Scandal at Shady Point

From the collection: Murder at Thompson Bog
Episode 1

The scene was all too familiar: yellow tape everywhere, uniforms holding back curious onlookers and police cars parked at odd angles, their lights telling the world something terrible yet terribly interesting was going on. The coroner's car was just pulling up. I checked my watch: 11:28 PM. I had made good time from Shady Point.

“Keep back, sir, if you please.” The officer was polite but firm.

“Press.” I held up my identification.

“Shady Point News?” the officer asked, incredulously. “Never heard of it.”

“Still, I've been following this story since it began. I know the parties well. In fact, I know Sergeant Gillespie. Is he here?”

The officer turned, looked through the crowd and motioned. “Gillespie!”

A large man in a gray overcoat sighed and lumbered over to the tape.

“Thought I'd see you sooner or later, Calvin. You'll have to keep back, we have a dead body here and I can't let anyone in.”

“Did Emerson finally get his man, then?”

“I can't discuss it. You know that.”

A car pulled up. In the back I saw the faded but familiar face of Dana Emerson. I had been the photographer at her wedding three years before. She had aged 30 years in those three.

“What's she doing here?” I asked Sergeant Gillespie.

“She's here to identify the body,” Gillespie replied, looking sadly at the woman who accepted the officer's hand as she stepped from the police car.

Dana Emerson was shaking badly and leaned on the officer as she crossed the street to the place where the body lay surrounded by forensics people in police vests.

“They were the happiest couple you ever saw,” I said, half to myself.

Gillespie turned to me, “What? Who?”

“Mike and Dana Emerson, at their wedding. He was so in love with her he could hardly contain himself. She went to her wedding a virgin, I heard. She was waiting for him and only him. It was story-book.”

“Didn't turn out so good, did it,” Gillespie said, looking back to the woman being helped under the yellow tape by the officer.

“Can I talk with her?”

“We'll see what kind of state she's in. The public's right to know is going to take a back seat to the feelings of Mrs. Emerson tonight.”

“Yeah,” I nodded.

I understood. After all, the Shady Point News wasn't a big-city paper and I wasn't a hot-shot reporter with a killer instinct. The News was a weekly handout, mostly advertising and stories people brought in. My job was largely rewriting the bad copy that accompanied bad photos. It was unusual that I went out to find a story. Gillespie knew that. For me to drive from Shady Point was a rare occurrence. But not the only occurrence; I had done it before.

I thought back to when the whole thing turned sour.


Mike had been loading and unloading his red Chevy pickup truck for most of the day, taking things to the church for the raffle coming up on the following weekend. He picked up from folks who lived year-round at the lakeside village of Shady Point, loaded their boxes, then took them to the church and unloaded them. If Wally Tollison hadn't brought his truck along as well, it might have taken twice as long. With Wally's help, it possible for Mike to go home and surprise Dana, his bride of eight months, with a Saturday night dinner out. Dana ran to meet him at the door, in her cleaning smock, with hair in her eyes.

“You're all sweaty and I'm in the middle of cleaning our bathroom.” Dana said, pushing him away before he could give her a hello kiss. “Go on into the other shower and get cleaned up before you even try to kiss me.”

Mike patted her on the behind, then went to the guest bath. He dropped his shirt on the way, threw his jeans over the back of the couch and left a trail of everything else on the way to the guest bath.

When he came out, he picked up the jeans from the arm of the easy chair and went into the bedroom as Dana was finishing tidying up the bed.

“Wally brought his truck. He was a big help.”

“That was nice of him,” Dana said, distracted.

“Something wrong?” he asked.

“No, nothing. What would make you think something was wrong?” she replied, turning toward the bathroom to close the door.

Mike slid his hand into the back pocket of the jeans; stopped, looked up, then checked the front pocket. They didn't feel right. They didn't have truck keys in the front pocket or his wallet in the back. These were not his jeans!

Mike held the jeans in both hands and looked at Dana. Dana had stopped, frozen in her tracks. She looked frightened; Mike had never seen her like that.

“Did you do something with my jeans?”

Dana said nothing. Her mouth was open, her eyes were wide.

Behind Dana, Mike saw into the bathroom. He pushed by Dana and opened the bathroom door. It had not been cleaned, it looked exactly like it did earlier that day when he left, right down to the wet towel on the floor.

Mike turned around, holding the jeans up in his left hand.

“These are not my jeans,” he said calmly but pointedly. Dana gulped, stepping back.

“My wallet was in my jeans. It had two hundred-some dollars in it so we could go out and have dinner. My truck keys were in those jeans, and the keys to the house. These are not my jeans. Whose jeans are they? And why doesn't he have them on?”

Mike stepped toward Dana, who took a step back through the door to the couch, stammering.

“I... I'm... Mike, I'm really...”

Mike closed the bedroom door.

Dana could hear him moving about. She didn't know what to do. She felt exposed in her cleaning shift and bare feet, so she went to the spare room for a dress and slippers; she had moved them there to make room in the big closet. Now they were the only clothes available; Mike was in the bedroom and she wasn't going in there.

When Mike came out, he had put on a pair of khaki pants and a shirt. He had the sheets from the bed in his hands. A look of shock was on his face; a stare as if he was looking at something far away. Dana watched from the door of the guest room, fearful to say anything or take a step.

The jeans were on top of the sheets, folded. Mike went to the Kitchen, took out a large, plastic bag and put the sheets and jeans into the bag. He set it on the floor next to the kitchen door and turned slowly to Dana.

“Now!” he said, soft and low. “Who was in my bedroom? Who was with my wife and left in my pants? Who has keys to my house?” Mike raised his voice slightly. “Who is opening my wallet and spending my money? Who has taken my life?”

He stood with his hands on his hips, waiting for an answer. Dana burst into tears and ran crying to the bedroom, slamming the door behind her. She heard Mike moving around, then the front door slammed, the truck started and Mike drove off.

“He found the spare keys,” Dana thought.