I believe it was Bertrand Russell who said, “There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge.” I don’t know if other historical fiction writers ever mourn the fact that so much of their carefully researched information will go unnoticed and underappreciated, but I certainly do. Research is the engine that drives plot and the texture that gives a story its bones. And in the case of the Daugherty Saga, some events look so wild you’d swear I invented them — but some of them came straight from the archives of the Indianapolis Times, preserved nowhere else because they weren’t considered important enough to chronicle.
So today I’m diving back into blogging with the stories behind the stories — the strange, forgotten, and utterly real events that fed the Daugherty Saga. The real people no one remembers but should. Reading between the lines. Consider it an insider’s view of the Daughertys’ moonshine‑soaked world.
Today we delve into the story behind George “Hots” Gardner. Hots Gardner was a real person — a dirt‑track driver who met a violent end in 1932.
The newspapers never explained why Gardner carried the nickname “Hots,” but in Prohibition‑era slang, “hot” almost always referred to stolen cars or hotwiring. Dirt‑track drivers were notorious for running “hot” vehicles, so I leaned into that history when shaping his fictional counterpart. We are first introduced to Hots at the Sugar Creek Speedway, my fictional counterpart for the real Jungle Park track in Parke County, Indiana.
“Ach,” Karl Reinhardt spat on the floor. In his leering face, never had the name “Vulf” been more appropriate. “Go to hell, Irish.”
Hots folded his arms across his chest. “Car blew to hell, Daugherty? Sure you didn’t just try to hotwire it and get your wires crossed maybe?”
“Know something about hotwiring, Gardner?” Mick snapped to the driver. “You and all t’ose cars between here, Indy and Muncie that just happened to disappear from their owners, maybe? I don’t need advice from a shite car heister.” He turned to the German. “Keep looking over your shoulder, Reinhardt. One day, it won’t be me you see first.”
This April 9 Indianapolis Times article tells us what went down:
HIJACKER SLAIN IN BATTLE WITH BOOZE RUNNERS Companion, Illinois Gangster, Shot in Head; Flees After Returning Riddled Body to West Side Home. George (Hots) Gardner, Dirt Track Race Pilot, Greeted by Spray of Slugs From Rum Car, Police Believe.
In Devil’s Track, I used this real‑life incident as the backbone of a fictionalized encounter:
Ahead in the road, a dark shape loomed. Tommy slammed on the brakes and the truck spun in a squealing of tires. At that moment, Mick felt the impact of a bullet punching into the side of the truck. It sent his senses instantly on fire. The truck was positioned diagonally in the road, but its headlights illuminated the car ahead. There were three men positioned around it. Mick jabbed his door open. He already had a round in each chamber. Leaning over the hood of the truck, he aimed at the men around the car. A holler told him that some of his 12-guage double -aught buck had found its mark. Answering fire made him duck, but on the other side of the truck Tommy was already chambering more shells in his shotgun. Mick unloaded the other barrel at the car before digging in his pockets for more shells. Tommy snapped off another round while Mick broke open his shotgun and chambered two more rounds. For a moment the thunder of gunfire was all he could concentrate on. But he saw first one and then two figures taking off down the river. They were out of range now. But one figure remained by the car. Tommy’s answering gunfire dropped him, spinning into the dirt. When he didn’t move, Mick moved closer. He had two more rounds chambered, but he held off. In the headlights from the bullet ridden car, he recognized the face of “Hots” Gardner. Gardner twisted his body, reaching for the revolver that had fallen from his hand. He raised it. Before he could fire, Mick let him have the two chambered shells, one after the other. Gardner’s body jumped and buckled under the force of the buckshot.
Tommy approached behind him “You reckon this is Vulf’s work?”
“It ain’t now. He’s gone,” Mick said dryly. “His goons took off and let him eat buckshot. Some friends.”
“They’re rigged for bootleg liquor. Hijacking, I’m guessing,” Tommy said.
“Sure, but out t’is way?” Mick said. “T’ey wanted our booze but t’is also a message. He’s a Vulf stooge t’rough and t’rough.”
‘What now?” Tommy said.
Mick glanced up at the outline of the shanty town. We get this goon loaded up in his car and drop ‘im back at his boarding house. T’at way his friends know we know who he is.”
Tommy eyed their truck. We got a few holes ventilating our truck. We’ll have to patch a tire.”
Imagine my surprise when I later came across a follow‑up article dated April 15:
COPS TIPPED ON GARDNER’S PAL Mysterious “Mickey” Believed North Side Gangster…
The police were searching for a mysterious “Mickey” who “figured in” the hijacking that killed Gardner. I had already written Mick Daugherty — owner of the legitimate Daugherty Construction Company and operator of several less‑legitimate enterprises — long before I ever saw this clipping. To find a real “Mickey” lurking in the historical record felt like history tapping me on the shoulder.
Though we will never know what really went down that April night or who the real Mickey was, it isn’t the first time the archives of the Indianapolis Times have given me fodder for weaving little‑known historical incidents and forgotten people into my fiction. Sometimes the past hands you a gift. Sometimes it hands you a ghost.