"My life would make a damn good country song" sings Jerry Lee. Last week it made a damn sad country song. At 47, rock rebel Jerry was suffering the latest tragedy of his seemingly ill-starred life, the mysterious death of Shawn Michelle, 25, his 5th wife and bride of scarcely 3 months. Found by a housekeeper in the bedroom of the couple's rambling brick home in Nesbit, Miss.

Shawn was pronounced dead & taken to the Tennessee Centre for Health in Memphis. A preliminary autopsy report by medical examiner Jerry Francisco listed the cause of death as pulmonary edema, a buildup of fluid in the lungs. According to Francisco who performed the autopsy on Elvis Presley 6 years ago such a buildup is consistent with a drug overdose. Reports about the condition of Shawn's body when it was found further muddied the situation. Shawn's mother, Janice Kleinhans, of Garden City, Michigan, said she felt there was a missing piece to the puzzle, "but I need to know what it is."

While local & state authorities launched an investigation, Jerry & those near him expressed only shock at the death. "I don't know what happened I loved her & she loved me. Everything was fine." echoed Lewis' sister, Linda: "They were very happy." Dolan added that Shawn had been taking prescription drugs because of recent dental work & hinted at an accidental overdose. Lewis' manager, Whitten, recalled that the victim "had sleeping pills prescribed trying to keep up with us on tour, where you have to sleep when you can. Lewis was at home when his wife's body was discovered.

Shawn's life with Lewis was far from ordinary & the funeral for the former Detroit secretary was no different. At services in the clapboard Assembly of God church in Ferriday, La., the flamboyant singer arrived in a white suit & red ruffled shirt-just like he wore at the wedding last June 7. "He looked like he was going dancing," complained Kleinhans, who exchanged not a word with the widower. After a eulogy by Jerry Lee's cousin, Gerald Lewis, a baby-blue hearse bore the brass-fitted, ivory-colored coffin to the Lewis family plot in nearby Clayton, Louisiana.

Personal tragedies have cast a pall over much of Lewis' life. At age 22, after helping lead the rock revolution with such hits as Great Balls of Fire & Whole Lot of Shakin' he watched his career tailspin into scandal when he took his 13-year-old cousin Myra as his 3rd wife. His 3-year-old son, Steve Allen, named after the show host, drowned in the family pool. 11 years later Jerry Lee Jr., 19, was killed in an auto accident. Lewis' bouts with drink & drugs came to be as commonly publicized as his marital woes & his estranged fourth wife, Jaren, took him to court, accusing him of threatening her life. Last year, while awaiting a final divorce decree, Jaren, 39, also drowned in a swimming accident.

Lewis, by then, had survived his own brush with death, having undergone two operations in 1981 for a ruptured stomach. Declaring that God had 'spanked me pretty good" & "I've learned to cool it," he returned to the stage-and the altar.

Kleinhans concedes she did not oppose her daughter's marrying Lewis whom Shawn had known for three & a half years. "She was 25 & when they're that old they know who they want." Kleinhans is sceptical of rumours linking her to drugs. "That was a concern but every time she talked, she said, 'I hope you don't think there's anything like that going on with me because there isn't.' I do know she had some teeth pulled but that's been a few weeks. I don't believe she was taking any medication."

Lewis, tight-lipped & depressed, says he doesn't know what to think. "We had our usual arguments, but there was no reason for that [suicide]," he says. "God doesn't smile on that." Then he adds, sadly, "Even if she took her own life, I believe she went to heaven."