The Big Seal

by Andrew McAleer

About the Author: Andrew McAleer is the author of numerous books including the 101 Habits of Highly Successful Novelists, A Miscellany of Murder (co-author) and Fatal Deeds. He also co-edits with Shamus winner Paul D. Marks the Coast to Coast mystery anthology series. Mr. McAleer teaches at Boston College and serves as a full-time police officer. As a Sergeant he served in Afghanistan as a U.S. Army Historian.

Excerpt

Nearly five short decades ago, with my father and grandfather by my side, I raised my right hand and took the oath of office as a Notary Public. Then I signed the mammoth ledger located in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ Secretary of State’s Office. Then I was in the thick of it—big league. And I’ve been in the fray ever since.

My name is Francis Xavier Sullivan and I’m a third-generation notary public from Southie. That’s South Boston to those of you chowderheads who don’t know your ankle from your elbow. I’m a hardboiled, hard sealing, hard-nosed notary. My duty as a notary public is to authenticate signatures on behalf of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Make sure things are done on the up-and-up and on the level. That documents are signed by folks who are of sound mind and by their own free act and deed not under undue influence—making sure the little guy gets an even strain. At a statutory cap of a buck-fifty a whack, it’s a tough living, but it’s duty to my fellow man more so than a greed for greenbacks that keeps me spreading shoeleather in the big city and punching docs with my notarial seal. That’s right—like my father and his father before him, I pack a heavy-metal, alloy seal—I don’t use no stinking pre-inked stamp like a couple of two-bit chiselers I’ll tell you about later.

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