Sex. Murder. Mystery(33)

Blanche Wheeler for one felt a twinge of sorrow for Julie Nelson. The house her ex-husband had been building for his home-wrecker of a new wife was, by all indications, a showplace.

“Poor Julie,” she told her husband Karl one evening. “She waited five years to get her kitchen remodeled and Sherry gets everything she wants all at once.”

The Robinson name was synonymous with Wet Canyon and had been for generations. Albert Robinson was the third generation of his clan to run the sawmill four miles up the canyon. Al and his wife, Melanie, made their home in a red-brick home—added on to as children were born—next to the mill. Tiny frame houses dot the edge of the right-of-way across from the tidy homes of millworkers.

In his sixties, Al was as tall, lanky and determined as he had been in his youth. He was the type of man who refused to ask his workers to do something he wouldn’t do himself. Melanie Robinson ran their home with military precision. The cupboards were always stocked. Melanie didn’t want Al to make the drive to Trinidad in snowy conditions because she had let the larder run low.

Al didn’t like Sharon Nelson, from the first time he laid his eyes upon her.

Perry and Sharon had stopped by the Robinson place to talk about supplies for their new house. Perry had been driving; Sharon was asleep in one of the bunks of the motor home.

Just as Perry reached out to shake Al’s hands, a loud voice came from the motor home. It was Sharon.

“You son of a bitch!” she yelled. “You let those damn flies in there and woke me up!”

“I didn’t mean to,” Perry said, obviously embarrassed by the outburst.

Al Robinson said nothing, but he knew right then and there that he didn’t care much for Sher Nelson, his new neighbor.

Many years later, the old man remembered how he felt about his first encounter with Sharon.

“Here was this guy—a helluva nice man—busting his butt to build this woman an expensive home in the mountains, and she was treating him like that.”

The passage of time did little to lessen Ray Thornton’s distaste for Sharon Nelson. When Sharon invited the Thornton’s for dinner, Ray balked. He couldn’t stomach the idea of mealtime with that sleazy woman. Candis, on the other hand, wanted to go.

“But you’ll be able to talk with Perry. You like Perry,’ she said, reminding Ray invitations don’t come every day in the mountains. There were few neighbors, and many of those were hermit-types.

Ray finally agreed.

“Guess we better go,” he said.

Candis was awestruck by the spread Sharon set out on her beautiful dining table. Linens, crystal, china; it was as beautiful as anything Candis had seen in one of those women’s magazines that tell ladies that they can do it, too! The meal itself was superb. Sharon was a fantastic cook, even Ray had to admit that.

Sharon told the Thorntons about how pleased they were with Weston, how they had come to the mountains to start over.

“This is a new beginning for us,” she said.

As the meal was finished, little Danny Nelson emerged from the back bedroom carrying a photograph.

The boy, almost three, chattered excitedly as he brought the photograph to Candis.

“This is when I got borned,” he said.

Candis looked down and froze her facial muscles in what she hoped was not too alarming a manner. It was photo of Sharon, legs spread wide, pushing her son from her womb. The image startled Candis. It wasn’t that she didn’t think the birth process wasn’t beautiful; it was just such an explicit picture of her hostess. She thought the photo should be a private, family memento.

“Very nice, honey,” she said.

After dinner, the Thorntons left with an eyeful. The doctor and his wife were a couple of those liberal types that probably fit in better in the city than out there in Weston.

In time, everyone would see those photos. Sharon, it seemed, was proud of her body. She never let an opportunity pass in which she didn’t comment on it When friends from out of town came, Sharon showed the photos Perry had taken of her when she was pregnant. The shots showed her as she stood in the doorway, her belly enormous, her breasts full as honeydew melons.

Another time, when the subject of a doctor’s visit came up, Sharon again turned the subject into a self-compliment on her fantastic body.

“I disrobed and the doctor took one look at me and said, ‘Why, Sharon, you don’t have a tan line!’

“‘No, doctor, I sunbathe in the nude.’”

“‘Just beautiful,’ he says.”

Sharon was the kind of woman who could say anything. At times, it seemed as though she lacked the ability to censor herself. Even with her husband in the next room, she’d go on about local men she found particularly attractive. Men she thought might make good lovers.