When Ghosts Speak - Mary Ann Winkowski [40]
By the time the police arrived, the house’s burglar alarm had been activated and the woman was hiding in an upstairs bedroom. The police entered the house and called out to her. When she answered, they told her that her front and side doors had been unlocked, and the garage door was once again ajar. The woman’s voice cracked as she told me her theory: Her husband was so desperate to take up with his mistress that he had given someone keys to their house so this person could spook her when he was out of town. I asked her if she really believed her husband would do something so cruel.
“That’s what all my friends want to know,” she said. “That’s why I’m calling you. They think I have a ghost in my house.”
It sounded to me as if her friends could be right. A ghost could certainly be responsible for the unlocked doors and misfiring burglar alarm—and also for her problems with her husband.
“It’s like I don’t even know him anymore,” she said. “At first I thought he was having a midlife crisis. He went out and bought a Corvette convertible and started driving it every day. It seemed like all he thought about was that damned car. He even built a garage onto the house so the car would be sheltered. But now I don’t think it’s about the car. I think he’s cheating on me. He goes out for long drives, and when he comes home he’s edgy and mean. He’ll pick a fight and then, half an hour later, he’ll be just as sweet as he used to be. I really think he’s trying to drive me crazy.”
It was clear that this woman was at the end of her rope, but I didn’t sense a ghost in her house as we talked. I did suspect that a ghost might at one time have been in the home; I could sense a feeling—a residue—as I spoke with her. In fact, by now I had a strong suspicion about what was going on in her marriage.
“Is your husband there now?” I asked.
“No,” she said, her voice more angry than tearful. “He’s out driving around in that damned car.”
I told her I suspected that her problems were, in fact, related to an earthbound spirit, and asked her to call me back when her husband returned so I could check my theory. When she phoned back, sure enough, there was a male ghost in the kitchen with her husband. I told her I thought that the ghost was related to the car and asked her if she wanted me to come out to talk to him. She agreed.
When I got to their house, the husband and wife both met me at the door. The husband was a charming man, very relaxed and friendly. As his wife went to the kitchen to get us some coffee, he took me aside and explained that he’d do anything to convince his wife he wasn’t having an affair; he was upset that she didn’t trust him. “I swear, I would never see another woman,” he told me. Then he gave me his version of events: He wanted to spend more time with his wife and had been trying to convince her to join him on his long drives, but she refused to have anything to do with his car. “She just hates it,” he said, admitting that the bright red Corvette that was his pride and joy had become a huge source of tension between the two of them.
Although I was listening to him and nodding my understanding, I was also concentrating on the male ghost who stood just beyond him, in the doorway of the kitchen. He reminded me of a playboy from a 1970s movie: longish hair that curled up at his collar, a leather jacket over a white shirt unbuttoned halfway to his navel, and aviator sunglasses. I thought it was interesting how he had literally put himself between the husband and the wife.
“He feels the same way about the car as I did,” the ghost said to me as the husband and I went past him to join the wife in the kitchen.
The three of us sat at the kitchen table while the ghost continued to lounge in the kitchen doorway. He was very chatty, and after a brief conversation I was able to confirm that this spirit was the one causing havoc in their home and relationship. The ghost told me that he had been the car’s previous owner—and his wife had