Less than a half-hour after Sharon’s arrival, Perry Nelson pulled up in the motor home. The minute he arrived, Sharon jumped up and announced it was time to take a break. She went outside to greet with Perry.
Blanche felt used. Her blood began a slow boil. The timing of their respective arrivals was too suspect to be passed off as mere coincidence. Perry had left four hours before on a drive that even in the worst snowstorm wouldn’t have taken half that long. It wasn’t right. The Adventist dentist’s wife had put up with Sharon Fuller and her inappropriate behavior and over-the-top attire from the beginning. Blanche did so because Sharon was the minister’s wife and, regardless what she did and how she acted, she could be very likable. She could pour on the charm and make even the sourest face light up in a smile. But not this time.
Blanche could no longer look the other way. One morning at the Watkins Medical Arts building where her husband Karl operated his successful dental practice—and where she worked as his assistant—Blanche gathered up her courage.
She first broached the subject with front-desk assistant Iona Hamilton. Iona, an outspoken woman who knew when enough was enough, was in complete agreement. The fooling around had gone too far. Both women knew they were in extremely difficult positions. Julie Nelson worked as Dr. Ted Martin’s bookkeeper, and if she had suspected anything, she had not let on. Neither Iona nor Blanche wanted to break Julie’s heart.
As they talked in a secluded section of the pine-paneled office, Iona recalled turning a corner in time to see Dr. Nelson and Sharon break what she suspected could have been an embrace.
“It was obvious that they had gotten away from each other pretty fast,” she said.
There had been other signs. Iona had seen the doctor and his assistant holding hands, and brushing ever so slightly against each other. Blanche also noticed times when Dr. Nelson’s hand lingered on Sharon’s shoulder. The relationship between the two—even in the office—was anything but businesslike.
What signaled to Iona Hamilton more than anything that something inappropriate was going on was the fact that many times when she left the front desk to retrieve a patient’s record for billing, or to let Dr. Nelson know a patient had arrived, the door would be shut. That was new. In all her years at the medical office, she could not think of a time when Dr. Nelson closed his door, unless he was with a patient. Whenever the door had been shut that summer, Iona would knock and find Perry and Sharon together.
In addition, it also troubled Iona how wherever Perry went into the office Sharon was right there with him. That wasn’t normal. No other office worker had ever done that. There was no need for it.
“She always makes it a point to be right next to him. Have you ever noticed that?” Iona said to Blanche.
Blanche had indeed. Even patients with the worst possible eyesight would have seen the same thing.
Sharon Fuller, they figured, was on a manhunt.
Blanche went to her husband with her concerns. Karl Wheeler had thought the same thing. Independently, both had agonized over their suspicions for several weeks. They worried what kind of influence the affair would have on their church and community. How to handle it? What to say?
Finally, Blanche and Karl summoned the nerve to get in touch with Mike Fuller. It was odd, because, in the event the affair had involved someone other than his wife, Blanche likely would have called on the minister for guidance. The minister was the first person a good parishioner should seek out for help. The idea that it was the leader of their church who was being betrayed made the call excruciatingly difficult.
No one blamed Pastor Fuller. No one thought he had been at fault. Yet when the minister arrived that evening at the Wheeler’s country home he seemed agitated and defensive. As he listened to the couple’s concerns, he did his best to dismiss each bit of evidence. They were mistaken, he said. He batted their words right back at them. Somehow they had misconstrued innocent actions. His wife was a very friendly woman. Dr. Nelson, likewise, was a man who could talk a listener’s ear off. The combination of two outgoing people made it only look as though something was going on.
“Nothing is happening, I assure you,” he said.
By the end of the hour, the Wheelers were embarrassed they had even brought it up. They knew what they had seen and heard, but there was no convincing their minister that his wife had betrayed him with another man.
Karl Wheeler later remembered how Mike Fuller took the news.
“He was upset that we’d even think of such a thing. He got rather huffy with us.”
That night, Blanche and Karl reexamined Pastor Fuller’s response. How could they have handled it better? They had not told the man their suspicions in order to hurt him, but rather to spare him the humiliation of a scandal. Rocky Ford and La Junta were small towns. Word was guaranteed to rip through both places like a flash flood.