the Everglades: Carson Reno Mystery Series, #5

the

Everglades

Copyright © 2012 by Gerald W. Darnell

ISBN: 978-1-105-24363-9

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews, without written permission from the publisher.

cr press

Gerald W. Darnell

carsonreno@msn.com

The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real person, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Cast of Characters

Carson Reno - Private Detective

Joe Richardson – Associate Drake Detective Agency

Rita - Hostess ‘Starlight Lounge’

Marcie – Peabody Hotel Telephone Operator

Andy – Bartender ‘Down Under’

Mason ‘Booker-T’ Brown – Head Porter Peabody Hotel

Nickie/Ronnie Woodson – Owners Chiefs Motel and Restaurant

Tommy Trubush – Carhop Chiefs

Jack Logan – Attorney /Partner

Leroy Epsee – Sheriff Gibson County

Jeff Cole – Deputy Gibson County

Scotty Perry – Deputy Gibson County

Nancy Oakland – Deputy Gibson County

Dr. Harold Barker – Coroner Gibson County

Elizabeth Teague – Airline Stewardess and friend of Carson’s

Mary Ellen Maxwell – Humboldt Socialite and owner of Maxwell Trucking

Judy Strong – Vice President of Maxwell Trucking

Gerald Wayne – Owner Wayne Knitting Mill

Nuddy – Bartender Humboldt Country Club

Larry Parker – Chief of Detectives Shelby County

Steve Carrollton – Head of Memphis Mafia family

Robert Earl – Fishing guide in Everglades City

Tony Scarsetti – Head of the East Coast Mafia family

Lewis LaForge (L.L.) – Head of the New Orleans Mafia family

Jose Lewis Chavito – Crime Lord in San Juan, Puerto Rico

James Henry King – Mafia Associate

Johnie Gibson – Mafia Associate

Nathan ‘Noodles’ Galey – Airport Worker

Sanford Galey – Half- brother of Nathan – lives in Humboldt

Jan Guthrie – Airline Stewardess

Jane Dudley – Airline Stewardess

‘MoMo’ Murphy – Mafia Associate

Jimmy ‘clean hands’ Sweeny – Mafia Associate

Hanson Collier – Jan Guthrie’s boyfriend

Florence (Flo) – Waitress at Chiefs

Mavis – Waitress at Chiefs

Marlon Crow – Owner Humboldt Truck Stop

Richard P. ‘Dick’ Valentine – Former Humboldt Chief of Police

Ivan Negron – Airport Worker

Joe ‘Spider’ Torino - Pilot

Frankie ‘Loose Wheel’ Carbone - Pilot

Sam Maranzano – Mafia Associate

Paulie Santore – Mafia Associate

Joey Gallo – Mafia Associate

Angelo Bruno – Mafia Associate

Katie Mueller – Owner Rose Lane Villas

Camilo Rivera – Colombian Enforcer

Julio Escobar – Colombian Drug King

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Dedication

To my close and dear friends Dennis and Elizabeth Hansen and his parents Don and Alice Hansen.  Don passed away in 2011, I’m sorry he didn’t get to read the book.

Contribution Credits

Elizabeth Tillman White

Judy Steele Minnehan

Mary Ann Sizer Fisher

Material Credits

Humboldt Public Library

Gibson County Historical Website

Humboldt Courier Chronicle

Everglades National Park

Libby Lynch

Prologue

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It’s 1962 and the Mafia has discovered some new tricks in getting their drugs from Colombia to the streets of America.

Their plans are working perfectly until an unfortunate boating accident puts the FBI back on their trail.

Carson’s friend, Elizabeth Teague, has a large amount of cash hidden in her luggage and this cash belongs to the Mafia.  They want it back.

Protecting his friend and sorting through the details, Carson finds himself in the middle of a conspiracy that has roots in Humboldt.  He also finds a murder with too many suspects. 

From the Everglades, to Puerto Rico, to Memphis, to Humboldt, to Key West - join Carson as he tries to separate the good guys from the bad guys in

‘the Everglades’.

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Life is cheap – make sure you buy enough

Carson Reno

Introduction

After the big fire at the Rod and Gun Club, money for most of the residents of Everglades City was difficult to find.  Hotel workers and fishing guides were hit the hardest; tourism for this small town at the edge of the Florida Everglades shut down. 

But Robert Earl had contacts, and he found some easy money.

On a prescheduled night, once every two weeks, Robert Earl and his two companions went on a midnight fishing trip.  They would gas up their 21 foot 1959 Glasspar Seafair Sedan, load minimal bait and head out through the ‘Ten Thousand Island’ area of the Everglades.

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Leaving Chokoloskee Bay, they traveled out the Barron River through Capri Pass.  At ‘Turtle Island’ they set their compass on a 180-degree reading and the throttle to 20 miles per hour.  Tides must be taken into account and speed adjusted accordingly, but the plan was a 2-hour/40-mile run, headed directly south into the Gulf of Mexico.

At the designated rendezvous point, they brought the engine to idle and turned on large lights – providing an easy sight for the plane that would soon be searching for them.

The small plane always circled twice before dropping 6 large packages, which looked much like bales of hay.  Then Robert Earl and his two associates would retrieve the floating packages, store them on board and begin the two-hour trip back to Chokoloskee harbor.  Arriving before daylight, they would dock and leave their cargo stored in the lower ‘cuddy’ section of the boat.  The next morning the cargo would be gone, replaced by a small plastic bag containing cash - substantial cash.  This was easy money!

Their final trip would be very different.  A hurricane was rolling across South Florida, and Robert Earl had tried to delay the regular scheduled drop.  However, his Mafia contacts were simply not interested in his concerns.  Either Robert Earl makes the pick-up or they would find somebody else; Robert Earl had no choice.  This was easy money and he needed it.

Seas were 12 – 15 feet, and just getting to the rendezvous point was a challenge.  However, they somehow managed to reach the drop area and maintain their position for over an hour.  When the plane finally arrived, it had difficulty flying in the storm and the bales were dropped much farther away than normal.  After another hour of fighting the waves, Robert Earl and his two associates finally boarded the last bale and headed for the safety of harbor.  That trip didn’t last long.

The first wave crossed the bow at a 45-degree angle – turning the boat sideways and making it an easy target for the next one.  Within moments, the boat was engulfed with seawater and began to sink; it was gone in less than two minutes – the engine still sputtering as it slipped beneath the surface of the water.

In desperation, Robert Earl and his two associates clang to debris and floating wreckage, while bouncing up and down in the 15-foot seas.  They had no life jackets, but that really didn’t matter.  There was no life 40 miles out in the Gulf of Mexico during a hurricane – only death.

At daylight the sharks came quickly and relentlessly.  Within an hour, Robert Earl and his two associates became victims of the sea and the hurricane.  All was lost of them, their boat and their existence.  All except the floating bales!

It took weeks, but eventually the floating bales found their way to shore.  Most of the bales made landfall around the ‘Lost Man’s’ River area and a nearby Ranger Station. They were quickly recovered and a massive FBI investigation began.  More drugs were making their way into the United States and the Florida Everglades appeared to be a major entry point.

Humboldt/Milan/Trenton and Jackson, Tennessee

Gibson/Madison and Crockett County

It is possible that infidelity has made me what I am today.  It does, however, provide me with rent money and the satisfaction of providing a service to those in need.

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Carson Reno

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Contacts

gator silhouette It was called ‘Organized Crime’ because it was just that - organized. Mafia was the name most recognized and ‘the underworld’ was a name used by those who didn’t know any better.

Prostitution, illegal gambling, illegal booze, protection rackets, extortion and corrupt labor unions – ‘organized crime’ had a solid grip on the nation’s vices.  But, drugs were where the big money was made.  Profits were astronomical and the risks minimal.  All they needed was a source for the product, a way to receive the product and a way to make payment to the source.  Distribution was left to another ‘lower’ element of society.  The Mafia simply made the drugs available, collected the profits and ignored the consequences.  It made perfect sense.

Under the Gambino organization, three Mafia families were involved in this massive operation. Family head, Lewis LaForge (L.L.), was in control of New Orleans and most adjacent southern states – except Florida.  Mafia family leader Tony Scarsetti was located in New Jersey.  With his enormous crime family, he ran all the organized crime activities in states along the eastern seaboard – including Florida.  A part of his family, headed by Sam Maranzano, handled transportation of the product to distribution points.  Steve Carrollton was head of the Memphis Mafia and controlled the mid-southern states, including Tennessee, Arkansas, Kentucky and Missouri.

It was L.L. (Lewis LaForge) who came up with the idea of bringing shipments in through the massive Everglades; there they could avoid the attention of the FBI.  All ports of entry were under a microscope by FBI agents, and getting the product into the country was a real challenge - here enters Everglades City.  And along with it, the idea to use disguised normal activity in a depressed area for the gain of ‘organized crime’ and the Mafia.

Everglades City is located 5 miles south of the southernmost East to West Highway in Florida – the Tamiami Trail – US Hwy 41 and SR 90.  It runs 79 miles from Napes to Miami/Ft. Lauderdale.  A two-lane road sometimes termed ‘Alligator Alley’.

us 41 CR 90

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The Everglades encompass almost 2 million acres of land in South Florida.  Most is covered by water and very few areas are habitable.  One of the exceptions is a place known as the ‘Ten Thousand Islands’ area, which offers one of the few navigable accesses to the Gulf of Mexico.  Reaching the ‘Ten Thousand Island’ area can only be accomplished by travel to Everglades City, which is located 5 miles south of Hwy 29. Getting to the real water requires another 3-mile travel across an open causeway to Chokoloskee Island.  There the road simply ends.  Ahead is the Gulf of Mexico, and to the North, East and West – the Everglades. 

This is where L.L. decided to set up operations.

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The area is an outdoorsman and fisherman’s dream. It had an abundance of Snook and Redfish in the backwater, and deep-water fishing to fit every angler’s need.  These terrific fishing opportunities brought people to Everglades City and Chokoloskee Island by the hundreds every year.  They fought mosquitoes and the elements, to fish in some of the best fresh and salt-water areas in Florida.  Residents, guides and merchants all prospered – times were good.

Things changed suddenly.

Rod and Gun Club

When the hotel at the Everglades City Rod and Gun Club burned it wasn’t the end, but just the beginning of the end.  The obvious loss of employment for the hotel workers and restaurant staff only compounded the situation into a larger disaster.  While other public and private businesses tried to compensate, the damage had already been done.  The big spenders, the high rollers and the upscale tourist sought other destinations.  Guide business went into the toilet, and it wasn’t helped by newly passed fish size limit and catch rules.

Before it all came apart, Robert Earl had made a decent living with his fishing guide business; and on an occasional tourist that just wanted to see the Everglades.  His boat was large enough to handle five fishing, and fifteen if they just wanted to see the territory.  Life was comfortable for him, his wife and their two young children in this small Florida town - located deep in the Everglades.

His job in the illegal drug business started innocently and with a call from a friend of a friend - it escalated from there.  At first he had refused, believing that things would soon return to the way it used to be; but quickly he realized that wasn’t going to happen.  He had always been a good provider, and it hurt watching his family suffer.  Robert Earl needed money, and