Sex. Murder. Mystery(90)

Jim Schindler was called to the telephone.

“I need to talk with you,” Glen said.

Jim could barely hear his friend and former business partner, though he did make out an urgency in his voice. He asked if he was all right and Glen said he was, but he did need to talk.

“It's important.”

“Give me five minutes and call me on the other phone.”

Glen promised he would. Yes, he knew the number.

Jim Schindler pried his way out of the fray of the watch desk and stood by a silent telephone in the back room. Five minutes passed, then ten.

The phone never rang. Glen never called back.

Jim wondered if the call had been about Sharon. Rick Philippi had been filling him in about his concerns over their friend's new wife.

“When Glen is there, Sharon is as sweet as pie… but the minute Glen's back is turned, look out. I told Glen she's two-faced. He said, ‘No, she's not, she's really sweet.’ He's trapped in something and he doesn’t know how to get out.” Though Jim Schindler didn’t know it then, the call from his friend on the Centrex Line was the last time they’d speak.

She did not know Glen Harrelson well, but on the occasions they shared together, Sharon's sister, Judy, found him to be a caring, gentle soul. He was always doing what he could to show that he wanted to belong with his new extended family. Judy was especially touched by his concern over her well-being when her husband died in late spring of 1988. In a family so divided, so distant, the call from Sharon's third husband was unexpected and wholly appreciated.

Over the course of the summer months and into the bone-chilling nights of late fall, Glen called Judy several times to say hello and to see how things were going.

The last time he telephoned it was not about how Judy was coping, however; it was about Sharon and Gary. Glen confided that he was worried that the affair between his wife and her mountain man lover had heated up once more. Though he hoped he was wrong, he asked Judy if Sharon had said anything that would bolster his concerns.

“No,” Judy said with great assurance. “She's finished with Gary. She's told me how happy she is with you. I'm sure that Gary Adams is no longer a part of her life.”

As far as Judy knew it was the truth. Sharon had been telling her for months that her long-distance marriage to Glen Harrelson was working better than she could have ever dreamed. They had renewed their search for a place to rent or buy in Castle Rock to ease the commute for Glen.

“We couldn’t be more in love,” Sharon told her sister.

The dust never settles on murder, and blood never really dries. When the deed is done and two are involved, finger-pointing is as inevitable as the lies told to cover the crime. Sharon Nelson had a different take on her encounter with Gary Adams that Monday when the plan for Glen Harrelson's murder was broached. She had never wanted anyone dead.

Gary had been pressuring her. He was in her face, she would later say, demanding that they do what they had done before.

Fire and water.

He wanted the key to the door at Columbine Court. He wanted a map. He wanted to know if Sharon knew if there was a gas can in the garage.

“Give me a key and I’ll get it done,” he said.

He harangued her. He pushed every button he could think of. She deserved better. She could use the money. She could be with her Mountain Man for good.

“Sher, give me the key!”

In a second, the line was crossed again. Sharon's voice began to rise from deep within.

“Here's the goddamn key! Get out of my face!” she screamed.

She didn’t know with any certainty if it was a game or reality. She didn’t know if he was playing the macho man to her damsel in distress. Later, she would insist that if she had thought for one minute that Gary would really kill Glen, she would have driven down the mountain and called for help. She would have warned him.

She would later say she wasn’t sure if Gary Adams was a killer or a big talker.

Long after it barely mattered to anyone, she told a sympathetic ear where her doubt came from.

“You haven’t seen the tender side of him,” she said. “You haven’t been in bed with him. I can’t imagine being in bed with a killer. The tender man that he could be could not be a killer.”

Diann Browning was glad Friday had arrived, payday had come and she was able to get to Trinidad and do the week's grocery shopping. For the mother of four, it seemed like payday never came fast enough. Her arms brimming with bags and boxes, Diann unloaded her groceries in front of her little house at the Robinson sawmill where her husband, Mike, worked. She wanted to put things away and relax. She even had a couple of videos for Friday-night entertainment, Pippi Longstocking and E.T.