Reelfoot: Carson Reno Mystery Series, #11

Reelfoot

a

Carson Reno Mystery

Written

by

Gerald W. Darnell

Reelfoot

Copyright © 2013 by Gerald W. Darnell

Published by cr press

ISBN: 978-1-304-49356-9

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.

Gerald W. Darnell

carsonreno@msn.com

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

Be sure to check out Carson Reno’s other Mystery Adventures

Murder in Humboldt

The Price of Beauty in Strawberry Land

Killer Among Us

Horse Tales

SUnset  4

the Crossing

the Illegals

the Everglades

Dead Men Don’t Remember

The Fingerprint Murders

Justifiable Homicide

Dead End

Murder and  More

Cast of Characters

Carson Reno - Private Detective

Joe Richardson – Associate Drake Detective Agency

Carson – The English Bulldog

Rita - Hostess Starlight Lounge

Marcie – Peabody Hotel Operator

Andy – Bartender Down Under

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

Nickie/Ronnie Woodson – Owners Chief’s Motel and Restaurant

Tommy Trubush – Carhop Chief’s

Florence (Flo) – Waitress at Chief’s

Loveland Moore – Waitress at Chief’s

Dr. Harold Barker – Gibson County Coroner

Jack Logan – Attorney /Partner

Leroy Epsee – Sheriff Gibson County

Chip Falstaff – Captain Tennessee Highway Patrol

Jeff Cole – Deputy Gibson County

Scotty Perry – Deputy Gibson County

Nancy Oakland – Deputy 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

MoMo Murphy – Memphis Mafia

Jimmy ‘clean-hands’ Sweeny – Memphis Mafia

Steve Carrollton – Head of Memphis Mafia

Garrett Steel – Former Memphis Policeman

Connie Brasfield Steel – Wife of Garrett Steel

Luther Tool – Bait shop worker

Beauregard (Bo) Cribbs - Lake County Sheriff

Irwin Clark – Reporter for the Commercial Appeal

Whit Sterling – Obion County Sheriff

Jerry ‘Hudson’ Henley – Humboldt Resident

Barney Barnett (Barry) – Teamsters

Joey Pitera (Joe) - Teamsters

Rodney Goodyear – Connie’s boyfriend

Benjamin Hubble - Teamsters

Melvin Snipes – Dispatcher Maxwell Trucking

Cletus Hickey – Lake County Deputy

Larry ‘the lip’ Lewis – Memphis Mafia

Tommy ‘toenail’ Turner – Memphis Mafia

L. D. Newell – Mayor Humboldt

Mike Barker – Alderman Humboldt

Dedication

George and Dot Bunch

Samburg, TN

Contribution Credits

Elizabeth Tillman White

Judy Steele Minnehan

Mary Ann Sizer Fisher

Material Credits

Reelfoot Chamber of Commerce

Humboldt Public Library

Gibson County Historical Website

Humboldt Courier Chronicle

Strawberry Museum

Libby Lynch

Prologue

An ex-Memphis cop and a friend of Carson is in trouble – but what kind of trouble?

While trying to answer that question, Carson finds more questions - and all with no answers.

What Carson also finds is trouble coming from all directions. The Mafia, the Teamsters Union, an unhappy sheriff and some very rough characters are all looking for his friend, and Carson is in the middle of this mess.

An apparently senseless murder only complicates Carson’s problems, which makes getting to the truth more difficult.

Things are not what they seem in Carson Reno’s adventure at ‘Reelfoot’

Chapters

Reelfoot – Fact and Legend

Beginning

Gone Fishing

Garrett Steel

Confused

Murder

Humboldt

Samburg

Sheriff Cribbs

Information

More than a party

The Key

Bad News

More Bad News

Bait

Restitution

Truth

––––––––

Life is cheap – make sure you buy enough  ®

Carson Reno

Humboldt/Trenton/Milan and Jackson, Tennessee

Gibson/Madison and Crockett County

––––––––

Reelfoot – Fact and Legend

In the northwestern part of Tennessee, near the Kentucky boarder is an eighteen-thousand-acre body of water named Reelfoot Lake. The lake is 20 miles long, seven miles wide and sits only three and a half miles from the Mississippi River.

Reelfoot Lake is located 100 miles from Memphis, 50 miles from Humboldt, 20 miles from the Kentucky State Line and 48 miles from New Madrid, Missouri.  The 48 miles to New Madrid are via the Dorena-Hickman Ferry, which travels the Mississippi River between Dorena, Missouri and Hickman, Kentucky.

Reelfoot Lake was formed by an earthquake, which occurred sometime in February 1812. Between mid-December 1811 and mid-March 1812 a series of catastrophic earthquakes shook West Tennessee and the rest of the Central Mississippi Valley. Judging from reports and eyewitness accounts, the quakes would have measured among the highest ever recorded on the modern Richter scale. Some reports said that the quakes were strong enough to awaken sleepers in Washington, D.C., and allegedly some tremors were felt twelve hundred miles away in Quebec City, Canada. The first of these historic quakes occurred in the St. Francis River area of northeast Arkansas; the second struck five weeks later and several miles to the northeast. Two weeks after that the third and strongest of the three quakes hit the area, with its epicenter still further north, at the little river port town of New Madrid, Missouri. The last of these three quakes is estimated to be the strongest ever recorded on the North American continent. 

Geologists associate this early quake activity with the New Madrid or Central United States seismic zone. This ill-defined series of deeply buried faults runs roughly parallel to the Mississippi River Valley. The zone extends from Cairo, Illinois, south through Missouri to Marked Tree, Arkansas. A side branch also extends into the Reelfoot Lake region of northwest Tennessee.

Since the affected region was a sparsely settled frontier, few written accounts exist of the early quakes. According to a few personal diary entries and scanty eyewitness accounts quoted in local newspapers, the endless days and nights of earth tremors and thousands of aftershocks must have been dreadful to experience. Few settlers had ever experienced a quake.

The quakes caused much destruction along the Mississippi River as far south as present-day Memphis and as far up the Ohio River as Indiana. During the strongest of the quakes, great cracks and fissures opened and spewed out sand and water. Gaping crevices formed, some twelve feet wide and deep and more than twenty feet in length. Low waterfalls developed at points along the Mississippi in the vicinity of New Madrid. They were short-lived, however, in the soft sediments of the river valley. Shifting currents and changing flows along the Mississippi, Ohio, Arkansas, and other rivers created and destroyed islands, sandbars, and other familiar features. The quakes caused waves to rush over riverbanks. Return currents washed countless limbs and even whole trees into the main channels. Massive logjams formed, making navigation even more perilous.

Many boats capsized, and cargoes and crews were never seen again. Seasoned riverboat pilots had to deal with whole new rivers. Cracks and fissures, downed trees, and other obstacles made roads and trails impassable. Massive landslides occurred along the Mississippi and Ohio River bluffs from Memphis to Indiana. Some ground areas rose or fell as much as twenty feet relative to the surrounding landscape. An eighteen- to twenty-acre area near Piney River in Tennessee sank so low that the tops of the trees were at the same level as the surrounding ground. Whole forests sank below their original level, filled with water to form swamps and shallow lakes. The eighteen-thousand-acre Reelfoot Lake was either formed or enlarged during the 1811-12 earthquake. In other areas, lakes and swamps rose to higher elevations. Soon their waters drained away or evaporated. In time they evolved into prairies and upland forests. Much of this land now supports Tennessee cotton and soybeans.

As devastating as these early quakes were, destruction in human terms was light. Population was sparse, and Indians, traders, and settlers were quite self-sufficient, capable, and resilient. Due to a lack of census records and other reliable counts, the exact number of people who perished, as a result of the quakes will never be known.

~

Legend says that at the beginning of the 19th century, a tribe of the Chickasaw was ruled by a mighty Chief. His heart was heavy, for his son had been born with a deformed foot. As the boy grew and developed normally, his walk was different from all the other Indians. He walked and ran with a rolling, so his people called him Kalopin, meaning Reelfoot.

When the old chief died, Reelfoot became Chief. He, too, was sad and lonely, for none of the Indian maidens had stirred in him thoughts of love. His father had often told him of the mighty tribes dwelling to the south, and of the wondrous beauty of their maidens. So, restless in spirit, when the robins arrived from the north, he wandered south in search of a princess.

After many days of travel, he reached the land of the great Choctaw Chief, Copiah. Reelfoot then beheld his dream princess, more beautiful than he had ever dared imagine, sitting close by the side of the Chief, her father. After they had eaten and smoked the peace pipe, Reelfoot asked for the old chief’s daughter in marriage. Old Copiah was filled with wrath because he did not wish his daughter to marry a deformed chief and told Reelfoot that his daughter could only be given in wedlock to a Choctaw chieftain.

The old chief called on the Great Spirit who spoke to Reelfoot and said that an Indian must not steal his wife from any neighboring tribe, for such was tribal law. If he disobeyed and carried off the princess the Great Spirit would cause the earth to rock and the waters to swallow up his village and bury his people in a watery grave. Reelfoot was frightened at this threat of dire punishment and sorrowfully returned home.

By the end of the next summer, he decided to ignore the wrath of the Great Spirit and to steal the forbidden maiden. He stole the maiden, Laughing Eyes, and returned home to the great rejoicing of his people. Laughing Eyes was greatly frightened for she had heard what the Great Spirit had said to Reelfoot and begged that he send her back to her father. Reelfoot was so much in love that he was willing to defy everything.

In the midst of the celebration and the marriage rites, the earth began to roll in rhythm with kettledrums and tom-toms. The Indians tried to flee to the hills, but the rocking earth made them reel and stagger. Chief Reelfoot and his bride reeled also and the Great Spirit stomped his foot in anger. The Father of Waters heard the stomp, and, backing on his course, rushed over Reelfoot’s country.

Where the Great Spirit stomped the earth the Mississippi formed a beautiful lake, at the bottom of which lay Chief Reelfoot, his bride, and his people. Such is the Indian legend of Reelfoot Lake.

––––––––

Beginning

Garrett Steel is an ex-Memphis cop and a friend of Carson Reno.  Garrett Steel is also a drunk.

However, three years ago things were different – very different. Garrett Steel was the number one cop in the city’s Second Precinct, highly respected and, at that time, a big pain in the ass for the Memphis Mafia.  Relentlessly, he followed their every move, and was single-handedly costing Steve Carrollton and his crew thousands of dollars on a daily basis.  But, Garrett Steel was walking on dangerous ground, and he knew it. Garrett Steel was an honest cop and a good cop – those qualities cost him his job and a whole lot more.

~

Over a few beers in a sleazy Beale Street bar, one of his trusted informants told Garrett about a planned meeting between Steve Carrollton and one of the kingpins in the elaborate Mafia network—Tony Scarsetti.  The meeting was scheduled to take place at an empty warehouse on South Front Street, and during this meeting, some serious money would be changing hands. The money was a payoff from the Memphis Mafia to the East Coast Family and represented thousands of dollars generated by local illegal activities.  This was exactly the kind of information Garrett Steel wanted, and he saw this as his chance to bust a big hole in the Memphis Mafia’s operation.  If he could catch Steve Carrollton and Tony Scarsetti exchanging money, then maybe the Memphis District Attorney’s Office would finally listen to him and take some action. But, Garrett needed proof—some genuine proof.  Up until now the DA had refused to take any real action against Carrollton, and Garrett was getting frustrated.  Maybe, just maybe, this would be what he needed. 

Located on a dark stretch of South Front Street, and high on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River, is a stretch of vacant warehouses that were once used to store cotton.  Those days are past, and now most cotton was sold through the Exchange before it ever left the field.  It went from the field, to the cotton gin and then to its predetermined destination – avoiding expensive warehousing and storage. Now only a small portion of the cotton brought through the Memphis market traveled via the river, with the majority being transported by truck or rail to the mills.

This left dozens of empty, rotting and shabby buildings in this dismal area of Southwest Memphis - now used only by the homeless, the drug dealers and the rats – both the four and two-legged kind!

Located near the end of one of these rows of warehouses was a two-story brick and wood building, with the name D. H. Overmyer painted in fading white letters along one wall. The windows, what few remained, were long ago painted over – to keep the light and heat away from the stored cotton.  The rest had suffered the fate of some vandal’s rock, or just some kids testing their pitching skills.

It was in this warehouse, according to Garrett’s informant, that Carrollton and Scarsetti would be meeting.  It was scheduled for 10:00 PM, and they would only be together for fifteen minutes—maximum.  Garrett’s window of time was small, so he arrived early – he didn’t intend on missing any part of their rendezvous.

Hiding on a side street in his unmarked car, Garrett staked out the warehouse and waited, and waited, and waited. The scheduled meeting never happened.

What DID happen was MoMo Murphy and Jimmy ‘clean hands’ Sweeny! 

At 11:00 PM Garrett was tired of sitting and decided to leave his car and check out the inside of the warehouse – he didn’t get far.  Only a few steps up the sidewalk, Sweeny appeared from a dark doorway and stuck his automatic in his ribs.  Before Garrett could react, MoMo Murphy walked up from behind, hit him at the base of his neck, and Garrett folded down to the concrete like a cheap suit.

While MoMo’s huge arms drug Garrett’s limp body back to the car, Sweeny stuck a syringe in Garret’s arm—putting a small amount of heroin in his bloodstream.  Not a lot of drug, just enough to make him sleep for an hour or so.

After laying Garrett across the