The Ox-bow Island Adventure
By Mark Hall
Copyright 2015 74Blues Publishing
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Table of Contents
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Acknowledgements
I am grateful for the time I have with my boys. There are always mysteries; bugs, holes, sticks, and places to go. No matter how old they are, the sense of wonder is there and needs to be explored.
One
Chris Calhoun and I were in my shop behind my house on a Monday morning in late March of last year. I wouldn’t call myself a carpenter but I do like woodworking and have been showing Chris how to use the tools and different equipment I had. He was very observant just as he was when we were working on the puzzles we occasionally get called to help with. I first found out Chris had some background in criminal investigation when we helped out with the dogfighting ring in the Rozar Park mystery that I wrote about previously and since then had helped on a number of investigations since then. I have written several summaries from my field notes that I hope to get down on paper whenever I get the time. That thing with the counterfeit insurance checks would be interesting and I would especially like to put on paper, or on computer screen, that weird story about the missing construction worker from the hospital.
I was working on a set of bookshelves and attached desk for my cousin who had just bought a house. On the right side of the desktop were two drawers and I was working on a hidden section at the back of the top drawer.
“It’s really an illusion”, I said to Chris. I showed him the design which included a false back of the drawer. If you pulled out the drawer to the end, you would not notice anything out of the ordinary. It appeared to pull out like any other drawer but if you lifted the drawer out of the desk, you’d notice there was an additional six inches that had a top and was hinged with a lock. The top opened up with a small key and you could put items down in the box at the back of the drawer. What appeared to be the back of the drawer was actually the front of the box.
“If she uses it, good, if she doesn’t, that’s fine, too. I thought it would be an interesting touch”.
“A simple design with great results”, Chris added. “I think you’ll find out that many devices or techniques that are used in our day-to-day lives are much simpler than you might first believe – based on the results they give you”.
There was still so much that I didn’t know about my friend. I serve as a U.S. Marshal based out of Macon and Chris was dropped off in the middle of the night with no formality or paperwork or real identity. Witness protection is one of our duties sometimes, and I put Chris close to me. Just by chance, he tagged along on the Rozar Park case and surprised me with an extensive ability to observe and solve crimes. Honestly, I struggle with taking him out in public because I do not know what he did to deserve to be under protection but I justify that by mostly keeping him around other law enforcement people. We have a culture of respect and camaraderie with the local city and county officials and help them when we can. Sometimes, the cases fall under the Marshal Service and other times, they do not.
Outside of crime, Chris and I were friends. His house was down a few streets from mine and he came by regularly. He is smaller than I am and enjoys pulling his hair back out of his eyes from time to time because long hair is not a problem I have. I don’t know where he lived before but his accent and the way he dresses would lead me to believe it was a big city up north. I have tried but he does not own a pair of boots yet.
I looked down at my phone and noticed that Gary Burton was calling. Gary was an old friend of mine from Fort Valley and back in high school we had once tried to beat each other’s brains out over a girl.
“Gary, how’ve you been?” I asked.
“Mark, are you at the house? I need to get to you in a hurry”.
“What’s going on? Yes, I am back here in the shop”. I looked over at Chris and he recognized that something interesting was coming our way.
“Ryan has got into a mess. I don’t want to get on about it now; I’ll see you in just a minute”.
Gary’s boy Ryan had been in and out of trouble for several years now and I relayed his background to Chris. The first couple times Ryan got caught Gary was able to take him home to try to straighten him out but eventually what he was doing got too bad. Ryan spent a few months up at the Youth Detention Center in Milledgeville. I had heard that when he came out and got home that he was pretty solid. He went out to the technical college and got his GED then his welding diploma and then a good job.
Only a couple minutes went by and Gary and Ryan pulled around my house and up to the shop. Chris and I went out to meet them. Gary got out of the truck and looked at agitated as he could be. Ryan got out and came around to the front and looked as scared as he could be. Gary shook hands with me and looked over at Chris.
“We have a mess, Mark. I need to talk with you”.
“Gary, this is Chris Calhoun and whatever you might say to me you can say in front of him. He is with me a work”. The last part wasn’t entirely true although witness protection is a part of what we do as U. S. Marshals.
“Mr. Mark, you have to believe me, I was in on something last night and it might not be legit”.
“In on what, Ryan? What was it that wasn’t legal?”
Gary answered, “We don’t know exactly.”
I looked over at Chris and saw him grinning. He knew already that this was going to be a puzzle and he looked forward to it.
“I have a couple chairs here in the shop or a bucket or something to sit on – come in here and tell us what is going on.”
We went in and sat down in the makeshift interview room of my shop and Chris and I listened.
Ryan was looking down at the dust on the concrete floor when he began to talk to us. “Mr. Mark you know I have been kind of wild and everything but I have been straight since I got back from Milledgeville. I have been working for Mr. Billy Sullivan over at Midstate for just about a year now, mostly welding. I haven’t been in any trouble or anything but I know they are going to think I was a part of something. I don’t know what it was they were doing but I am pretty sure it wasn’t something good. I never should have taken the money”.
Chris and I sat up in our chairs. “Ryan, you have to slow down, sit down, and tell us what happened” I said.
TWO
Ryan finally settled down enough to talk.
“These two guys have been coming by the shop lately. They have some small welding jobs or machining to do – not much really and not the same jobs. One of them is Ray or Roy Byrd or something like that. He is a skinny guy with a big beard and bald head. The other one is about his size”, Ryan pointed at Chris, “no beard and some kind of tattoo on his neck. I was welding a short harrow drag on the trailer behind his truck and got to talking to them. Got to telling them I had been up at the YDC and stuff and this other guy brought out this slag of metal and I held it. It was copper.”
“Was it a slag?” Chris asked as he leaned forward with his elbows on his knees.
“Slag?” I asked.
Chris answered, “Melted down copper – probably had a burnt tint to it, too, didn’t it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What happens”, Chris continued, “is that copper is stolen – usually wiring - and melted down into a kind of a brick called a slag. Then you take this to a scrap metal yard somewhere and they’ll pay you by the pound for it. The problem with that is that Georgia and other states outlawed the purchasing of slag metal to try to cut down on copper theft. To get any money out of it, he’d have to take it over to North Carolina. You can’t take wire because most wire these days is labeled on the bare wire with manufacturer identification.”
Crimes crossing state lines can fall into U.S. Marshal jurisdiction, I thought.
“If you took the wire off an irrigation system and slagged it and sold it, you’d probably only get four to six hundred dollars for it. It would cost several thousand to replace it, though. Just like the copper taken down off the light poles up at the rec department in Macon a few months ago. But go on with your story, Ryan”.
“So these guys get to talking with me and all and asked me if I wanted in on something to make a little money on the side. I told them I didn’t because I just wanted to work straight, you know, and not run up on any trouble. And I thought that was end of it. They’ve been back around the shop a couple more times and never said anything more about it. Until last night.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“Well, late yesterday afternoon right at closing up they came by and said