The Disappearance
Not all mysteries begin on a dark and stormy night. This particular tale, in fact, starts at the end of a clear autumn day. The sun has already set, pulling the curtain down on the vibrant fall foliage. A hint of a chill in the air necessitates the start of a fire in the hearth. There is nothing remotely threatening in the scene. Everything in the stately New England mansion gives the impression of warmth, safety and coziness.
Aurelia Towson, the owner of the elegant eighteenth century home, is sitting in a wingback chair beside the fireplace, deep in thought, gazing into the flames. When the antique grandfather's clock in the corner of the room announces the hour of nine with its Westminster chimes, she rises from her seat and heads for the main staircase.
We can only guess what she is thinking as she climbs the stairs and heads down the second-floor hallway to her son's room, for there is no expression on her face as she opens the door and tiptoes inside. Only when she looks down at her sleeping child do we see a crack in her stony countenance. A tear rolls down her cheek as she leans forward and kisses him on the forehead, careful not to wake him from his peaceful slumber.
Goodbye, my darling boy.
The mother's lips form the words, but no sound comes from her mouth. With great difficulty, she turns her back on her sleeping child and returns to the living room. Her eyes go to the wedding portrait above the fireplace mantel. A younger and infinitely happier Aurelia Towson is standing next to her dashing husband, Weston Copley. One look at his incredibly handsome face steels her resolve.
"I'm going out," she calls to her housekeeper who is cleaning up the kitchen. "Please keep an eye on Tad while I'm gone."
Without waiting for a reply, Aurelia picks up her purse, gets into her 1924 Daimler and drives away into the night.
* * *
Detective Butch Gaffney sat at his desk reading the newspaper and drinking a cup of coffee as he contemplated purchasing a Model A Ford. Buying a car would no doubt make a deep cut in his pocket, but he didn't want to take the bus to work for the rest of his life. Besides, it was better he spend the money now rather than wait until he was married with a couple of kids. By then, he would never be able to afford a car.
And winter is just around the corner, he thought, further justifying the expensive purchase.
He had just brought the coffee mug up to his lips when the telephone on his desk rang.
"Gaffney here," he answered.
"Hello. My name is Ethel Franz," the woman at the other end of the line said. "I'm housekeeper for Mrs. Aurelia Towson."
It was a name not only the detective knew but one most people in the English-speaking world were familiar with—at least those people who possessed a library card or frequented bookshops. Aurelia Towson was currently the bestselling author in the world. Butch himself had read a number of her murder mysteries.
"Yes. What can I do for you?"
"It's about Mrs. Towson. She's missing," the housekeeper sobbed.
"When did you last see her?"
"Last evening, around nine o'clock. She told me she was going out and asked me to look after Tad—that's her son. She never returned. It's not like her to be gone that long."
"Why don't I drive out to the house, and you can give me all the details?"
"Oh, thank you, Detective! I've been so worried."
When Butch arrived at Aurelia Towson's home, he sat down at the kitchen table with the housekeeper, who had thoughtfully prepared a cup of coffee for him.
"And what about Mr. Towson?" the detective asked after Ethel described her employer's actions on the previous evening.
"Oh, Towson is not Aurelia's married name. It's Copley. She's married to Weston Copley, the polo player."
Butch had never heard of Copley, but then he was more of a baseball man.
"Where was he last evening?"
"He was here until about seven, perhaps a little later. They had just finished dinner and ...."
The housekeeper hesitated, uncomfortable in sharing information about her employer's private life with anyone.
"If you want us to help locate Miss Towson, you'll have to tell us everything that happened."
"After they were done eating, they had an argument."
The detective's eyebrows arched. An argument and a missing woman usually meant trouble.
"There was a good deal of shouting, and then Mr. Copley left the house, slamming the door behind him. He hasn't come back either."
"Yet you didn't report him missing?"
"This isn't the first time he's been out all night."
"If the two were yelling at each other, you must have overheard what was being said. Do you have any idea what the argument was about?"
"Mr. Copley is a bit of a ladies' man. His wife is often jealous of the women he flirts with."
"Is there anyone in particular that caused this argument?"
"The telephone rang, and Aurelia answered. It was Lola Hilton, and she wanted to speak to Mr. Copley."
"Who is Lola Hilton?"
"She's a former Ziegfeld girl who's trying to have a career as a cabaret singer."
"Young? Good-looking?"
"Yes."
Butch finished his coffee, closed his notebook and stood up.
"I think I'll go pay a visit to Miss Hilton and find out what she knows about Aurelia Towson's disappearance. I have a feeling that I might find Weston Copley there as well."
The detective then reached into his jacket pocket, took out a card with his telephone number on it and gave it to the housekeeper.
"In the meantime, if you hear from your employer, please give me a call. If I'm not at the station, you can leave a message."
* * *
As Butch Gaffney had suspected, Weston Copley was at Lola Hilton's apartment. He had apparently been there since the previous evening.
"My wife is missing?" the polo player asked with surprise. "But she was at home when I left after dinner last night."
"She went out around nine o'clock and hasn't been seen since," the detective explained. "Do you know where she might have gone?"
"No. I haven't a clue."
"How about you—Miss Hilton, is it? Do you know where Mr. Copley's wife might be?"
The former chorus girl bristled at Gaffney's thinly veiled intimation that she was spending time with a married man.
"How should I know?" she replied flippantly. "It's not my responsibility to keep tabs on her."
The detective turned his attention back to the missing woman's husband.
"Your housekeeper, Mrs. Franz, told me that you and your wife had an argument last evening, one immediately following Miss Hilton's telephone call."
The color suddenly drained from Weston's face. Then he apparently decided the best defense would be a strong offense.
"Are you suggesting that I had something to do with my wife's disappearance?" he barked.
"I'm not suggesting anything of the sort. I'm only trying to find out where Miss Towson might be. Now, if you wouldn't mind answering the question. Did you and your wife have an argument after you spoke to Miss Hilton on the telephone?"
"Yes, we did. But it wasn't a serious one. It was more of a spat than an actual argument."
"Mrs. Franz said there was a good deal of yelling."
"Our housekeeper tends to overdramatize matters. My wife is an insecure person who is jealous of every woman who smiles at me."
"Yet here you are with Miss Hilton," Butch pointed out. "I can't imagine any wife not being suspicious in this situation."
"My relationship with Lola is none of your business!"
If the arrogant polo player thought his display of anger would intimidate the detective, he was sadly mistaken.
"It's my business if anything has happened to your wife, Mr. Copley."
Butch again reached into his jacket pocket. This time he removed two cards, giving one to the writer's husband and one to the former chorus girl. "If either of you should suddenly remember something that might help us locate Miss Towson, please be sure to call me."
* * *
A week passed, and there was no sign of Aurelia Towson. Then on the eighth day since the writer went missing, two boys who were riding their bikes through a wooded area discovered a late model automobile parked beside the bank of the Deer Run River, apparently abandoned by its owner. When one of the boys told his mother what they'd found, she telephoned the police.
"A 1924 Daimler," Butch said to the patrolman who led him to the vehicle. "My guess is that it's registered to the missing author."
"Do you think she might be inside?" the young police officer asked.
"By she, you mean her body, right? No. I don't think so. I'm sure the boys would have discovered it if that were the case."
As the detective predicted, the car was empty.
"The keys are in the ignition," Gaffney noted ominously. "That's not a good sign."
Butch got behind the wheel and started the car with ease. There appeared to be nothing wrong with the vehicle.
"She obviously didn't have car trouble. No flat tire. Plenty of gas. What was she doing here?"
"Maybe she was going to meet someone," the patrolman suggested. "It's a secluded area. Perhaps her husband wasn't the only one fooling around."
The detective shook his head, rejecting the younger man's theory.
"Even if she was here for an assignation, it wouldn't explain why she went missing."
Butch walked along the bank, looking for clues.
"No," he said. "I can think of only one reason why her car would be found here beside the river. She wanted to jump in."
"Suicide?"
"Radio the station," the detective ordered. "Have them send a dive team down here."
"Wouldn't the current have taken the body downstream?"
"Not necessarily. She might have weighed herself down."
After an exhaustive search by the divers and several attempts to dredge the Deer Run River, no body was discovered.
"Maybe she'll turn up further downriver," one of the divers said as he was removing his wetsuit.
"Is that very likely if she hasn't surfaced yet?" Butch asked.
"Sometimes a good storm will shake things up a bit. The current becomes stronger and brings a body up if it's lodged down there. How certain are you that she's in the river?"
"Not a hundred percent, but where else can she be?"
"If she met with foul play, she could be buried in the ground. Or maybe wild animals got to her remains."
Up until that point, the detective had been working under the assumption that Aurelia Towson was a victim of suicide, that her crumbling marriage had led her to take her own life. He could no longer rule out the possibility that someone had killed her.
"Perhaps it's time for me to pay another visit to Weston Copley and his chorus girl paramour."
* * *
Despite the police department's best efforts to keep the author's disappearance a secret, word somehow leaked out to the press. Front page headlines from coast to coast and in Europe demanded to know what had become of the bestselling author. Once her photograph appeared in the newspapers, the calls began flooding into the station. People up and down the eastern seaboard claimed to have seen the missing woman. There were so many calls, in fact, that the telephone company had to put in a special line to be manned twenty-four hours a day by volunteers from the local police academy.
"What have you got for me now?" Butch asked the young trainee who handed him a stack of messages received the previous night.
"Aurelia Towson, or someone who bears a strong resemblance to her, has been spotted shopping at R.H. Macy's department store in New York, drinking in a speakeasy on Causeway Street in Boston, walking the Boardwalk at Atlantic City and—I love this one—working as a hat check girl at the Cotton Club in Harlem."
"What next?" the detective laughed. "Is she going to miraculously appear to faithful pilgrims at Lourdes?"
The case was quickly becoming a media circus with many people putting forth various theories of what had happened to the missing woman. The most commonly held speculation was that she was a victim of foul play. Butch himself subscribed to this belief. Furthermore, he was of the opinion that it was her husband who murdered her.
"I don't know why you don't arrest him," Ethel Franz, the housekeeper, said as the detective browsed through a stack of papers in her employer's desk.
"Because I have no proof he did anything wrong. There's not a shred of evidence that connects Weston Copley with his wife's murder. Hell, we don't even have a body. There's always the off chance she's still alive."
* * *
Three weeks to the day that Aurelia Towson kissed her son goodbye and drove off into the night, Butch Gaffney, with no further reliable leads to follow, returned to the location where her car had been discovered.
What was she doing here in the middle of nowhere? he asked himself.
Had she specifically driven to that spot? If so, why? Had she been headed somewhere else and made an unplanned stop? Why? The car was in perfect working order. There was always the possibility she pulled off the road to go to the bathroom. After all, there wasn't a public restroom anywhere nearby.
Pulling over to go to the bathroom? Really? Is that the best I can come up with? Come on, think!
Maybe she didn't drive there. Maybe someone else was behind the wheel or was in the passenger seat, choosing the route for her. Someone could have had a gun on her. Then there came the next step in the logical progression of ideas: She might already have been dead, and her killer either drove to the location to dispose of her body or buried her elsewhere and chose that spot to get rid of her car.
The remote riverside clearing was once again a crime scene. Only this time, Butch would not need divers. Instead, he would need bloodhounds.
"If she's here, the dogs will find ...."
At the sound of a snapping branch to his right, Butch spun around, his hand immediately going to his gun. When he saw the pale, gaunt woman with a dazed expression on her face and dried blood on her forehead, he almost didn't recognize her.
"It's you!" he finally said, amazed at her presence.
"Do I know you?"
Confused, possibly frightened and on the verge of tears, she reminded Butch of a lost child.
"No. We've never met, but I've been looking for you for three weeks, ever since your housekeeper, Mrs. Franz, reported you missing."
"Housekeeper? I don't know what you're talking about. And who is Mrs. Franz?"
"You'd better come with me. I'll have a doctor look at your wound."
"No," Aurelia cried, pulling back in fright.
"It's all right," Butch said gently, showing her his badge. "I'm a police officer. I'm only trying to help you. I'll take you to see a doctor, and then I'll notify your husband that you've been found."
"Husband? I'm married?"
The injury to her head was obviously worse than it appeared.
"Do you know who you are?" the detective asked.
"I ... I don't ... know," the author replied, as tears fell down her cheeks.
"You mustn't get upset. Let's have the doctor look at you. I'm sure you'll be fine."
* * *
"I've never actually seen a case of it before, but she has all the textbook symptoms of amnesia," Dr. Mutter told him. "I'd like to keep her in the hospital for a few days, mainly for observation."
"Is the condition likely to be permanent?" the detective asked.
"My guess is that it was brought about by the wound to her head, which doesn't appear to be that bad. Unless she suffered damage to the brain, I would assume her memories will return. But I can't say for certain."
Once Gaffney heard the doctor's prognosis—as vague as it was—he went to the author's home to speak to her husband. When Weston opened the door and saw the detective on the stoop, his face registered immediate disapproval.
"I don't know why you keep coming here, Detective," the polo player complained. "I've already told everything I know. There's no ...."
"I haven't come to question you. I have news of your wife. We found her."
The tan complexion Weston had gotten during his many hours hitting a ball from his pony suddenly turned decidedly paler.
"And I suppose you want me to identify the body."
"Forgive me for not making myself clear. We found your wife alive."
Oddly, the husband seemed more surprised than pleased at Aurelia's safe return. Butch thought it odd indeed. Even if Copley and his wife were having marital troubles, he ought to be happy that he was no longer suspected in connection with her disappearance.
"Where is she?" Weston finally asked, once he sufficiently recovered from the shock of the news.
"She's in the hospital. I found her wandering around down by the Deer Run River with a nasty bruise on her forehead. If you want to come with me, I'll take you over there to see her."
"I'm not sure she'll want to see me. After all, we did have an argument when we parted."
"Miss Towson has just been through a harrowing ordeal. She needs all the support she can get. We still haven't determined what happened to her during the past three weeks."
"Hasn't she told you?"
"Apparently the bump to her head has given her amnesia."
Weston took a few minutes to decide his course of action. After careful consideration, he sighed and reluctantly agreed to accompany Butch.
There appeared to be no recognition in Aurelia's eyes when her husband walked through the hospital room door.
"I'm glad to see you're unharmed, Aurelia," Weston declared with no sign of emotion.
"Do I know you?"
"You ought to. We've been married for the past ten years."
A look of pain marred the writer's attractive features.
"I wish I could remember!" she cried.
Weston surprised the detective by sitting down beside his wife and taking her hand in his. Was it genuine affection or pity that prompted such an action? Or was Weston simply putting on a show for the detective's benefit?
* * *
There were mixed reactions to Aurelia Towson's sudden reappearance in the press. While some newspapers reported the good news that she was alive and well, others demanded to know what had happened to the famed mystery writer. If it had been a kidnapping, the public did not want to be kept in the dark. Still others took a more cynical view. They charged that the disappearance had been a hoax: a "real-life" mystery meant to increase the sales of the author's books. As the days passed with Miss Towson not offering an explanation for the events of those missing three weeks, more reporters jumped on the staged disappearance bandwagon.
"People think I made everything up," Aurelia cried, tossing down the newspaper with disgust. "The idea is utterly ridiculous. My book sales don't need boosting."
"Perhaps if you could remember something—anything," the detective said.
"I've tried, but I keep drawing a blank."
"I don't understand how this whole amnesia thing works," Butch said. "You can remember that your book sales are up but not the fact that you have a husband and a son."
"So you think I'm faking, too?"
"No, not at all. I don't doubt your loss of memory. I only want to know what can be done to help you recover those memories you lost."
"I get out of the hospital today," Aurelia said optimistically. "Maybe going home and being in my natural environment—so to speak—will give my brain a much-needed boost."
"You will keep me informed if your memory comes back, won't you? If you were abducted, we'll want to apprehend the person who did this to you. Don't be one of those people who only want to put everything behind them."
"Don't worry, Detective Gaffney. If someone was at fault, I'll want to see him brought to justice."
Later that afternoon, when Aurelia walked through the front door of her New England mansion, the first person she saw was her six-year-old son.
"You must be Tad," she said with a smile.
"Mommy! I missed you," the boy cried and threw his arms around his mother's legs.
"Well, I'm home now," the author replied, not bothering to explain her memory loss to the boy. "I'm sure everything will be back to normal soon."
Aurelia turned to the uniformed servant.
"And you're ...?"
"Ethel, Ma'am. I'm your housekeeper. I've prepared a late lunch for you. I know hospital food leaves a lot to be desired."
"Thank you. I am quite hungry."
The fact that not only did Aurelia know how to get to the kitchen but that she also knew what drawer the knives and forks were kept in was an encouraging sign.
"I'm sure you'll have your memory back soon enough!" Mrs. Franz announced in her usually cheerful manner.
Once she had finished her meal, Aurelia went upstairs to her room. A few moments later there was a knock on the door. It was Weston Copley.
"May I come in?" he asked.
"Are you in the habit of asking permission to enter your wife's bedroom?"
"No, but I thought given your amnesia that you might be uncomfortable if I barged in."
"How solicitous of you!"
Was it sarcasm he heard in his wife's voice? If so, he chose to ignore it.
"Do you realize this is the first time we've been alone since ...."
"Since you killed me?" Aurelia asked, completing her husband's sentence.
Weston felt as though someone had suddenly injected ice water into all his blood vessels.
"What?"
"Don't you know what I'm talking about? Is something wrong with your memory, too, darling?"
"So you are faking the amnesia."
"Of course."
"Why didn't you tell the police what really happened then? Why this ridiculous charade?"
"What was I supposed to tell them? That I left the house that night and drove to Lola Hilton's apartment to catch the two of you in the act? That when I got there you hit me in the head with a polo mallet and bashed my brains in."
"Don't exaggerate. You got a bump on the head."
Before his horrified eyes, the previously minor wound on Aurelia's forehead opened and revealed a broken skull and bits of brain matter.
"Should I have told Detective Gaffney that you wrapped a rug around my bleeding head, put me in my car and drove me to the river where you dumped my body in the water?"
Weston was speechless, petrified with fear at the sight of his dead wife come back to life to seek her own form of justice.
"Didn't you ever wonder why they never recovered my body when they dredged the river? No, I suppose not. You were too relieved at the prospect of getting away with murder. I would have loved to have seen your face when they told you I was still alive!"
As Aurelia approached him, Weston backed away from her.
"No," he managed to say as she stood directly in front of him, the right side of her face one massive, bloody head wound.
"Do you remember the vows we took on our wedding day?" she asked. "The one about 'til death do we part? It's not true. Not even death will part us."
When Aurelia's hand reached up and touched her husband's face, something inside Weston Copley snapped. He let out a blood-curdling scream as though Satan and his legion of demons were about to drag him down to the fiery pit of hell.
Ethel Franz ran into the room, breathless from having taken the stairs two at a time.
"Are you all right, Miss Towson?" she asked, fearful for her employer's safety.
"Yes, but I'm afraid Mr. Copley isn't."
* * *
Throughout the remainder of the Twenties, the Thirties, Forties and Fifties and well into the Sixties, Aurelia Towson continued to write bestselling mystery novels. She was and still is one of the bestselling novelists of all time. After her son married, she was blessed with grandchildren and later great-grandchildren, all of whom she lavished with love and attention. Throughout her life, the author maintained a close friendship with Butch Gaffney, who often served as a consultant on police procedures. Mrs. Franz remained a devoted employee up until her death at age seventy-eight.
"I'll miss Ethel," Aurelia told her son after the housekeeper's funeral. "She may have worked for me, but she was one of the best friends I ever had."
There was one other person who remained a major player in the author's life, one she visited twice a week for more than forty years: Weston Copley. Every Monday and Thursday, without fail, she drove to a private sanitarium where he was kept since being declared insane. During each of her biweekly visits, she appeared to her husband as she had on the day she drove him crazy: a dead woman with an exposed brain.
The result of these visits was invariably the same. The patient would become severely agitated, necessitating that he be restrained and sedated.
"Keep her away from me!" he would scream to the orderlies and nurses. "She's dead! I killed her!"
"I'm sorry, Miss Towson," the doctor would apologize whenever he spoke with the author. "There's been no improvement in your husband's condition."
"I don't expect there ever will be," she replied.
"You mustn't give up hope. Every day there are breakthroughs in medical science. I'm sure eventually we will find a way to cure your husband's diseased mind."
"Until then," she said, feeling the familiar hatred and hunger for vengeance that was not revealed in her innocent smile, "I vow to continue to visit him twice a week. I know he's not in his right mind, but I want him to know that I haven't forgotten him."
It was a vow she kept until August 29, 1967 when Weston Copley died. Immediately following his death, the mystery writer again disappeared—this time never to resurface. Only her friend, former chief of police Butch Gaffney, who was living with his wife in a retirement community in Florida, linked her second disappearance with the discovery of decades-old human remains later found washed up on the bank of the Deer Run River.
This story was inspired by the 1926 disappearance of crime novelist Agatha Christie.
Salem once disappeared, but I found him at a luxury spa. He certainly enjoys his creature comforts!
