Sex. Murder. Mystery(22)

Her bad dream had come true.

“My parents told me Dad was leaving… my dad told me that I’d always be his ‘favorite youngest’ daughter. He was crying, my mom was crying, we were all crying. We gathered to pray. My father knelt down and asked God for His protection. ‘Please help our family through this,’ he said.”

Then he left. Sharon’s name had never been uttered, yet her shadow had been cast over everyone at the house on the corner of Pine and 12th. The cheery white dwelling with the green shutters was no longer a safe haven, no longer a happy home. The family inside had been shattered.

A few felt sorry for Sharon Fuller, though most knew her misery was self-inflicted. Sharon had her new man, had scored the husband-hunter’s brass ring—a doctor. Sharon had youth and beauty. She had a nice body. She had money and, at least she hoped, all that comes with that. She had everything but what many women hold the most dear. Sharon no longer had her children. Her daughters were with her estranged husband.

When Mike Fuller came over to commiserate with Julie Nelson over the whole sordid mess, he said he doubted Sharon really loved her kids. His wayward wife loved to sew and she never seemed to make anything for her girls.

“It was all for her, all of the time,” he said.

Before he mentioned it, Julie had never given it a thought. But it was true. It had to be. Whenever she saw Sharon traipsing around town she was wearing some snug-fitting jumpsuit that she had made herself. Her daughters never had anything new.

Barb Ruscetti was another who could not imagine a mother leaving two little girls behind. What kind of woman could leave her children? The pain Sharon must be feeling had to be devastating, Barb thought.

Sharon told her of seeing Mike drive the girls past the Watkins Medical building to the baby-sitter’s house three doors down. Sometimes she would see them walking by, skipping along. Even laughing and having a good time. Two little girls without their mother. Two little girls without Sharon. She was unable to talk to them or hold them.

“I just can’t handle it,” she said. “It’s tearing me up.”

The strain on Sharon was evident. The source of it, however, was not fully clear to Barb or anyone. By then, most had heard Sharon had had extramarital affairs in the past, and that had been the reason for her husband’s transfer. Others had heard Mike Fuller had suspected the affair between his wife and Dr. Nelson for months, and had, in fact, caught them in bed together long before the Wheelers voiced their concerns.

It was not her husband who wore her down, though Mike did try to get his wife to come home, despite all that had transpired. It was not her own sense of what was right and moral. It was Rochelle and Denise.

Sharon said she couldn’t give them up.

Not long after the affair became public, Sharon began to waffle on her decision to ditch her husband and children. Guilt had taken hold. Sharon called a family friend, a counselor, in Fort Worth. She thought she was slipping off the edge of sanity. It hadn’t turned out as she thought. Everyone else was fine, while she was a victim of viciousness. It was unfair. It was unjust. Julie was still billing out insurance and helping out at the office. Mike was seen as a saint. Sharon, however, was talked about all over town as the tramp who wrecked two marriages.

The counselor told her to get in her car and drive down to Texas. Sharon agreed. She needed help.

The Seventh-Day Adventist Church in La Junta, Colorado, was not going to be the same. While it was true that everyone among the parishioners knew what had transpired between the elder and the wife of their minister, few spoke about it. It was there, however, underneath the surface, behind the message of every sermon. While other folks outside of the congregation gossiped about it more overtly, the Adventists kept a lid on it the best they could.

They were strange and sad days.

“It’s like everybody knows what’s going on, but nobody talks about it. We were so disappointed. I think disappointed that Sharon didn’t have more respect for herself and for her husband. To do something like this. Disappointed in Perry for the same reason,” Blanche Wheeler said.

Long after it was all over, Mrs. Wheeler reiterated what had been the consensus of many who knew the sordid details of the affair.

“When Sharon left for Texas we all hoped she would get help and do the right thing by Mike and her little girls. We hoped and we prayed.”





Chapter 7

JESUS, IT HURT. PERRY NELSON FELT HE HAD BEEN dumped. Sharon had gone to Texas to get her head together with some Christian counselor. It was obvious a therapist of that particular ilk was not going to condone a woman’s illicit relationship with another woman’s husband. It was, of course, adultery, for crying out loud. Adultery times two. To make matters worse, word around Rocky Ford had it that Mike Fuller had either gone after her or was planning to do so. He wasn’t going to go away easily. The preacher was mad at his wife, disgusted by her, but he still wanted her. A Christian counselor, Perry figured, would push for a mending of the broken family.