Hook, Line and Sinker

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I wanted to check out the house that was for sale at the lake, but Jim didn't think it was a good idea. He said it would cost more than we could afford to put it back in decent shape. He also noted that if we wanted to vacation at the lake, we could use the house his parents owned. He was probably right, or to be more exact, he was right as it turned out. The house at the lake was a bad idea. Of course, we didn't realize that until it was too late. It all began on a Friday evening back in June of last year. I finally convinced Jim to at least look at the house the next day We drove up to the lake at the crack of dawn because the realtor said he would meet us at 8 am due to time constraints. We got there a little before 7:30 and it was still dark. We had stopped for coffee, so we sat in the car, drank our coffee and tried to figure out what would be the lowest price we could offer for the run down Lake House. It needed a lot of work, we knew that. We had been in the house a month ago because the door had been left unlocked. Locked or not, the house was easy to break into since none of the windows had locks. That would change if we bought the house. The realtor didn't show up by 8:00 or even 8:30. We tried his cell phone several times but there was no answer, just his voice mail which was full. We tried his office, but since it was Saturday there was no one working. Since we had planned on visiting some friends at the lake after seeing the house, we figured we would just head on over to their place a little early. Then we saw something in the lake, something that looked human floating on the water. We heard a vehicle start up and before we knew it the car was heading straight for us at a fast speed. We knew we couldn't make it to our car, so we ran to the dock, it was the only thing we could do to avoid the lunatic behind the wheel. The driver slammed on the brakes just as we got onto the rickety dock. We thought we might be safe, but then we heard the gunshots. The driver was shooting at us. In the distance we could hear sirens. We knew they were a long way off, but it gave us hope that help was on the way. We felt even better when the county's helicopter circled overhead a few times. The entire police force from the city and county descended on the car and held the driver captive. For hours it was a standoff and finally right around 4 pm there was one single gunshot blast from the vehicle. We watched in horror as the windows inside the car turned red from the blood. Once law enforcement got everything settled down we found out that the dead body in the lake was our realtor. The maniac in the car had escaped from the local mental institution. He went to the lake house because he overheard people talking about how quiet it was there and one could get lost in the quiet. However, once the nut job got to the lake house he ran into our realtor and that set the guy off. After he shot the poor innocent realtor and dumped his body in the lake, he hid in the house. He got scared when he heard us outside and, well, you know what happened from there. If we had gotten there five minutes earlier, it might have been our bodies floating in that water instead of the realtor. Jim and I spent several hours at the police station with the officers and detectives. Finally around midnight we were told we could leave, so we headed home. We were exhausted but we replayed the day over and over again in our heads. Little do they know that the parts of the story that we provided were in our favor. We told them what we wanted them to know and that led them to the logical conclusion that the escaped mental patient was the killer. The amazing part is, they bought it hook, line and sinker. Perhaps killing our realtor was a little harsh, but we sure weren’t going to let him get away with collecting a huge fee on that run down shack. If he had just been willing to negotiate, he would have lived through that showing. Now that the dust has settled and we are in the clear, we decided to have a swimming pool installed rather than buying a lake house. We are giving up the dream of a house at the lake. Although I did hear that another house, in even worse shape, is now up for sale...... Photo: pixabay.com/en/boat-house-cottage-waters-lake-192990/