Karen Proudly Called Wildlife Officers on My Fishing — Her Face Dropped When They Shook My Hand
Chapter 5
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But Connie never met Brenda Faulkner. Women like Brenda don't tire; they escalate.The county inspector showed up on a Thursday. His name was Martin Greaves: white truck, clipboard, reflective vest. He walked my entire shoreline: the dock—permitted; the fish cleaning station—permitted; the boat ramp—permitted; the tackle shed—permitted. Every structure on my property had paperwork on file at the county clerk's office. I'd spent thirty years enforcing regulations; I knew how to build things right.Greaves clicked his pen and looked at me. "Mr. Mercer, everything here is compliant with county code. I have zero findings." He hesitated at his truck. "Sir, the complaint was very detailed—three pages, photographs taken from elevation. Whoever filed this spent real time on it. If we keep getting complaints that don't result in findings, there's a process for flagging the source as a pattern filer."I thanked him and watched him drive away. Somewhere on the ridge above, Brenda Faulkner was watching through her telephoto lens, waiting for the inspector to slap a red tag on my dock. Instead, he left with an empty violations report.She didn't wait long.The next complaint went to the county health department. Brenda claimed my fish cleaning station was an open-air animal processing facility that attracted vermin and contaminated groundwater. The health inspector, a no-nonsense woman named Patricia Owens, tested the drain, checked the outflow, and took soil samples."Mr. Mercer, this is one of the cleanest fish cleaning setups I've ever inspected." She paused at her truck. "The complaint described this as a reckless biohazard operation run by an unlicensed individual. That's not what I found. The complainant also mentioned she'd already contacted the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency. She seemed very proud of that."My stomach tightened. Not because I was worried about TWRA finding something wrong—I knew my fishing was legal, licensed, and sustainable. I'd personally designed the stocking plan for this lake using the same population models I deployed across six counties for three decades. The fish in Blackwater Lake were healthier than any managed population in the district.What tightened my stomach was knowing exactly what Brenda was doing: she wasn't trying to find a real violation; she was carpet-bombing every agency she could think of, hoping one of them would stick. County code enforcement, county health department, and now the state wildlife agency—my agency. The place where I'd spent my entire career. The officers she was about to summon were men and women I'd trained, supervised, and mentored for thirty years.She was calling the cavalry. She just didn't know the cavalry was mine.The TWRA complaint was a masterpiece of creative fiction. I know this because Officer Kyle Neely showed me a copy of it later, after the whole thing was over. Brenda had typed it on Ridgewater Commons letterhead, gold embossing, official seal, and sent it to the TWRA Region 4 headquarters in Morristown: three pages, single-spaced, with twelve attached photographs.The complaint alleged the following: