Shutterbug Shutdown

        On a boring Saturday morning on the outskirts of my home turf in Berlin, Md. I took a hike along a deserted road next to one of the many cornfields in the area.

      A large chicken-raising operation long ago had dominated the community for many years, but now only abandoned grow-out houses dotted the landscape. This seemed like the ideal place to search for historical treasures that might help me discover a forgotten link to our town’s past that could provide the fodder for a new book knocking around in my brain.

     Risking a confrontation with some gun-toting local keeping an eye open for someone trespassing on land they considered off limits, I tramped across the field to the well-worn door of one of the buildings.

     Just as I came close, my boot struck a hard object half buried in the soil. When I picked it up and dusted it off I found the remains of one of those cheap little disposable cameras so many families used in the 1980s and 1990s to capture family picnics or days at the beach.

      Finding this artifact in the middle of a rural area probably miles from a family outing aroused my curiosity. I decided to search around for a place to get the photos developed.

     This presented another possible adventure, since the heyday of disposable camera popularity had passed us by about 35 years before. Of course, Walmart had a small photo department, but I had no idea whether they could handle this barely-functioning relic. Modern discount stores dealt mainly in converting pictures taken with cell phones.

     Then it struck me, my friend Don had worked for the last 40 years as a professional photographer. He also had a reputation as one of the top experts on local history on Maryland’s Lower Eastern Shore.

     When I texted him he responded, “be glad to look at the device, although he didn’t hold up much hope of resurrecting the contents of a cheap piece of equipment which probably has laid buried beneath the soil and assaulted by all kinds of weather for almost four decades.”

       With my curiosity aroused, I drove the 31 miles to my friend’s Salisbury studio to see what he could peel back from the layers of dirt and wear caked on the device.

     Don took a quick look and said, “this one looks like a tough one. There doesn’t seem to be much left. But we’ll give ‘er a try. Call me back in an hour.”

     It took me a half hour to get home, but, just as I opened the door to my condo, my phone chimed.

     “Took way less time than I expected,” my photo ace buddy yelled excitedly. “You better get back here in a hurry. Might have to turn these pictures over to the authorities.”

       Don wouldn’t go into specifics within earshot of customers or nosy neighbors, but his tone sounded ominous.

     I drove back as quickly and cautiously as I could. Didn’t want some overzealous sheriff’s deputy pulling me over for speeding and forcing me to talk about the possible contents of the camera before Don and I had a chance to examine them in person.

      My friend opened the door with a shocked look on his face and quickly scanned the area around his studio before leading me over to his workbench and revealing what he had found.

     “Don’t know if you recall,” the photog said excitedly, “back in 1989 the OC Clucker, one of the top restaurants on the shore, went out of business suddenly and without explanation.”

     “There were rumors of some poisoned chicken and an attempt to cover up the source of it, as I remember, “ I said.

       “The police and health authorities never came to a conclusion, because they said a small kitchen fire destroyed the evidence,” Don said.

       He added, “The scuttlebutt around the shore pointed to a New Jersey mob boss as a silent partner in the restaurant. He supposedly saved money when buying supplies for OC Clucker and got his poultry from a farm in Berlin that had continued operating secretly after Worcester County health authorities closed it down. It took some time to discover the off-the-books farm because one of the cronies of the mob boss worked for the county and never reported it. Then, one night, a sous chef at the restaurant examined some of the chicken he prepared that night a little more closely after a customer complained it tasted funny. He found a small amount of poison in the chicken. Luckily, no one became sick or died. When the restaurant manager said he had to report this to the authorities, the mob boss started a fight with him. The manager fell backwards and knocked a pot off a stove, causing the fire. After evacuating the restaurant they couldn’t find the sous chef.”

     Don added that no one could confirm the rumors or point to the source of the altered chicken.  

      “A few years after the incident,” he continued, “a writer for The Surfside Reporter, a local newspaper, interviewed employees for a chicken farmer in Berlin after the farmer laid them off before suddenly closing down his operation. They had overheard discussions between their former boss and a mobster who supposedly kept the operation afloat so he could supply his other business, OC Clucker, with produce. 

      “The mobster and farmer resurfaced in Wicomico County a few years later and rumors began flying that they might be up to their old tricks.

       My friend said some of the former chicken farm employees anonymously tipped off the Wicomico authorities about the photographs and law enforcement had begun a new search for the evidence. They had contacted the owners of a number of local photography shops to track down proof of the Worcester County scam.

      “The pictures I developed seem to show the farmer altering the feed to poison his chicken meat and the mobster’s gang members paying him off to keep the operation quiet. We need to handle this with kid gloves.” he added. “We need to get these pictures to the Wicomico County sheriff so he can put a stop to this before the gangster tracks us down and adds us to his casualty list.”

     Luckily, another friend of mine had worked for a number of years as an undercover deputy for the sheriff and his office had planted an informant in the mobster’s gang.

     About a week later the mobster showed up without warning at Don’s studio and threatened to give him the OC Clucker treatment if he did not destroy the photos and all copies while the gang leader and his followers watched.

      Tipped off by the informant, the sheriff and his deputies had handcuffs on the gang and on their way to the county jail soon after the thugs broke into the studio.