Escape to the Redneck Riviera

By Thomas M. Campbell

From the banks of the Verdigris River in Oklahoma to Floridas Emerald Coast, this novel chronicles Steve Bronsons planned disappearance and the efforts of his wife and an insurance company investigator to prove he has not drowned..

In Florida, Steve assumes a new name and becomes both a nightclub pianist and a crewmember on a fishing boat. He meets a female singer who will add a new dimension to this family-friendly novel.

Steve steps in to help senior citizens who are being victimized by a scam artist and also foils a scheme involving forged drug prescriptions. Working with law enforcement officials, Steve uncovers a plan to involve college coeds in dangerous and illegal activity, and stops physicians who are performing bogus surgery.

This novel vividly portrays life along the worlds most beautiful beaches. There is adventure, romance, and a high-tiding scene you will never forget.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 26, 2013
• ISBN: 9781493104390

Thomas M. Campbell

Thomas M. Campbell is a lifelong Tulsan but knows the Florida Panhandle well because of many vacation trips. He has three daughters, eleven grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. Charlotte, his wife of fifty-three years, died in December 2011. During a writing careers spanning nearly a half century, Campbell has worked as a sports writer for two major newspapers and in editorial, public relations, and marketing management positions for the U.S. Jaycees, Cities Service Company, and Tulsa Regional Medical Center, which is now the Oklahoma State University Medical Center. Tom wrote the first complete history of the Jaycee movement and co-authored with his sister, the late Mary Elizabeth Wieman, a history of Tulsa Regional. Campbell has a bachelor’s degree from Oklahoma State University and master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Tulsa. This novel is the stellar work in Tom’s versatile writing career.

Book preview

Chapter 1

I’d like to feed Steve to some of those catfish he’s so crazy about, Vickie Bronson told her guests. He promised to be back from fishing by seven-thirty and ready to play cards by eight. It’s going on nine so maybe we should have dessert and forget the game.

It’s my guess that the fish were biting, and he forgot all about the time, Dr. Dan Brown said. I like to fish but Steve loves to fish.

Dr. Dan’s wife, Molly, walked toward the kitchen to cut pieces of her fabled apple pie.

He doesn’t know what he’s missing because of a few catfish. We seldom eat them, Vicky said. He releases most of the fish and brings back just a few for us, and the Caseys next door. The Verdigris River is so muddy, I certainly don’t miss them.

Just as they were finishing their pie, served with sharp cheddar cheese from Vermont, the phone rang. This surely was Steve, concocting some kind of excuse.

Vickie answered with a curt, Where in hell have you been? After a pause she said, Pardon me, Sheriff Jenkins. Please repeat what you were you saying about Steve?

Her expression became more and more troubled as she listened to the sheriff. She finally replied, Yes, I can be up there at the river by ten in the morning. See you then.

In unison the Browns asked, What’s wrong, Vickie?

That was Sheriff Ted Jenkins from near Verdigris. It seems a teenage boy, planning on a little night fishing, came across where Steve had been. His tackle box was still there, and his fishing pole was tangled in a tree branch. There was no sign of Steve, and the sheriff thinks he might have fallen into the river. His Jeep is still up on the state highway. I told the sheriff I’d see him in the morning to learn more and bring back his vehicle.

The Browns agreed to pick her up at nine-fifteen, and Dr. Dan tried to reassure her. I’ll bet you will hear from him tonight. If he fell in, the chances are good he’s back on shore and headed back for the Jeep and home.

His homecoming is going to be pretty damn rocky, Vicky said. If he is hungry, he can make his own peanut butter sandwich with no jelly.

After the Browns left, Vickie lay in bed for a couple of hours, but there was no phone call. She slept fitfully until getting up at about seven. She switched on the early TV news, thinking something might have been reported, but there was no mention of the incident on any of the three big local stations.

By the time the Browns arrived, her anxiety had been fueled by three cups of strong coffee. Molly offered Vickie a donut and a cup of coffee as she got into their Chrysler Sebring.

The donut will be fine, Vickie said, but if I drink another cup of coffee, you’ll probably need to call 911.

They spoke little on the drive up Highway 66 and then onto State Road 14 where a bridge crossed the Verdigris River. They saw Steve’s tan Jeep and next to it the sheriff’s black-and-white Crown Victoria.

After brief introductions, Sheriff Jenkins said, I found his name and address from insurance papers in the glove compartment. Your phone number was there too.

I really have nothing new to report. If Steve fell in the river, he has not come ashore so far as we know. Let’s go down to where he was fishing. The path is a bit rough, so be careful.

Molly and Vickie were wearing walking shoes, and Dr. Dan had on cowboy boots, so they made it down the riverbank without problems. A snake wriggled in front of them, but Sheriff Jenkins said, "Don’t worry. It’s a harmless grass snake. The cottonmouth moccasins stay in the river.

When it comes to bites, the biggest worries around here are the chiggers and ticks. You’ll want to look yourselves over carefully when you get home and take a long hot shower. Rocky Mountain spotted fever comes from ticks. It is not a common disease, but it can take you out for the count if you get it.

Molly shuddered. With a hundred places to fish in Oklahoma, why in the world did Steve pick this miserable spot?

It’s simple, the sheriff said. "There are very few rivers with as many good-sized catfish as the Verdigris. They love its muddy waters. No one chooses to swim in the river, but it sure attracts the hard-core fishermen. Early evening or nighttime are popular times to fish.

We’re there, he continued. That little rock ledge is where he was fishing. It’s a popular spot, easy to cast from without a lot of undergrowth. His tackle box is still there, untouched. I had a deputy keep people from coming down here during the night or messing with his Jeep up above. An unwatched car in an isolated place is mighty attractive to thieves.

The ledge was about twenty feet wide, relatively smooth but covered with a lot of small rocks and gravel. It was two feet above the river.

As I see it, the sheriff said, Steve decided to cast far out into the stream. As his fishing rod tells us, he was using a treble hook, baited with chicken liver. There was a heavy sinker on the line so the bait would go to the river bottom where catfish love to feed. He probably used a very hefty swing of the rod and stumbled into the water, letting go of the fishing pole as he fell.

Vickie and Molly were silent, but Dr. Dan asked a question. Sheriff, do you think he could have gone under and drowned?

I think that’s a reasonable assumption. Can I presume he was rather heavily dressed, Vickie, or do you know?

Yes, when he left the house, he had on jeans, a flannel shirt, a windbreaker, hiking boots, and a cowboy hat.

That would make for difficult swimming, the sheriff said, and since it is May, the water is still cold. It’s also deep and swift from the heavy spring rains. We did find his hat about fifty yards downstream, washed up on the bank. Again, no sign of Steve. His body might be quite a ways downstream before it hits the shore, if it ever does.

What do you mean if it ever does? Vickie asked.

In the last five years, we have had two confirmed cases of people drowning in the river. In one of them, the body was found almost a mile downstream. The second man was not discovered until about nine months later when a fisherman snagged his remains, what there were of them after the catfish, turtles and, snakes had their fill. The body apparently had been caught on the bottom of the river, where there are lots of branches. Identification would have been impossible without the dental records.

The sheriff had an observation and a question. "I’m sure there was no drinking involved. He had a vinyl cooler with him, and it had in it just a can of root beer and a bottle of water. Absolutely no sign of anything alcoholic.

Now my question. Could he have been taking any kind of prescription drugs that made him drowsy or unsteady?

As his physician, Dr. Brown said, I assure you that Steve hasn’t had a single prescription from me since he got an antibiotic three years ago for a throat infection.

Except for a daily vitamin, Vickie chimed in, Steve takes virtually no pills. He seldom gets headaches, and a small bottle of aspirin will last him a year or more.

After that Vickie, Dr. Dan and Molly climbed up the trail to the Jeep, taking with them the fishing pole and tackle box. They had tossed the remaining chicken liver into the water. By then it could likely be smelled all the way to the state highway.

I looked his Jeep over carefully, the sheriff told them, "so it’s okay to drive it back to Tulsa. I found nothing suspicious. I will call you if we discover his body or learn anything at all. I will be notifying the Claremore newspaper, and since it’s a member of the Associated Press, I think a story will show up in the Tulsa World tomorrow morning."

Dr. Dan drove the Jeep, and Vickie rode with Molly in their Chrysler. Back in Tulsa, Molly volunteered to with Vickie who declined. I’ll keep you posted if I hear anything.

Vickie calmed her nerves with a strong Jack Daniel’s and water, grimacing as she downed it in one swig. She usually drank only white wine. Some of her thoughts were about the tragedy of Steve’s death, but more of them—she was ashamed to admit—centered on her anger at his going fishing in the first place on an evening when they had a good card game planned. She and Molly had wanted to skunk Dan and Steve as they usually did.

Late that afternoon, a reporter from the Tulsa World called, but she could add little to what the sheriff had told them. Vickie chose not to tell anybody what had happened except for Bill Jeffers, president of Jeffers and Associates, the CPA firm where Steve was a partner.

Friends, work associates, and everyone else would learn of the accident in the morning newspaper where she presumed it would get prominent coverage on the first page of the local section.

Chapter 2

Steve knew that the next hour would be crucial to the success of his scheme to drown in the Verdigris River, which was the essential step in the disappearance he had meticulously planned for eighteen months.

He grasped his fishing rod firmly as he stood on the rocky ledge just above the river’s reddish waters. Steve swung the rod and released it at the last minute before it hit the branches of a tree. It was caught there just as he had hoped. The rod was one he didn’t mind losing, but the reel was a favorite of his with twenty-pound test line. Some fishermen liked to brag about using only five-pound test line, but that didn’t make sense in a river where the catfish sometimes topped fifteen pounds and there were more snags than bites.

At one time he had thought about actually leaping in the river and getting out a few hundred yards downstream. Upon reflection, it did not appear that would accomplish much except to get him water-logged. Instead, he chose to walk upstream for about two hundred yards before scrambling up the bank to State Highway 11.

There was no parking area, but turning to the right, he could see his Jeep. He was saying good-bye to an old friend that had taken him nearly 71,000 miles without complaints. With luck, Vickie could sell the loaded 2006 model for about $10,000.

Next came a step with potentially major risks, but there was no getting around it. He had to go just over two miles to the strip shopping center where he had left the van that would be his transportation into a new life. He couldn’t call undue attention to himself, or law enforcement officials might get wind of his being on the road.

Initially he had thought he might walk in the woods adjacent to the highway to avoid detection. However, there were gaps in the foliage, and if he were seen walking a hundred yards to the side of the highway, it would look suspicious. His decision had been to run to the shopping center. People who saw him, and there shouldn’t be many in late evening, would presume he was just a fitness nut enjoying an evening jog.

Steve was not wearing either the boots or the windbreaker he had on when he left home. Both had been dropped into a Salvation Army deposit box in East Tulsa. He was wearing instead some running shoes and a loose-fitting sweatshirt, purchased for cash at a Target store. His Western hat had been replaced by a Nike baseball cap.

The run was an easy one, taking just seventeen minutes. Only five or six cars passed him, and he gave them a friendly wave as they went by. Steve stopped running when he came to the shopping center and casually walked to the back of the property where his recently purchased Dodge Caravan was parked. It was not close to any other vehicles.

The van appeared to be untouched. That had been a slight worry—that someone might have broken into it or even stolen its tires. Initially he had thought of leaving a highly valuable package in the van hidden away in one of the storage compartments, but had instead mailed it from a Broken Arrow post office.

Getting into the van, he opened the glove compartment box and took out a Norelco razor. In just three minutes, he shaved off his mustache and shortened his long sideburns. He’d sported them a little over a year. His wife and people at work approved of his new appearance, and they also liked his long brown hair. Boldly Brown rinse got credit for that although he would have preferred using a Touch of Grey. That soon would be ancient history. He’d let his hair turn grey at its own pace, and he planned to get a crew cut within a day or two. Steve hadn’t worn short hair since getting out of the navy in 1983.

Enlisting for four years had been one of the best decisions he had ever made. He had grown up, developed sea legs serving on a destroyer in the rough waters of the Atlantic Ocean, and earned money to attend Oklahoma University. The degree in finance had served him well.

Shaving off the mustache and sideburns had been his first irrevocable step. There could be no turning back now. He believed in what he was doing but did have some worries about how Vickie would handle financial matters. She definitely would miss what he had been doing for her. That was different from really missing him.

Steve started the van’s engine and headed out of the parking lot toward Highway 66, where he would connect to the Will Rogers Turnpike and drive to Joplin for the night. His new day/night glasses were working as advertised, with the lens changing colors depending on how much natural light there was. He was on his way to a new life.

Chapter 3

When traveling with Vickie, Steve always stayed at a