Sex. Murder. Mystery(88)

Sharon refused. Perry was Danny's and Misty's father. It would be wrong to remove his image from the house. The children should be able to remember their dad.

And though Gary stormed out of there over the pictures, it was a foregone conclusion that Sharon had not seen the last of him. Gary Adams would be back. He’d always come back to her.

Of those who had met Glen in Trinidad and Weston, most considered him to be several cuts above Sharon. Though most felt Glen Harrelson could have done better, everyone knew love was never logical.

Sharon brought Glen over to her son-in-law Bart Mason's parents’ Trinidad home for a visit one afternoon late in the fall. During the course of the brief visit, Glen casually mentioned he thought someone had been breaking into his Thornton residence whenever he was down in the Canyon with Sharon.

“You should call the police,” Bart's mother urged. “You really should report it.”

Though he had to be somewhat concerned to mention it, he tried to downplay his worries.

“Nothing's gone” he said. “Must have a key to get in, too.”

Mrs. Mason suggested it could be Glen's son and daughter or friends of theirs. Kids were always looking for a place to party when their folks were out of town. An empty house was a perfect target for that.

Glen didn’t think so. He had asked them already. The two had convinced him that they had not done any such thing. Glen was satisfied that Todd and Tara weren’t the type to lie.

Someone else had to be spending time at Columbine Court.





Chapter 26

THE FRONT DOOR ON ROUND HOUSE WAS NEVER locked. Wet Canyon, after all, was seldom the scene of a crime. People familiar with the Nelson place knew the home was big enough that patience was in order whenever a knock didn’t bring an immediate answer. They knew it would take Sharon awhile to make her way from one end of the residence to the other. Those who knew her best never waited. They simply knocked and went inside.

Sharon must not have heard the pair of visitors let themselves in one afternoon.

Or she didn’t care.

In the middle of the kitchen floor, a hot and sweaty Sharon was in the throes of reckless abandon, engaged in sexual intercourse with a man. His face was not one that the visitors to Round House recognized.

He was not Gary Adams, Sharon's steady lover.

Not Glen Harrelson, Sharon's new husband.

“Oh, hi,” she said, as she came down from the moon and collected herself. Her tone was typical Sharon. She appeared neither ashamed nor embarrassed. It was as if she had been caught doing nothing more than picking her nose.

“Just a minute,” she said sweetly.

The visitors had seen enough. They didn’t see a reason to stay any longer. As quickly as they could they got out of there. This was too much even for Sharon Fuller Nelson Harrelson.

In Sharon's eyes, Gary Adams was the last of a breed. He was a Louis L’Amour invention: a mountain man, a cattle rustler, a renegade. And he was the greatest, most tender lover she’d ever known. He was the type to steal a neighbor's beef cattle, butcher it with a chain saw and throw a couple of steaks on the grill for a romantic dinner for two. She had been married to a preacher, a doctor, a fireman, but her heart belonged to the outlaw in the shack down the mountain. She deserved to feel the way he made her feel. She had a right to the excitement and the danger that he brought in to her life.

Later, though the facts would never really be in dispute, Sharon would deny she meant for any harm to come to the men in her life. She only wanted freedom. Freedom to be a woman with the man she loved.

It was at Round House, Monday, November 15,1988, when Sharon made her move. While she cuddled in bed with Gary, she told him that the time was right to get rid of Glen.

“I want it done before Thanksgiving,” she said. “Glen's mother is coming from Des Moines and I don’t want to spend the holiday with her. I can’t stand her.”

She drew out a Thornton area map on a small slip of paper, indicating that Gary park in the King Soopers parking lot or at the adjacent Safeway. She noted another possibility: an area of new construction not far from Columbine Court. The map directed Gary to drive up 1-25 to 120th to Claude Court.

Then she made a bizarre request, not unlike asking Dorothy to bring back the broomstick of the Wicked Witch of the West as proof that she had killed her: Sharon wanted Glen's wedding ring.

She alerted Gary to the fact that Glen didn’t wear the gold band often.

“The last time I saw it was on top of the dresser in the bedroom,” she said. If it wasn’t there, she told Gary to check the watch pocket of Glen's jeans.

It had worked so well with Perry Nelson's murder, that the idea of another supposed accident had been frequently discussed between Sharon and Gary's incessant cigarettes and screaming-at-the-Rockies orgasms. Though she seemed to want the deed done more than Gary, Sharon was somewhat leery of a murder taking place too close to home. A murder at Round House would raise too many red flags. Too suspicious. Too attention-getting.