Scandal at Shady Point

From the collection: Murder at Thompson Bog
Episode 3

Dana sat on the couch at her friend, Lori's house. Lori had been a bride's maid at her wedding and Dana had returned the favor a month later. Now Lori and her husband, Rick, sat at the table and looked at her, not knowing what to say.

“I screwed up,” said Dana.

“Yes, you did,” replied Lori. “Won't he forgive you? Maybe if you went to him.”

“He won't even talk to me. He wants to know the name ...”

“So, tell him!” Rick raised the volume of the conversation, eliciting a harsh look from Lori.

“He'll kill him,” said Dana. “He's got a gun.”

“Oh, he wouldn't actually kill him,” said Lori. She knew Mike; he couldn't do anything like that any more than Rick could. Of course, she wasn't cheating on Rick in their bed with a stranger, either.

“Yes, he would, he will. I've never seen him like this.” Dana hung her head and let the tears flow. Lori and Rick looked at each other. Neither had a clue what to do.

As night fell, Dana was wide awake on Rick and Lori's couch, Mike was wide awake at the kitchen table and Sheriff Willis was fast asleep in his bed next to his wife, Martha.


By eleven-forty-five that night, Mike Emerson was on his third glass of rye whiskey; not a short, polite glass, but a large, soda-sized glass. He had nearly polished off the bottle.

“My jeans, my wallet, my keys, my wife,” he kept repeating. He had emptied all his accounts and canceled his cards. It was unlikely the thief ― of his wallet, jeans and wife ― would spend more than the two hundred dollars now. If he tried to use the cards he would find them closed. If he tried to use the key, he would find new locks.

Mike positioned the butt of the rifle on the floor, resting his chin on the barrel as his hand slid slowly down to the trigger housing. But if the man wanted to take his truck, he could do that ― he had the key. Mike's finger found the trigger and felt the small ridges in the metal. He wondered, if he were to pull the trigger, if his head would be blown off, or would the bullet just rattle around in his skull, making scrambled eggs of his gray cells. He smiled to think of Dana having to clean up his blood and brains from the ceiling.

Mike sighed a heavy sigh, leaned forward, a ringing in his head, his finger on the trigger of the rifle and let his head fall forward. The barrel was just above his ear when the gun went off, putting a hole in the ceiling and a different ringing in Mike's ear.

Mike stood up, opened the bolt freeing the spent shell, put another bullet in the chamber and closed the bolt. He picked up a small bag of things he had packed, went out to his truck, got in and drove out of the driveway into the night. The .22 rifle was on the seat beside him.


At midnight, the Sheriff's Office got a call that a single gunshot was heard from Mike's house. Sheriff Willis was called and hurried over there to find two deputies waiting at the locked door. They had to force the door to get in. They found a single .22 caliber shell casing on the living room floor and no one inside the house. No blood, no body, no Mike.

“I've got to question him,” said Sheriff Willis to Dana. They were in the front doorway of Rick and Lori's house. Dana was wearing Lori's housecoat, her hair hadn't been touched since her restless sleep, and showed it. Her face was wrinkled from the sheets and puffy from crying.

“Can't we leave him out of it?” she pleaded.

“He's in it, up to his neck. This has gone beyond a one-time fling gone wrong, there was a shot fired and Mike is missing.”

“Randy Turner,” said Dana. She sighed heavily. “He lives in town. He's an old friend from school. We didn't mean this to happen; it just did.”

As a reporter for the local paper, I was called to the scene by my editor and asked to see if this was really a story for the Shady Point News. I dutifully wrote down the name “Randy Turner.” From town, I thought. Interesting.

Usually people from town didn't come to Shady Point, they didn't consider it a vacation or even interesting. They went to the shore or into the mountains or Disney World. Shady Point was for people who never saw a mountain or a lake. Three-quarters of the houses are empty most of the year, absentee owners who come to get away from the big city or kept as rentals for the peak season.

“Any luck with Turner?” I asked Sheriff Willis.

“It's not a story, it's a spat. Just leave it alone.”

“Mike's gone missing. His boss hasn't seen him, he hasn't been in touch with his wife or with you. So I have to ask, any sign of foul play from the boyfriend?”

“He's not a boyfriend, I don't know what he is.”

“Is he a suspect?” I was half asking as a reporter but also because I live there too. If one of Shady Point's residents was suspected of foul play to another, it was news, but it was also terrible.

“No, he's not a suspect. He's a person of interest, a possible source of information in a missing person's case, nothing more. Like I said, it's not a story.”


At Randy Turner's place in the city, it became a story.

Turner was recently divorced, living with his sister after the breakup until he moved into a less-than-attractive set of row townhouses. He was paying a staggering alimony to his ex-wife of barely three years. He had indeed gone to school with Dana but there was no sign that the two had been close.

It was shortly after Mike disappeared that Randy Turner returned home to find “Adulterer” written in marker on his door at eye-level. He stopped for a moment to look at the marking when a bullet struck the house right next to the door. Randy Turner frantically turned the key, threw open the front door and dove behind the couch.

The call went out on the police scanner, my editor heard it and called me. It was fifteen minutes later that I stood behind the yellow barrier tape at Randy Turner's townhouse.

“What are you doing here, Calvin?” asked the Sheriff.

“Might ask you the same thing, Sheriff Willis. As for me, it's a story now.”

“Just a related happening, not a story.”

“Someone shooting at Randy Turner with a .22 caliber bullet. You don't call that a story?”

Sheriff Willis was trying to ignore me. A large man in rolled shirtsleeves came up to the tape. The badge on his belt showed he was a Sergeant of Detectives.

“He doesn't know anything. He hasn't heard from Emerson since the incident, either one of them.”

“Um, Sergeant Gillespie, this is Jake Calvin, reporter for the Shady Point News.” Sheriff Willis emphasized the word 'reporter' for the Sergeant. The Sergeant was suitably impressed.

“Press, eh? Well, nothing much to write about. Looks like a random shooting, probably someone celebrating the Fourth of July early.”

“And calling his shots, eh?” I asked, indicating the single word written on the door. “Looks like he meant to miss. At that distance, it's hard not to.”

“Supposition is not your job, Mr. Calvin,” said Gillespie. “There is nothing to support a theory that this incident is connected with any earlier incident.”

“Except, of course, the presence of Sheriff Willis.” I smiled at Gillespie.

“Found it, sir,” came a shout from across the street. A small group of police had been searching the grounds of the opposing apartment complex and the bushes that surrounded the buildings. One of the officers was now crossing the street with his tiny find raised high.

“It's a shell casing,” he called to the Sergeant. “Twenty-two caliber, just like you thought. No other sign of Emerson.”

Gillespie looked at me like the cat was out of the bag. “See?” he said to me, “No sign of Emerson. So it's not related. No need for you to be here.”

Gillespie walked off with Sheriff Willis toward the townhouse where the shaking Turner was surrounded by police, drinking coffee like it was a cold, winter night. But it wasn't a cold, winter night, it was late spring and it was hot. After a few minutes talking with Turner, Sheriff Willis came back to the tape.

“You still here?”

“It's still a story.”

“It's a dead end. He didn't see anything, didn't hear anything, just something hitting the house, then he dove inside.”

“Yeah, but still, Turner has been served. Mike Emerson knows who – and where – he is.” The look on Willis' face told me that he knew I was right. The game was on.