The Murder of Sam Sheckam

Police chief Conrad Cooper looked up from his desk at the young woman who entered his office, pushing a stroller.

“Hey, chief. Remember me?”

She did look familiar, though he couldn’t place her. She was probably in her mid-twenties and had that exhausted, half-put-together look of a young mother. Her blonde hair was up in a messy bun and she wore a tank top and sweat pants. A curly-haired toddler sat in the stroller, clutching a stuffed giraffe and looking at Cooper with big brown eyes.

He stood up to shake her hand. “We’ve met before, haven’t we? Remind me of your name?”

“I’m Diana Dixon.”

“Ah, that’s right. The pastor’s daughter.” Brady Dixon was the pastor of Jacob’s Well, a large, popular non-denominational church in the area. He was a big, burly man with a warm smile and an easy laugh. Cooper had gone to see him preach once on a Sunday morning and was impressed by the man's charisma. A giant blue Hydroflask water bottle sat on the pulpit beside him. Brady Dixon was never without that water bottle, Cooper remembered.

“How’s the church doing these days?”

Diana shrugged. “Ask someone who goes there. Joey and I are Anglicans now.” She smiled fondly at the boy in the stroller.

“Huh. Conflict with your father?”

“Something like that. Not that it’s any of your business, but…yeah. Growing up as Brady Dixon’s daughter was…challenging.”

“I can imagine. What can I do for you, Ms. Dixon?”

“Well, chief, I was just remembering the last time we talked, a few years ago. You asked me some questions, remember? What was that all about again?”

“We were investigating the death of one of the church members at Jacob's Well. A suicide.”

“Suicide. Right. What was the guy’s name again?”

He got the sense she was testing him. Her voice was light, casual, but there was something sharp, almost predatory, in her eye. “I don’t recall.”

“Your memory’s not too good, is it? Sam Sheckam.” By the tone of her voice, the name meant something to her. “Except it wasn’t really a suicide. Did you know that?”

Cooper cleared his throat. “Sheckam’s body was found in the river near the bridge. He had no injuries. The autopsy confirmed he died by drowning.”

She nodded. “Drowned, yeah. Body in the river, yeah. But he didn’t drown in the river. And it wasn’t a suicide.”

“What do you mean, he didn’t drown in the river? Ms. Dixon, are you saying you’ve uncovered new information about Sam Sheckam’s death?”

“It’s not new.” She sat herself down on the chair in front of the desk. “I didn’t tell you everything last time we talked. But I’m not under my dad’s thumb anymore. So I’m ready to tell you the truth. If you’re ready to hear it.”

He looked at his watch. “Ms. Dixon, as I’m sure you understand, I’m a very busy man. This case has been closed for two years. Are you asking me to reopen it?”

“That’s up to you, isn’t it? I’m just going to tell you what I know, and you can decide what you want to do. Hey, nice watch. That a Rolex?”

“Um, yes. It is.” Cooper tugged his sleeve down.

She made an impressed sound. “Police work pays pretty good.”

He folded his hands on the desk. “Look. As far as I’m concerned, it was an open-and-shut case. I didn’t find anyone who had a motive to murder him.”

“Was there a motive for suicide?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Why’d he kill himself?”

He cleared his throat. “Sam Sheckam’s mental state was known to be unstable. He had a history of mental illness.”

“Where’d you hear that from?”

“Brady Dixon. Your father. He was Sheckam’s spiritual caregiver.”

“So my dad told you Sam was mentally unstable,” she said, nodding like the pieces were falling together. “You spent a lot of time talking to my dad in that investigation.”

He had. The larger-than-life preacher showed a different face when talking to the police, sipping nervously from his Hydroflask after every question. “As his pastor, your father had a unique insight into Sheckam’s struggles.”

“Did he tell you why Sam started coming to Jacob’s Well?”

“I’m not sure.”

“He was as heathen as they come, let me tell you. Came from a broken family, got mixed up with the wrong crowd in high school, ended up getting involved in drug stuff. Even spent a few years in prison. Not your typical churchgoer, right? Did he have a Damascus road experience? A spiritual awakening? A sudden change of heart?”

Cooper shrugged his ignorance.

“No,” said Diana. “His motivations were much more earthly.” She pointed both thumbs at herself.

“You?”

“He saw me while I was helping lead a street outreach in the inner city. We were handing out coffee and praying for people. The boy fell in love, as boys do. Head over heels.” She smiled. “He was sweet at first, you know. Polite. Told his buddy off for swearing in front of me. Asked me what church we were from. Next Sunday, there he was. Front row. I was on the worship team that week, guitar and vocals. His eyes were glued to me the whole time. He started coming to every church event. Finding every excuse to see me. He had it bad, let me tell you. Poor guy.”

“And how did your father feel about that?”

“That’s your first question, huh? You don’t want to know how I felt about it? If I loved him back?”

“Well, I don’t know, how did you feel about it?”

“Nice try, chief. But that’s none of your business.” She laughed. Cooper thought it sounded forced. “Anyway, I’m surprised you didn’t know about that. Didn’t dig too deep, did you? Then I guess my dad didn’t tell you about me getting pregnant, either.”

Cooper coughed. “I don’t think it came up, no.”

“That’s right. I was two months pregnant with Sam’s kid when you were doing your investigation. This guy.” She nodded to the toddler, who was busy chewing the ear of his stuffed giraffe. “Dad told me not to tell you, though.”

“Is this relevant to the case?”

“That’s for you to decide, isn’t it? Well, to answer your question, I’ll let you guess how my dad felt about it.”

“Not pleased, I imagine? Doesn’t look great for a pastor’s daughter to be pregnant out of wedlock?”

She leaned forward. “How’s that for a motive? Oldest one in the book, right?”

“Ms. Dixon, are you saying-”

“Hold on, let me finish. Now Sam could have run. Would have been the smart thing to do. Could have ditched me and the kid and the whole situation. But he didn’t. You know why?” She cracked a brittle smile. “That boy was in love.”

“So what did he do?”

“Went to my father. Came clean about the whole affair. Said he was sorry, he knew he’d done wrong, but he was ready to stick to the straight and narrow from now on. He wanted to do the proper thing and marry me.”

“And?”

“You know what people say when they first meet my dad? He’s so kind, they say. So gracious. So pastoral. He’s got this smile, you know, that just makes you feel like he’s on your side. So I can imagine he smiled at Sam and said yes, of course, he forgave him. And yes, he’d let Sam marry me. There was just one condition. His daughter couldn’t marry an unbeliever. Sam had to become a Christian. So Sam, earnest as anything, asked how to do that. And my dad said he just had to repent and be baptized.”

Cooper cleared his throat. “Ms. Dixon, if you don’t mind me asking, what exactly was the nature of your relationship with Sam Sheckam?”

Something glinted in her eyes. “Oh, now you want to know? Too late, chief. And anyway, is it relevant to the case?”

“Well, is it?”

“Not this one. This one’s about Sam and my dad. You want to know about Sam and me, well… he’s dead, isn’t he? So it doesn’t matter.”

“Fine, then. He was in love with you. Dumb reason to join a religion, if you ask me. So what happened?”

“Sam agreed to get baptized. I think you see where this is going, don’t you? Now, normally they do baptisms on a Sunday morning in front of the whole church. There’s a tank under the stage that gets opened up and filled with water for Baptism Sunday, once a year. But Sam hadn’t grown up in the church. He didn’t know that. So he didn’t think anything of it when my dad told him to come in on a Thursday evening. The church was empty. Just my dad and two of the deacons - one of which was my brother, by the way - waiting for him on the stage.”

Cooper had a bad feeling about where this was going.

“They followed the script. Went through the ceremony. Sam followed my dad down into the tank. And after he gave his confession of faith, my dad lowered him under the water. Buried with Christ, raised with Christ, that’s the idea. Except you can probably guess what happened.”

“They skipped the raising part?”

“He went under the water. My dad and the deacons made sure he never came out.”

“Yikes.” It was hard to picture Brady Dixon, the smiley preacher, doing such a thing.

Diana nodded. “Then they tossed his body into the river. Just like that. Crazy how easy it is to betray someone when they trust you completely.”

The toddler began pulling on his mother’s sweater and making gibberish sounds.

“A snack, baby? Okay. Here you go.” Diana reached into her bag and pulled out a container of Cheerios for him, giving Cooper a minute to absorb the story. Once the kid was happily crunching on his snack, he cleared his throat.

“Ms. Dixon, this is an ugly accusation. But by your own admission, you weren’t there when this happened. How do you know your father murdered Sam Sheckam?”

“It’s pretty obvious if you put the pieces together,” she said with a shrug. Then she leaned forward, and that predatory look appeared in her eye again. “In fact, I’m surprised you didn’t figure it out yourself.”

Cooper shifted in his seat. “I found no evidence to suggest foul play.”

“Chief, I think you’re pretty good at your job. You spent hours questioning my father. That’s what you do with a suspect, I thought. But it turns out you were just getting his pastoral insight on the state of Sam’s soul, right?”

“Brady Dixon said nothing that would lead me to believe-”

“And then,” she went on, cutting him off, “you dropped the case. Out of the blue. You ruled it a suicide. Even though, as we’ve now seen, you didn’t know everything.”

“Ms. Dixon, I can assure you-”

“And you know what else?” she said, raising her voice to speak over him. “I was just going over the church’s financial records. I noticed something funny, right around the time all this was going on. Big chunk of money just disappeared. No record of where it went. How about that.”

Cooper stood up. “If you’re accusing me of taking a bribe to acquit your father of murder, you’ll want to think hard about whether you’ve got enough evidence to back that claim in court.”

She startled him by laughing. “In court? Cool your jets, chief. I’m not making any accusations here. Just observations.”

“Brady Dixon did not pay me off to drop the case against him.”

“Gotta say, chief, my dad’s a better liar than you are. But I’m not the one you need to make a confession to.”

Cooper punched the desk. “As far as I’m concerned, Sam Sheckam’s death was a suicide. I haven’t heard anything to convince me otherwise. And if you really want to see your father convicted of murder, you’ll have to-”

“Oh, no,” she said calmly. “No, that’s not possible. You see, my father’s dead.”

Cooper blinked. “Dead?”

“He died a month ago,” she said, rummaging through her bag for another snack to give Joey. “Black mold poisoning. He never washed that Hydroflask of his.” She opened the package of fruit gummies. “Here, sweetie.”

Cooper sat down, taking this in. “Then what’s the point of you telling me all this?”

“Don’t you see, chief? Don’t you get it?” Now it was her turn to raise her voice and lean forward. “‘Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.’”

Cooper stared at her blankly. “Is that a Bible verse?”

“Matthew 23:25. But guess who sees the inside, chief. Guess.”

He felt a headache coming on. “Ms. Dixon, if I wanted a sermon, I’d come to-”

“God sees the inside!” she shouted, slapping the desk as if it were a pulpit. “You can’t hide from him. Brady Dixon may have paid his way out of justice on this earth, but there’s no escaping the justice of heaven.”

“So you’re saying your father’s death was a divine punishment?”

“Hey, that’s not for me to judge. I just gotta watch out for my own soul. And you gotta watch out for yours. Money’s a poisoned well, chief. You’d better make sure you wash out the inside of your cup.”

“So I don’t get black mold poisoning?”

“Ha ha. Just remember someday you’re going to stand before the throne of God. And he doesn’t take bribes.”

He rubbed his temples and sighed. “So that’s the whole reason you came here? Just to preach to me?”

“I came here to remind you that everyone gets what they deserve in the end.” She punctuated her words by stabbing the desk with her finger.

He scoffed. Twenty years in the police force was enough to show him that wasn’t remotely true. “Oh yeah? What about Sam Sheckam? Did he get what he deserved?”

She stopped and fixed him with a long, appraising look. Then she looked down, and the righteous fire seemed to drain out of her.

“Yeah,” she said softly. “Maybe he did.”

Neither of them spoke for a long time. Then Cooper folded his hands on the desk and leaned forward. “You don’t have to tell me everything,” he said gently. “But it seems to me there’s more than one villain in this story. And more than one victim.”

She kept her eyes lowered, blinking rapidly as if fighting back tears. “You got me,” she said. “Doesn’t matter, though. It’s all over.”

“It does matter. And Diana, I sincerely hope you get what you deserve too.”

She looked up at him with a grateful smile. “I’m okay, chief. I’m happy. My life’s good now. I’m going to therapy. And I wouldn’t trade this guy for the world.” She looked lovingly at her son.

“If there’s anything I can do for you…”

“Just think about what I said. Anyway. Thanks for your time.” She stood up and wheeled the stroller to face the door, then looked back at him. “Oh. One more thing. The women’s shelter on King Street is raising money to open a second location. Just thought you might want to know.” She turned to go.

“Diana,” he called after her. “For the record, I think you’d make a good preacher.”

She stopped in the doorway. “Huh. Never considered that. Thanks, chief.”

Cooper sat and stared at the closed door for a long time after she left. Finally he sighed, opened the browser on his computer, and found the donation page for the women’s shelter.