True Story©... The Boyscout

 

It went up for sale, y’all…
For all my meticulous calculation in the use of what I inferred was abandoned historical property ripe for my use, the sumbitch went up for sale IMMEDIATELY when I was done with it.

Wait…
I hope you remember what I am talking about, as it has only been like six weeks.

I have made a point of NOT going the direction of the factory since my felonious actions in May, moreso about not being seen and corroborated in any upcoming discussion of what happened that day with any applicable authorities.
I’m just glad Woodpenis has gone federal and is likely no longer interested in what me and my bullshit can do for him.

If you’re new here, welcome…
If you’ve been here before, you know my phone is about to ring… It’s a 336-370 number and since school is out for summer, I know it is not my wife or my daughter's school.  Likely someone downtown for something or another.

Me: “Hello?”

Caller: “Hi, good afternoon.  Is this Phillip?”

Me: “Depends on who is asking.”

Caller: “Heh…  he said you were a ‘character’.”

Me: “‘He’ who?”

Caller: “Oh, I’m sorry…  This is detective Benjamin Ramsbottom from Greensboro P.--…”

Me: “HA!!!”

Caller: “Hmm?””

Me: “They saddle me with Detective Woodpenis for so long, and now I get detective buttsex?”

Detective Ramsbottom: “I-I’m sorry?”

Me: “That’s hilarious.”

Ramsbottom: “It’s an old English family name, I am named after my father, and his father and HIS father before him.”

Me: “I wouldn’t be telling people that story.  Anyway, what’s up?”

Ramsbottom: “So when he was preparing me, Woodcock–…”

Me: “WoodPENIS!”

Ramsbottom: “I don’t get it?”

Me: “Oh, you will eventually…  You will eventually.”

Ramsbottom: “Umm…  Okay, so he told me that if I ever came across an especially flummoxing case or situation that you had an uncanny way of thinking through them.”

Me: “Don’t they teach Y’ALL that shit at the academy?”

Ramsbottom: “There is no replacement for practical experience.”

Me: “Did you just call me a criminal?”

Ramsbottom: “No, but Woodc–…  he said that your ability to think like one was uncanny.”

Me: “You are GOING to call him Woodpenis before I am done with you, Detective Buttsex.”

Ramsbottom: “I’m sorry, I just don’t get it.”

Me: “You were an Eagle Scout, weren’t you?”

Ramsbottom: “Mmmhmm.”

Me: “What branch did you serve in?”

Ramsbottom: “I started in the Navy, like my dad, and switched to Army when I reenlisted.”

Me: “What the fuck…  Nevermind.”

Ramsbottom: “So can you help me?”

Me: “We’ve been introducing ourselves for the last ten minutes.  You should probably get to what you want.”

Ramsbottom: “Okay, and this is WEIRD, but–…  You’re a Greensboro native, right?”

Me: “Yes, now please get to whatever it is, Detective Benji Buttsex.”

Ramsbottom: “Wow, I–…”

Me: “It’s like middle school all over again, I bet.”

Ramsbottom: “Okay, here goes…  In the old Blue Bell denim factory over off of Elm-Eugene Street.”

Me: “WHOAFUCK!”

Ramsbottom: “God bless you.”

Me: “Thank you.  G’head?”

Ramsbottom: “It recently hit the market for sale and when prospective buyers went to inspect, they found a PECULIAR scene.”

Me: “Unhoused people were running it like The Carter in New Jack City?”

Ramsbottom: “I don’t even know what that means.”

Me: “Tough crowd.”

Ramsbottom: “There was a polycarbonate box in the middle of the factory, under it was a false floor with the carcasses of thousands of cicadas.”

Me: “It’s North Carolina in the spring/summmer…  there is GOING to be thousands of Cicadas.”

Ramsbottom: “Yeah, but everything in the sentence before the word ‘cicada’ is a cause for concern.  There were water bottles and food containers inside the box, like it had been used as a small prison of sorts.”

Me: “And y’all ran DNA to see if there was a match to anything in CODIS, right?”

Ramsbottom: “You watch too much TV.”

Me: “No DNA matches?”

Ramsbottom: “Zero.”

Me: “So now what?”

Ramsbottom: “I scoured the system for any reports or complaints of any oddities possibly matching this location or situation.”

Me: “And?”

Ramsbottom: “In May, we had a call about a missing adult, but it went nowhere, they either found them without us or the situation self-resolved when the person came home.  The missing person’s phone pinged off of the tower nearest the factory for a long time, but he was less-than-compliant with our questions.”

Me: “Mmhmm.”

Ramsbottom: “… so nothing.”

Me: “Good for him.”

Ramsbottom: “What?”

Me: “Oh, nothing!”

Ramsbottom: “So I am at a dead end now and I had been sitting on your information, Detective Wood–…”

Me: “SAY IT!!!”

Ramsbottom (sighing): “… detective Woodcock told me that if I am stumped, that I might be able to call you.”

Me: “…”

Ramsbottom: “You there?”

Me: “…”

Ramsbottom: “Hello?  Have I lost you?”

Me: “Still waiting…”

Ramsbottom: “Fine!  Detective Woodpenis.”

Me: “Thank you!  Now how might you like for me to help you crack this ballsack?”

Ramsbottom: “You mean ‘crack this nut’?”

Me: “The joke doesn’t land like that?”

Ramsbottom: “Huh?”

Me: “You went to private school, didn’t you?”

Ramsbottom: “Well…  Yeah, but what does that have to do w–…”

Me: “… nevermind.  I happen to live around the corner from the place and I am off this week.  I will meet you over there at a time of your choosing to hash out what we can and can’t know.”

Ramsbottom: “Sounds good to me.”

Me: “Good, because lunch is on you, homie.”

Ramsbottom: “Wait, what?”

Me: “Quid pro quo.  Quid is my help, quo is you’re feeding me.”

Ramsbottom: “Fine.”

I’mma be frank…  I am not helping him to solve the case, per se, so much as I am “helping” him to throw him off of MY scent.  Lest we forget, I AM the case.

An hour later, we met outside the factory and are looking around the perimeter for clues as to how and where whomever could have gotten everything into the building and how they could have done so undetected.  He made note, as he had been informed by the realtors handling the sale, that Wrangler had grown comfortable – nigh complacent – about the security of the location due to its out-of-the-way location and historical significance.  The worst they had to deal with as it related to it was hipsters and influencers swinging by for photo opportunities and that is mostly harmless.

Ramsbottom: “Hey, look here.”

Me: “Hmm?”

Ramsbottom: “There’s footprints back and forth from this particular door to the edge of that walk there.  I am betting this is where they normally entered.”

[Phlip note: I WANT to say “fuck, this guy is good,” but this is middle-school-level observation.  He gon’ have to show me something]

Me: “Yeah…  Doors at the other end are behind that fence though, I think that–…  what you doin’?”

Ramsbottom: “I’m measuring these footprints for size and photographing them for the lab to match them to a specific shoe model.”

[Phlip note: fuck, this guy is good]

Me: “And I am guessing the fingerprints on the food containers you DNA’d came back with–…”

Ramsbottom: “Nothing.”

Me: “Figured”

Ramsbottom: “And scoured everyone local who would have sold, handled or delivered polycarbonate in this kind of quantities and came up completely blank too.  Whoever did this is KNOWS people, or is really good.”

Me: “Thanks.”

Ramsbottom: “Huh?”

Me: “What?  Nothin’!”

Ramsbottom: “The connections to move materials like this outside of normal traceable channels is rare.”

Me: “This is some movie shit.”

Ramsbottom: “Well I am gonna send this stuff off to the lab and I will be in contact?”

Me: “Bet”

The next afternoon, he calls to fill me in on what he had learned from the shoe prints.  They were a size 12 Columbia hiking shoe available only on Amazon.
What y’all may or not know about me is that I wear a size 10.5 shoe, and got ahead of the possibility of this problem by ORDERING those twelves.  Working on potentially muddy grounds, I knew I would leave footprints and it would take a damned fool in me to willingly leave size 10.5 Nike prints a mile from my home, now wouldn’t it?  I’d had them sent to a pickup locker on the other side of town with a fake name and burner phone, and gave a kid ten bucks to go and get them out of it for me, just in case Amazon complied with law enforcement and pulled the footage.

I could tell that my obfuscation techniques had been successful, and I am just thankful none of those three assholes had a criminal record.  One thing I learned from my time dealing with Woodpenis was to set the crime as FAR out from my personal shit as possible, create several layers of plausible deniability and don’t involve ANYONE I know personally in my shit with me whenever possible.
… and thus far, it worked…

Me: “So what now?”

Ramsbottom: “Well now we’re ice cold.  We’ll have to wait for a break in this, but—…”

Me: “… ‘but’ what, detective Buttsex?”

Ramsbottom: “…  ‘but’ until there is a cooperating witness to whatever has happened here, the worst crime that has taken place here is trespassing.”

Me: “And what does that mean?”

Ramsbottom: “The department won’t spend too much resources on a trespass, unless someone or something gets hurt.”

Me: “Word!”

Ramsbottom: “Hmm?”

Me: “I-I–…  uhh…  there’s bigger fish to fry in the city.”

Ramsbottom: “Oh…  Oh yeah.”

Me: “Well you be easy, my dude.  I’m headed home to my wife and puppydogs.”

Ramsbottom: “I’ll fill you in if anything shakes.”

Me: “I’m sure you will.”

As METICULOUSLY as I set up The Treasure Hunt and set that scene, I am PRAYING I didn’t leave any stones unturned or tracks uncovered on my way through.  I am sure this fuckin’ boyscout will be spending his spare time trying to find something –  ANYTHING – to make his name on this case so he can gain his own Federalehood one day like Woodpenis.
It is now my job to stop that from happening.