Disinterred

Chapter Five - Research and Development

     Hi, honey. Hi, baby.  "Now I don't need the wheel chair I can walk on my own power!"  (Wife and nurse visibly upset with Dan)  Sir! Sir! It's detective ma'am.   Well, okay then and it's registered nurse to you and I am telling you that you will not be discharged from this hospital until you allow us to wheel you to the front door understand, detective? Ah, hell what is all the big fuss about?  I'm just as ready to get home and eat catfish as anybody.  Honey, did your dad ever get back about the research he was doing for me?  

     No! No! No! You just stop worry about it now.  You heard the other officers there is no evidence of what happened they told you to go home and rest!  Do you think the families of the victims want me to go home and rest?  Now dammit Detective Dan Stevens I am not going to bury my husband because he went off and got himself killed chasing after something that can't and probably never will be solved.  

     So just let it be now, okay!  It's my job!  You knew when you married me that there would be some chances that I might get injured from time to time and I have always come home so don't give me any shit,  okay!  Yes, but you always came home! Home! This time you were gone for three days! Three days!  Three days I sat up crying, for three days I wondered if I was going to have to plan a funeral, for three days I I.....(crying)  

     Calm down baby, I promise you after this case I will put in my walking papers and take early retirement with the force.  Maybe I can get a job teaching like dad.  This case.  This case! It is always after this case!  Well, dammit honey!  You tell people to stop getting murdered and disappearing and I will stop working.  Now when I get home I don't want to hear anymore about it sugar.

     (Beep, beep, beep, alarm clock sounds off)  Wake up honey.  Thank you I've got some things I need to do these morning do you want breakfast?  What do you have to do?  Well, I was up all night reading and I need to talk to your father.  

     Okay, but after this case that's it.  I want you to retire from the police department and be home safe and sound with me.  Okay, I promise last one.  I mean it Dan! This better be the very last one! (Detective Stevens arrives at father in laws)  

     Hi, Dan come on in, how are you?  I'm fine, just little bit of headache and a few scrapes, but it is a lot better than what happened to McManus.  Yes,  the Gentry plantation I heard you all had a bit of trouble there this weekend.  So I started researching the area right after you had left that day.  I couldn't find much at first and then I went to the county archives found some interesting information.  

      The Gentry's owned about twelve- hundred slaves, had four sons and three daughters.   They made more money in Mississippi than the average cotton plantation.  Gentry was a very savvy business man.  When he saw that Abraham Lincoln didn't even make the ballet in any of the southern states he must have seen the writing on the wall.  

     I found thousands upon thousands of documents where it appears that he started selling off all of his cotton reserves for a discount.  He sold all three of his ships and sent his three daughters as far north as possible to Maine. Hmm....sounds like Gentry didn't think the south was going to win the war.

     Once the state of South Carolina announced it had succeeded from the union Gentry started to send his oldest son out to collect on debts that were still owed to the family.  The cotton which was an astonishing eighty-thousand tons was then picked up by ships from England.  

     There are no existing records of just how much money Gentry had made from these transactions, but it must have been a lot.  Once the war broke out his three youngest sons joined the 11th Mississippi Infantry Division led by Lieutenant Colonel Liddell.  They were quickly ordered to defend the town of  Corinth from the Union armies invasion.  They fought in some very serious engagements throughout the war.  They fought with Jackson's brigade, Picketts, and Hood's. 

     Now you were in the cotton shoots under the barns  correct?  Yes, but those tunnels ran for miles.  Well,  Gentry was a second generation plantation owner.  His father fought in the seven years war, as well as the war for independence so that land has been worked for a very long time and at that time was one of the oldest plantations in Mississippi.  

     He more than likely started building those tunnels on a completely different plantation and he just continued the tradition.  So I spent hours racking my brain as to why these tunnels ran so far like you say and the whole time I had the answer in front of me on my desk.  

    Detective Stevens, "What do you mean Dad?"  Well, I have you ever heard the term all I have to do is die and pay taxes?  Yes, well even in the 1800's people still had to pay taxes. They didn't like to do that especially in the South.

    Planters knew that when tariff rates go up, cotton prices go down so the Gentry's who were extremely successful probably used these underground shoots to smuggle cotton out along with what ever else they could.  So anything that Gentry bought or sold would have been subject to that tariff or future tariff's.  

     The south felt northern manufacturers sought to use the government as an instrument to interfere with southern international trade to benefit their own domestic commerce.  So I am assuming that is why there is no money paper trail.  This may also explain why Gentry had so many slaves.  

     If he was to meet a slave ship out at sea with one of his ships he could then get the pick of the litter so to speak and at a discounted rate.  Besides owning three ships and three plantations, he also owned businesses in England.  Wow!!  The artifact you left on my desk was not a part of a civil war rifle, but a key.  

     Detective Stevens, "a key?"  Yes, a very big iron key, to an iron door.  You see hear where it has the Gentry family crest.  Now three of his boys went to war, but the oldest boy stayed and that got me thinking.  Why did his oldest stay?  He had that right because his family owned more than twenty slaves, but why did his three brothers go and he didn't?  He was only thirty-three.

     That made me think harder.  What if Gentry's oldest son did not force his lover to be with him, but instead she loved him and willingly wanted to be with him?  After all she did teach him how to speak her language. I need to go to the Gentry plantation. Detective Stevens, "what dad?"  I have to find out what door this key goes to.  

     Well, we can't go down there it is a crime scene now and I wouldn't let you anyway. It's to dangerous.  Yeah, but what is an iron door doing anywhere on the plantation and what was its purpose?  Well, with all the research I have done.  It is leading to something sinister on the Gentry land.  

     So lets see what we have.. four sons and three daughters.  Three ships and three farms.  One son stays and three leave almost to certain slaughter....Now old man Gentry left shortly after the invasion by the union army and his older son and the remaining slaves on the plantation were never seen again.  They simple just disappeared. 

     It was assumed that his slaves got pinned up in the, "Devils Punch Bowl," by the union and died, but that doesn't explain what happened to his oldest son. I've got to do some more research. What do you have planned for the rest of the day.  Detective Stevens, "well lets go.  Where we heading dad?" To do more research son, more research.