P.J. Howard delivered his copy straight away. Collins was a little slower. In the end she only delivered the single sheet of A4 paper when her motives had come under suspicion and the gardaí had already shown an interest in her. Suddenly the lines drawn up in the offices of Downes & Howard seemed an important alibi so she lodged them with her solicitor. Better late than never!
In November 2005, however, she was content to pretend that the letter and Howard’s stubbornness were just a bad dream that couldn’t get in the way of the Italian fairy tale she was intent on enacting. Collins planned the day with great care. After all, it was the only time Howard was actually going to pledge his love for her in a church, despite the lack of priest and witnesses. They decided that a little church in Sorrento would be perfect for their vows, choosing a romantic venue for their special day. They dressed up and Collins even found a local photographer, so that it could never be denied. Then one afternoon they went to their church and stood in front of the altar. On their own out of the Italian sun they said a couple of prayers and then pledged their undying love to the cool shadows in the corners of the empty pews.
Then it was over. Collins would have to wait until she was back in Ireland to hear the applause and congratulations from her friends and family. But at least she could start calling herself Sharon Howard. As far as P.J. Howard was concerned, everything was sorted now. His assets were safe, the document ensuring they were safe was with his solicitor and he had met the woman he loved more than half way. The rest of the holiday was the start of their honeymoon. As they posed for photographs, it seemed like the perfect day and the best possible way to mark the love they shared.
When the holiday was over and they had returned to Ireland, Collins started telling her friends they had really got married that day in the little church. Howard wasn’t worried. He knew that there was a document saying otherwise in a safe place in his solicitor’s office. So he didn’t mind that most of the guests who attended their ‘reception’ party in the four star Admiralty Lodge Hotel thought a wedding had taken place. He knew it was all make believe. It didn’t bother him that the staff at the hotel thought they were catering for a wedding party, or that the large white cake had a little bride and groom on it, or that the invitations had a distinctly matrimonial feel to them. It all made Collins happy after all.
The people who mattered the most to him knew the truth. Howard had sat down his elder son Robert and explained the whole situation to him. It was unfortunate that the boys weren’t as enthusiastic about it as the happy couple but he was a responsible father and had made sure everything would be kept safe for them. He just wanted to make his Sharon happy.
All in all it was a successful night. The forty or so guests lifted a glass of champagne to the happy couple and when they cut the cake there were few who had any idea it had not been baked to mark recent nuptials. Robert and Niall Howard were there with their girlfriends and Gary and David were there for their mum as well. It was a perfect family occasion and carried on long into the winter night. Collins kept the photographs from the festive celebrations on her computer and would later provide proof of the smiles on the faces of Robert and Niall as identifying features for her internet hitman.
But ultimately it just wasn’t enough. Collins was secretly far from satisfied. Even as she played the newly wed she was exploring ways to shore up her position. If Howard wouldn’t take her to a church to make his vows before a priest then she would just have to find a way to do so without him. It just wasn’t the same calling herself Sharon Howard without the documents to back it up. So without her partner’s knowledge she went on the internet and by the time they were celebrating their supposed nuptials with family and friends she was already well on the way to becoming Mrs Sharon Howard for real … on paper at least.
It hadn’t taken long to find the first mention of proxy marriages. It appeared that they had done it wrong in Italy. They’d had no priest and therefore no marriage whereas, according to some of the sites she was now reading, they could have stayed at home, filled out a few forms and magically, they would be man and wife without any fuss, and a reluctant groom mightn’t even have to know. Collins started her research and eventually found somewhere that looked like it might do the job. The problem was that a simple single proxy marriage wasn’t good enough. A proxy marriage is the kind of marriage where the other spouse is unable to come to the wedding in person. If you want to marry someone on death row this would be a way around the prison authorities not issuing a day pass. In this situation the proxy attends the wedding in place of the jailbird and the marriage legally stands—once it’s been consummated. This kind of marriage has been around for years and has allowed soldiers on active duty to marry their sweethearts back home. It has even allowed a cosmonaut on the International Space station to get married to a girl back home. They were common in past centuries among nobility and royalty when one of the parties was too young, too old or too mad to be brought out in public. A proxy marriage was the perfect solution when one party didn’t even know about the pressing need to get married.
But Collins had an added complication. She had signed a piece of paper with Howard promising him they would not get married. She knew he would not agree to any marriage, even a proxy one. It rather defeated the purpose of vowing not to get married. If Collins were to suddenly go to Mexico, Howard would either want to come, or want to know what she was doing there. She just wouldn’t be able to get away with it. So a double proxy was the only way forward. This made things a little difficult.
Double proxy marriages do exist but they are hard to come by. One of the few places that does offer them is the American state of Montana. In fact they had such a booming market in double proxy weddings with couples applying from all over the world that it became a major problem. There were applications coming from as far away as China and Sweden and it was putting a great strain on the court services. The ceremony, which was normally a quick affair that only took around half an hour, was taking two hours or more as documents were being filled in incorrectly. The clerical staff were buckling under the strain, so a change in the law was put forward and now Montana’s double proxy weddings are only available to serving members of the military. Since neither Collins nor Howard had been signed up for military service recently she would have to look elsewhere. Four other American states, California, Colorado and Texas also permit proxy weddings but they would only provide them for American citizens and insisted that one party showed up. Not many other countries were keen on providing the service or even recognising the marriage if you managed to get one.
But there are people on the internet who are happy to provide almost any service for a fee. For Collins this was her first exploration into the more dubious fringes of cyberspace but, as she would later do with hitmanforhire.net, when she found proxymarriages.com she jumped in feet first.
Proxymarriages.com no longer exists, like many of the websites mentioned in this story. The combined forces of legal and media scrutiny tend to persuade those involved in the less salubrious dealings online to vanish when the police come into view. If you go to the address now you find a polite notice telling you that ‘this site is no longer active’. A discreet link leads you to nevadadivorce.net with the capitalised promise of ‘Professional, Efficient and Low Cost Divorce and Annulment Services’. Proxymarriages.com was not one of the more reliable outfits. Despite the home page that promised ‘Quick, legal double proxy marriages’ the marriage certificate Collins eventually received was not worth the paper it was printed on. It was another example of her willingness to trust anyone who offered her her heart’s desire, regardless of the small print. Not that proxymarriages.com had much small print. The site sported a stock photograph of a happy couple standing next to a white limo. In multicoloured text the home page trumpeted the long and illustrious history of the proxy marriage. But the paragraph that caught Collins’s eye was the one that promised an alternative to Montana’s new restrictions.
‘Mexi
co and Paraguay also deal in mail-order proxy marriages. We arrange proxy marriages in Mexico or Paraguay. The average cost is $600 USD.
‘Mexico has no residency requirements. Although expensive, from $500 to $800, a proxy marriage can be arranged in one day, without travel.
‘Because of the current restrictive marriage laws, a number of Israeli couples are getting married by proxy or “mail-in” marriage through the consulate of Paraguay in Tel Aviv. According to Israeli law, the Interior Ministry must recognize and register these marriages.’
The site promised a no hassle procedure with downloadable forms and a list of documentation that needed to be provided. There was a price list dependent on how quickly you wanted to be a blushing bride. Collins baulked at the Emergency Marriage, promising for the knot to be tied within 72 hours and the marriage certificate in her hand within three business days. Besides, whichever package she eventually plumped for, she would have to pay an additional $450 to get it apostilled or certified for an English speaking court. She did want to get things sorted quickly though. She eventually settled on the more frugal ceremony which would take a week with the documents with her in seven working days. Taking into account the extra week it would take to get the marriage certificate translated and certified into English she could be Mrs Sharon Howard in as little as three weeks. Perfect! There was still a niggling doubt though. Just to be sure she fired off a quick email to the Mexican Embassy asking about proxy marriages. She soon got a reply but it wasn’t quite what she was looking for. The girl at the Embassy was perplexed.
‘I have never come across a proxy marriage in Mexico and I strongly doubt it would be possible.’
That was a bit of a problem but for some reason it didn’t stop her. Sitting in Ballybeg House with the sleek grey laptop that Howard had bought to do his accounts before they’d moved the business into the business park, Collins sent in a tentative query to proxymarriages.com. She decided, to avert suspicion, to write as a couple in love but tangled up in complex circumstances. She sent one email from her own Eircom account but decided that it wouldn’t do for a correspondence. There was still the risk that Robert or Niall would be checking something on the reception computer at the office where her Eircom account was set to log in automatically if you went onto the Sign In page. They all used the internet in the office. It was the only place that had usable speeds; the dial up connection at the house was barely able to handle the most basic of text based emails. It was too much of a risk to have answers from proxymarriages.com popping up where someone could get wind of what she was planning. But she wasn’t the only one who had an Eircom account.
P.J. Howard was not very technically minded and didn’t have much time for the internet. He used to leave anything like online banking or booking flights to her. The only email address he ever used was the one set up on the office system. He never used the one that had been set up for him when they’d got the dial up connection into the house. But Collins knew his password. The emails she sent to proxymarriages.com were from an idealised man who would take charge of these things. A man who would move heaven and earth to be married to her and who would stamp his foot to get the service they deserved.
She started writing to [email protected] to say that she just needed as much information as possible before proceeding.
‘What about inheritance? If one of us were to die we are worried about our respective children arguing whether the marriage actually existed.’
She explained that there was a ‘great deal of opposition to us getting legally married’ so there was a necessity of ‘keeping it from our families. It’s a long story.’ Because of this she explained would it be possible to send it to their solicitor rather than to their home. Leonard wrote back within a day. The marriage would take place in Mexico. It was all totally legal. They did dozens of double proxy marriages each year. Collins wrote back within hours. Would they have to physically go to Mexico? That might be difficult, if not impossible. Did Leonard know anyone who could go there as a witness? Leonard explained to her that the witnesses were provided and all she needed to do was to send original documents with the money and an extra $195 for any additional copies of the marriage certificate they would require.
It seemed like a good deal. Collins happily sent over her credit card details and agreed to the payment of $1,295 with the extra charge for the apostille translation and sent over all the necessary documentation. Apart from both their birth certificates there were other forms you could download from the website. They were a power of attorney to allow someone to stand in for the bride and groom for the Mexican ceremony and a simple contract giving the company the go ahead to proceed. The contract looked fair enough. The company even agreed to pay back 50% of the fee if the marriage wasn’t accepted as legally binding. She already had a copy of Howard’s birth cert not to mention his wife’s death certificate and her own divorce certificate so getting certified copies for both of them wasn’t a problem.
Collins realised that it could be problematic if the marriage certificate was delivered to her either at home or to the office. The envelope was likely to be large and Howard, or someone else taking a registered delivery, might be tempted to check what was inside. That was something she didn’t want to have happen. As she had mentioned to Leonard, she would need to have it delivered somewhere else but maybe not her solicitor … it might be difficult to explain a marriage certificate even if she still hadn’t given the guarantee of no marriage document yet. Then she remembered her old friend Matt Heslan. He wasn’t a solicitor but an accountant was close enough. She’d known him for years, longer than she’d known Howard. He’d done book keeping for her when she’d had the shop and she had even invited him to the ‘wedding’ reception at Dromoland Castle. According to evidence given in court, she got in touch with him and explained the situation. She and Howard had needed to change their plans with the wedding. She made up a story and pretended that P.J. Howard’s two sons had kicked up about it so they had to find a way around it. She told him about the proxy marriage explaining it was the only way they could be together. Would it be okay if she had the certificate delivered to his office? She could tell the legal people who were organising the marriage certificate that he was her legal representative. If the certificate was delivered to the house then the boys might get hold of it and she was worried what would happen if they found out they’d gone behind their backs. They might even destroy it. She would wait in for the delivery but she had promised Howard she would be with him in Spain around the time it was due to arrive.
Heslan had no idea about the fraud but agreed to help, so Collins got back in touch with Leonard and arranged for the certificate to be posted out there. Then she waited, and waited. The reception came and went. It was nearly Christmas and there was still no sign of the marriage certificate. It was supposed to have taken a little over a week. Collins wrote back to Leonard, once again using Howard’s email address.
‘I have been trying to ring you several times in the past couple of weeks but the calls have been diverted to an answering machine. Sharon left a message over a week ago and again last night. I have to be honest with you I am getting worried and getting more sceptical as each day goes by. I need the date that the marriage ceremony took place.’
She pushed the point home with a bit of emotional blackmail.
‘Sharon’s passport is due for renewal soon and she had hoped to renew it in her married name.’
Then as a finishing touch she decided to make Howard a little bit hot tempered and ended on a threat with the fictional Collins the calming influence.
‘The only thing stopping me contacting Paypal at the moment is Sharon but I can tell she’s getting as worried as I am.’
It seemed to do the trick. Over the next few weeks she got all the forms and documentation sorted and was finally assured that the certificate was on its way to safe hands at Heslan’s office. In the end he wasn’t there when the certificate arrived. His secretary signed for it
and put it in his office. Collins called round to the office a couple of days later and opened the official looking envelope right away. Inside were several documents. The original certificate, with its gold crest and elaborate purple border looked like something you’d knock up on the computer at home—but it had cost enough. It must have been valid. It gave the names P.J. Howard and Sharon Collins and said the ceremony had taken place in Trece in Mexico, which was nice to know. There was also a translation into English and a couple of other documents that seemed to be the certification, the mysterious apostille. Collins took the English copy of the certificate and thanked Heslan for his help, leaving the original with him for safety. Now she saw it she wasn’t sure about the certificate. As always, late in the game, Collins started to worry she had been had. She needed to test whether it would stand up to official scrutiny, in case she ever needed it to when Howard wasn’t around to be shocked.
She had been thinking about the best way to see if it worked. Well her passport had been in an unfortunate accident with a bottle of water. She couldn’t possibly travel on it now, it was coming apart! Of course, she could have sent off for a replacement in her married name but on 22 February 2006, Collins travelled to the passport office in Cork. She had her birth certificate, her water soaked old passport and the Mexican marriage certificate. She filled out the passport form under the name Sharon Howard. She waited to go up to the counter then nervously handed over the small bundle of documents.
The Devil in the Red Dress Page 4