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One
I have to confess right off the bat that I am not much of a writer. I do a fair job of taking notes, a lesson I learned the hard way from my college days and trying to pull up a low GPA. Putting together what happened in Perry that last Spring is not difficult but I think I could tell you a lot better in person. However, Chris told me I could share the story so here is the strangest set of events I have witnessed and I’ll let you decide if I am any good at writing.
My name is Mark Hall and I am a U.S. Marshal based out of the Macon office for the past year or so. I grew up in middle Georgia but spent fifteen years in law enforcement down in the Waycross before coming closer to home. A divorce along with a very bad day at the office made it a good time to circle the wagons and move closer.
I had just driven up to Momma’s house after going out early that morning and shooting a hog. We have a number of wild hogs down on the family farm in Dooly County and they are considered a pest like an overgrown rat. Hogs root around and tear up fields and anything that drives in it. I get tired of getting bounced to pieces when I ride through. It does help that they taste good if cooked the right way.
My oldest boy pulled on a sweatshirt as he walked out of the house. Although it was June, it was still cool in the mornings.
“Got one?” Brad asked walking to the back of the truck.
“Got one. I need you to go cut a tree up that fell across the road on the other side of the big food plot. I guess there was enough wind last night to knock it over”.
He looked over in the bed of the truck and saw the mass of course black hair on black and brown skin. A quarter-sized spot of blood was behind its left ear. The animal wasn’t big enough to send pictures to Georgia Outdoor News but it was good enough to take to the processor.
“Where’s the blood?”
“Probably in the field at the Jeter Place if I am right,” Chris said walking up to the tailgate. Of course he was right. Chris Calhoun was the type of friend who was always right but didn’t rub it in all the time. He is as tall as I am but I probably outweigh him twenty or so pounds. I like to eat and Chris had just gotten back from a morning jog.
“That’s right. I shot him around quarter after seven then went walking around for a couple hours. You ought to go with me next time”, I said already knowing the answer. I believed Chris appreciated the conservation aspect of hunting and certainly appreciated the mealtime aspect, but not the killing. We had stayed the night at Momma’s
“No, not for me”, he said while putting a foot on the bumper of my truck. He took his hand and pulled back the hair that had fallen over his eyes so he could get a better look at the hog.
Chris grabbed the hog’s ear and pulled his head around to look at the other side.
“You were already on the ground when you shot it” he stated. Of course he was right.
“I sure was. How did you figure that out?”
“Well the entry point and the exit point are both in the same location on either side of its neck. If you had been up in the stand that thirty ought six would have hit bone and gone all over the place”.
Of course he was right; I had gotten down and walked up on the pig around the corner from the stand. I do carry a 30.06 caliber rifle when I hunt and from my climbing stand the bullet would have certainly hit the hard bone.
“Do they have many hogs were you’re from, Mr. Chris?” Brad asked. I shot him a look that he knew was coming.
“No, just the ones already in the grocery store” Chris replied.
“So you’re not from a southern state, then? You don’t sound like it.” Brad went a step too many and got that look from me again. Truth is, he didn’t look like most of my middle Georgia friends my age either. I have an unofficial uniform of blue jeans and boots and a Columbia fishing shirt most of the time but Chris would wear khaki pants and slip on shoes he claimed were for hiking. Most of the guys I knew kept a short haircut but Chris had brown hair that fell in front of his eyes. He’d pick on the fact that my hair was leaving me and I’d tell him to grow his while he had it.
“Enough, Brad” I headed off where he was going. The truth was I didn’t know where Chris was from either; that’s what the Witness Protection Program does for you and to you. It burns the bridges so that you can’t go back to that life even if you wanted to.
It had only been a little more than four years ago when that federal agent stepped in the U.S. Marshal’s office in Warner Robins with Chris behind him. No story and no paperwork just the directions to take care of him. That day, Chris looked like somebody about as low as they could go. I moved Chris into a house in the subdivision next to mine and eventually we became friends. He even liked my cooking.
My cell phone rang and I looked down to see it was Richard Turnbow calling. That meant that it was going to be an interesting day; Richard was the chief of Police in Perry. We started walking back to the house as I spoke to Richard.
“How does someone let a tree fall on them and kill them?” I asked right before Chris turned his head back in my direction.
Two
I wished Daddy a happy Father’s Day and changed out of my camo and into my jeans and a few minutes later Chris and I were pulling out of the driveway and heading to Perry. Richard Turnbow calling my cell meant he either needed help at the fair or there was something interesting he’d want me to see. Since he called at about 9:30 on a Saturday morning in June, I knew it wasn’t the fair.
“Richard says they’ve found a body killed by a pine tree that fell over in Rozar Park” I said. “I can drop you off at your house or you can ride with me, either way is fine”.
“I’ll just ride with you if you don’t care” Chris suggested. We had talked about some of my U.S. Marshal duties a few times. He even gave me a great idea on catching a forgery suspect last year. Although bodies in parks aren’t on the top of the job description for a Marshal, I’d always had a good relationship with all the local law enforcement offices around Perry and Macon.
Richard didn’t give up any details on the phone so I was curious to see what we found when I drove into the parking lot at the top of the hill overlooking the lake at Rozar Park. Police cars and other first responders were in the parking lot and there was already yellow police tape across the bridge that led to the other side of the lake. Chris and I walked down the hill through the pine trees toward the lake. I noticed Richard on the far side and stepped between the tape to come across the green-painted bridge.
“Good morning Mr. Mark,” said the officer at the bridge, “Who’ve you got with you?”
“Hey Tommy, this is Chris Calhoun. He is in law enforcement, too.” That wasn’t a huge stretch; witness protection can be considered law enforcement. “You played on the disc golf course out here yet?”
“I am pretty sure I have no business playing disc golf, no, sir”
Chris and I made our way several steps to the side of the taped-off walking path around the lake. Although it was intended to be a dirt and wood
chip path, mud accumulated in the low spots. We walked around one slight turn to the right just before the path went uphill and found Richard.
“Hey now.” Richard Turnbow was a short, squat man who served as the Police Chief in Perry. Everyone considered him a good man who seemed like he talked a lot more with his hands than his mouth. Crime scene technicians were busy making their measurements and triangulating the crime scene with nearby landmarks. Another tech was taking pictures of the scene from different angles. A couple sheets were covering what must have been a tree on top of the unfortunate man.
“How much bad luck has a man got to have a tree fall on him? This guy looks to have been walking around the park here and it laid down right on top of him” Richard stated.
“Why was he walking around here at night?” Chris asked, “that tree probably came over sometime after midnight. I got up last night at Mark’s Momma’s house and shut the window because the wind had picked up. It had been about 11:30 when that happened so it must have gotten to Perry by 12”.
“Who knows why folks do things”, Richard replied, “last year Northside High was locked down along with three Elementary schools because one guy shot another guy in the gut. One of the techs thinks it was a beaver trying to get revenge – look at all the tracks around the body. There are a few beavers around this lake; you can see tracks of them all over the place and