Tag: The Boaz Schoolteacher

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 Schoolteacher, written in 2018, is my fifth novel. I'll post a chapter a day over the next few weeks.

Book Blurb

In the summer of 2017, Katie Sims and her daughter Cullie, moved from New York City to Katie’s hometown of Boaz, Alabama for her to teach English and for Cullie to attend Boaz High School .  Fifteen years earlier, during the Christmas holidays, five men from prominent local families sexually assaulted Katie.  Nine months later, Katie’s only daughter was born.

Almost from the beginning of the new school year, as Katie and fellow-teacher Cindy Barker shared English, Literature, and Creative Writing duties for more than 300 students, they became lifelong friends.  

For weeks, Katie and Cindy endured the almost constant sexual harassment at the hands of the assistant principal.  In mid-October, after Cindy suffered an attack similar to Katie’s from fifteen years earlier, the two teachers designed a unique method to teach the six predators a lesson they would never forget.  Katie and Cindy dubbed their plan, Six Red Apples.

Read this mystery-thriller to experience the dilemma the two teachers created for themselves, and to learn the true meaning of real justice.  And, eternal friendship. 

Chapter 41

“She’s the queen of all bitches.”  Cindy said, literally tossing her book bag onto the credenza across from my desk.  She didn’t turn to look at me but just stood and looked out the lone window in the tiny office behind my classroom.

“Can I assume you are referring to cat-faced Paula?”  I knew there was no one else in Cindy’s world who could come close to winning this honorable title.

“Please shoot me if I don’t find a way to quit the Young-But-Maturing club.  Once again, after Sunday School, she was in the Ladies restroom and virtually attacked me.  Said she knew I was pregnant with Patrick’s baby.  Katie, I know she knows.  She’s been spying on me.”  Cindy had calmed from explosive to volatile which was about like saying she was no longer a carrot-top; she had transformed into a redhead.

“Did she say how she knows this?”  I feared what was coming.  Spying can’t be good.

“Out of the blue she asked me how Dr. Ireland was doing.  How the hell does she know I’ve been seeing an obstetrician?”  Cindy asked, finally calming.  In a way I wished I had been more faithful.  She had asked me to go to Sunday School with her.  I hadn’t. 

I really didn’t know how to answer but I tried.  “Maybe she’s been following you.  Maybe she has a friend who saw you, or one who works at Dr. Ireland’s office.  It could be a lot of different things.”

“What do you think she is going to do?  Now, she knows I’m pregnant.”  Cindy asked, leaning back in her chair and reaching for her book bag.

“Legally, I’m not sure she has any rights.  She’s not like a grandparent.  I’m not a lawyer but the only two people with custody rights would be you and Wilkins, and he’s dead.”  I said realizing this wasn’t exactly what Cindy feared.

“I’m sure as hell not worried about custody and visitation issues.  I’m worried that the bitch is going to broadcast this all over town and you know who will find out.”  I had never seen Cindy more worried.  Her blood-shot eyes, normally light-green, seemed widened apart, revealing both surprise and fear.

“Maybe it’s time you had that talk with Steve.  Cindy, he loves you.  Hearing this awful news from you will be a world better than him stumbling into it at work.  Even worse at church.”  I said, wishing I had demanded that Cindy be fully open with Steve when the rape first happened.

“I know you’re right, but I just can’t seem to take that first step.  How do you push the most important person in your life off a cliff?  That’s what it would be like.  His world would never be the same.  I’m afraid he will crash into a million pieces.”  Cindy said reaching into the pocket of her matching navy-blue jacket.

“Oh, I forgot.  Pastor Warren gave me this after church.  You know, as Steve and I walked through the firing line.”  Shaking hands with the pastor was now nearly as painful for Cindy as it was for me.  She handed me a folded canary-colored envelope with my name handwritten above his own name, one familiarly printed.  His was crossed out.  No doubt, the same envelope Cindy and I had taped to his basement door last Wednesday night during Prayer Meeting.

“Oh my God.  This can’t be good.  It’s a response to our demand.”  I said, lowering my head and shoulders readying myself for surrender.

“That’s what I figured.  I started to open it but obviously it’s intended for you.”

I had to use scissors to slide through the tape Warren had layered across the envelope’s seal.  I unfolded the single sheet of white paper.  The message was short.  Three lines:

“We can work this out.

We will pay but need your promise, and all recordings.

Call me to discuss.  256-390-3053.”

The note was unsigned.  I read it twice and handed it over to Cindy.

After a ten second pause she said, “Funny, he didn’t request an in-person meeting.”

“Do I just call him up?  Right now?  You know he and his four buddies have something up their sleeve.  They definitely want the videotapes.”  I said.

“Funny.  Did you hear yourself?  Tapes?  Remember, there’s only one.”  Cindy said, holding the letter up toward the fluorescent light overhead as though it would reveal a secret watermark, one that would guide us.

“I hear you.  Why not make a copy of my videotape and arrange to give it to them in exchange for say, half the money?”  I said.

“That might get us half the money.  I doubt if it will get the other half since we don’t have another tape to bargain with.” 

It came over me like a tsunami.  I hadn’t had this feeling in nearly fifteen years.  It was anger so fierce I could bite through a steel rod.  As Cindy was repeatedly asking me, “What’s wrong?  Are you having a heart attack?” the thought kept rolling around in my head, ‘I’m the one who was fucking raped.  Why am I even considering how to negotiate with these bastards?  They will fucking do what I tell them to do.’  And then, I reached for my iPhone and dialed 256-390-3053.

Cindy stood as I was dialing, to see who I was calling.  She shouldn’t have had to wonder.  I selected ‘speaker.’

After three rings, “hello, this is Pastor Warren.”  The bastard answered his fucking phone with pastor?  My next call I will answer, ‘hello, this is Virgin Mary.’

“This is Katie Sims.  You asked me to call and discuss.  Let me be clear, there will be no discussion.  Here’s the deal.  You and the other four criminals will deposit the money, one million, two hundred fifty thousand dollars into a bank account of my choosing.  Once the deposit is made and verified I will give you the one and only videotape of you five bastards raping me.  I will also give you my written promise to maintain complete confidentiality.  I will retain the arson videotape as my insurance.  You give me or Cindy Baker any trouble at all and that tape goes to Sheriff Waldrup.  Do I make myself clear?”  Sweat was rolling down my face as I ended my demand.

“Katie, you didn’t address one issue.  In your letter to Ryan you demanded he pay two thousand dollars per month until Cullie is twenty-one.”

Warren started another sentence, but I stopped him.  “That demand remains.  I will promise to not divulge the circumstances of my pregnancy.  Ryan Radford is Cullie’s father and I’m her mother, these roles carry a heavy lifetime responsibility.”  I said anxious to end the call.

“I understand.  I suggest you and Ryan talk this out.  Now, when do you want your money?”  Warren said as though we were closing on a real estate transaction.

“Tomorrow wouldn’t be too soon.”  I said.  And then it dawned on me.  Pastor Warren was responsible himself, responsible for Cindy’s problem, nearly as much as Wilkins was.  “I have one other demand and it too is non-negotiable.”

“What is it now?  You’re beginning to wear out my patience.” 

“You bastard, you could have helped my friend Cindy when Patrick Wilkins was abducting her.  But you didn’t.  Now, you will deal with his wife.  She’s abusing Cindy, thinking she’s pregnant, by her late husband.”   I said wishing I could recall what I had just said. 

“Katie, I know, as well as Paula knows, that Cindy is pregnant.  One thing I don’t know is that her husband is dead.  Why don’t you share what you obviously know?” 

Does the whole world know that Cindy is pregnant?

Warren continued, “If he’s not dead then where is he?  He’s been missing going on a month.”  I had to change the subject.  This was the one thing I didn’t want to be discussing.  Hell, now I was in a discussion with the phony pastor.

“I’m not asking again.  Deal with Paula.  Do what you need to do, but my deal is contingent on her staying the hell away from Cindy.  Do you understand?”  I was surprising myself.  I had never been so controlling.

“I’ll do my best.  Now, back to the money.  A million plus dollars is quite a sum.  We need a month.”

Again, I interrupted.  “You have a week.  I’ll call you the account number.  Meet me at Wells Fargo Bank on Billy Dyar Blvd., at 10:45, Monday morning the 13th.  That gives you one week.  When I arrive, the money better be in my account.”

“I’ll do my best.”  Pastor Warren said, repeating himself.

“And, if you’re best fails to timely deposit the money, my best won’t fail to release your little videotape.”  I said, impressed with the fire and the results hellfire anger can cause.

“I’ll be there with the money.  November 13th.”

I ended the call.

For the next hour Cindy and I failed to escape the tangled web curling our lives.  After our argument over whether we had asked for enough money and whether money pain was real justice, we ignored my faint call for us to engage in lesson-planning.  As we walked across the parking lot towards our cars, Cindy promised she was headed home to have a heart-to-heart talk with Steve.  “It’s time.  I have to tell him the truth.”  I was proud of her.  I knew it was the right thing for her to do.

Less than an hour after arriving home to Cullie asleep on the couch, my phone vibrated.  It was Steve.

“Katie, it’s Cindy.  She’s been in a car wreck.  We’re at the Emergency Room, Marshall Medical Center.”  I could tell he was shaken.  I’d never heard him cry, never heard his voice so low, slow, weak, and desperate.

“Oh my God, how is she?  Tell me she’s going to be okay.”  I was nearly shouting.  Cullie woke up and walked over to me standing by the kitchen bar.

“I haven’t seen her.  She’s being x-rayed.  A nurse said she was banged up pretty bad, but her injuries weren’t life-threatening.”

“Oh, thank you Jesus.”  The words just poured out of my mouth.  For a second, I wondered if Jesus was responsible for protecting Cindy.  If so, why hadn’t he prevented the accident?

“Katie, I hate to ask you, but would you mind going to our house and staying with the kids?”

“I was about to ask about them.  Cullie and I are headed there right now.  Please keep me posted.”  I said while motioning Cullie to follow me out the back door.

It was nearly 7:30 p.m. before Steve led Cindy through the sliding door from their deck.  She looked awful and had a cast on her left arm.  The right side of her face was almost black.  She had a bandage across most of her forehead.

“I look worse than it is.”  Cindy said, clearly in pain.  Her eyelids fluttered as she sat down in her chair in the den while Alysa, Arlon, and Anita all crowded her stealing touches, hugs, and kisses.

She explained in detail how the accident had occurred.  Within ten minutes Steve had dismissed himself and headed to Walgreen’s to pick up a pain pill prescription for Cindy.  For some reason she was hungry for pizza.  Steve promised to pick up her favorite, a large Supreme from Pizza Hut.  After he left, Cullie and Alysa went to her room and Arlon and Anita sat glued to the TV.

Cindy struggled to get out of her chair.  “Follow me.”  she said motioning me back towards her and Steve’s bedroom.    The room was a wreck.  The bed was unmade, and clothes climbed out of open drawers, and clung to the backs of two rocking chairs that faced a balcony overlooking the swimming pool in the backyard.  This didn’t include two laundry baskets of what I hoped were clean clothes awaiting folding.

She sat down in one of the rockers.  “Here, sit.”  I willingly complied with her directions.  “Katie.  It wasn’t an accident.  It was the bitch Paula.  She ran me off the road.  After I left the school I noticed her behind me on Martin Avenue.  I ignored her and kept going.  But, she kept coming.  After I turned left on Highway 431 she got right on my bumper.  I always turn right at Huddle House onto Bruce Road until it intersects with Beulah Road.  She stayed on my tail for a mile or so, until she could see past me enough to pass.  She gave me the middle finger as she drove past and raced ahead.  Right as I was coming around the curve a half mile or so before the vet’s place, Dr. Creel, I saw her barreling back towards me in the center of the road.  She was coming at me head on.  I didn’t have any choice but to hit the ditch.  Unfortunately, it didn’t move.”

“You are lucky she didn’t kill you.  Cindy, you must report this.  I’m calling Wayne.”  I said determined that Cindy wasn’t going to stop me this time from protecting her from herself.

“Wait.  I promise I will after I tell Steve.  Obviously, I haven’t had a chance to tell him the full story.  On the way home from the hospital I subtly indicated that I had something important to tell him.  I think he thought I was a little out of my head from the medications because he didn’t press me.”

The rest of the night, until after the ten o’clock news, the three of us ate pizza.  The kids were full of all the junk I had let them eat while we were waiting this afternoon.  At 9:00 p.m., an hour before the news began, I had wanted for Cullie and me to leave but Cindy had insisted we stay.  It was like she would do anything to avoid being alone with Steve. 

At 10:45, I finally told Cindy I had to get home to bed.  My 4:30 a.m. writing time would come soon enough.  As I walked out onto their deck I whispered to Cindy, “tonight’s the night.  Jump off the high dive.  I know Steve will catch you.”

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 Schoolteacher, written in 2018, is my fifth novel. I'll post a chapter a day over the next few weeks.

Book Blurb

In the summer of 2017, Katie Sims and her daughter Cullie, moved from New York City to Katie’s hometown of Boaz, Alabama for her to teach English and for Cullie to attend Boaz High School .  Fifteen years earlier, during the Christmas holidays, five men from prominent local families sexually assaulted Katie.  Nine months later, Katie’s only daughter was born.

Almost from the beginning of the new school year, as Katie and fellow-teacher Cindy Barker shared English, Literature, and Creative Writing duties for more than 300 students, they became lifelong friends.  

For weeks, Katie and Cindy endured the almost constant sexual harassment at the hands of the assistant principal.  In mid-October, after Cindy suffered an attack similar to Katie’s from fifteen years earlier, the two teachers designed a unique method to teach the six predators a lesson they would never forget.  Katie and Cindy dubbed their plan, Six Red Apples.

Read this mystery-thriller to experience the dilemma the two teachers created for themselves, and to learn the true meaning of real justice.  And, eternal friendship. 

Chapter 40

Five sealed envelopes were taped to the outside door to Warren’s basement Wednesday night when Fulton Billingsley arrived.  He had walked over from the church after Prayer Meeting and, as he walked down the stairs onto the patio, noticed them, thinking they were arranged in the shape of a heart.  None of the five envelopes contained a return address.  The names were handwritten.  His was on the top right, opposite Justin Adams’.  Then, on the right side was Danny Ericson.  At the bottom tip was another canary-colored envelope with the name Ryan Radford, written, this time, in blood-red ink.  On the left side, was an envelope addressed to Warren Tillman.  Five canary-colored envelopes, five arranged in a heart shape.  Fulton removed his envelope, noticing for the first time the faint outline of an arrow, drawn with what appeared to be pencil, with the arrow’s imaginary feathers splayed on the top left side of the door, running downward, and from behind the heart, bursting through and continuing on across, ending on the lower right side of the door in an sharply-accentuated arrowhead.  He walked inside Warren’s man-cave, leaving the other four envelopes alone.

Within ten minutes, while pondering the contents of his letter, Fulton saw Warren, Ryan, Danny, and Justin descend the stairs and react to the decorated door.  They didn’t linger.  Warren removed all four envelopes, semi-shouted, “this can’t be good,” and herded the other three through the glass door.

“I bet each of you a thousand bucks your letter is the same as mine.”  Fulton said, gulping the last sip of a Bud Lite.

“What the fuck?”  Ryan said, jerking all four of the envelopes from Warren’s hand while Justin and Danny were grabbing at Ryan as though he was withholding their candy.

“Calm it and sit down.  No need to get flustered. Everyone gets a prize.  Fulton said.  His best attempt at humor, reeling from the bomb that had exploded when he had opened his envelope.

In less than a minute, four similar bombs ignited.

“So, Katie Sims wants $250,000 from me for child support.”  Danny said.

“She wants that from me and another $2,000 per month until Cullie is twenty-one.”  Ryan said, throwing his wadded envelope into the glass window towards the patio.

Warren and Justin repeated Danny’s statement.

“That’s $1,250,000 in cash.  Warren said, finally sitting down at the round table with the other four.

“Mine says I’m Cullie’s father.  How the hell does she know that?”  Ryan said.

“Read on Brother Radford.  In mine, towards the bottom, she says, ‘even though the paternity tests reveal Ryan Radford as Cullie’s father, each of you engaged in the same criminal conduct.  Then, all chose to play.  Now, all will pay.  You don’t get to choose.’”  Fulton said.

“Listen to this, ‘your little fire didn’t destroy the videotape revealing you gang-raping me in 2002.  It also didn’t destroy another rather-revealing videotape.  This one recorded at 5583 Bruce Road, at the home of Beverly Sims.  Don’t worry, both tapes are safe and secure and under the control of an out-of-town attorney.’”  Warren said. 

“She can’t prove that.  There’s no way she has any evidence we torched that old shit-hole place.”  Ryan added, sitting up straighter as though gaining confidence in his ability to handle the wily Katie.

“Read the second paragraph on the second page.  ‘I guess you didn’t plan on Nanny and me having a state-of-the-art motion-activated camera while you were pouring gasoline.’  Looks like she has more videos.  Our asses are grass my friends.”  Fulton said opening his second beer.

Warren stood again and walked to the glass windows.  “The audacity of Katie coming down here and taping these envelopes.  Who does she think she is?” 

“She answers that in her letter.  Look at the P.S.  ‘You bastards killed my mother, my grandmother, and our dear friend, Sammie.  Just think of me as the avenger.  You five are going to pay.  The child support money is just the beginning unless you pay by November 15, 2017.’  Damn that woman.”  Justin said looking at Ryan.  “It’s your damn fault.”

“What the hell are you talking about?  You raped her just like I did.”  Ryan said, slamming a fist on the table.

“I’m not talking about the rape.  I’m talking about letting Darla find that damn videotape and then the stupid way you got rid of her.”  Justin said to Ryan as though he was a prosecuting attorney.

“Gentlemen, enough of that.  We are in this spot, together, and we will get out of it, together.  Question, Ryan, tell us what Sheriff Waldrup had to say after you finally got to talk with him?”  Fulton asked.

“He was just fishing.  He obviously doesn’t have any real evidence.  All he has is circumstantial.  Even that points just as much to Cynthia as it does to me.  He thinks because she and I both had a motive to get rid of Darla that that’s what we did.  The bad blood between Darla and Cynthia puts her more in the dock than me, especially when you bring in Cliff Thomas and now the murder of Nathan Johnson.  I think we’re okay.”  Ryan said, not convincing anyone but maybe himself.

“I think we’ve got bigger problems than Sheriff Waldrup.”  Fulton added.  “You can bet your last dollar that Katie Sims and Cindy Barker are cross-pollinating.  They’re sharing everything.  Thus, Katie knows about Cindy’s pregnancy.  By the way, good work Justin on verifying this news.  As for Cindy, if my theory is correct, she knows about Katie, what we did to her in 2002, the paternity testing, and no doubt, these money demands.  I say we can’t take a chance any longer that Cindy, that Cindy and Katie, won’t spill the beans to dear old Steve.  Katie is right, money isn’t our biggest problem.  Steve is the type to make us bleed, slowly bleed out until we’re all dead.”  Fulton, next to Warren, was always able to put things in proper perspective.

“Money may not be the biggest issue, but sweet Katie has given us a deadline.  What do we do?”  Danny asked.

“What if we negotiated a little?”  Warren asked.  What if we offered a little extra money in exchange for the videotapes and her confidential agreement promising to end her vendetta?”

“I think you may be forgetting Steve and the problem I suspect he has with his wife carrying Wilkin’s baby.  Don’t forget, no doubt Cindy saw you pastor and you didn’t do anything to help her when our dearly departed Patrick was kidnapping her.”  Fulton said, keeping clarity from getting ignored.

“This is getting expensive but that just means we have to reach an agreement with the Barker’s also.”  Warren said.

“We better be doing something pretty quick.  I have a bad feeling about leaving the blood-thirsty Steve on the loose.”  Danny said.

“Just say the word and I’ll deal with him just like I dealt with the Texas idiot.”  Ryan added.

“Enough for the night.  We all need to go do a little soul searching.”  Warren said, folding his two-page letter and stuffing it into his pants pocket.

Saturday night, it finally happened.  Wayne and I spent almost six hours on our long-delayed Huntsville trip.  It was a date.  I will never forget what he said when he picked me up, “Katie, you are the most gorgeous woman I have ever seen.”  Even though he was stretching the truth quite a bit, I was still, even in my mid-forties, a head-turner.  An hour-glass figure tends to do that.

We ate at The Bottle on Washington Street.  We shared a chicken and mushroom curried soup, followed by an arugula, pear, and candied walnut salad, and finally: sea scallops and grouper main dishes. It was the most romantic meal I’ve ever experienced.  We had one of the best tables in the house, in the far back corner, the furthest from the lights of the kitchen.  Our single candle was just enough for us to make out our food and for me to see the rugged beauty of Wayne Waldrup.

After a leisurely ninety-minutes at The Bottle, we went to see November at the Touchstar Cinemas at Madison Square.  I guess it was fitting since it was now the month of November.  Thirty minutes into the movie neither Wayne or I could figure out why we had chosen such a weird show.  I suspect it was the word romance plastered along the bottom of the marquee outside the theater as we were pondering.  Werewolves have never interested me.  The two main characters, a young farm girl named Liina, and Hans, a village boy she is hopelessly and forlornly in love with, did do for us one thing I thoroughly enjoyed.  Wayne held my hand after the two lovers exchanged their first kiss.  I was afraid he would release my hand when Liina turned into a werewolf from her longing for Hans.  I’m glad he ignored his best chance to pull away when Liina jumped into an ice-cold pond.  I was impressed.  The kind, gentle, and respectful Sheriff remained handily engaged, which gave me hope he would later have the desire and the skill to move his hands over every inch of my body.  The two glasses of wine from The Bottle were no doubt loosening up all my remaining inhibitions.

During the return trip home Wayne updated me on his investigations.  I hoped they wouldn’t distract us from what I was wanting.

“I’m sorry I don’t have any good news to share concerning either of your cases.  If I had to guess, and I don’t like guessing and you can’t repeat me, I’d say Cynthia Radford is responsible for Darla’s death.  Concerning the fire and the deaths of Beverly Sims, your grandmother and her caretaker, Sammie, I’d have to say it has something to do with the two recent arsons over in Cherokee County.  Of course, that’s a big leap.  I don’t have a single shred of evidence to support my guess.”  Wayne said reaching for my left hand as he drove us over the big river bridge in Guntersville.

“Changing the subject, but have you learned anything new about my assistant principal, Patrick Wilkins?”  I said, thinking it would be appropriate to show my concern over a missing co-worker.

“Actually, I do.  Again, Katie, you must promise you will not divulge this to anyone.  We’re withholding this information for now.”  Wayne said.  I hoped he didn’t sense the sweat popping out on my left palm.

“I promise.  I hope you know you can trust me.”  I said.

“Absolutely.  Yesterday, I received a call.  At first, the woman tried to remain anonymous, but finally, after I relayed her name from the caller ID, she confessed fear of getting involved.  Terri Logan said her two boys and a friend of theirs saw a tan-colored van.  Since it was Fall Break, the boys had camped out Sunday night in a tent across the road.  Terri’s house is on Tanner Road, about a half-mile from the stop sign where it intersects with Aurora Road.  According to Paula, Wilkins’ wife, Tanner Road is part of Patrick’s early morning running route.

Terri said the boys had walked across the road back towards the house when they saw a van stop a few hundred feet from them, back towards the stop sign.  Apparently, they didn’t linger and had walked on to the house.  That’s not much but it’s given us a lead on a certain area to search for additional clues.  That’s all I know but will keep you posted.  I know this doesn’t involve you directly, but you did work with the man.”

“Thanks.  I appreciate it.”  By the time Wayne pulled up at my back door my romantic feelings and my sexual desires had transformed into a fear-generating sickness that had my stomach predicting a near-certain eruption.  Wayne clearly wanted to come in, but I had to beg-off, telling him that it wasn’t the first time that seafood had made me sick.  I apologized profusely and hopefully made him realize that I was truly disappointed.  I forced myself to kiss him semi-passionately but promised him that we would have time soon to cuddle on my couch.

After he left, and with Cullie at Cindy and Steve’s, I spent the next two hours with the TV blaring and me trying my best to ignore the thoughts of doom that were dancing around in my head.

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 Schoolteacher, written in 2018, is my fifth novel. I'll post a chapter a day over the next few weeks.

Book Blurb

In the summer of 2017, Katie Sims and her daughter Cullie, moved from New York City to Katie’s hometown of Boaz, Alabama for her to teach English and for Cullie to attend Boaz High School .  Fifteen years earlier, during the Christmas holidays, five men from prominent local families sexually assaulted Katie.  Nine months later, Katie’s only daughter was born.

Almost from the beginning of the new school year, as Katie and fellow-teacher Cindy Barker shared English, Literature, and Creative Writing duties for more than 300 students, they became lifelong friends.  

For weeks, Katie and Cindy endured the almost constant sexual harassment at the hands of the assistant principal.  In mid-October, after Cindy suffered an attack similar to Katie’s from fifteen years earlier, the two teachers designed a unique method to teach the six predators a lesson they would never forget.  Katie and Cindy dubbed their plan, Six Red Apples.

Read this mystery-thriller to experience the dilemma the two teachers created for themselves, and to learn the true meaning of real justice.  And, eternal friendship. 

Chapter 39

“It’s Ryan Radford.”  I said as Cindy walked into my office. 

“Smells more like Tuna.”  She was nearly an hour later than normal.  Another trip to the dentist I suppose, although two weeks ago ‘dentist’ had been code word for doctor.

“Not my lunch.  Cullie’s father.”  I said, expecting her to stare at me in disbelief.  Instead, she sat across from me and started unloading her lunch box.  “Did you hear me?”

“I did.  Katie, I suspect this has you rocking and reeling.  After almost fifteen years you finally learn what will be life-changing news for Cullie.  Are you okay?”  Cindy was such a mix of things.  My favorite side was how caring and compassionate she could be. 

“I’m adjusting.  Cullie is too.  I told her last night.”

“The results came yesterday?”  Cindy asked.

“Yes.  When I got home there was a notice in my mailbox from the Post Office that I had a certified letter.  I knew what it was, at least that’s what my gut was saying.  I went for it immediately.  After I signed for the letter I walked outside and stood with it by my car.  I almost didn’t open it.”

“Can I ask you who you thought it was.  You did have a favorite, didn’t you?”  Cindy asked, returning from my refrigerator with a bottle of Italian dressing for her salad.

“I wouldn’t use the word favorite, but I had somehow decided it was Pastor Warren.  Funny thing is, ever since our conversation Tuesday, I had been subconsciously plotting a way to both embarrass the preacher man while at the same time forcing him to pay a million dollars in past-due child support.” 

Cindy had pulled a little notepad from her book bag and started flipping pages like my statement had reminded her of something.  She said, “Good thinking, you just have to substitute Ryan for Warren.  It’ll work the same.”

“I need to ask you something.  It’s a question that woke me up during the night.  “Do you think God is trying to tell me something?”

“Probably so, but I’m not following you.”  Cindy said, pouring out two dozen Wheat Thins from a box she kept inside my credenza under the window behind where she was sitting.

“You know I’ve told you how Darla never knew who my father was.  She didn’t want to know for some strange reason.  It was May 25, 1972 at her high school graduation party.  The Flaming Five had sex with her and three other Boaz cheerleaders that night.  One of them, as you know, was Randall Radford, Raymond’s son.”

Cindy interrupted me.  “I know, I know.  Now I know what you are talking about.  You are wondering whether Raymond some way found out that Randall was your father.  He felt guilty and responsible.  Therefore, he helped Darla and Nanny all these years?  It’s almost as though God made this happen.”

“It’s difficult for me to see the wisdom in that.  It’s easier to see humor, wicked humor.  Surely, God is not wicked.”  I said.

“God works in mysterious ways.  Question, if Randall Radford was your father, is Cullie your sister?  Sorry, I had to ask.”  Cindy said.  I couldn’t decide if she was continuing to pursue our wicked humor discussion or was serious.  It had to be the former.

“She’s my daughter.  Her father would be my step-brother, you idiot.” I said but felt a tingling up my spine as though incestuous lice were crawling from my cells as though they had been locked up and hidden away all my life.

“You mentioned it, but I assume you are going to ask for child support?”  Cindy asked, pulling a paper sack from her book bag and lining up five red apples in front of her along the edge of my desk.

“I have to guess your apples are symbolic and they have something to do with the timeliness of your question?”  Cindy’s mind was always working.

“Earth to Katie.  Can’t you see the opportunity my sweet hunk of a man has given us?”

“Steve’s sleuthing skills produced the perfect segue into your extortion plan?”  I knew what she was thinking.

“Yes, but it’s even better than pure criminal.  You have a legal right to ask for child support from Ryan.  Oh, my crazy thought just arrived.  What if we took a little liberty with your newly discovered news?”  Cindy’s care and compassion had been folded away nice and tidy in the paper sack she had nearly collapsed inside her book bag.

“Tell each of them, separately I assume, they are Cullie’s father?”  I asked.

“Why not?”

“I don’t like it at all.  It seems to be insulting Cullie.  I’m unsure how to describe the feeling.”  I said.

“Okay, forget that.  But, so far, the best idea we have for punishing the Faking Five is through their pocketbooks.”  Cindy no doubt was not going to keep those five apples at the forefront.

“Other than their breathing those five guys love nothing more than their money, their power, and their stellar reputations.”  I said, thinking how throughout history what men (and women for that matter) valued the most therein lay their weakness.  I wasn’t interested in interfering with their breathing, but I was fully committed to gutting them with words, words that would scare the holy hell out of all five of the bastards.

“I agree.  Let’s change the subject, between the smell of your Tuna, and stench of the five assholes, my stomach is turning somersaults.”  I was surprised Cindy wanted to talk about something other than getting revenge.

“What did the dentist say?”  I could play with words just as good as Cindy.

“Smart ass, you don’t miss a thing.  Dr. Ireland is troubled.  He’s saying that I’m at much greater risk of complications from my pregnancy since I’m approaching 40.  He is concerned about peripartum cardiomyopathy.  It’s a very serious condition that occurs when there’s damage to the heart.  It affects its ability to properly pump blood.  My lungs could fill up with fluid.”

“Does he think you have this condition?”  I asked, thinking what on earth would happen to Steve and the kids if Cindy died.  I was overreacting and would never have voiced this thought.

“No.  Not really.  I think he’s just trying to scare me into following his orders.  Which consists mainly of laying around all day.”  Cindy said, raising her eyebrows and closing her eyes like she was falling asleep.  “I’ll submit to bed rest if I have to, but surely to God that’s way down the road, a week or two before delivery.”

“Cindy, please take Dr. Ireland seriously.  We all need you to be happy and healthy.” 

Without responding, she stood, closed her lunch box, and headed through the doorway into my classroom.  Halfway to the incoherent student rumblings from the hallway, she turned and said, “If something were to happen to me, would you marry Steve and take care of my kids?”  I almost fainted.  I did cry.  But not until I had run over to her and held her in my arms.

“Oh Cindy, you can be so funny and serious at the same time.  You’re going to be fine.  But, you must put your health first.  Your family needs you.  You’re the only one for Steve.”

“Second thought.  You couldn’t satisfy my man.  You’re not a redhead.”  Cindy said turning away.  She was no doubt the most beautiful redhead I had ever seen.  I suspected no one, redhead or not, could replace the unflappable Cindy.

“No doubt she’s pregnant.  This is the second time in less than three weeks.”  Justin Adams said, sitting in his car in the parking lot of Top Dollar Pawn looking across Patterson Street toward the office of Dr. Malcolm Ireland, Obstetrician.

“Interesting she’s using an out-of-town doctor.”  Warren said, pushing back his chair from his open Bible and the round table in his hidden study on the third floor of the Church’s Administration Building.

“No doubt trying to keep it quiet as long as possible.  It’s not Steve’s.  You know he had a vasectomy.  He reminded us of that at the last Sunday School social.” Justin said.

“We’ve got to find out if my hunch is right.  I would bet it’s Wilkin’s.  I just don’t see Cindy having an affair.  Warren said looking down at the Church’s side parking lot as two boys rode bicycles.  He wondered why they weren’t in school.

“Warren, this situation is giving me a very bad feeling.  If Steve Barker finds out, and he most likely will, we are in deep shit.”  Justin said turning down the air-conditioning on his new Suburban even though it was the coolest Fall day so far.

“I agree.  Steve can be a badass.  He’s killed before.”  Warren said.

Justin had driven left on Patterson and was sitting at the red light at Gunter Avenue.  “That’s probably true but it was never proved.”   

“Losing your father and your sister to a drunk driver would bring out the worst in all of us.  It sure was convenient for Steve and his mother that the drunk turned-up dead.”  Warren said, still looking at the two teenagers on bikes, wishing he was a kid again and thinking how he would just take his own bike and leave town.

“The drunk wasn’t an old helpless man.  It was a football coach from Albertville, Watkins, Walters, something like that.  Man was beaten half to death before he had his throat slit.”  Justin said turning right headed to Burger King.

“I wish to God Cindy hadn’t seen me the night Wilkins raped her.”  Warren added.

“You fucked up for sure that night.  Man, she saw you.  You’ve admitted that.  You know you should have rescued her.  No doubt she believes you condoned what Wilkins was doing.”  Justin said feeling like the ceiling of his big vehicle was pushing down on his head.

“I know I know.  Something else I’m thinking and feeling right now.  His disappearance.  Steve has something to do with Patrick’s disappearance.  I feel it in my bones.  Cindy has told Steve everything.  The rape.  Her pregnancy.  Steve has abducted and disposed of Wilkins.  Probably did to him what he did to that coach.”  Warren said returning to his chair and his Bible.  Something drew him to the last verse he had read before answering Justin’s call, ‘The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; Fools despise wisdom and instruction.’  Proverbs 1:7. He told himself, “if I were a kid again I would fear God and avoid becoming such a fool.”

“I’ve got to run.  We need to deal with this next Wednesday night.  Wilkins may have disappeared, but he’s left a shit-pot full of trouble in our lap.”  Justin said walking into Burger King.

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 Schoolteacher, written in 2018, is my fifth novel. I'll post a chapter a day over the next few weeks.

Book Blurb

In the summer of 2017, Katie Sims and her daughter Cullie, moved from New York City to Katie’s hometown of Boaz, Alabama for her to teach English and for Cullie to attend Boaz High School .  Fifteen years earlier, during the Christmas holidays, five men from prominent local families sexually assaulted Katie.  Nine months later, Katie’s only daughter was born.

Almost from the beginning of the new school year, as Katie and fellow-teacher Cindy Barker shared English, Literature, and Creative Writing duties for more than 300 students, they became lifelong friends.  

For weeks, Katie and Cindy endured the almost constant sexual harassment at the hands of the assistant principal.  In mid-October, after Cindy suffered an attack similar to Katie’s from fifteen years earlier, the two teachers designed a unique method to teach the six predators a lesson they would never forget.  Katie and Cindy dubbed their plan, Six Red Apples.

Read this mystery-thriller to experience the dilemma the two teachers created for themselves, and to learn the true meaning of real justice.  And, eternal friendship. 

Chapter 38

I had never had an English class be so proactive.  And, I had never allowed any class to create and execute a lesson plan.  Until now.  It was two classes.  My tenth and eleventh grade English classes persuaded me, Monday and Tuesday, to play only a secondary role in class instruction.

Tenth graders, Ben Gilbert, Joanie Kittle, and Clara Ellington, did an excellent job in describing the interrelationships between plot and character.  “Plot is the events of a story, just what happens along the way.  Plot-driven stories can be interesting and keep your mind wondering what will happen next.  But, if you want a real story, one that provides a deeply emotional experience, you have to have one or more characters who trigger a reaction in your heart.”  Joanie had said right off the bat Monday morning.  It wasn’t an inaccurate statement at all.  I only added, “a good story includes both.  Plot drives character and character drives plot.”  Ben and Clara next presented a lesson and the class interacted with their young teachers for nearly thirty minutes.

It was not until almost 8:15 that I learned what they were up to.  After Ben said, now let’s talk about how Judge Taylor’s true character is revealed, it hit me that the three class leaders and likely the entire class, had read and pondered the final drafts of the outlines my five Creative Writing teams had prepared.  I initially resisted an attempt to regain control, but Ben did a good job of persuading me to “sit back and trust them” for the rest of the class.  I really didn’t have much choice.  The whole class was engaged, and the three instructors were relaying critical elements of story structure.

During the final fifteen minutes of class I learned their plan, what these outliers had up their sleeves, at least concerning the relationship between Stella Gibson and Chief Judge Daniel Taylor.  These want-to-be writers intended to follow Team Five’s outline.  With one exception.  They were creating a character who, behind the scenes, was like a puppeteer to the Judge.  He was a real estate tycoon of sorts, one who was prone to use extortion and blackmail to get what he wanted, whether it was money, an abandoned but potentially valuable property, or an invitation to an exclusive private party.  The still-unnamed tycoon had also contributed heavily to Judge Taylor’s campaigns.  It seemed Georgia, like Alabama, elected their judges.  Right before the bell rang I learned from Clara, that Stella Gibson had discovered that Judge Taylor had issued a ruling in a hotly-contested case that would benefit the tycoon.  Stella smelled a rat. 

My eleventh-grade class pulled the same trick.  I again submitted.  This time, Travis Bryant, Brandi Skylar, and Renee Preston did an excellent job teaching.  It was like they had spent all of Fall Break refining the trio wave as they called it.  They, like the tenth-grade class, had been smart enough to know they had to provide something substantive.  They, likewise, stuck with story structure.  I was surprised they had chosen mood and theme.  Of all components that make a good story these were often the most difficult.  “Think of Miss Katie when you hear the word mood.”  Brandi had said.  This certainly had gotten my attention.  “She seems always happy, is often serious, and is rarely bitchy.  If your protagonist, let’s say Stella Gibson, our story version, is as sexy as she is in the The Fall, the TV series, then we might want to add that mood.  That’s a side of Miss Katie we don’t know.  Not to say she’s not gorgeous.”  The class burst into laughter and I sat silent pondering the disjointed statement I had just heard about mood.  Brandi had used improper reasoning.  The character’s physical characteristics and personality normally are not what sets the mood of a story, although they can accentuate it.  Mood comes more from setting and plot.  It took me ten minutes to gain control of the class but only to again succumb to their pleas for the trio wave to continue.  Unlike the tenth-grade class, it seemed the eleventh graders were dead set on following Team 4’s outline.  Jackson Burke, the founder and president of Burke Manufacturing, would attempt to control Stella Gibson via his manipulation of her teenage daughter.  As the class ended, it seemed the trio wave was headed toward revealing their story’s midpoint.  However, they stopped short and spent the remaining few minutes of class describing how fiction readers expect a major directional change around the middle of the story, something that is both surprising but expected.  When the bell rang I don’t think there was any agreement among the seventy-five students exactly what that meant.

After school Tuesday, Cindy and Alysa met Cullie and me at our house.  The teenagers had been wanting to prepare a complete meal for both families.  Two girls in Cullie and Alysa’s English class had sisters in the eleventh grade.  Both were taking a culinary class.  Someway this had inspired our girls.  The new stove that Wayne had delivered last week seemed to be the trigger for today’s request. At 7:00 p.m., all seven of the Sims and Barkers would assemble in the dining room around Wayne’s antique table for a meal of made-from-scratch tacos, enchiladas, burritos, and for dessert, a German-Chocolate cake, also fully-constructed by the creative chefs.

While Cullie and Alysa were knee-deep in flour, Cindy and I ran an errand.  We were moving the 2005 Nissan Quest from Nanny’s barn to an old logging road like the one that led to Patrick Wilkins and his decaying body.  But, this one was in Dekalb County.  I had found it Sunday afternoon after Cindy and I left Boaz High School and she had returned home.  Google Maps helped a lot.  I had returned home to my iPad and WiFi.  Google’s satellite feature saved me hours, maybe days.  I first picked out two remote areas within a thirty or forty-minute drive.  I could see that the second area was the least populated, having only one house within what I calculated to be nearly a mile.  The second feature that convinced me this was the better spot was this multi-hundred-acre area bordered DeSoto State Park.  To me, this would provide an extra barrier for potential visitors since the best access to the logging road was across the southern edge of the Park.

Everything went like clockwork.  Cindy had dropped me off at Nanny’s driveway and drove on to our designated meeting spot.  I was able to walk to the barn and drive away from the sad and lonely burned-out home on Bruce Road without seeing a single car pass in either direction.  Cindy had pulled in behind me at Aroney and we had driven without incident to the State Park.  By 4:20 p.m., the van was nestled in a grove of trees on a rough and rugged trail, one hundred feet beyond the end of the old logging road.  After turning left off State Highway 89 we had not seen a single car, at least not one operable.  At the entrance to the logging road, we had seen two old rusted-out pickups, both Fords, sitting quietly as though taking detailed notes on who was coming and going.  The thought left me almost as soon as it had come.  The eerie feeling it produced lingered until we returned home.

During the return trip in Cindy’s car, she had asked, “one apple down and five to go.  What’s your thoughts?”

I didn’t have any thoughts.  I was still reeling from the past week’s activities.  It seemed the debilitating stress from killing Patrick and confronting Paula would be enough to put Cindy and me both in bed for a month.  Surprisingly, she was eager to march forward with our Six Red Apples plan.  “I don’t have any.  But, if I did, I can assure you they wouldn’t be centered on kidnapping and killing the Faking Five.”  I wanted Cindy to know I didn’t have it in me to become a serial killer.

“I agree.  In part.  Our plan for Wilkins was a near disaster.  There’s no way he suffered the way he deserved.”  I speculated that Cindy could easily become not only a cold-blooded killer but a monster who thrived on watching her victim suffer.  I was overstating her evil, but I wasn’t the one who was carrying a baby I hadn’t chosen to have.

“Okay, you’re scaring me some but please share.”  I said, stretching the word ‘you’re’ for emphasis.

“You have, we have, enough evidence on those five bastards to cause them to dance to our music.  I say we drain them dry financially before watching them die a slow death by their own hands.”  I had to give it to Cindy.  She had a vivid imagination.  My creative partner in crime continued.  “You have one videotape of them committing a horrible crime.  Why not give them another one?  Not actually give them a tape but make them think another one exists.  This one from our make-believe camera showing an arson being committed.”

“You’re recommending we squeeze their balls until they cry for mercy, mercy enough to pay us a tidy sum.  Correct?”  I said, a little surprised that I wasn’t as eager as Cindy for real revenge.  It wasn’t that I didn’t want to see them burn, I just was too scared to light the fire.

“Why not?  Two struggling school teachers should get paid for making the world a better place.”  Cindy had a point.  The Faking Five were far better off than me and Cindy, although Steve made a wonderful salary at Marshall-Dekalb they likely spent everything they made with three kids and a sizable mortgage according to prior comments by Cindy.

From Collinsville, through Rodentown, and all the way back to Smith’s Chapel, Cindy and I brainstormed multiple ways of extorting cash from the Faking Five.

After a surprisingly delicious meal from Cullie and Alysa’s skilled hands, Wayne called.  I guess Cindy had seen the excitement in my face and motioned me to enjoy myself.  As I walked away from the kitchen sink where Cindy was finishing up washing the final dirty pan, she whispered, “we’re about to leave. Cullie can go with us.  Ask him to come kiss and caress you.”  I thought she would die laughing.  She had tried to be funny and carefree.  To me, it was the best idea she had all day.

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 Schoolteacher, written in 2018, is my fifth novel. I'll post a chapter a day over the next few weeks.

Book Blurb

In the summer of 2017, Katie Sims and her daughter Cullie, moved from New York City to Katie’s hometown of Boaz, Alabama for her to teach English and for Cullie to attend Boaz High School .  Fifteen years earlier, during the Christmas holidays, five men from prominent local families sexually assaulted Katie.  Nine months later, Katie’s only daughter was born.

Almost from the beginning of the new school year, as Katie and fellow-teacher Cindy Barker shared English, Literature, and Creative Writing duties for more than 300 students, they became lifelong friends.  

For weeks, Katie and Cindy endured the almost constant sexual harassment at the hands of the assistant principal.  In mid-October, after Cindy suffered an attack similar to Katie’s from fifteen years earlier, the two teachers designed a unique method to teach the six predators a lesson they would never forget.  Katie and Cindy dubbed their plan, Six Red Apples.

Read this mystery-thriller to experience the dilemma the two teachers created for themselves, and to learn the true meaning of real justice.  And, eternal friendship. 

Chapter 37

By Saturday night, Cindy was two bundles of nerves, each had a separate controller.  Paula Wilkins and Steve.  I had returned from the State Park early Thursday afternoon.  Cindy and her family made it home yesterday shortly before noon.  She wanted me by her side every waking second.  I was lucky she had let me come home at night to sleep and remain until after my early morning writing sessions.  Cullie thought she was lucky too.  She had spent the entire week with the Barker family.  To her, there was nothing better.  Last night, Cindy followed me to my car as I was about to come home.  “Katie, please go with me to Sunday School and Church.  I hate having to go but if I don’t Steve will know something major is wrong.  Please.”

As instructed, I met Cindy in the Church’s parking lot at 9:00 a.m., fifteen minutes before the Assembly began in the Young-But-Maturing Sunday School Department.  She had told Steve the two of us were going to work a few hours this afternoon in our classrooms at school, and for him to transport the kids. 

“I know you think it is insane for me to go to the one place on earth that Paula Wilkins will be this morning.”  Cindy said under her breath as an older couple pulled into the parking spot next to Cindy’s with their windows lowered.

I nodded several times.  We stood between our cars, both of us rearranging our hair in the reflection of the car’s windows, and Cindy slipping on the matching jacket to her pants suit.  Finally, as the blue-haired woman and the hairless man were out of earshot, Cindy reopened her car door, leaned in and took out her Bible.  Apparently, she had forgotten it.  “I almost forgot my pacemaker.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard it called that, but I guess it fits.”

“This morning, probably about the time you were walking into, what did you call it, The Thread, I was talking with my Savior.”  Cindy looked puzzled.  I did not know if she was going to cry or scream with excitement.  It could have gone either way.

“What did He say?”  This was the part that had always lost me.  God had never, that I could remember, talked with me.  Although I had often wanted Him to.

“That He is with me always, knows my needs, and will never forsake me.”  Cindy said, but did not seem overly confident of her words.

“Then, His shield will defend you against every arrow shot by Paula or anyone else.  Hadn’t we better be going?  I thought you said it started at 9:15.”

“It does.  Assembly does.  That’s where all four classes in our department meet for general announcements, and fellowship.  I sometimes skip that and go sit in my class, especially if I haven’t read my lesson.”  Cindy said, and I pondered what lesson her teacher had prepared for us today.

After we talked another fifteen minutes, mostly me listening to Cindy speculate whether Paula would confront her at all, we walked inside the Education Building and rode the elevator to the fourth floor.

Maxine Fulton taught the Ruth Sunday School class.  It was for married women although Cindy said there were a couple of recently-divorced woman members.  I was probably the only never-married human in the entire department.  Cindy said this was her fourth Sunday with Maxine and that she and Steve had decided to try separate classes the first of the new Sunday School year.  I thought it oddly appropriate that the lesson title was “The Submission of the Christian Wife,” taken from Ephesians 5:21-32.

Maxine was an excellent teacher, combining short Bible analysis with modern-day examples, and gently but directly drawing the class into a discussion.  By the end of the class I was close to believing that the hierarchical structure espoused by the Apostle Paul could likely work for a man and a woman who were truly soul mates, if they never disagreed.  As I was showered with ‘nice for you to come,’ and ‘we hope you come back next Sunday’ salutations, I couldn’t help but realize why I had always desired a more equitable relationship, one where the two partners were equal, with the total absence of domination.  As Maxine handed me a copy of the Sunday School quarterly, I realized I probably would have been better off if I had been as lucky as Cindy to find a man like Steve.  They both believed strongly in the Bible but seemed to live their lives more according to the model I had always wanted but never found.

I had almost forgotten about the grieving Paula.  I must have subconsciously believed she would restrict herself and her sadness and anger to her home.  This feeling vanished when Cindy and I entered the lady’s restroom.  I guess we were fortunate the three of us were the only ones needing to pee or freshen our makeup.  A pretty face was the last thing on Paula’s mind when she caught us coming in while blotting her lips before the mirror.

“Where the hell is my husband?”  Paula didn’t mince words or waste time.  I didn’t believe she was talking to me.

“I don’t have a clue what you are talking about.  Obviously from your rude and despicable phone call last Thursday, your sweet and faithful husband has been lying to you.  I dare you say he and I are having an affair.”  Cindy wasn’t intimidated.

“I haven’t seen or heard from him in nearly a week.  The last thing he did before he went on his run was apologize.  He confessed the two of you were having an affair.”  Paula looked like she could pounce any minute.  I was glad she hadn’t said Wilkins claimed that Cindy was pregnant, although that’s what I thought he had told her.  Of course, that’s what I had discovered from my Real Justice fictional world.

“I wouldn’t doubt he’s telling you a partial truth.  He probably is having an affair.  God knows he’s hit on me enough at school.”  Cindy said, stopping short of describing how she had resisted.

“Paula, I’m sorry, but I have to agree with Cindy.  Patrick is a womanizer and has flirted with me since school started.  He’s always looking down my blouse or standing way too close.”  It was the right thing for me to do.  Defend Cindy.  I knew she would never have an affair with anyone.  I also knew Patrick had raped her.  I would risk my life for Cindy.

“Shut up you little bitch.  Did I ask you?  This is between me and this slut.”  Paula might want to calm herself just a little.  I didn’t know but I suspect Cindy could take care of herself, especially since Paula was a smaller bitch than me.

“You’re not pregnant, are you?”  I thought I was hearing someone out in the hallway.  Paula had asked the one question I feared but never anticipated coming from her mouth.  “I wouldn’t doubt it.  It’s happened before.”

“What’s that to you?  If I were pregnant, and I’m not, it sure as hell wouldn’t be Patrick’s.”   I was surprised Cindy had used the ‘hell’ word while at church. 

“What did you mean, ‘it’s happened before’?”  I asked, willing to hear the ‘B’ word thrown my way once again.

“You don’t know?  You haven’t heard about last year.  I can’t believe that.”  Paula said looking directly at me.

“She just moved here in August.  I’ve lived here for years and I haven’t heard it either.”  Cindy was now defending my lack of knowledge.

“Seemed to me it was all over town.  Patrick and Pattie Winkles, but she was smart enough to have an abortion.”

Just as Cindy looked at me and scrunched her face into a puzzled and disbelieving contortion, Maxine walked in, saw Paula, took her hand, and expressed her sympathy over the missing Patrick.  Cindy and I walked, both apparently forgetting to pee, or freshen our faces.

After a short song service, Pastor Warren’s sermon was not much longer.  “Faith Can Move Mountains,” no doubt was meant to assuage everyone’s doubts over the fate of the missing Wilkins.  The final thirty minutes of the Worship hour was spent in personal testimonies and prayer.  I suppose Warren believed a few shared stories of how real people had experienced real doubts over their loved ones only to be ultimately rewarded with a satisfying resolution, would help Paula shore up against her raging storm.  The testimonies also inspired all twelve active Deacons to hover around the distraught Paula, lay their hands on her head and shoulders, and to pray that God would find Patrick and bring him home.  One Deacon pleaded, “Almighty God, bring our Education Director back to us in a chariot of fire.”  I had trouble deciphering his exact intention.

After the same Deacon led the congregation in singing three verses of “Amazing Grace,” Cindy and I followed Steve through the line to shake Pastor Warren’s hand.  Sometimes she made the poorest decisions.  I’m not sure she heard it because she was telling Steve what to prepare for the lunch she would miss.  Behind me and towards the entranceway to the hall that leads back to the elevators, I could see two of the Deacons that I had seen praying for Paula, standing and talking.  As the long line wound around closer to them I walked over to a display table holding contribution envelopes and prayer request cards.  I don’t think either of the men knew I was there. 

The taller man said, “Deputy Yates told me they at first hadn’t suspected foul play but yesterday they learned Wilkins was having an affair.  Seems like they might have discovered a motive.”

Right then, Cindy yelled at me, “come on Katie.”  That’s when both men realized I was standing at the corner table.

Wayne, the mysterious and handsome sheriff, called me at school on my cell before Cindy and I had finished the Big Macs we had grabbed at MacDonald’s.

After a two-way exchange of pleasantries, he said, “I’m sorry I haven’t called since our date.  Again, I apologize for not taking you to Huntsville as promised.”

“No problem.  You had a good excuse.  Maybe there’s still time.”  I said, regretting it immediately.  That sounded so desperate.

“I like keeping my promises.  Will you give me a rain check?”

“I’ll think about it.”  Now, he would think I was more like a teenager, playing kid games with him.

“That’s in my favor.  I hope.  I know you need to get back to your work, but I wanted to give you an update.  I’ve had to wait until the family was notified.”  Wayne was confusing me.

“Uh, I’m not sure what you mean?”  I said.

“You remember I had to stay in town during our date because of a new crime scene?”

“I do.”

“It was a murder.  Nathan Johnson.  Your Nathan Johnson.  I mean the man we suspected of killing Darla.”  Wayne was stumbling badly.

“I’m really confused now.  I thought Nathan Johnson was in jail.  Did another inmate kill him?  Or, did Johnson kill someone.”  It seemed it could be either.

“Sorry, Nathan Johnson was murdered.  And, not at the jail.  Again, I apologize for not being able to tell you any of this.  First, and don’t ask me how it happened, but someway his attorney, Nathan’s attorney Cliff Thomas, persuaded Judge Broadside to grant bail.  Johnson was set free that Friday and his body was discovered the following Saturday.  It’s taken a week to reach his parents.  Seems they were traveling in Europe and were truly off the grid.”

“How was he killed?”  This all seemed too convenient, too lucky for Ryan and probably Danny Ericson, maybe the entire Faking Five.

“Two fishermen found him in a slew on Town Creek. His body was tangled in an old dead tree that had fallen into the water.  Shot straight through the forehead.”  Wayne said, giving it to me short and sweet.

“Katie, sorry.  The DA’s calling.  I got to run.  Take care.”

After our call ended I knew without a doubt that Mr. Nathan Johnson was too much of a liability for someone.  I suspected it was the Faking Five.

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 Schoolteacher, written in 2018, is my fifth novel. I'll post a chapter a day over the next few weeks.

Book Blurb

In the summer of 2017, Katie Sims and her daughter Cullie, moved from New York City to Katie’s hometown of Boaz, Alabama for her to teach English and for Cullie to attend Boaz High School .  Fifteen years earlier, during the Christmas holidays, five men from prominent local families sexually assaulted Katie.  Nine months later, Katie’s only daughter was born.

Almost from the beginning of the new school year, as Katie and fellow-teacher Cindy Barker shared English, Literature, and Creative Writing duties for more than 300 students, they became lifelong friends.  

For weeks, Katie and Cindy endured the almost constant sexual harassment at the hands of the assistant principal.  In mid-October, after Cindy suffered an attack similar to Katie’s from fifteen years earlier, the two teachers designed a unique method to teach the six predators a lesson they would never forget.  Katie and Cindy dubbed their plan, Six Red Apples.

Read this mystery-thriller to experience the dilemma the two teachers created for themselves, and to learn the true meaning of real justice.  And, eternal friendship. 

Chapter 36

I was sitting at my desk in The Thread by 4:00 a.m.  For obvious reasons, I had missed yesterday’s early morning writing session.  There had been plenty of time after I returned home from Cindy’s to conduct an extended make-up session, but I hadn’t.  My habit is too ingrained.  There’s just something about the predawn hours that spurs my imagination. 

The Real Justice scene I was drawn to write contained Stella Gibson and Nancy Fletcher, Noah Fletcher’s wife.  For years, I hadn’t doubted that my subconscious mind and my imagination were two separate entities.  But I also believed they lived together in the same neighborhood.  This morning, they partnered to inspire me to explore Nancy, the fictional educator, to attempt to determine whether there was any connection with Paula Wilkins, the living and breathing wife of the breathless Patrick.

As I was brainstorming and drawing on a pink 5 x 8 note-card, I laughed out loud, and acknowledged the weirdness of what was happening.  My twenty Creative Writing students and I were engaged in writing a fictionalized story that was growing more and more like not only one I had experienced but was moving rapidly towards a new world that Cindy and I had just entered.  The weird part, part of the weird part, was that my twenty students didn’t have a clue about the darker edges of my past or present private life.  I was unable to resist asking myself, “how on God’s green earth was this happening?”  I knew it was happening because I had spent over two hours last night sitting at the kitchen bar reviewing the final drafts of the five outlines the five teams had submitted to me Friday afternoon before school was out for Fall Break.

The good part about my role in the Real Justice project was that I was free to follow my imagination where it leads me while I’m in The Thread.  Later, I can modify my drafts as needed before distributing the sanitized versions to the five teams in my Creative Writing class.  There is nothing like this freedom, the ability to be boundless, allowing my mind to explore, create, and destroy lives, places, relationships, and whole cities.  It was this freedom I pursued as my imagination fed me connections between Nancy Fletcher and Paula Wilkins.

Both women had husbands who were unfaithful, and they knew it.  It was part of the deal.  But neither of them minded because they both realized their lives could be far worse.  Both had married up as they say.  Of the two women, only Paula had ever strayed from her marriage vows.  After her and Fulton had their one and only tryst, she vowed to never stray again.  Although Nancy Fletcher had on several occasions helped Noah extricate him from a potentially scandalously public affair, this was Paula’s first experience.  Her and Patrick’s relationship was unique, likely rare.  Her orgasms were accentuated when her loving husband whispered to her his quests and conquests as he ravaged her body four or five times per week.  She now had made him explore with her the same fantasy on three different occasions.  The last time being Sunday night.  It was then she discovered the sex between her loving Patrick and the slutty Cindy wasn’t consensual.  This was bad enough, until early yesterday morning, as he was getting ready for his run, he divulged even more shockingly disturbing and life-changing news.  Cindy Barker was pregnant. 

I continued to explore the lives of Nancy Fletcher and Paula Wilkins for nearly an hour, ending shortly before 5:30 a.m. in near-complete confusion over what was fiction and what was real.

Wednesday afternoon was spent at Guntersville State Park with a relaxed Steve, a carefully choreographed Cindy, and four beautiful, naïve, but wonderfully blessed kids.  Cullie and I fished from a pier.  Thankfully, the wind picked up around 3:30 and the four rambunctious teen boys sharing our real estate left us alone.  Ever since mine and Cindy’s talk at Wayne’s pond over a week ago, I had decided on three or four different ways to tell Cullie the truth.  On the drive down, I had abandoned each of them.  Just make it plain and simple.  That’s what I finally decided.  And did.  “Cullie, I’m sorry but I have lied to you all your life.  Colton Brunner isn’t your father.  I don’t know for sure who is.”

Her response was surprising.  “Thanks for admitting what I’ve known forever.”  I determined then and there never to underestimate a teenage girl.

It turned out Cullie didn’t know much at all but had stumbled toward the truth when her New York City eighth grade science teacher had asked her students to create a list of the physical characteristics they shared with their fathers.  Cullie had discovered that her and Colton were as different as her and her pet hamster.  “I figured it must have been painful for you and that you would tell me the truth when you were ready.”   I hated the thought that her biological father had unwittingly shared such wisdom with his daughter.  I knew for sure she hadn’t inherited the wise-gene from me.

Our conversation over the rape wasn’t so easy.  This was the part I had struggled with so much.  Should I lie and say that I had slept around, and the father could be one of five men?  Should I tell her the names of the prospective fathers?  I hope I haven’t made a mistake.  At the time, I didn’t think I had.  I virtually had Cullie swear that she would keep every part of her conception secret, other than the name of her actual father, once we discovered the truth.  I told her everything, including the names of the five men, and that we would soon know which one had impregnated me and was her biological father.

Again, she surprised me as she closed the tackle box Steve had let us borrow.  “Mom, people make mistakes.  Sometimes the best things result from the biggest mistakes.”  I cried.  She even let me hold her in broad daylight.  I whispered to her she was the best gift the world could ever give me and that I loved her with my whole heart.

“I know you do and I love you too.  Please don’t hold a grudge against those five men.”  She said as she grabbed her rod and reel, the tackle box, and walked back towards Steve and Cindy’s cabin.

I stayed at the pier, even sat down and hung my feet over the side.  I replayed mine and Cullie’s conversation over and over in my head and could only conclude that she was either the wisest fourteen-year-old in the world, or she was a superior actor, keeping buried her true thoughts and fears.  I suspected it was the latter. 

I hadn’t planned on it but both Cindy and Steve insisted.  It was late when we finished eating the wonderful rib-eyes he had grilled, and it had started to rain.  I spent the night sleeping on a couch that was made into a bed.  My only reservation had been the effect upon my early morning writing.  Oh well, one more missed session wouldn’t kill me, but it certainly made me anxious, as it always did.  It had always been nearly impossible to explain, the feeling of incompleteness, of virtually leaving my head on my pillow as I attempted to walk forward through my day.

Thursday morning, before anyone else was stirring, Cindy and I took a walk.  We were barely out of the cabin when she asked if I had looked at Facebook.  I had not, because I intentionally avoided it, other than interacting with my students in the various writing groups.

“It’s all over my Newsfeed.”  Cindy said assuming I knew exactly what she was talking about.

“It is?  Must be important.”  I could be indirect myself.

“People are saying that the police and sheriff’s departments will continue the search today.  Yesterday, apparently, there were about a hundred-people scouring every inch of Wilkins’ running path.  One guy said Paula, Patrick’s wife, had said he seemed upset when he left their house between 5:05 and 5:10 a.m.”

“I wonder how that guy knew that?  That’s one reason I hate Facebook.  Most of what you read is made-up shit.”

“I agree, but a lot of it isn’t.  It certainly seems natural that folks would be looking for our dearly departed leader.”  Cindy said, picking up our pace more than I wanted.

“I’m confident no one saw us.  I didn’t see a single car during the whole ordeal.  And, there’s no houses close enough on Tanner Road for someone to have seen our spot.”

“I agree.  I also know we didn’t leave a trace where we parked.  I doubt any of the searchers could connect tire tracks to our van even if they were able to determine where Wilkins met his fate.”  Cindy said speaking as confident as a twenty-year crime veteran.

“You’re assuming the bleach we poured on the blood spot on the ground where his head bled for a minute or so, eliminated every trace.”  I said.

“Even if an expert crime scene team found that spot, extracted a sample, and ultimately determined it was Wilkins’ blood, that still wouldn’t implicate us.  He could have fallen and hit his head during an altercation.”  Cindy laid it all out.  At least that’s what she believed.

“His blood and a missing body.  Don’t forget we have spawned a criminal investigation.  They are looking.  They are not yet looking for us, but they are looking for a link, any link, that will point them to the perpetrators.  I can assure you they know a crime has been committed.  As time goes by, this will become unassailable.”  I really wasn’t offering anything new. 

“I still say the weakest link in our plan is where and how we are storing the van.”  Cindy finally said the same thing I had been saying all along.  Maybe she was ready to shore up this loose end.

Her phone rang before I could respond.  Immediately after taking the call and learning who was calling, Cindy activated her iPhone’s speaker.  It was Paula Wilkins wanting to know if Cindy knew where Patrick was.  Paula declared she knew about Cindy and Patrick’s affair.  After another minute or two of Paula’s screaming threats, Cindy ended the call.

“How in the hell does she know?”  I asked.

“Well, no doubt her slimy husband has been lying to her, making it sound like he and I have been having an affair.”  Cindy said as though that was her biggest problem.

“Cindy, wake the fuck up.  Affair, no affair, kidnap, rape, it doesn’t matter.  She knows enough to bury you, the both of us.  You are now in the cross hairs of this investigation.  You do know this, don’t you?”  I said, walking a shallow embankment to sit on a steel rail by the edge of the road.

“Hell, hell, hell, and more hell.  Something we never ever anticipated.”  She said, following me.

“At least not in real life.”  I said, with that same ominous feeling I had already experienced, not remembering when it was.

“You said all along that there would be some issue that would arise.  You said they always do.  Therefore, criminals get caught.  There is no way to plan for every possible variable.  Why did you let me talk you into this?”  Cindy said, pulling out her iPhone and again scrolling through her Newsfeed.

I didn’t respond.  I knew it was too late to make any difference.  If only I had stuck to what my head was telling me when Cindy had been playing with my emotions over what I had to do to square things up with the Faking Five.  The freedom I had felt yesterday morning in The Thread was now gone.  That was fiction.  This was real.

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 Schoolteacher, written in 2018, is my fifth novel. I'll post a chapter a day over the next few weeks.

Book Blurb

In the summer of 2017, Katie Sims and her daughter Cullie, moved from New York City to Katie’s hometown of Boaz, Alabama for her to teach English and for Cullie to attend Boaz High School .  Fifteen years earlier, during the Christmas holidays, five men from prominent local families sexually assaulted Katie.  Nine months later, Katie’s only daughter was born.

Almost from the beginning of the new school year, as Katie and fellow-teacher Cindy Barker shared English, Literature, and Creative Writing duties for more than 300 students, they became lifelong friends.  

For weeks, Katie and Cindy endured the almost constant sexual harassment at the hands of the assistant principal.  In mid-October, after Cindy suffered an attack similar to Katie’s from fifteen years earlier, the two teachers designed a unique method to teach the six predators a lesson they would never forget.  Katie and Cindy dubbed their plan, Six Red Apples.

Read this mystery-thriller to experience the dilemma the two teachers created for themselves, and to learn the true meaning of real justice.  And, eternal friendship. 

Chapter 35

Saturday night came and went.  Our date was little different than going out to eat with my brother.  If I had a brother.  Wayne took me to a new little cafe in downtown Boaz called Pirates Cove.  It was a quaint little joint with exposed century-old brick on the walls.  The food was good.  Apparently, he liked country-cooking.  When he had called me early Saturday morning he asked if I was okay with going to Huntsville.  Everything he had said about where we were going and what we were going to do was perfect.  All day I fantasized about our romantic first date.  It didn’t happen.  When he picked me up he apologized and said he had to stay in town, something about a newly discovered crime scene.  He seemed anxious about it but wouldn’t disclose any details.  Wayne had taken me straight home from Pirates Cove, which was fine with me if he had stayed.  He hadn’t.  So much for all my Saturday fantasy thoughts.  Gone.  Evaporated like the early morning fog that had hovered over Wayne’s pond.

The following week of school went by in a blur.  I had conducted my teaching virtually on autopilot which I had sworn I would never do.  It cheated my students.  I never anticipated having a part time job planning and executing a kidnapping and killing (my crime partner refused to use or acknowledge the word murder).  Every day this last week before Fall Break was spent brainstorming and formulating our plan.  By Saturday afternoon we believed we had addressed every possible detail.

It would take place Monday, October 16th.  Cindy and Steve had secured reservations in early August for a cabin at Guntersville State Park.  Steve would take his three children and Cullie on Sunday afternoon, the 15th.  Cindy and I would join them Monday afternoon, using school and a pile of papers to grade as our excuse.  I would stay overnight with her and we would be waiting on criminal asshole Wilkins Monday morning when he turned east on Tarvin Road, probably around 5:10 a.m.

Our vehicle of choice was a tan-colored 2005 Nissan Quest, a van.  We had thought it would be easier for Cindy and me in moving Wilkins’ body.  The side door was much lower to the ground than the bed of a truck.  We had spent time contemplating whether to use Steve’s old pickup, the bright red and fully restored 1975 Chevrolet Silverado.  That would have been rather stupid.  A direct link back to Cindy if discovered.  We found the van at Jeff’s Auto Sales in Leesburg two weeks before D Day.  I suspect Jeff believed Cindy and I were both hookers just trying to make life easier on our johns. We both had worn disguises.  I was impressed with Cindy’s preparation and execution.  She had said, “cosmetology classes in high school and a theater minor in college, glad they finally came in handy.”  We had hidden our getaway vehicle in Nanny’s barn, thankful it hadn’t burned along with her house.

Wilkins was delayed a few minutes.  During the five-minute wait we beat ourselves up over our failure to consider that he and Paula might have taken a little trip this week themselves.  After all, it was Fall Break.  Just as our doubts were pushing us to abandon our plan, Cindy saw him turn right off Aurora Road onto Tarvin Road.  We had parked the van about a hundred yards from his turn.  I was glad Cindy had taken up her post across a shallow ditch and behind a grove of trees fifty feet or so behind the van, back towards Aurora Road.  We had been talking via two burner phones we had purchased in Gadsden.  The plan was for Wilkins to see me having car trouble and when I had him curiously inspecting whether my engine had died, Cindy would come assist.

“Patrick, man am I glad to see you.  Do you live around here?”  I could tell he was surprised.  “I dropped my daughter off at my cousin’s and I think my engine just died.  Can you look?”

“I’m not a mechanic, couldn’t help you if I wanted to.  Sorry.” 

“Can you help me remove my radiator cap.  It may just be out of antifreeze or something.”  I wanted to get him engaged, doing something to distract him. 

“Alright, I can do that.”  He walked from the middle of the road over to where I had parked the van, along the shoulder, almost in the ditch.

I stood very close to him.  I made sure my left leg and left elbow were touching him.  I said, “don’t you think it’s kind of neat for you to find me here.  A lady in distress.  This might be that opportunity we’ve both been looking for.”  I was having so much fun with the bastard.

“There, it wasn’t tight at all.”  He handed me the radiator cap and smiled.  We were now facing each other, still very close.  I reached my hand up to his face and gently felt his prickly beard.  “I like a man before he’s had his morning shave.”  He smiled.

“You’re surprising me.  You’ve never responded this way at school.”  He said looking at me with a devilish smile, his right lip curled upward just slightly. I had to admit, Patrick Wilkins was a nice-looking man, and fit.  He had on a sleeveless tee-shirt and jogging shorts.  His tanned body was sleek, like a runner, including taut stomach, and missing the gross muscles of a weight-room freak.”

“Patrick, believe me I’ve wanted to but, until right now, I hadn’t realized how much I’ve missed.”  I hesitated, giving him my shyest look, intentionally looking down to the ground.  “Too public.  I need my job.  But, we’re not at school now.  Are we?”

He reached out with his right hand and started to pull me into him.  That’s when Cindy hit him in the back of the head with a piece of steel pipe.  He fell forward into my arms.  My body only slightly slowed his collapse onto the ground.  In five minutes we had him bound, gagged, and in the back of the van.  I turned the van around in the middle of the road, turned left on Aurora Road, right on Highway 205, and were soon traveling south on Highway 431. 

It took us nearly thirty minutes to arrive at our chosen spot.  I drove below the speed limit and made a few detours to make sure no one was following us.  I eventually turned right on Highway 278, drove several miles west past the Mountain Top Flea Market and turned left on County Road 132.  Two left turns later and we were on Moody Chapel Road.  About a half mile past Salem Baptist Church, I made our final left turn onto a private road and drove another mile.  We passed one long-abandoned house.  The gravel road gave way to an old logging road that was barely passable.  A slow and bumpy mile later, Wilkins was home.  It was a densely wooded area and would provide plenty of shade for as long as he needed.

For some odd reason, Cindy and I had more trouble removing his body from the van than we had putting it in there to begin with.  It might have had something to do with him being dead.  But, I doubt it.  While I had driven, Cindy had administered a 100 mg dose of potassium cyanide, enough to kill a horse.  Surprisingly, it had taken him over ten minutes to die.  As expected, it took us almost forty-five minutes to dispose of the fearless assistant principal, including putting him in the ground, shoveling in the dirt, and dressing-up the site with an ample amount of leaves and limbs.  We were glad we had dug the grave last Saturday when Steve thought we were shopping.  Over three hours of back-breaking labor.

By 7:30 a.m., Cindy and I were back at her house eating the breakfast we had secured after returning the van to Nanny’s barn.  We had been careful to dispose of the blue tarp, and the thirty-inch section of steel pipe we had confiscated from a pile of scrap metal behind Steve’s shop.

Pastor Warren and Ryan had ordered their breakfast from waitress Gloria at Grumpy’s Diner when Sheriff Waldrup walked in the restaurant and over to their table.

“Radford, I’m glad I saw you.  I was planning on calling you today.  We need to talk.  When can you come see me?”  Waldrup said, not to engage in any pleasantries.

Ryan hesitated, looked at Warren, and said after the Pastor gave him an almost invisible nod, “How about 9:00 a.m. tomorrow?”

“That works for me.  Don’t be late.  I’ll see you in my office in Guntersville.”  The tall man in full uniform, including a wide-brim hat, said, and walked back to the counter for an order Gloria had waiting.

“What the hell do you think that’s all about?”  Ryan said.

“I suspect you know, your family is knee deep in the Darla Sims investigation.”

After Gloria brought their breakfast, the two spent twenty minutes developing a strategy, which was to tell the truth, at least part of it.

“Where the hell do you think Wilkins is?  I warned him against being late.  Pastor Warren said motioning Gloria for more coffee.

“If you ask me, he’s trouble.  By the way, why did you want me to meet with the two of you?”  Ryan said, downing in two swallows, a full glass of orange juice.

“I needed a witness.  Nobody else could come.  Fulton’s getting ready for a Board meeting.  Danny’s in Gulf Shores at a realtor’s conference, and Justin said he had the flu or something.  I think he was still pissed at me from Wednesday night.”  Warren said.

“Yea, he didn’t much like you having Nathan’s lawyer at our meeting two weeks in a row.  By the way, why were you needing a witness?”

“I wanted someone to know exactly what I told Wilkins, where there would never be any doubt that I had given him the final ultimatum.”

“Which is?”  Ryan asked checking out Katie Sims as she came in the restaurant, picked up and paid for her takeout order, and walked outside.  “Nice ass, don’t you think preacher man?”

“Let’s not go there.  If the bastard shows, I was going to tell him that he needs to keep his pants on, that he is going to feel some real pain if he ever scratches his little itch again.  Warren said.

“The rest of us told you all along not to bring him into the Club.  I may like women as much as he does but at least I’m discreet.”  Ryan said eying Gloria as she delivered food to an adjoining table.

“Anyone watching you would certainly know you’re discreet all right.”  Warren said, pulling his iPhone from his shirt pocket.  “Damn, nearly 8:00 o’clock.  Wilkins promised he would be here no later than 7:00.  Since he’s out of school this week, he probably went back to bed after his little run.  I think I’ll go swing by there.  Can you come?”  Warren asked.

“No, I’ve got to get to the store.  Monday morning staff meeting.”

“I’ll see you Wednesday night.  Can you bring a twelve-pack?”

“No problem.”  Ryan said as Warren left.  “Hey darling, can I have a coffee to go?”  Gloria frowned and pushed Ryan’s big right hand from her lower back.

“It’ll be at the register.”

“Thanks baby doll.”

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 Schoolteacher, written in 2018, is my fifth novel. I'll post a chapter a day over the next few weeks.

Book Blurb

In the summer of 2017, Katie Sims and her daughter Cullie, moved from New York City to Katie’s hometown of Boaz, Alabama for her to teach English and for Cullie to attend Boaz High School .  Fifteen years earlier, during the Christmas holidays, five men from prominent local families sexually assaulted Katie.  Nine months later, Katie’s only daughter was born.

Almost from the beginning of the new school year, as Katie and fellow-teacher Cindy Barker shared English, Literature, and Creative Writing duties for more than 300 students, they became lifelong friends.  

For weeks, Katie and Cindy endured the almost constant sexual harassment at the hands of the assistant principal.  In mid-October, after Cindy suffered an attack similar to Katie’s from fifteen years earlier, the two teachers designed a unique method to teach the six predators a lesson they would never forget.  Katie and Cindy dubbed their plan, Six Red Apples.

Read this mystery-thriller to experience the dilemma the two teachers created for themselves, and to learn the true meaning of real justice.  And, eternal friendship. 

Chapter 34

Thursday morning, I was sitting at my desk in my little office reviewing the first drafts of the Real Justice outlines.  I hated outlines for my own writing, but I had to follow with my five creative writing teams a less imaginary method to complete this gargantuan project.  Otherwise, the story would likely run out of steam by mid-January.

I was particularly struck by Team Two’s creativity (who am I to say outlines squelch creativity!).  It also felt ominous.  This team’s antagonist is Noah Fletcher, the President of South Citizens Bank & Trust.  His wife, Nancy, is the principal at Gilmer County High School and appears to play a supporting role to her husband, even in his quest to bed Stella Gibson.  I noticed that in the second half of Act II, Team Two has Noah disappear along with his wife.  What made me feel so strange was when I recognized a similarity to my real life.  Educators and bankers.  Patrick Wilkin’s wife, Paula, works with Fulton Billingsley at First State Bank of Boaz.  In Real Justice, fiction, antagonist Noah is a banker with an educator wife.  The most eerie feeling came from Team Two’s plan for their characters to disappear later in their story as part of a faux climax.  As I set aside the outlines, I wondered whether Paula knew about Patrick’s womanizing?

My first three classes in the auditorium went well.  When I returned to my classroom, Cindy was sitting in my office, in my chair.  This was a first.

“Oh, the new Katie has a new bust line.  I like it.”  I said, not fibbing about wishing I had a sexier figure.

“Sorry, I needed to borrow a pen.  Seemed more comfortable filling out this form.  I’ll move.”

“No, sit there.  What are you working on?  Trying to win a prize?”  I figured she might be wasting her time with Publisher’s Clearing House or something similar.

“You need to sign here.  And, you’ll need to enclose a check for $289.00.  If you don’t have it, I can loan it to you.”  Cindy was shocking the hell out of me.

“Uh, do you mind telling me what you are doing?”

“Finding out who Cullie’s father is.”  Cindy said as I sat down across from my own desk.  I was now fully shocked.

“Could you maybe enlighten me a little?”

“You said last weekend, when we were sitting out on your pier, that you had to deal with Cullie, that she had to know the truth.  You said she deserved to know the truth and you had committed to being fully open with her.  Girl, first, you yourself have got to know the truth.  ‘Who’s your daddy?’ isn’t the question you want Cullie being asked all her life.  Forget Colton.”  Cindy had come ready for bear.

“So, what is the paperwork?”

“Application for DNA tests.  Lab work.  It’s not free you know.”

“I’m not much of a scientist but I know from Law and Order you have to have something to test.  Oh, by the way, can I assume you are talking about the Faking Five submitting to a mouth swabbing?”  Cindy was making me pull the facts out of her.

“Who else is there?  Cullie’s father could be any one of the five bastards.  Right?  I am correct, aren’t I?”  Cindy asked.  I hoped she didn’t doubt what I had told her.

“Absolutely.  Back to the swabbing.  How do you propose convincing them to stand still and open their mouths?”

“Don’ worry.  They already have.  Well, not exactly, they didn’t know they were still and open.”  It was then I noticed five identical boxes, each about two inches tall and three or four inches wide, and maybe six or seven inches long, sitting on the far edge of my desk.

“Here’s the story.  You know Steve helps with the Wednesday night meal.  Your Faking Five always eat together.  It was easy.  He secured their eating utensils when he was cleaning off their table after they had left.  He says he was extra careful to identify which items went with which human.”

“Steve?  Now he’s in on my secret?”

“No, Blondie.  I’m imaging your dark curls transformed last night into Paula Wilkins’ gorgeous mane.”

“Weird you mention her.”  I said trying to figure out if a few people I know can read my mind.

“Why so?  Never mind.  Again, Steve is on a strictly need-to-know status.  I told him it was needed for some research Bryan Haney was doing with his history class—the origins of a few of our local leaders.  Steve can be a little gullible.”

“I trust you found a reliable lab?”

“I did.  Found them online.  They are out of Amherst, New York.  Been in business since the eighties.  Seems they’ve only recently gone nationwide, offering cheap but reliable paternity testing.”

“I thought that required blood.”

“New technology I guess.  The information pack they sent was extremely specific on the types of samples to obtain.  Did you know they can now remove your DNA from a Kleenex even if you didn’t blow your nose?”  Cindy obviously had done her homework.

“You sure received the information in a hurry.”  I said trying to sketch out a timeline.

“Can you spell O N L I N E?”  Cindy was making me feel like a low-tech zombie.

Cindy also told me that Wilkins’ routine was simply clockwork.  She apparently had conducted her early morning sleuthing two days already this week, including today.  After I gave her a check she left in a hurry.  Something totally unusual since it was now lunchtime.

“I’ll call you tonight.  I want to get these to the Post Office.  Later partner.”

At first while Cindy had been telling me what she was up to and how she had so smoothly choreographed Steve’s activities last night at church, I was angry.  My thought, ‘that’s my business and I’ll handle it my way,’ hadn’t lingered.  Now, I had set my emotions aside and was thinking rationally.  I was proud of Cindy.  She truly did know me.  She had concluded that I needed a little push, maybe a solid boot in the ass, to pursue the answer I so desperately needed.  As I unwrapped my bologna sandwich, I felt ashamed I had spent what seemed like hours during the night tossing and turning questioning why I would agree to help Cindy square the tables on criminal asshole Wilkins.  I banished for good the thought that I might be acting premature to trust Cindy.  Now I knew Cindy was for real.  She was a friend for life.

By 11:00 p.m., I had spent nearly an hour at the kitchen bar after Cullie had gone to bed reading and responding to a ton of student Facebook comments in our five online Groups.  I had just gotten up from my barstool to pour a glass of milk to hopefully settle my stomach when I heard a light tapping at the back door.  Once again, it was Wayne.  I motioned him in.

“You might want to invest in some blinds.  Does this uncovered glass door not bother you after dark?”  He said.  I barely heard him.  I had never seen a better-looking man.  It was the first time I had ever seen him out of uniform.  He was wearing dark slacks, a solid blue button-down shirt, and a light brown tweed jacket.  Without his Sheriff’s hat his whole face and head looked so different.  He was rugged and could pass for Walt Longmire’s twin brother, except for Wayne’s salt and pepper hair. 

“Katie, are you okay?”  I hoped he wasn’t one to read thoughts.  In the milliseconds the tall, dark, and handsome man had been standing inside my kitchen, my mind had traveled to Absoroka County, Wyoming and back, stopping only to linger at that big old oak tree beside the little cabin across from the pond.  I had not missed the smell of hours-old aftershave as he had pressed into me and locked on my lips.

“I’m fine.  I guess I was dreaming, certainly in a fog of sorts.”

“I saw your light on and thought I’d take a chance you might still be up.  I can give you an update if now is a good time.”  Had there ever been a more polite and respectful mind.  Of course, the electricity zipping up and down my spinal cord could be distorting my judgment.

“Now’s perfect.  Thanks for thinking of me.”

“That’s quite easy.  I followed up on what you shared with me last Sunday, about Nathan’s lawyer, Cliff Thomas.  He practices with his father in San Marcos, Texas.  I called on the local Sheriff who told me the two were well known as criminal defense lawyers and had the reputation of being willing to cross the line.  He gave me a couple of examples but here’s something probably a little more relevant.”  Wayne paused, and I asked him if he wanted to sit in the den.  He agreed and surprised me when he sat beside me on the couch.  I leaned back.  He didn’t.

“It seems our Nathan isn’t just a scraggly-bearded drifter.  His family owns the Lone Star Candy Company in Fredericksburg.  He’s the black sheep of the bunch.  Seems like Nathan Senior has had to bail him out quite a bit.  You guessed it, Thomas and Thomas, has been involved for years.  Get this, Clayton Thomas, Cliff’s father, spent seven years in Tuscaloosa beginning in 1958.  Here, look.”  I had noticed that he had been holding a book, a rather large book, under his arm ever since he had walked in.

“What is it?”  I asked.

“A University of Alabama Annual.  Here is the class photo, graduating class of 1962.  Read the names.”  Wayne pointed about two-thirds down the list of names I figured were for the students shown in the photo.  Wayne’s finger pointed to Raymond Radford and then on down to Clayton Thomas.  “Don’t you find it a little strange they knew each other.  By the way, Clayton stayed on in Tuscaloosa to attend law school, graduating in 1965.”

“You’ve discovered an odd coincidence.”  I said, not really seeing much relevance in what clearly intrigued the Sheriff.  As he closed the book, his right hand brushed across my knee.  He had not touched me at all when earlier he had laid the open Annual across my lap.  It was an innocent touch but awoke the electrical train that had pulled into the station while I had focused with Wayne on his update.

“Sorry, excuse me.”  Wayne had said our eyes connecting just long enough for me to notice he was visibly embarrassed.  His face was a light crimson.

“Silly.”  It was an odd thing for me to say.  He stood with Annual in hand and moved around the coffee table and into a wingback chair.

“I’m going to pursue this further.  I’ve asked the Hays County Sheriff in Texas to see if he can find a link between Clayton, or Cliff for that matter, and our local boys.”

“Wayne, I sure do appreciate all you are doing.  A quick update from me.  I had to have a repairman out to fix the stove.  I paid for it.  No problem, but just wanted you to know.

“Thanks, how much was it?  That’s my stove and my responsibility.”

“No way am I going to let you be that generous.”

His response, his invitation came totally unannounced and unpredicted.  “At least let me treat you to a nice dinner sometime.  Would you feel comfortable with that?”  Wow.  Is all I could say to myself.  Was the handsome fifty-five-year-old asking me for a date?

“You don’t have to do that.”  I was nearly twenty years younger.  He was old enough to be my father, yet I was attracted to him.  I was also figuratively pointing a gun at my foot.  If I turned him down, he probably would never ask me out again.

“Sorry Katie.  I’ve been too forward.  Please accept my apology.  I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”  Wayne Waldrup couldn’t be this nice.  It had to be a game.  Men, at least the ones that I had known the last fifteen or twenty years, were closer to animals.  Wayne was more like a god.

“Silly.”  Apparently, that was becoming my favorite word.  “I would be honored to go out with you.  You just caught me a little off guard.”

“I hope you don’t think you need a guard with me.  How’s Saturday night for you?”  Now, we were getting somewhere.  Saturday was much more definite than ‘let me treat you to a nice dinner sometime.’”

“It’s perfect.  What time?”

We spent the next ten minutes discussing times and places.  I could have talked all night.  I could have spent a week standing beside him next to the back door as he was attempting to leave.  We shared an awkward moment.  I wanted him to kiss me like I had imagined him doing so beside that big old oak tree, but apparently, he wanted to keep switching the Annual from underarm to underarm.  Our hands brushed together as he walked out the door.   That was intentional.  My intent.

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 Schoolteacher, written in 2018, is my fifth novel. I'll post a chapter a day over the next few weeks.

Book Blurb

In the summer of 2017, Katie Sims and her daughter Cullie, moved from New York City to Katie’s hometown of Boaz, Alabama for her to teach English and for Cullie to attend Boaz High School .  Fifteen years earlier, during the Christmas holidays, five men from prominent local families sexually assaulted Katie.  Nine months later, Katie’s only daughter was born.

Almost from the beginning of the new school year, as Katie and fellow-teacher Cindy Barker shared English, Literature, and Creative Writing duties for more than 300 students, they became lifelong friends.  

For weeks, Katie and Cindy endured the almost constant sexual harassment at the hands of the assistant principal.  In mid-October, after Cindy suffered an attack similar to Katie’s from fifteen years earlier, the two teachers designed a unique method to teach the six predators a lesson they would never forget.  Katie and Cindy dubbed their plan, Six Red Apples.

Read this mystery-thriller to experience the dilemma the two teachers created for themselves, and to learn the true meaning of real justice.  And, eternal friendship. 

Chapter 33

Cindy was absent from school Thursday and Friday.  With the school week finally over, I dropped Cullie off to spend the night with Alysa and as she was getting out of the car I told her that next Friday night she had to stay with us.  I sent a text to Cindy that I would call her later just as I had done Thursday evening.  As I drove home I recognized the reason Cullie loved staying at Cindy and Steve’s.  They were a real family.  Steve was an in-the-flesh father.  By the time I turned off Sardis Road and onto Wayne’s long driveway, I felt sick about something I had to do.  Cindy wasn’t the only one harboring a secret.  I had to tell Cullie the truth about how she was conceived.  It was the last thing I wanted to do.

Yesterday afternoon before taking Cullie to Cindy’s I had dropped by Wells Fargo Bank and removed my copy of Darla’s journal from my safety deposit box.  For weeks I had been feeling the need to complete my review.  There were whole sections I had not read.

After my early morning writing session and eating a cold pop-tart seated at the kitchen table reminiscing over Sammie’s Saturday morning pancakes, I returned to my hobby room.  I had followed Karen’s lead, Wayne’s deceased wife, in naming the smallest of three bedrooms on the west end of the sprawling ranch.  In a sense, our hobbies were similar.  Karen had cross stitched.  Her pictures were scattered along walls and tabletops all over the house.  Both hobbies included the use of thread, weaving threads throughout the framed picture and creating patterns.  The patterns told a story.  For Karen, it seemed she loved weaving together country scenes.  Writing, especially novel writing, if it was any good at all, used many threads, some brightly colored, to weave together various story lines that intersect to form patterns, the main ones always altered the lives of everyone they touched.  After considering this analogy I decided to call mine and Karen’s little room, The Threader. 

I had read Darla’s journal for nearly an hour before she introduced a new thread.  It’s funny how prior thoughts sometimes linger.  It seemed I had split my concentration over the prior sixty minutes between an almost insatiable desire to continue the cross-stitching and writing analogy, and Darla’s equally strong need to capture the exploits of her husband.  I had found it interesting that Raymond had been so open with Darla about what he and Walter Tillman, David Adams, Fitz Billingsley, and Franklin Ericson were doing; at a minimum, all activities involved shady business dealings.  However, it was clear that she either didn’t know the full details or chose not to record them.  I concluded it was probably some of both.  By the time I finished Darla’s 2015 entries, a new thread appeared.  It had to do with Cynthia Radford, Raymond’s first wife, the woman he abandoned for the beautiful Darla Sims who was a full generation younger than the fading Cynthia.

In Darla’s January 1st, 2016 entry, she wrote, “New Year’s Day was a disaster.  Raymond, normally brilliant, but often stupid, invited the subtly-callous Cynthia to join the two of us, along with Rachel and Randall and their families.  Randall’s daughter Riley spoke loudly above the blare from the Rose Bowl game asking Raymond if he would pay for her college if she chose Stanford.  Cynthia had spoken up and said, ‘dear, please don’t ask me, I’m a pauper.  If granddad cannot cough up the dough, I bet sweet Darla will.  She’s loaded, unless the aging giant kicks over before she turns eighty years old.”  I hadn’t seen Raymond in years, probably a decade or more.  I guess, even in Cynthia’s eyes, he was, in more ways than one, a big man.

Apparently, Cynthia’s statement had set off a major blow-up between Raymond’s two women.  The last sentence Darla had written after spending nearly two pages describing, in detail, how Riley’s question had spawned a verbal cat fight between her and Cynthia, caught my attention.  It read, “how in the hell did Cynthia know the details of mine and Raymond’s prenuptial?”

Throughout Darla’s 2016 journal were scattered entries that documented the escalating tension between the two women.  After noticing an absent Cynthia from Darla and Raymond’s Thanksgiving festivities, I took a break for an hour, reviewed fifteen or twenty Facebook comments by my tenth graders related to Monday’s vocabulary word, ad Hominem, and made a pot of coffee.  When I returned and read the first December entry, Friday the 2nd, I froze.  Darla had written, “Per Raymond, the Texas lawyer, Thomas, called and said Cynthia had agreed to his offer.  He (Raymond) told me, “Cynthia knew too much.  I didn’t have any choice.”  The next part of Darla’s entry was disjointed at best, but it seemed to indicate that Raymond had changed his will leaving the vast portion of his estate to the last to die of Darla and Cynthia.  No doubt this had made Darla mad.  Towards the end of the entry, she had written, “the stupid man can’t see that Cynthia now has a motive to knock me off.”  Apparently, Raymond’s statement, “Cynthia might be a bitch, but she’s no killer,” did little to appease Darla’s worrying. 

For nearly two weeks Darla didn’t write anything else concerning Cynthia or the deal Raymond had made with her.  Then, on Tuesday, December 13^th, she wrote.  “The bitch said I was looking old.  Raymond will be looking for him something younger if he hasn’t already.”  Apparently, this statement was made before a meeting took place in Raymond’s study at his and Darla’s Country Club home.  Darla only recorded the highlights, but Cynthia was there with her attorney, a man by the name of Clayton Thomas.  She had my attention.  Darla, for whatever reason, had taped his business card to the top of the following page where her description of the meeting continued.  I noted Clayton’s firm was named Thomas and Thomas.  Then, I saw it, the second member of the firm, the second partner, was named Clifford Thomas.  The firm was located at a San Marcos, Texas address.  It had to be the same Cliff Thomas that was representing Nathan Johnson, the man who probably had killed Darla (and the same man Cindy and I had likely seen Wednesday night as we peered over the brick wall into Warren’s basement).  I was shaking; I could hardly sit still.  I managed to scan the remaining paragraph of Darla’s entry.  Raymond had made her and Cynthia, in exchange for him changing his will and the two cats’ mutual promises to call a truce to their bickering, sit down together and sign a written document.  It was not attached or included in Darla’s journal, but she had summarized its contents.  If either one of the women initiated an altercation between them of any kind, Raymond would disown both.

After leaving The Thread and walking to the kitchen and pouring another cup of coffee, I pulled my iPad from my book bag that was still sitting on the bar where I had left it yesterday afternoon after arriving home from school.  I pressed the Google icon and typed in “San Marcos and Google Maps.”  After finding the address for Thomas and Thomas I expanded the map.  I almost closed the iPad but then I saw Fredericksburg to the west of San Marcos.  A synapse or two connected.  That’s the city listed on the back of the candy bar wrapper Ralph Williams had given me just a few days before he had died.  Fredericksburg was less than seventy miles from San Marcos.  There had to be something relevant at work here.  I shook my head as though trying to clear my mind of the cobwebs that had fogged my thinking.  Finding a link between Raymond, Cynthia, and Nathan Johnson was already relevant, significant in fact.  Something was telling me there was yet more to discover.  As I closed my iPad I couldn’t help but believe that Cliff Thomas had once again traveled to Alabama on Cynthia’s behalf, this time trying to eliminate a threat to her well-being as well as that of Raymond’s.  I walked outside onto the screened-in back porch and speculated that Cliff Thomas had some connection to the Lone Star Candy Company.  My thought was a stretch.     

Cindy came over around 2:30 p.m.  I was sitting at the pond at the end of a long pier.  Wayne had two chairs secured to the wood slats by a lightweight chain.  I wondered who the second chair was for.  I saw her drive up and yelled at her when she exited her car.  As she walked through the pasture gate and along the pier, I could see the stress she was carrying.  She kept her gaze downward.  Of course, this could be because she was being careful walking an uncommon path.  But, it was her hands that betrayed her.  She kept clenching and unclenching her fists.  Finally, when she sat down beside me I noticed the tell-tell sign.  Her normally light green eyes had a vivid yellow tint.  I had seen her on more than one occasion with dark green eyes, but this was different.  It was like an abundance of blood had mixed in with the green, yielding yellow.  I didn’t know if this meant she was being extremely cautious or she was tasting blood.

“Are you feeling better?”  I might as well ask a dumb question.

“I’m great.  Steve and the kids went fishing at Henderson’s pond.  He encouraged me to get out and maybe come see you.”

“I’m glad he did.  I’ve missed you at school.  It’s not the same when you’re not there.”

“I’ve been thinking and researching.  Not all vasectomies are foolproof.  I read that only about two percent of women get pregnant after her husband or partner has a vasectomy.  I have a plan.  I’m going to be open with Steve about my pregnancy.  He’ll have the typical questions, but I can convince him that it happens and that I’m one of the two percent.  I’ll rave and cry and express my excitement over having another child.  Steve’s the type that won’t investigate to determine if his doctor screwed up the procedure.  He’ll just think it was God’s miracle.”

“That sounds good.  If it works.  But, what if word gets back to him that contradicts your story?  You know some men like to brag about their conquests.  Cindy, it might be ten plus years from now, but you need to recognize what I’m saying isn’t too far-fetched.”

“You haven’t heard the second half of my plan.”  Cindy said scanning a text she just received.  “Steve says hi and that Cullie just caught a big catfish.  I won’t read the rest.”

“Remember, you can’t do that.  We’ve agreed, if you start something you have to finish.  So, what else did Steve say?”  I hated it when someone said stuff like, ‘I’ll tell you later’ or ‘No, I better keep that to myself’ as they ponder some world-changing rumor they just heard.

“It’s kind of private but you caught me.  He said he wants us to make love in the back of his truck beside Henderson’s pond, out under the stars.”

“Darling, you are one lucky woman.  Now, tell me the remaining part of your brilliant plan.”

“Wilkins has to disappear.”  Cindy said as though she was a veteran mob boss.

“As in die?”  I figured I already knew what she meant.

“Sort of, probably.  If he can’t talk or communicate then I’m not at risk, Steve is not exposed to learning the truth.”

“That’s assuming he is the only other person in the world who knows he impregnated you.”  I started to be much more graphic but decided that would just inflame Cindy even more.

“That’s a risk I’ll have to take.  Even if someone other than Wilkins told Steve about the rape, I would deny it, saying it’s a despicable rumor.”

“I think we are avoiding the elephant in the room.  Murder isn’t some screen-saver prank.  It’s a horrible crime, virtually the worst, and it carries with it the strong likelihood that you will spend the rest of your life in prison.  Do you actually want to take that risk?”  I said, mentally recapping how the Six Red Apples project was cruising headfirst towards the precipice of the Grand Canyon.

“It won’t be murder.  It will be a killing, a justified killing.  You know, justice.  And, we won’t go to prison if we aren’t caught.”

“There you go with that ‘we’ stuff again.”

“I thought we were way beyond this silly conversation.  Remember, Six Red Apples?”  Cindy asked.

“I do and I’m not going back on my word, but we, I at least, have not quite developed a murdering mind.  The worst I’ve considered is some type of extortion, blackmail, whatever, making the five bastards pay real money along with a written but uncirculated apology.”

“I’m a little surprised that even after your Faking Five killed Darla and Nanny, your two mothers, and attempted to kill you and your own daughter, you wouldn’t be ready to blow their brains out, saw up their bodies into little pieces, and feed the remains to the wolves.”

“Truthfully, you’re close to the truth, but I reckon I’m a scaredy-cat.”  I said.

“Then, we’ll have to create such a foolproof plan that your nerves will take a long nap.”  Cindy said typing a return text, no doubt to the loving Steve.  I stopped myself from asking her how she had responded.  That’s when the fantasy blasted across my mind.  Steve’s suggestion had triggered a foreign feeling, one I hadn’t felt since before my attack.  Walt had me pressed against one of the giant oaks I was seeing beyond the pond, the one closest to his little cabin I could barely make out.  Our lips were locked in a long and sensuous kiss.  Then, I chuckled to myself.  It wasn’t Walt doing the pressing and kissing, it was Wayne.

For the next hour Cindy and I semi-planned how Patrick Wilkins would disappear.  She shared how he managed to stay in such good shape.  He was a slow-jogger, fast-walker type.  Someway she had learned that the criminal asshole Wilkins spent an hour before school every morning jogging and walking.  Cindy labeled it his right-road routine.  She explained that when he left his Country Club, Lindo Drive home at 5:00 a.m. Monday through Friday, he only made right hand turns until he returned home.  She clearly had done her homework because every turn easily rolled off the tip of her tongue.  Right turns on each of the following streets and roads: Lindo Drive, Highway 205, Aurora Road, Tarvin Road, Pleasant Hill Cutoff Road, Pleasant Hill Road, Highway 205, and Lindo Drive.  Cindy said, “this is his routine.  At least it was Thursday and Friday mornings.  Also, on Saturdays, at least today, he goes at 8:00 a.m. to the Therapy Plus Fitness Center next to the hospital.  It was after 10:00 this morning when he left.

I didn’t ask Cindy how she had gotten out of her house to go sleuthing the last three mornings.

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 Schoolteacher, written in 2018, is my fifth novel. I'll post a chapter a day over the next few weeks.

Book Blurb

In the summer of 2017, Katie Sims and her daughter Cullie, moved from New York City to Katie’s hometown of Boaz, Alabama for her to teach English and for Cullie to attend Boaz High School .  Fifteen years earlier, during the Christmas holidays, five men from prominent local families sexually assaulted Katie.  Nine months later, Katie’s only daughter was born.

Almost from the beginning of the new school year, as Katie and fellow-teacher Cindy Barker shared English, Literature, and Creative Writing duties for more than 300 students, they became lifelong friends.  

For weeks, Katie and Cindy endured the almost constant sexual harassment at the hands of the assistant principal.  In mid-October, after Cindy suffered an attack similar to Katie’s from fifteen years earlier, the two teachers designed a unique method to teach the six predators a lesson they would never forget.  Katie and Cindy dubbed their plan, Six Red Apples.

Read this mystery-thriller to experience the dilemma the two teachers created for themselves, and to learn the true meaning of real justice.  And, eternal friendship. 

Chapter 32

By 4:30 a.m. Wednesday morning I had made my choice.  Ten days without writing had left me as anxious and frustrated as I had ever been.  Yesterday morning, the first morning to awaken in mine and Cullie’s new home, should have been a productive session.  It wasn’t, although I had gotten up at my appointed time, grabbed my coffee and strolled into Wayne’s giant study off the master bedroom.  I spent nearly an hour trying to get situated.  The room was nice, completely paneled with twelve-inch tongue and groove pine boards with a light beige tile floor.  The desk was perfect.  It was solid oak, large and included an L-shaped side desk, at the perfect height for my computer keyboard.  The problem was the room just didn’t feel right.  I never was able to put my finger on the exact issue.  It could have been how the light entered the room from a giant light fixture under the rear eve of the garage right beside the house.  The double windows in the study didn’t have blinds or curtains so I couldn’t shut out the light.  It could have been the clutter.  The bookshelves on three walls made for an impressive library, mostly biographies, military fiction, and, surprisingly, every novel written by Nicolas Sparks, my favorite romance writer.  The real clutter was Wayne’s collection of dogs and arrowheads.  They were everywhere and in most every form.  Figurines, mostly encased in curio cabinets, small and large, but with a sizable number placed high and low on corner tables, shelves, and along the front of his giant desk.  The walls were covered in both drawings and photographs of dogs and arrowheads.  By 5:45 a.m. yesterday morning, after writing one sentence, three times and finally deleting it, I ended my session more frustrated and anxious than ever.

This morning, I knew the moment I walked into the smaller of the three bedrooms on the opposite end of the house that I had found my spot.  Wayne had said he had just finished painting it.  The room had been his wife’s hobby room and it had taken his sons five years to convince their father it was time to move on with his life.  The only thing Wayne had left was an antique black walnut roll-top desk that was, as he had said, “from her French ancestors.”  Monday night I had found one very similar on eBay.  It heralded from France.  The eBay description on the only desk I could find like Wayne’s was, “a Unique French secretary (Scriban), Empire period (Napoleon I), Circa 1800, from La Rochelle, France, very famous for the quality of its ‘Meubles de port.’  Made from fruit wood, walnut, rosewood and marquetry.”  My new writing desk had fabulous carvings on each side with lion’s heads on each of its six drawers.  The chair no doubt had originated with the desk.  It was uncomfortable enough to keep me alert and focused on my writing.  The sparseness of the room, completely absent of clutter, was exactly what I needed.

Just because I had missed my early morning writing session ten days in a row didn’t mean I hadn’t thought about my current project.  In fact, during my walks around Steve and Cindy’s swimming pool last Saturday evening I had decided to abandon my current project.  I would put it in a drawer for now, until the end of the year.  I had always focused on only one project at a time.  This was the best way I had found for preventing me from being divided.  I needed to be consumed with one story at a time, live it, breathe it, smoke it if I smoked, and eat it, every moment of every day.  My Real Justice novel writing project was infecting my mind.  Saturday night I had decided to devout all my efforts into living naked as a jaybird.  It was best for my students if I gave them my fully-devoted attention.  This morning I figuratively traveled to Ellijay, Georgia to begin my immersion into Stella Gibson’s world.

The scene I drafted contained two characters.  Stella and Pastor Aiden Walker.  I keyed off Team 3’s character sketch.  It was my responsibility to write the transitions and the scenes whereby Stella interacted with each of the Real Justice’s antagonists. 

Outwardly, Walker’s overarching life’s purpose was to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  He had minored in marketing at the University of Georgia and was always contemplating ways to perk the interest of every resident of Ellijay who were not yet affiliated with First United Baptist Church.  This had prompted his first visit with Stella Gibson, the new editor of the Times-Courier.  During his drive to the newspaper he knew she would likely refer him to her Advertising Manager, but he wanted an opportunity to at least begin a friendly relationship with the woman who was the talk of the town.  Before he walked into her office his mind had been under attack by what his four jaybirds had told him last night at their weekly meeting.  “She’s a single-parent and a former Miss Southern Belle while she was in college at the University of Virginia.  She declined to be a part of Miss America because of a jealous boyfriend.” 

Inwardly, Aiden Walker was a lady’s man, or that’s how he viewed himself.  His wife and his congregation knew him as humble and dedicated to his Lord and Savior.  His four jaybirds knew he enjoyed an occasional Hagar (the Old Testament Abraham’s concubine, his wife Sarah’s servant, who she had shared with her husband and that had led to a little trouble for Abraham, his clan, and the world in perpetuity). So far, Aiden had avoided a public scandal, although there was the finally-hushed rumor among the Church’s deacons that Pastor Walker and the Chairwoman of the WMU had, for over a year during the first decade of the 21st century, been on a very different mission of sorts.  To Aiden’s surprise, the gorgeous Stella had devoted over an hour sharing several ideas that she believed could help him inspire many locals to visit his vibrant First United Baptist Church.  As he returned to the Church’s office he was proud of himself, Stella had agreed to a weekly meeting to closely monitor the responsiveness of the two new ads.

During lunch with Cindy I had reluctantly agreed to attend Prayer Meeting with her tonight.  She was correct in arguing that if we were going to learn the routines of our six red apples we had to hang around their orchard.  I sometimes loved and sometimes hated how Cindy put things.  Here, she was right.  After nearly an hour of prayers that addressed every sickness, temptation, and addiction both known and suspected, Cindy and I hid out in a grove of trees on the edge of the parking lot closest to the east side of the Fellowship Hall.  “I’m pretty sure this is where Pastor Warren exits and heads over to the Parsonage.”  Cindy had said.

The slow drip didn’t begin for another twenty minutes.  First, Fulton and Warren appeared and headed toward the rear of the Parsonage.  Five minutes later, Ryan and Justin drove up and parked within fifty feet of where Cindy and I were standing.  Finally, before the two of them disappeared between a thick hedgerow at the rear of Warren’s place, Danny Ericson exited the Fellowship Hall, walked to his late model Suburban, tossed something in its front seat, and vanished into the dark between the hedges.  Cindy and I waited another fifteen minutes and crept towards the Pastor’s house.  “See why I told you to wear black.”  Cindy whispered as we approached what I could tell now were Blue Hollies.

I was impressed with Cindy’s courage.  After reaching the edge of the Pastor’s yard, I hesitated to move closer.  She had instructed me to “stay here, next to the hedge, keep a lookout.”  I obeyed and worked up a worry that she would be seen or worse, captured by the enemy.  It took her nearly five minutes to reappear.  “Come, follow me.  You have to see this.”

I reluctantly tip-toed behind the daring Cindy.  There was just enough light to make out a set of stairs that headed down to what I assumed would be the basement.  She moved a little to the right as I started down the stairs.  “No.”  She almost shouted, way above a whisper.  “Come here.”  Cindy was down on her belly crawling towards the top of a brick wall that extended above the ground maybe a foot.  I mimicked her and when we both were laying on our sides next to the wall she said, “look over the top but don’t linger.”  When I did I saw six men sitting around a round table a few feet inside a half-lighted room.  The Faking Five and another man, whose back was to me and who seemed to be caught in a light-less zone.  I lowered my head and asked, “who is the other man?  I see the Faking Five.  That’s not Wilkins is it?”

“No, I’m sure of that.  Wilkins is thicker than that.  And, his hair is not as gray.”

Cindy and I had almost lingered at the brick wall too long.  We thought we were caught a few minutes later when Justin and Ryan exited the rear door out onto the patio below and stood next to a pile of firewood.  They each smoked a cigarette and chatted.  Even though we were within ten feet of them we couldn’t quite make out what they were saying.  The central unit was running and drowning out their conversation.  But, just before they walked back inside, the unit shut-down and we heard one of them say, “he’s a smart ass but if he can make Johnson disappear I’ll vote for it.”

After they had gone back inside we lost no time returning to our vehicles.  I told Cindy what we had done was insane and could get us killed.  She insisted we were being wise and cautious.  She also insisted I follow her to MacDonald’s.  She had something else she needed to tell me.

Right as we sat down in a corner booth, over two McCafé French Vanilla Latte’s, Cindy didn’t mince a word.  “I think I’m pregnant.”

“Oh, my heavens.  You’ve got to be kidding.  It’s too soon to know.  What makes you think that?”  I could have continued spouting out a battery of questions.  I had surprised myself that my first thought had connected Cindy’s declaration to Patrick Wilkins, and not her recent disclosure that husband often Steve joked about having ten kids but for the vasectomy Cindy had demanded he have.

“I’ve been spotting.  And, it’s not my time.  Also, I’ve been cramping like you wouldn’t believe.  I did some research because I don’t remember doing this with my other three kids.  It seems my symptoms are common, early signs of pregnancy.  They call it implantation bleeding.  It occurs anywhere from six to twelve days after the egg is fertilized.  It seems many women mistakenly conclude the cramps and the bleeding are simply the start of their monthly period.”

“Oh hell, hell, hell, hell.”  I said believing I was living a dream.  The nightmare was getting worse by the day.  If only Wilkins hadn’t raped Cindy.  I could have dealt with my problems.  Hell, I had dealt with them for nearly fifteen years, holding it together pretty good and raising a fatherless daughter.

“Katie, my worst nightmare is coming true.  After Wilkins raped me I had a dream one night.  I kept asking myself, ‘what if I get pregnant?’  Now, it’s not a dream and I’m asking myself, ‘what am I going to do?’”

“Cindy, you have no choice, no choice at all.  If you are pregnant, and I’m hoping you are wrong, you must have an abortion.”

“Oh, you heathen woman.  I could never do that.”  Cindy said finishing off the first of two cinnamon rolls she had bought.

“So, okay, don’t do that.  Go home tonight and tell Steve the truth.  I’m sure, from what I’ve heard you say, he will simply forgive both you and criminal asshole Wilkins.  And, you and the perfect Steve will live happily ever after raising the bastard child.”  I said regretting the child’s description, realizing that Cullie was identical and I had always loved her with all my heart no matter if I had not been married to her father when she was conceived.

“Don’t say that.  You know I would love the baby with every fiber of my being.  I don’t know what to do.  If Steve hadn’t had a vasectomy I probably would just lie to him, let him believe the baby was his.”

“Oh, so lying is okay, but having an abortion is totally unacceptable?”  I asked.

“For now, I’m just praying for a miscarriage.  Maybe my little problem will simply go away.”

“I hope the resolution is that simple, but if I had to bet, you have a hard road ahead of you.  But please, don’t ever doubt I will be with you every step of the way.  I will never abandon you.  I love you Cindy.”  The words had just flowed out of my mouth.  I felt such compunction to say something truthful and reassuring.  The truth was certainly not reassuring but my commitment to my best friend was both.

“Thanks, dear.  Maybe this is all one big test.  God is seeing how much I love him and how faithful I will be.  He tested Job and he came through the storm.”  Cindy’s faith-talk worried me.  I hadn’t read the Book of Job in ages, but I did remember the central part of the story.  It was all about his suffering and his questioning God.  I had to do my best to help Cindy avoid such pain.

“You better be praying that God works a miracle in Steve’s life and does it in a couple of months at the latest.  If you don’t miscarry, Steve will learn, probably before Christmas, that you are pregnant with another man’s baby.  Maybe God will give Steve an extraordinary ability to forgive.”  I said.

“Forgive, I haven’t done anything wrong.  I didn’t have an affair and got pregnant.  I was raped.  It’s not my fault.”  Cindy, probably unknown to herself, was making a ton of sense.

“Exactly, and that’s why you need to tell him.  Furthermore, it’s why you need to complain to the police.  Please let me talk to Sheriff Waldrup.”

“No and hell no.  A lot can happen in two or three months.  I have to have faith that God will work a miracle and I won’t have to tell anybody.”   Cindy said bowing her head and whispering, “oh dear precious Jesus, help me, please help me.”