The keen eyed owl

Mirboo was a quiet little town in the South-Eastern part of Victoria. Mirboo and Mirboo North were rich soiled farming areas, particularly for their potato crops.

The local area had just finished their big Potato Festival over a long weekend and it had been a smash hit for all the local townships. Local farmers were able to show off their vintage farming machinery, there were competitions for the kids and a local who owned a small light aircraft would do a flyover now and again, dropping bags of chips, much to the delight and squeals of the children.

On the final night, as farmers were packing up preparing to get machinery back to their properties and the Ladies Auxilliary were cleaning up the catering tents, Martha McIntyre went back to her tractor and marque to see how her husband Paddy was going and to offer if he needed any help.

As she approached, the marque was empty so she went around the back to the tractor to find Paddy slumped over the steering wheel. Though first muted by the shock, she gained the strength to scream for help.

Soon others came and the local St Johns Ambulance rep arrived and gently moved Paddy back into the seat. He checked his pulse and other vital signs and told Martha the dreaded news that Paddy had passed away.

Though Paddy was in his mid-70s, he was still a fit and robust individual who was highly regarded in the community. He was always a man with big plans and was a strong voice for the little man when the area needed more assistance or aid.

The local Police were called in because though that was the procedure for any death like this, there was something that didn’t feel right. The St Johns rep, Pete O’Brian, had known Paddy from the moment he moved to Mirboo four years ago. Paddy was the first to introduce himself and welcomed him to the area. He had invited Pete over for dinner several times and they would often take long walks through his property in the evening. Paddy would always take two glasses and a good bottle of red for them to enjoy as he told him stories of different members of the community.

Once the area has been taped off, the Police questioned Pete. He was uncomfortable about talking out in the open as there were things he had noticed in the truck that he didn’t want others to hear.

They retreated from the crowd that was now huddling around Martha. When Pete felt sure he wouldn't be heard, he said that though he could smell beer on Paddy, it didn’t smell right and he feared that someone had poisoned him.

He asked if he could have a proper chat with them once the area had been cleared and they were back at the station. He knew the couple very well and was worried about Martha.

One of the Officers assured Pete that a local had volunteered to take Martha into their place for a while and that people were being kept away from what is now a crime scene.

Back at the station, they had the problem of being understaffed and the call went to Melbourne for an investigator to be sent out.

Michael Considine was only new to his promotion but was very proud of his new role as an investigator. He was Dux in his class at the Police Academy and took on each job he was called out to as a uniformed Officer with great care, enthusiasm and keen attention to detail. He made sure that any victim of any crime felt heard and supported.

Whilst others may have felt the paperwork side was a grind, he knew that to be a good Officer, a thorough check and intricate record helped not only the case at hand but in case there was a need to refer back to a file in the future, anyone would have the clearest report making them feel as though they were there themselves.

Michael received a call at 9 pm on the night of the Mirboo incident and was told to pack some things as he would be off to Mirboo to start work on an investigation on a suspicious death and as soon as more staff became available they would be sent. Michael closed the call feeling numb. This was a real opportunity to prove his thoroughness and attention to detail was worthwhile and to give himself comfort in thinking his promotion wasn’t just a fluke.

He arrived at midnight and thankfully there was still a light on at the local station. Knocking on the door he was greeted by a bleary-eyed Constable. As he did his introductions, the Constable gave a deep sigh of relief. The officer, Trent, had been filling in all the documentation from the incident and didn’t have the energy for anything else to have to look at tonight.

Michael asked where he could leave his things and if there was a room he could stay at. Trent told him there was makeshift sleeping accommodation there for the night and that he could arrange for a room at the local hotel for him in the morning.

Michael was grateful for his offer and told him it would be best for him to pack up and go home and get some rest. He wouldn’t be of any use to anyone if he didn’t. Without questioning, Trent grabbed his coat and bag and was out the door.

Once silence had descended, Michael switched off the main lights, found the kitchen and made a tea. He located the file and headed to the back room and got to bed. As he flipped through the file, he saw that he would be able to work well with Trent. Trent was just as fastidious with his note-taking and observations as he was.

Michael woke early and cramped from both the drive and the bed and was out for an early morning run. It was a good opportunity to navigate himself around the small town before the news got out that he’d arrived.

Returning, Trent was on duty along with his partner Paul. They were the two officers on the scene the previous day. After a quick shower, he noticed Paul had organised coffees and a meeting room was set up with a whiteboard showing photos of the scene attached at various spots for note-taking. They’d both been busy wanting to make a good impression given their Sergeant was away.

“Well it looks like we’re ready to get started,” Michael said in a business-like tone. They were both pleased he noted their work and immediately launched into conversation.

“While Trent was here noting down everything we had gathered at the Festival, I helped Martha gather a few things from her house. One of the locals offered to take her in for a while,” Paul said.

“And Martha, she’s Paddy’s wife?” Michael checked. “Yes, that’s right. Paddy and Martha are the backbone of the area. Everyone knows them. They’ve been in this area for many years and I had the impression that everyone liked and relied on them,” Paul said, though his voice showed a sense of doubt.

“What seems to be troubling you Paul?” Michael asked with caution.

“Well, it’s a few things. Pete, the St Johns rep, said there was an odd aroma about the beer when we were taping off the area, so I removed it carefully so it could be checked for prints. Thankfully it was half full so I drained it into a separate container for testing. The results should all be in later this morning.

Then when I took Martha home she was constantly talking. At first, she was just muttering almost trance like, obviously from the shock of it all. When we got to the property she went straight in and almost like a robot, grabbed a case and started packing. Not a word was spoken. Then when we got back to the car she cried out 'The Shed!!'

I asked her to stop and told her we could come back in the morning in daylight. How on earth is she going to see anything when it's so dark? Nope, she wasn’t going to listen and headed up to the big barn.

Having the full moon was lucky along with my large torch so I followed. She slid open the giant door to what I thought was a huge empty barn. She marched in and produced a torch of her own. I had a look around and the place was empty apart from two big drums of some chemical I couldn’t make out with the torch and I didn’t want her thinking the wrong thing. She was in grief after all. Then she started flashing her torch around the cross timbers of the roof. I shone my torch there too and we both stopped at an owl. It was peering straight at Martha. She said ‘they’ve been here haven’t they?’, and then the owl hooted and flew down to be closer to her. ‘Were they here today?’, she asked and the owl hooted again. ‘Do you think they’ll come again?’, and the owl hooted again but much louder. She then looked to the ground and said ‘oh dear Lord, Paddy McIntyre, what did you get yourself into?’

Then she straightened and told the owl that it was her eyes and ears for the next few days. She found an empty drum just outside, brought it in and filled it with water near the door and then said she was ready to leave.

On the way to her friend's home, I asked her about her pet owl. She told me that the owl had picked them and whenever something went wrong, the owl always alerted her.” Paul finished, slumping back into his chair looking down at the table feeling confused and a bit useless.

“So our main witness and source of information is an owl?” Michael asked, trying to sound serious yet feeling deflated.

“No not necessarily,” Trent interjected. “When I was at the scene yesterday, Pete our first aid guy was very keen to talk to me but didn’t like it being so open with people hanging around. When he mentioned the poison in the beer, he made out as though other things were going on as well but wanted to talk to us at the station today.“

“Well I presume you’ve kept the keys to the McIntyre property, so let's go over and have a word with the owl,” Michael said gathering the file and resting a hand on Paul’s shoulder. “Also, we can call Pete and make a time for him to drop in this afternoon.”

Just as they were preparing to leave, Pete pulled up in the drive. They explained they were heading off and he offered to take them in his 4x4 Ute. Along the way, Pete explained that there had been a couple of young people from the area who had died over the last few months at local parties. The Constable confirmed this as they had attended the scenes where the youths had smoked a mix of cannabis and heroin, fallen asleep and never woken up.

They had questioned those at the parties who had said a few new young men had moved into the town and were supplying the mix and seemed to be doing quite well from it.

“I presume we have clear descriptions of these newcomers?” Michael enquired. “Yes of course, back at the station, the whole matter is on file,” Trent confirmed.

Once they got to the property, they parked around the back of the house and checked that the house was locked. Paul had admitted that with the distraction of the barn, he should’ve double-checked the house, but knew that Martha was a stickler for security. After the all-clear, they went to the barn. Slowly sliding the door open, there was opaque light coming through from some of the plastic roof sheeting and on entering a flutter was heard.

Michael looked up to see the owl move down to the beam closest to him. “Well, well, well, you seem to be the only one that can help us in here,” he said to the owl. The owl gave a hoot, started bobbing its head and became quite fidgety. “It’s okay,” Michael said, “I’m not arresting you on suspicion.”

The owl hooted again and jumped and flew to the far corner of the barn and sat on one of the chemical drums that Paul had referred to earlier. As Michael approached, he tried to pick up the drum in the corner, but it was heavy and full and had no sign it had been tampered with. All the while, the owl hooted.

He gently gestured for the owl to move across from the drum it was sitting on. It got louder and more demanding with its noises. “I know you have important news to share, but I can’t do anything until you let me look at the drum,” Michael said in frustration.

He took a deep breath and calmed and slowly put his hand out to the owl. It was wary yet calm and allowed Michael to pat its downy feathers. With stealth and caution, he was able to pick up the owl and place it on the other drum so that he could give this one a proper inspection.

He noted the drum was just over half full and when he checked with the two Officers, they said it was strange because Paddy hadn’t been doing any serious farming for at least 12 months, so there wouldn’t have been any need for fertilisers.

Suddenly the owl became very agitated. Pete was alerted, heard and recognised a sound outside and told them all to move to the darkened room at the back of the barn. They could hear the slow rumble of tyres coming up the rocky driveway to the house.

Martha’s car was still parked out front as would be expected and given they came in Pete’s car it would easily look as though he was just getting some personal effects and medications for her, so there would be nothing to cause concern for any unexpected local visitor.

The car continued up the property and stopped not far from the barn. They heard two doors open and close and Pete went out from the barn to greet the visitors. “G’day fellas, anything I can help you with?”

Michael found a crack in the wall sheeting and watched in silence as he saw two young men looking around the property, looking as though they were surveying the land. “We saw her car, is Mrs McIntyre home?”, one asked. “We heard there was an incident at the Festival yesterday and old Paddy is sick.”

“Yeah,” said Pete warily, “Mrs McIntyre is resting, so I’m here to help out. More importantly, how can I help you?”

The owl started making rumbling noises and muffled hoot sounds. When Michael looked at the bird it had a fiery glare. A glare that showed both distress and warning. Michael’s instincts kicked in and he took his gun from his holster and waited. The two Officers noticed and did the same.

The other bloke stepped forward and said they liked Paddy and had met him as soon as they came to town. They were after some farming advice and had already started buying things in preparation to find a property. They had some fertiliser chemicals and didn’t have a place to store them and Paddy had graciously allowed them to use his barn till they got set up.

Trent edged quietly over to Michael and confirmed that the two men fit the descriptions of the men selling drugs at local parties. They then heard Pete speak again. “I help out Martha and Paddy quite a bit. They often get me to hose out the shed as they like to keep things as clean as they can. I saw two drums of chemicals, but one looked just over half full. Paddy hasn’t done any work out in his fields for a very long while and if you haven’t got a property of your own yet, why is one of the drums open? I also hone about some local young people having bad drugs at parties. With Paddy not too drugs maybe no one's been keeping an eye on your stuff and they’ve taken some to mix it with other drugs to sell at parties?”

With that comment, both men looked at each other, nodded and charged at Pete.

Michael, Paul and Trent ran from the barn with the owl hooting loudly.

There was a tussle and the Officers took the men to the ground and cuffed them. Michael stood over them and said they were arrested for assault. Trent dusted himself off and went straight back into the barn and went to the chemical drum. He grabbed a clean tissue from his pocket and opened it and took a good sniff. He recognised the unusual odour that he noticed when he smelt the beer at Paddy’s tractor. He called out for Paul to find a trolley so that they could get the chemical drums out and put them on the back tray of the Ute.

Paul got in the driver’s seat with Pete nursing wounds in the front passenger seat and the two men were cuffed in the back. Paul assured Michael and Trent that the call for assistance last night should have been filled and he will get someone back up there as soon as possible.

Michael and Trent walked back to the house and Trent produced the set of keys. As they walked in, it was as they would have expected from a proud Woman’s Auxiliary Member. The house was a standard floor plan and appeared completely dust-free as they wandered around the open kitchen/lounge area and then made their way up a passage.

Along the passage, there were two bedrooms well kept, a spotless bathroom and a study up the end. The desk in the study had neat piles of documents in set places. Delivery and pick up documents, bills and receipts and a ledger, but Michael noticed a filing cabinet and dragged a chair over while Trent found boxes of archived documents that he started to flip through.

The top drawer was just more of the same that was sitting on the desk that had been sorted and was ready for filing.

The second drawer was loaded with ledger books and Michael grabbed one or two to have a look. He felt uncomfortable and suspicious as he looked through the figures on some of the pages and had another look at some of the bills on the desk. It appeared as though times were getting tough and maybe Paddy hadn’t told Martha everything.

He opened the bottom drawer of the cabinet and at the front, it was stacked with old books. After taking the books out he found some large envelopes. The books were at the front of the drawer to make it look as though there was nothing important to see.

He opened the first envelope and saw doctors reports and copies of their health insurance which they had recently changed only about 4 months ago. The reports showed evidence of prostate cancer which had been diagnosed just three months ago. There was a letter from a health insurance company saying that more than likely the cancer was a pre-existing illness and may not be covered in their new policy.

He then found other documentation that gave quotes and information for treatment and surgery. They would have had trouble meeting those expenses, given Michael already had a clear idea of where their budget was at after looking at their financial documents.

He opened a second envelope that had large wads of cash with scribbled notes attached to each. Each bundle’s note had words scribbled saying 4 drums = $4,000, 2 drums - $2,000 etc. There were quite a few wads with these notes, so Michael got the impression that Paddy was trying to find another way to finance the operation and treatment.

Finally, he came to the third envelope. Each piece of paper inside was crinkled and the words appeared to be cut out of newspapers and stuck in a ransom note style. Some messages appeared quite threatening and Michael began to understand the tough position that Paddy had found himself in. Some of the notes had messages like, “If it wasn’t for you and your nosey questions about our family, Emily would still be with us.” Another read, “I knew not to trust you. You always seem to be around.” One other caught Michael’s attention, “My wife never wanted me to trust you and now poor Liam is dead.”

Michael brought the notes to Trent’s attention. “I think it's pretty clear what might have happened to Paddy. I found these doctors’ reports about his prostate cancer. They would never have been able to afford the treatment even though they tried to change their health insurance. They asked Pete to keep the barn so clean because he was using the barn as a holding pen for chemicals for drug dealers. The money the dealers were giving him for looking after the chemicals, he was putting away for treatment, probably so Martha would think that the whole thing was covered by health insurance. Whoever else has been dipping into the chemical supplies must have been sloppy with the mix, hence the fatalities at some of the parties. The hate notes Paddy hid away here would have been a tough weight on his shoulders coupled with everything else.”

“So one of the locals might have heard about the drums in the barn and slipped some in a beer to get back at Paddy,” Trent pondered. “Interesting proposition Trent, but I’m thinking that those men were getting sick of paying Paddy large amounts of money to look after the chemicals.”

Michael then emptied all the wads of cash on the table and Trent couldn’t help but agree.

They waited outside until a van pulled up and they gathered evidence bags to take the files and money back to the station. While Trent was attending to the evidence, Michael headed back up to the barn and went to the corner where the drums had sat.

He heard a hoot and a flutter and turned to see the owl had moved to a low cross beam. Michael and the owl gazed at each other for a long while and Michael said, “it’s a pity you can’t do more than hoot, you could well be a valuable source of information.”

He then took one more look in the back room which was empty but now noticed some stains from chemicals that had been stored there previously. He crouched down and got a swab of a stain that still appeared a little moist and put it straight into an evidence bag. He then grabbed another swab to get another sample and was just about to sniff it when he heard a very loud hoot that startled him.

He turned to see the owl standing on the floor at the door to the room with a very stern look on its face. The owl gave him a look of an angry father and Michael smiled and said, “Okay, don’t worry I know what I’m dealing with. Yep, sure is a pity, you’d make a great assistant.”

The owl turned and took flight out the barn door. Michael followed it and noted it flew to a tree just near the house. He smiled to himself and thought that Martha should be happy that her house is being watched so carefully while she's away.