Sex. Murder. Mystery(11)

“What does she look like?’’ Barb eventually asked, knowing full well her question would spark suspicion. She didn’t care.

“She has auburn hair and really nice-looking blue eyes,” he said.

That description confirmed for Barbara that the woman at the motel had not been Julie. Julie had dark brown hair. The woman the motel manager was describing was the preacher’s wife Sharon Fuller.

What kind of woman is she? She’s coming down to Trinidad and she’s got two little kids and she’s married to a preacher. Here she is shacking up at a motel, Barb thought.

Perry Nelson was a wonderful man, in many, many ways.

But he was not a saint and he’d be the first one to tell someone that fact. Over the course of their years together, Barbara Ruscetti had seen the doctor put his own spin on the concept of a doctor’s bedside manner. He had a roving eye for attractive, available women. Barb couldn’t count the number of times she had seen “no charge” written on the exam cards of beautiful women, who lingered in the doctor’s office and stopped by to say hi. There were other, more concrete, signs, too. When the doctor brought his motor home from Rocky Ford under the pretext of staying the night in Trinidad to catch up on paperwork, Barb had a notion something was going on. She would never forget the time she and her son went to watch a movie and ran into the doctor and a girlfriend.

“Urn…uh…uh…Just met here… so we happened to sit together… ”

The next morning, Barb arrived at the office in time to catch the doctor and the same lady friend climbing out of the motor home.

But Barb could forgive all of that. Though she knew it was wrong, she didn’t tell Julie Nelson about her husband’s dalliances. She didn’t think it was her place to do so. She also didn’t think Perry Nelson meant anything by it. Barb never doubted the man loved his wife and three daughters. She never doubted that when the day was done, he’d always return to his family. Barb didn’t want to make waves.

Perry Nelson was a man who earned such loyalty effortlessly. He was revered by many in the community. He was trusted. Little old ladies lined up for eye exams with the charming doctor who good-naturedly gibed them. When Barb’s daughter wanted a typewriter—an electric typewriter, no less—it was Perry who came through with one for a Christmas present.

He handed out more donations to the needy than the local Salvation Army. Until Barb started screening them out, drunks from the Lone Star down the street staggered over for a quick ten bucks and a short lecture on the evils of drinking. Perry Nelson had a heart of gold. He would do anything for anyone. While it was true some of the more desperate took advantage of that generosity, Perry didn’t seem to care. He didn’t judge. All people were good. Most were trying the best that they knew how.

But the woman from Rocky Ford was a different animal. From the day of their first meeting at the office, Barb Ruscetti could feel it in her bones.

“She’s a bitch on wheels,” Dr. Nelson’s secretary told a friend over coffee one day, after meeting Sharon in the flesh. “She’s not nice. You know what I mean? Not nice.”

Some old-timers winced at the reality that Trinidad’s most famous citizen was Dr. Stanley Biber, a man who’d performed more sex-change operations than anyone on earth. Those who lived there before television and the tabloids discovered Dr. Biber’ s eccentric, but thriving, practice, wanted the town to be known for Bat Masterson, Tom Mix and its Old West flavor.

It seemed everyone knew one of the transsexuals who had decided that the place where they lost their penis was the place they’d call home.

Dr. Biber’s downtown office was on the floor above Dr. Nelson’s practice in the First National Bank building. Barb Ruscetti would often ride the elevator with prospective patients, leaving her to wonder exactly what they had left under their skirts.

But she didn’t care. She had worries far greater than Annie the Tranny or any of the others.

At least they were honest about who they were.

It wasn’t easy, but Barb Ruscetti tried to like Sharon. Barb tried to take Sharon under her wing and show a kindness that she hoped would rub off onto the younger woman. She tried to go along with what she knew was a bad situation. Since everyone but a fool and a hermit had a citizens band radio in the remote canyons around Trinidad, when it came time to give Sharon a handle, Barb (“Spec Lady”) dubbed Sharon “Doctor’s Doll.” Dr. Nelson was “Spec Man.”

Sharon always talked of money and how she didn’t have any on a preacher’s salary. She talked of what she would buy if she was rich. Once Barb offered Sharon a dress that had been hanging in the back of her closet far too long. It certainly wasn’t the flashy younger woman’s style, but Barb asked if she thought her mother might like it.