Murder at Thompson Bog

Episode 5

Ed Riggs groaned as he pulled himself into a sitting position. He was sitting on cold, damp ground, but it was solid. He reached into the water and brought a handful up, pouring it over his calf where the sharp pain fixed his attention. The water felt good on his leg. He touched his pants and found them torn. On his calf was an open wound, a gash. It wasn't deep, but it hurt like the blazes.

He looked around, but couldn't see anything near that would give him a hand up. The trees were smooth with no low-hanging branches. The pier was too far to reach; he had drifted, as did the body of Clara Miller, away from the old pier. There was nothing to do but to sit there and gather his strength. He certainly wasn't going to walk through the swamp with one shoe and an open wound.

He wondered if Clara was pregnant. Did that spark an argument? Frank was easy enough to argue with. There wasn't much you could say to him that didn't illicit a negative response. If she announced she had become pregnant, that could have sealed her fate. Frank didn't want kids. That's just one of the many things that Harlan had against him, that he would never be a grandfather while Frank was wielding the baby-maker.

Ed lay back on the cold, hard ground. His hand fell to his side and into the water, letting him know that he was just inches away from the swamp.

Inches. His life was just spared by inches. Clara had died by inches. The fear in her eyes, the mouth frozen in a silent scream, showed that she probably was still alive when she went under. The coroner would probably find for murder-by-drowning rather than blunt-force-trauma, the mark of the gun butt notwithstanding.

He strained his ears for sounds of engines, of shouting, of someone coming to search for him. If he wanted to, Frank could summon up to six officers to join in the search without even trying. If he roused the town's folk, he could get 30 or more out. But he had just sat there, squatting on the pier, talking to him in his soft voice, the voice that told Ed Riggs everything he needed to know.

“Sorry,” he had said. But Frank Morton wasn't sorry. The soft voice held a sneer that told a different story. Ed Riggs had to face facts, Frank Morton wanted him dead and only left without further violence because he thought that was already the case.

Out on the dirt road, through the trees, came the sound of a car engine, then another. Lights came through the trees and down the dirt road. They drove up to the trailer and stopped. First one light, then another, shown through the complete darkness. Help was on the way.


Al Gaither pulled his car around the far end of the property to a place where he could see the Miller trailer. He was driving without headlights, hoping he wouldn't run into anything, or anyone. He cut the engine a distance from the trailer. He had long since removed the inside bulb, so no light went on when he opened the door. He left the door open, partly so it wouldn't be heard closing and partly to facilitate a fast getaway if needed.

The Miller trailer was dark. It could be he was too early and the lovers were still entwined, or that he was too late and the man had already left. He settled in for a long night in case it was the former.

There was a light that caught his eye, but it wasn't in the trailer, it was off in the swamp. An oil lamp shown through the trees from the bog, slightly moving. Someone had a light going in a small boat.

Al stood up and moved quietly forward. As he moved around the trailer, he noticed that the black Ford was not there. Perhaps he was too late and the visitor was already gone. The Miller girl was probably in her bed fast asleep, looking innocent for when her father came home from his shift in a few hours.

Two headlights came into view down the dirt road from the county highway, headlights moving toward the swamp, toward him as well. It wasn't the Ford that was usually there, the lover; it was a Chevy wagon.

Soon another joined it, a big car, with one dim headlight.

He went around the trailer to see who had arrived. There was still dust settling where the cars had driven up the road. They stopped at the trailer and doors were opened and closed. A flashlight beam broke the darkness. In the beam a man could be seen. There was a short exchange, then the man went to his trunk and brought out a second flashlight.

Together, both beams moved toward the small pier jutting out into the swamp. Al moved closer to find out who took interest in the pier at this late hour. He moved past the trailer, past the two cars toward the pair of flashlight beams. He was about to call out, when he heard the blast of a shotgun.


From the mound where he lay, Ed Riggs looked across the patch of swamp and the Miller yard beyond to where the two cars had stopped. Two flashlight beams were walking toward the pier where he had fallen. They were not that far away, he could yell to them, he thought. But he couldn't get the strength or breath to yell. He tried, but made a weak squeal instead.

He had figured out who killed Clara Miller and felt a renewed sense of purpose. He had to get back to the station, to call the coroner, to call the chief, to find his partner – the one who left him to die. But his body was fighting him, too weak and injured to comply. He looked around, trying to find a way to begin his new quest, to cry out to the searchers, to be rescued and take command of the situation once more. Then he heard the sound of a shotgun blast too close for comfort.



Collin Miller sat in his boat lulled to sleep by the crystal-clear brew the Belter boys had sold him and the gentle lapping of the water against his flat-bottomed boat. He snored himself awake, jerking a bit and having to recover his balance.

He noticed that the caulking had come loose again and the boat was slowly filling up, his boots were in an inch-and-a-half of water. He decided it might be time to go back in. He took the shotgun from his lap and began to lean it against the the seat so he could work the oars.

That's when he noticed the lights in his yard. They couldn't have spotted his truck, which he left in the woods behind his place. They must be coming for something, maybe his boat, which they couldn't see was missing from the pier. Maybe it was Clara's lover, and he's brought a friend. Maybe they were gonna have a party. He would fix 'em!

Collin Miller raised the shotgun and aimed it at the lights just coming onto the pier. He pulled the trigger and the gun went off, knocking him back into the boat, into the inch-and-a-half of water.


The sound shook Harlen Eldridge from his half-sleep. The empty glass fell from his hand and the sound as it hit the wooden porch made him wonder if he had really heard a shotgun report. Perhaps he just imagined it.

No, he was sure, it had been a shotgun. He grasped his ivory-handled walking stick and struggled up to his feet. The sound had come from the other side of the bog that bordered his land. There were some shacks over there, who-knows-what-all lived in them. Some trailers too, poor white trash or worse.

Harlen looked at the pictures still in his left hand and looked up across the yard to the trees that hid the swampland beyond from view. Could it be that old man Miller had found a solution, right or wrong, and had set it into play? Surely Gaither would have been there to record it all on film. Surely the police would come soon and see what the ruckus was. But what if it was something else? What else? He didn't know, but he had to be sure.

He opened the screen door and picked up the keys lying inside on the side table, turned back and hobbled down the stairs to the new Chrysler sedan sitting in front of the house at the near loop of the circular drive. He climbed into the driver's seat, turned on the lights and started it up. He headed toward the highway that would lead to the dirt road leading to the place where the pictures were taken, to where his son-in-law besmirched the family name with an underage trailer whore.



Frank Morton jerked awake. Did he forget to turn the television off? There was a noise that sounded like a shot. He rolled over to look at the clock and fell off of the couch onto the floor, hitting his head on the coffee table in the process. He struggled up from the floor. The television was still on, but there was a test pattern, not a show. The western was over, as was all programing for the day. Frank got up and switched the television off, then went to the front door. Outside a few neighborhood dogs were barking at the sudden noise that woke them as well as him, but all was still otherwise.

Then Frank Morton got a flash of an idea that made his eyes go wide. Had Miller gotten home and found some evidence of him? Had someone found the Miller girl's body, or Ed Riggs? Had the shotgun report been at someone mistaken for the crimes? Or at shadows in the swamp? In either case, he knew he had to somehow insert himself into the middle of the investigation to turn suspicion in other directions.

Frank grabbed his coat from the door, ran down the three steps to his car and started it up. In the side mirror he could see his wife's face appear at the window to see where he was off to at this hour. He saw her face diminish in the mirror as he sped down the gravel path to the two-lane that would lead him to Thompson Bog.