws of probability, actuarial science it was called, but every single student either stared out the windows or at their cell phones. Only when I shared a personal story of how I would have been bankrupt if it hadn’t been for my health insurance policy when Susan got sick, did their eyes look my way.
Walking to the gym I couldn’t get Susan off my mind. She was my high school sweetheart and my wife for nearly forty years. Five years ago, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. After fifteen months of chemotherapy and radiation, she died, even though hundreds, maybe thousands, had been praying, virtually non-stop according to many. Nine months after she passed, I closed my law practice and moved back home to Boaz. I now had been an Alfa insurance agent for nearly two years.
I didn’t see Luke when I entered the gymnasium. I walked through the double-doors and onto the basketball court. “Up here.” Luke was sitting at the very top of the visitor’s side bleachers.
“This ought to be private.” I said after climbing more stairs than I had in years. “What’s on your mind Luke?”
“Tyler, my friend, you met him, has got me to thinking.” Luke said. I could tell he was troubled. He normally had a big smile on his face. Now, he was nearly frowning.
“The kid with you in Room 201?” I asked.
“Yea. He moved here from Chicago after Christmas. He’s pretty much a loner, like me.”
“I never thought of you as a loner. You always seem like the life of the party.”
“That’s mostly around family.”
“What’s Tyler got you to thinking about?” I asked.
“God, church, Christianity. He says all that’s a myth.”
“What do you think?” I wanted to tell him Tyler was right but thought better of it. I valued my relationship with my family, even though it was strained.
“It’s funny really. I’ve never thought about it. You probably know what I’m talking about. You grew up with Nanna and Papa. You had no choice but to believe as they do. I’ve been in church since I was born.”
“I agree. Living in Boaz is like living in a pond. You can’t help but get wet.” I kind of liked my analogy.
“I thought you might give me some insight. How to deal with Tyler’s opinions. I know you’ve abandoned your faith.” I was surprised Luke put it that way.
“What makes you say that?” I asked.
“I’ve overheard Mom and Dad talking. They say, it’s usually after they’ve prayed for you, that you walked away from God after Aunt Susan died.”
“Well, they are not inaccurate. More particularly, I started questioning my beliefs when Susan was diagnosed. I was much like you said, fully immersed in God, the Bible, and the church. This changed when I finally realized that I had little proof that God existed. Susan’s death, she would die all over again if she heard me say this, was the real catalyst for my adventure.”
“What do you mean? Sounds like you went on a trip or a safari.” Luke said.
“That’s a good way to put it, especially your safari word. It has been like a hunt, a hunt for the truth.”
“I don’t have much time right now, but I’d like to hear about your adventure. Do you think you could share it with me, in detail?” Luke asked.
“I would like nothing better, but I have to be concerned about offending your mom and dad. I highly suspect they would figuratively shoot me if I expressed an opinion that conflicted with their beliefs.”
“No doubt, but if Christianity is true, shouldn’t it be able to withstand some questioning?” I was impressed with Luke. He sounded more intelligent than I had painted him.
“You have to promise me one thing.” I said.
“Okay.”
“You won’t tell your mom or dad. Even if y’all have a discussion and they ask you, ‘where are you hearing all of this?’ you promise you will keep me out of it. Agreed?” Even though it was difficult at family meals to listen as Mom or Dad or Sis or whoever was praying with pleas for good health and safe-keeping and a dozen other common requests, I didn’t want to start a controversy that I feared would never be resolved.
Luke pulled out his notebook from his backpack and asked me to write down my email address. “Is it okay if we communicate this way? I still want to meet but email might be more convenient and regular.”
“Works for me.”
Luke shook my hand and left. I had a sick feeling in my stomach that I had betrayed my family’s trust. But, I also knew that my decision to abandon my faith had been the best decision of my life. As I walked to my car, the question remained, “Is it okay for me to express my beliefs to those who have grown up with Jesus-talk pounded into their heads?” Deep down, I felt the answer was yes, but I needed to carefully consider the ramifications.
Richard L. Fricks 