Trinidad Lake was still one of the lovers’ special places. It always would be. Like an incredible sapphire, the lake shimmered across its surface from one side to the other. Conifers met the water like the jagged edge of a two-man saw. Eagles soared overhead searching for the fish that brought sportsmen from all over the region. Trinidad Lake was serene and lovely. Yet within the beauty of it all was a woman mad at the world. Mad at her lover.
Sharon had become increasingly upset in the days after Perry's miraculous return from the dead. She blamed Gary for botching the plan to murder the man who was the source of all her problems. Gary had no idea how hard it had been on her when Perry returned unscathed. Why hadn’t he thought of how she would react? It scared her to death. Was he so selfish that could not have warned her that he had failed? Gary hadn’t thought of her.
Gary held Sharon, trying to placate her and stop her tirade. He said he would do it again, but not right away. He suggested they might have to wait awhile, perhaps another year.
Sharon's face froze in disbelief. She wouldn’t hear of it.
“Oh no, no,” she said. “Perry's got another meeting up in Denver in July. It would be better to do it then.”
Though Gary had hoped they’d have sex that afternoon, they didn’t. Sharon said she was too upset.
A few days after the lake rendezvous, Sharon invited Gary and Nancy Adams to join her and Perry for dinner up at Round House. Though the timing was suspect, the invitation was not unusual. The Adamses and the Nelsons occasionally got together to play cards, share a dinner or drink coffee or beer. Despite what she had done with Nancy's husband, Sharon still considered the quiet, gentle woman her friend. After the meal, while the women stayed in the kitchen talking, Gary and Perry visited outside on the driveway. Gary told Perry he had heard he was heading back to Denver and he wondered if he could catch a ride.
“I'm going up there to buy some mini-14s,” Gary said, piquing Perry's interest. The guns were stolen and selling for about $50, a bargain. Several men in the canyon had mini-14s and considered the combat-quality firearm perfect for shooting coyotes, even deer.
Perry definitely wanted one.
Gary's voice took on a conspiratorial tone. “Don’t tell Nancy,” he said. “She doesn’t know I'm going to go up there for that. She thinks I'm going to go up there to make some money.”
Perry laughed. He wouldn’t tell her anything.
A week later, Gary Adams was working at a Trinidad construction site when he got word to Nancy that he wouldn’t be coining home that Thursday night. He was going to stay in town to play poker with his buddies. He parked his Datsun at a repair center, telling the mechanics that his brakes needed work.
Next, he called the eye clinic on Country Club Drive.
Sharon, of course, answered.
“I'm planning on catching a ride with Perry,” Gary said.
“Fine,” she said as she handed the phone to her husband.
“On your way out,” Gary said, “can you stop by and pick me up and we’ll go up there and get the guns?”
Perry thought it was a fine idea.
Jim and Julie Whitley were the kind of outgoing people who always made a pack of friends wherever they went. They didn’t know any social boundaries. Julie ran the Pinon Plaza truck stop, and her husband, a former Air Force man, was a mechanic. They were in their late thirties, raising four children in Trinidad, when they met Terry Mitchell and Perry Nelson. At first, they went to the offices on Country Club Drive for their eye and lumbar care. In time, Jim and Julie went just to say hello. Good friends in Trinidad were precious commodities.
One July afternoon when the Whitleys were over at Terry and Kay Mitchell's house going over details on a boat he had hired the couple to refurbish, Perry Nelson drove up in his VW. Perry showed up to show off what Sharon had done to the old car. She had redone the interior, made up an upholstered slant-board that he could pop in place of a seat so he could sleep in it when camping.
Julie said she was impressed and Perry beamed.
Despite how much Sharon had dragged him through the mud, Perry Nelson still could manage to be proud of her. Dr. Mitchell felt sorry for the guy. He just didn’t see what everyone else did.
The drive from Trinidad to Denver is a long one. Four hours, six hours—depending on how fast one drives and how many pit stops are needed along the way. It is a beautiful drive up 1-25 nonetheless: mountains rising to the west and the last edge of the Great Plains to the east. As the black VW sped along, Gary mostly listened as Perry chatted on about his life, his children and, of course, Sharon.
Sharon, he said, had purchased some emeralds from the back pages of a magazine.