The Case of the Lost Wife
Eugenia Lowndes spread the word throughout Poplar Springs: someone had purchased the vacant Forsythe house on Winter Street. The villagers knew the information was reliable. Eugenia was not only the local representative of Welcome Wagon, but she was also the town's most notorious gossip. On this occasion, she took particular delight in conveying her new-found tidbit of knowledge to Larissa Hogan, who at forty-five years old was one of Poplar Springs' few bona fide spinsters.
"You're about to get a new neighbor across the street," Eugenia announced after she invited herself into Larissa's house for a cup of coffee one afternoon.
"Really?" Larissa asked with only mild interest.
"Yes, a man from New Jersey. Quite a good-looking one. He must have some money, too. The Forsythes were asking quite a bit for that place."
"Maybe he's a doctor or a lawyer."
"I don't know, but he recently retired and wants to move here for some peace and quiet."
That was nothing new, Larissa thought. A growing number of people from New York and New Jersey were heading north to New England, seeking the picturesque views and the peaceful serenity of Norman Rockwell country.
"If he's retired," Larissa hypothesized, "that means he has no small children. Thank God for that! At least the tranquility of Winter Street will not be shattered."
"He has no children at all," Eugenia explained, reserving the best piece of information for last. "He's single. I don't know if he's a widower or a divorcee, or that he's ever been married ...."
"Or that he'll be more interested in Mr. Rice down the block than in women."
"Don't be so pessimistic! He might be a charming, eligible bachelor."
Larissa sighed. For the past twenty-five years, she had to put up with well-intentioned friends trying to find her a husband. During that time, she was forced to endure arranged dates with men recently divorced or widowed and even a few who were still married but separated from their wives, supposedly with no hope of reconciliation. Why didn't all these well-meaning people leave her alone? Didn't they understand she was quite happy being an unmarried woman?
When she was younger, she had longed for love and wanted nothing more out of life than a husband, children and a home. But over the years, she learned first to accept her solitary state and then to actually enjoy it. Now she was at an age when most of her friends were disillusioned with the Great American Dream. Many were already divorced or currently having marital problems, their children were grown and their nests and lives were empty. Some, like Eugenia Lowndes, filled their days with frantic socializing; others filled their nights with drinking or meaningless sexual dalliances.
Larissa, on the other hand, had a successful career, traveled around the world, owned a home of which she was exceedingly proud and volunteered her time to help raise money for the local no-kill animal shelter. Her life was a full and rewarding one. She had no need for a man to complete it.
* * *
Then one afternoon, several weeks after her conversation with Eugenia, Larissa was at her computer revising the opening chapter of her latest mystery novel when she was interrupted by the doorbell. She saved the file and went downstairs to see who it was. When she opened the door, Larissa found a handsome, middle-aged man on her doorstep.
"I'm sorry to bother you, ma'am," he apologized. "I'm your new neighbor from across the street. I just moved in yesterday, and my telephone hasn't been installed yet. I was wondering if I could come in and use yours."
"Certainly, come right in," Larissa replied amiably, as she stepped aside to let the man enter. "It's nice to see I'm not the only one with an aversion to cell phones."
"I confess I do own one—an iPhone—but with all the hassle of packing and moving, I forgot to charge it."
"There's a wall phone in here," she said, showing him the way to the kitchen. "Would you like a cup of coffee while you're here?"
"Thanks. I'd love one. By the way, my name is Fulton Pressman."
"Nice to meet you. I'm Larissa Hogan."
"The writer?" he asked with surprise.
"One and the same. Don't tell me you've read any of my books."
"No. I never had the time to do much reading, but my wife read a number of them."
Wife? So, Eugenia, for once, had gotten the story wrong.
While Fulton was on the phone with Verizon to find out when his service would be activated, Larissa put a pot of coffee on the stove.
"They promise they'll be here this afternoon," he explained after hanging up the receiver.
"Don't hold your breath," Larissa said with a laugh. "This isn't New Jersey. In Poplar Springs, we have two speeds: slow and stop."
"You make that sound like a bad thing, but it's exactly the kind of place I'm looking for."
Over coffee and a box of Keebler's Chips Deluxe chocolate chip cookies, the two neighbors had a pleasant conversation. They were both intelligent and witty, and there was a good deal of merriment—until Larissa brought up the subject of Fulton's occupation, that is.
"I understand you're retired," she said. "What field of work were you in before?"
A cloud fell over Fulton's handsome features, and his good humor instantly vanished.
"I worked on cars," he said brusquely.
Then he looked at his watch, thanked Larissa for the coffee and the use of her phone and went home, leaving the poor woman wondering what she had said to upset him.
"Why did Fulton run out of here like a scared rabbit when I asked him about what he did for a living?" she asked herself. "What would an auto mechanic have to hide?"
* * *
The following morning Larissa made a quick run to Shaw's supermarket. As a single woman, she had never seen the logic of cooking for one person. Normally, she made do with takeout food, prepackaged frozen dinners, salads or canned soups. Still, she thought, it shouldn't be too difficult to come up with an easy home-cooked meal.
Later that evening, after spending hours in the kitchen, she stood at the top of her new neighbor's front steps with a covered CorningWare dish in her hand and rang the bell. When Fulton answered the door, he had a surprised but pleased expression on his face.
"Miss Hogan!" he exclaimed. "How good to see you again."
"I made myself some spaghetti with meat sauce, and, as usual, it's far too much for one person," she lied. "I thought I'd send half over for you. I mean you must still be busy unpacking."
"That's very thoughtful of you. Won't you come in? I believe I owe you a cup of coffee."
Once in the kitchen, Fulton took the cover off the casserole dish and whistled.
"This looks delicious, and there's so much here. How much spaghetti do you make at one time?" he laughed.
Lucky for her, Larissa could always think fast on her feet.
"I usually make a lot of food, and then I put it in small containers and freeze it."
"Well, this is too much for me. Why don't you join me for dinner?"
Her good manners told Larissa to politely decline his offer, but her curiosity made her accept. Eugenia Lowndes would no doubt find out about the dinner and spread it all around town the next morning, but Larissa didn't care. Let the Poplar Springs grapevine bear what fruit it would. Even if Fulton wasn't married, her interest in him was not motivated by romance but rather by mystery.
During dinner, Larissa and her new neighbor discussed many subjects, including politics, sports, books and movies. After they finished the last of the spaghetti, Fulton suggested they have coffee in the living room.
"If you don't mind sidestepping the empty boxes piled up throughout the house. I haven't had a chance to get rid of them yet."
While they relaxed on Fulton's well-padded sofa with two cups of Maxwell House instant, Larissa artfully steered the conversation in the direction she wanted it to take.
"Do you have any plans for your retirement or are you just going to take it day by day?"
"I'd like to do some sailing and fishing, maybe do a little sightseeing in New England. I never had time to get outdoors much. And in the winter, I thought I'd learn something about computers. I'm afraid I'm at a loss with modern technology. To be honest, my iPhone baffles me."
"That's surprising," Larissa replied, suppressing a smile as she asked, "I thought auto mechanics nowadays had to know about all those computer systems in cars."
Again, Fulton's handsome features clouded over, but this time, he couldn't make a run for it since he was in his own home. Of course, there was always the possibility he would ask Larissa to leave.
"I wasn't a mechanic," he said, hoping to end that line of inquiry.
Larissa wouldn't let it go, though.
"I thought you told me yesterday that you worked on cars."
Fulton's hand started to shake, and he had to put his coffee cup on the end table to keep from spilling the hot beverage in his lap.
"I owned an auto body shop. That's not the same thing."
"Really? Did you ...?"
Fulton interrupted her question.
"Look, I don't mean to be rude, but I don't like to talk about that chapter of my life. Suffice it to say that I lost my business and my wife, and I don't care to rehash those memories."
"I'm sorry."
Although more intrigued than ever, Larissa politely dropped the subject.
"So how do you like our little village so far?" she asked.
The conversation continued for another twenty minutes, but the relaxed atmosphere that had existed earlier in the evening was gone.
* * *
From time to time, whenever she was in town and had some free time, Larissa would stop at the local bookstore where, in return for a free coffee and cheese Danish from the shop's coffee bar, she would sign a supply of her novels. One afternoon, not long after Fulton arrived in Poplar Springs, Larissa walked into the popular Main Street establishment.
"Larissa, I'm so glad you stopped by today!" Suzanne Irvine, the shop's owner exclaimed. "I sold the last signed copy of Dead Wrong on Saturday. Why don't you have some coffee while I go in the back and get a few more copies for you to sign?"
Kip Mulligan, the young man behind the counter of the coffee bar, didn't bother to take her order since the author always asked for the same thing: a mocha latte and a cheese Danish.
"Did you meet him yet?" Kip asked while he was making her latte.
"Who?"
Larissa had no idea to whom Kip was referring, but given the young man's obsession with films and the motion picture industry, she assumed it was someone connected with the movie business.
"Fulton Pressman, your new neighbor."
"Of course, I've met him. He lives right across the street. Why? What's your interest in him?"
"Don't you know who he is?"
"A retired auto body shop owner from New Jersey."
Kip rolled his eyes at Larissa's ignorance.
"He designed custom cars and did restorations for some of Hollywood's greatest movies: Model T's, classics, sports cars, hot rods. He even designed futuristic vehicles for science fiction movies. Not a man in Detroit could hold a candle to him when it came to restoring cars."
"I don't suppose you know why his business failed, do you?"
"I didn't know it had. I just figured he made a fortune and wanted to enjoy his money while he was still relatively young."
When Kip Mulligan walked away to wait on another customer, Larissa pondered over what he and Fulton had both told her. What were her neighbor's exact words?
I lost my business and my wife.
But had he told her the truth? Had he really lost his business, or had he simply given it up? Larissa considered what must surely have been a seven-figure price tag on his house, the boat at the marina and the Mercedes in his driveway. Would a man who had lost his business be able to afford such luxuries? It was highly unlikely.
* * *
Lost his wife.
The words haunted Larissa. That could mean either his wife had walked out on him or, more likely, that she was dead.
There's one way to find out, she thought. If Mrs. Pressman is deceased, there must be a record of her death somewhere.
Larissa went to her laptop computer and searched the archives of several large newspapers in northern New Jersey. She found what she was looking for in the Star-Ledger: an obituary for Cecelia Marie Pressman. While the brief article confirmed that the woman was survived by her husband, Fulton Pressman, it gave no details as to the cause of her death, which was listed simply as accidental. As every mystery writer knew, accidental deaths were sometimes homicides.
Where can I get more information? Larissa wondered.
If it had been a death in Vermont, she could have gone to one of several dozen people—mostly police officers—who helped her in the past. These sources were fans who enjoyed her books and were delighted to serve as consultants whenever they could. Although she probably had thousands of loyal readers in New Jersey, she had no contacts in law enforcement there, but perhaps one of her Vermont sources knew someone.
Larissa was in luck. Officer Simon McElwee at the Poplar Springs Police Department, who often expressed a desire to leave the force and become a true-crime writer himself, was always willing to assist his favorite author. McElwee, it turned out, had a brother-in-law who was a New Jersey State Trooper.
"If you want to find out about this woman's death," the officer boasted, "my sister's husband can help."
Four days later Larissa met McElwee for lunch at the Powder Horn Inn, where the officer handed her a sheet of paper.
"My brother-in-law faxed this to me yesterday afternoon," he said.
Larissa quickly scanned the typewritten page.
"Carbon monoxide poisoning," she read aloud. "Sounds more like suicide than an accident."
"There's something fishy there," Simon said.
McElwee, like Larissa, saw foul play written in capital letters above every accidental death and missing person case.
"You think she was murdered?"
"My brother-in-law's source said Mrs. Pressman was found in her husband's body shop, in an old car he was restoring. I don't know about you, but if I wanted to kill myself, I'd do it in my own car, in my own garage."
"It says here in the report that Fulton Pressman had an airtight alibi."
"Yeah. He was in New York City that day, but that doesn't rule him out as a suspect in my book. He wouldn't be the first person to hire someone else to do his dirty work."
"But suspicion without proof," Larissa sighed, "is like a car without an engine. It won't get you anywhere."
* * *
When Larissa left McElwee and returned home, she was surprised to see Fulton on her front porch swing.
"I wanted to talk to you," he said politely when he was not invited inside.
Reluctantly, Larissa sat down on the swing beside him.
"You were so thoughtful to bring me a casserole last week. I was hoping you might go out to dinner with me this weekend."
The panicked look on Larissa's face and the nervous twitching of her facial muscles was evidence of her fear.
"Is there something wrong?" Fulton asked with genuine concern.
"No, no," she stammered and quickly turned down his invitation to dinner.
Fulton surmised the root of the problem.
"You found out about my wife, didn't you? You probably think I murdered her."
Larissa hung her head and maintained a guilty silence.
"Unlike the fictional murders in your books, Miss Hogan, most homicides are actually quite mundane. There are no convoluted plots, red herrings or unexpected suspects. However, the death of my wife is more unbelievable than anything you could write about."
"Why unbelievable?"
"Perhaps that's the wrong word. Unexplainable might be more accurate."
"Well, why don't you try explaining it and let me judge for myself?"
"You probably won't believe me."
"I promise I'll try to keep an open mind."
"Two years ago, I was hired by an independent film producer who wanted to do a movie about the golden age of Hollywood. I put out the word along the auto body grapevine that I was looking for Packards, Pierce-Arrows, Duesenbergs and other luxury vehicles from that era. Soon nearly every rusted hunk of junk left over from the Thirties and Forties arrived at my shop. But with all those worthless vehicles came a real treasure: a 1932 Lincoln Phaeton that was in near-mint condition. I couldn't believe my luck. A car like that would have sold for a small fortune at auction. Naturally, I supposed a mistake had been made and that someone would call me, looking for that car. No one ever did."
Fulton lapsed into silence, staring down at his hands.
"One night, I was locking up the shop, and I thought I saw someone sitting in the Lincoln. I turned on the lights and realized that the car was empty. It was only my imagination, I concluded. But I saw the figure again, more clearly the next time. It was a woman, an attractive blonde in an evening dress and a mink coat."
"You mean some strange woman just walked into your shop and got in behind the wheel of the vehicle?" Larissa asked.
"No. She came with the car. What I saw was no living woman. It was a ghost."
His neighbor looked at him with a great deal of skepticism.
"After I'd seen the spirit a half dozen times or so, I confided in my wife. She thought I was either pulling her leg or losing my mind. But she was curious, too. She wanted to see the car for herself."
"Sounds reasonable. I'd probably feel the same way if I were in her situation."
"Now I realize I should have just taken her to the shop and shown her the car. Maybe if I had, she'd still be alive. At the time, however, I was afraid to have her anywhere near it. I rarely got too close to the thing myself. In fact, I wanted it out of my garage, but I foolishly held on to it because I knew how much I could get for it."
"I assume your wife wouldn't take no for an answer."
Fulton shook his head, and tears filled his eyes.
"She waited until I went out of town on business. Not long after I left, she must have gotten my spare key and gone down to the garage. The UPS man found her when he stopped to make his afternoon delivery. She was dead behind the wheel. The autopsy results revealed she'd died of carbon monoxide poisoning, and the medical examiner ruled it accidental since my wife hadn't left a note and gave no indication of having suicidal tendencies."
"But you don't agree with his findings?"
"The Phaeton was a convertible, the top was down and the garage was well-ventilated. Also, the UPS man said the engine wasn't running, and he didn't notice any fumes when he got there."
"What did the police say?"
"They asked me if I had any enemies or whether I may have owed money to any disreputable characters. Meanwhile, they were investigating me, hoping to find a girlfriend or a large insurance policy on my wife somewhere."
"And did they uncover anything?"
"No. I was always faithful to my wife. I loved her, and I certainly didn't need to kill her for any insurance money. My business was booming, and I was earning more than ever."
"Did you tell the police about your bizarre experiences with the car?"
"Oh, yeah! At first, they ridiculed me, referring to the ghost as the phantom in the Phaeton."
"And later?"
"One of the detectives began to wonder where the Lincoln came from and why it had been sent to me. He tried to trace the car through the freight company, but there was no record of the Phaeton ever having been shipped. Then he ran a check of motor vehicle records. The car wasn't registered in New Jersey or any other state. That was odd. A valuable car in that condition should have been registered and insured as a classic car."
"If it was really a haunted car, maybe the owner didn't want it sent back. Maybe he was anxious to get rid of it."
"That's what I thought. The police, however, assumed the car was stolen either from a private collector or a car museum."
"So, they suspected you of grand theft auto as well as homicide?"
"Right! And that's when I finally called my lawyer."
"I don't blame you."
"She put her own investigator on the case, and even though there has been no record of the car for the past seventy years, the private detective traced it back to its original owner."
"How did he manage that?"
"It seems the car had been involved in a previous death. In 1935 a famous actress named Thelma Todd owned the Phaeton. One night she came home from a party a little tipsy. Her boyfriend, with whom she'd had a fight, had locked her out of the apartment, so she went to the garage, presumably to spend the night in her car. The unofficial story is that she turned on the engine to keep warm and then either passed out or fell asleep at the wheel. She was found dead the next morning."
"That's a bizarre coincidence," Larissa declared, not certain whether she believed his strange story or not.
"I know. I'm sure the police back in New Jersey were convinced I had stolen the car and then concocted the story about the ghost to cover up my wife's murder. I think the only reason I'm a free man is that they don't have any evidence to make an arrest."
"What happened to the car?"
"The police impounded it. They probably went over every inch of it for fingerprints, fibers, hairs—all that forensics stuff you see on television."
"And when they're through with it, then what? Are you still going to auction it off?"
"Hell no! I'm going to take it to a junkyard and watch as it gets crushed like a bug. I don't want to take the risk of anyone winding up like my poor wife and that dead actress."
* * *
For nearly two months, Fulton tried to convince Larissa of his innocence. He liked her, and being a lonely widower, he was interested in establishing a personal relationship with the attractive, single writer. Yet despite his best efforts, she remained aloof.
Then Pressman heard from the police in New Jersey. Since his wife's death had been ruled an accident and they had been unable to find any evidence to the contrary, the investigation was dropped. Accordingly, the car was returned to him. As he'd once told Larissa he would do, Fulton personally saw the Lincoln Phaeton placed in a car crusher and destroyed. To him, it had been like watching the execution of his wife's murderer.
When he got back to Poplar Springs later that evening, he immediately drove to Larissa's house.
"It's done," he said with relief. "The Phaeton has been reduced to a pile of scrap metal."
Although she still had doubts about Fulton's role in his wife's death, Larissa took pity on him and decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. After all, wasn't everyone to be assumed innocent until proven guilty?
"Would you like some coffee?" she asked.
"No. I need something a little stronger. Why don't we go down to the Ethan Allen Tavern?"
"Okay," she agreed with a smile.
As she walked down the driveway toward Fulton's Mercedes, Larissa saw a light go on in his garage across the street.
"Do you have your lights set on a timer?"
"No," he replied as he started toward the street. "You stay here," he cautioned, fearing his house was about to be robbed.
"Wait! Are you crazy? Don't go over there by yourself. Phone the police."
Fulton decided it was wise advice.
* * *
Officer Simon McElwee and his partner arrived at Fulton's house in less than ten minutes. With Poplar Springs' finest on the scene, Larissa and Fulton felt safe crossing the street.
McElwee looked through the window into the garage and said, "I don't see anyone. Is the door locked?"
"Yes," Fulton replied and handed the officer his keys.
McElwee unlocked the door and instructed, "Stand back folks. There might be someone hiding inside the car."
"What car?" Fulton asked as he and Larissa exchanged astonished looks.
His Mercedes was still parked across the street in Larissa's driveway.
McElwee, his hand on his service revolver, opened the overhead garage door. Larissa, Fulton and the two police officers all swore that—for an instant—they had seen a blond woman, wearing a mink coat over an evening gown, sitting behind the wheel of a 1932 Lincoln Phaeton. But before anyone could approach the car, the vehicle vanished as mysteriously as it had appeared.
* * *
Having seen the haunted car herself, Larissa concluded that Fulton Pressman had not killed his wife. And since he was not a murderer, there was no reason why the two of them could not become good friends and, given some time, perhaps something more.
Yet while Fulton was thankful to be vindicated and relieved that Larissa's doubts were at last laid to rest, he also feared that, despite his best efforts to destroy the Lincoln, the world had not seen the last of the phantom Phaeton.
Although a work of fiction, this story was inspired by the mysterious death of actress Thelma Todd. Note: I found conflicting sources that gave the year of Todd's car as 1932, 1933 and 1934.
One morning I discovered Salem had been locked in my Subaru overnight. Don't worry. He was fine. But it wasn't easy getting the chocolate paw prints off my upholstery!
