“This,” she began, “is another story of love gone awry—and the strangest thing about this story is that it’s fairly recent history, and everything I have to tell you is true and documented. It all began over eighty years ago.
“Maria Elena Milagro de Hoyos, a lovely Cuban-American, was born in 1910. In 1930, she came down with tuberculosis. At the time, it was still an incurable disease. She received her diagnosis when she came to the United States Marine Hospital in Key West. Elena was dark haired, vivacious, filled with life—loved by her family, but perhaps not so much by her husband, who left her almost immediately after the diagnosis. There was a German-born radiologist at the hospital named Carl Tanzler, who went by the name Count Von Cosel. He was thirty-three years older than Elena, but he saw her and he was in love.”
“Yuck!” someone said.
Everyone turned to look. It was one of the young girls in the group—Belinda, Hannah thought.
Belinda cleared her throat awkwardly. “He was...what? Fifty-three? And she was twenty? That’s gross.”
Hannah laughed. “I never said that Elena fell in love with Carl Tanzler, just that Carl Tanzler fell in love with Elena. But that was how things stood. Elena had a husband, but he wasn’t about to stick around as his lovely young wife sickened and died. And in fact Tanzler had a wife, but she lived up in Zephyr Hills. So he convinced the family that he could treat Elena with all his radiology equipment and save her. He visited her house and ingratiated himself with the family. But poor Elena died despite his best efforts. Her wake was held right here at the Dean Lopez Funeral Home, which, as you can see, remains in business today. Tanzler offered to buy Elena a beautiful mausoleum at the Key West Cemetery, and she was laid to rest. But here’s where it starts to get really creepy. Tanzler visited her nearly every day, playing music for her, reading to her, speaking to her constantly of his undying love. This went on for two years, and then Tanzler suddenly stopped visiting.”
“I know!” Tobie Rosewood said. “He stole her body!”
“Yes. He stole her body from the grave in the dead of night,” Hannah agreed. “Now, Key West is known for having residents who are a bit eccentric. So when Carl Tanzler began buying piano wire, mortician’s wax, women’s lingerie and perfumes, no one really seemed to notice.
“And then one day, in 1940, Elena’s sister, Florida, heard rumors about Tanzler, so she confronted him. He was living in a broken-down plane on the beach, because he wanted to fix it and fly away to the heavens. She saw that he had her sister’s body, and that was the end of Tanzler’s ‘romance.’ The authorities came, and he was arrested. He claimed that although Elena never so much as agreed to date him in life, she had married him in death. He was given a psychological examination and deemed mentally competent to stand trial.
“And here’s where it got tricky. He hadn’t murdered Elena, and the statute of limitations on grave robbing meant that it was too late to charge him with stealing her body.
“Newspapers around the country hailed Tanzler as a great romantic. But back in those days, the press didn’t reveal every salacious detail the way it does now.” She paused, looking from person to person before revealing the next detail. “In his efforts to preserve Elena’s body he used wire and plastic and whatever else he could find. And he maintained a relationship with her as if she were alive, as if they were truly man and wife.
“After her body was found, poor Elena was given another viewing here at the Dean Lopez Funeral Home. This time thousands of people came, some to pay their last respects but most, I’m sure, to stare at what remained of her corpse. She was buried once again at the Key West Cemetery, but only the sheriff and a few other people knew where. Rumor says she was actually buried in several pieces in several places. Carl Tanzler’s last words to the judge were a question. He wanted to know when he could get his Elena back. He never would, of course.
“Soon after his release, the mausoleum he’d had built for her exploded and Carl Tanzler left town. But the story gets even stranger. He moved up to Zephyr Hills, where his estranged wife helped him find a place to live and get on his feet. He died on July 3, 1952, and some say he was found in a coffin with what must have been an effigy of his Elena. Or was it? I personally believe our medical examiners would have known the difference between an effigy and a corpse. All I can say is that if anyone deserves to haunt Key West as a ghost seeking something better, that person is Elena de Hoyos.”