Sex. Murder. Mystery(79)

“Can I see my mother?” the young woman asked.

The detective shook her head. “Not now, but soon.”

Gary Adams’ dogs wouldn’t stop barking. It was around 1:30 P.M., Monday. Gary wondered if a coyote had come down from a mountainside den to tease the dogs and rustle a chicken. At times like that, he often reached for his mini-14 and fired at the coyotes from his back deck. But that morning, he didn’t reach for his gun. If he had, things might have turned out differently.

What in the world were the cops doing at the Dude Ranch? Gary Adams didn’t poke a gun in the direction of the lawmen driving up to his place. He wondered if they had come to question him about poaching a deer.

Glen Harrelson's murder was the furthest thing from his mind. He was certain no one had seen him or his truck in Thornton. He didn’t know what had happened with Sharon at the Pizza Hut.

“Gary Adams?”

“Yeah, how you doing?”

“We have a warrant for your arrest.”

“What for? What’ s going on?”

“First-degree murder. Don’t move.”





Chapter 22

THOUGH IT WAS ALMOST SPRING 1987, WITH winter's leftover chill, it certainly didn’t feel like the warmer season was imminent. Sharon Lynn Nelson braced herself against the cold to retrieve a local freebie paper that had been stuffed into the mailbox of her Denver, Colorado, rental home. It was a Saturday morning and she didn’t have anything to do but sit back and relax. She lit a cigarette and drank coffee as she flipped through the pages before stopping on a personal ad section.

What had once been burn-in-hell taboo was now second nature for the woman starting over without the love of her life, her Mountain Man, Gary Starr Adams.

Sharon had seen other such dating forums before—little rags promising lasting love if the respondent submits an attractive photograph along with a romanticized resume. But this one captured her full attention. It seemed fun. No photo was needed. No games in the mail. Simply by dialing the number and giving the operator her vitals, she would be patched over to voice messages from the men who were desperately seeking Sharon—or women just like her.

Only one of the lonely guys’ bios caught her interest. It was written by a firefighter named Glen Harrelson.

She dialed the number.

Like many of his generation, when Glen Paul Harrelson did his tour of duty in Vietnam and returned to the United States, he wanted to make changes in his life. The handsome young man with the receding hairline had seen too much. He had done so much. Life could be so short. The son of William and Ruby Harrelson, Glen knew that if he was going to do something with whatever time God gave him, he’d do so somewhere else. Somewhere away from home.

Glen was raised in the northeast suburbs of Des Moines, Iowa, and he longed for a change after the war. In short order, on September 20, 1963, he married Andrea, the girl of his dreams. When the two vacationed in Colorado the first year of their marriage something clicked. Glen wanted to live near the mountains; away from the flatlands of the Midwest. Away from his family, but not because he didn’t love them. He just needed a little space.

Settling near Denver, Glen and Andy, as she preferred to be called, eventually had two children. A son, Todd, was born in 1969; a daughter, Tara, two years later. Between the births of what would be his only children, Glen Harrelson found his niche and his life's work when he became a Denver firefighter. It was a perfect fit of man and vocation.

Personalities magnify in the frequently stress-prone confines of a firehouse. Glen's easy nature was always a welcome addition. He played the guitar, sang beautifully and pitched in whenever anyone needed help. He also put up with the good-natured humor of the practical jokers that invariably end up among the eight men who work the long shifts together.

During the middle of one night, a fellow firefighter filled Glen's boots with cold spaghetti. When a false alarm was sounded by the firehouse trickster, Glen jumped up and slid his feet into slimy, wet pasta. Like the good sport that he was, Glen laughed harder than anyone. But when it was payback time, it was Glen who came up with the scheme to put lipstick on the earpiece of the telephone. Red-smeared ears dominated that particular day.

Again, Glen laughed the loudest.

No one would argue that during his tenure at Denver Stations 9 and 26, Glen was one of the most respected and liked of his peers.

During that period his best friend was Jim Schindler. Jim and his wife, Jayne, grew close to the Harrelson family, sharing meals and holidays as time allowed. Jim and Glen also joined forces as business partners on a carpet and decorating sideline, and a few years later, a car wash. Whether it was in the confines of the firehouse or off the job counting change at their car wash, the two men never knew a better friendship. Not in their entire lives. Both figured they’d be best buddies forever, wives included. All four of them, always.