(This is the final part of a three-part series.)

Back in New Jersey, Maureen's family initially believed Paul's tales of suicide or abandonment. After all, they knew she had been unhappy.

"In the beginning, we honestly did feel for Paul," said Kathleen. "I almost felt sorry for the guy." They joined him in worry -- while becoming increasingly suspicious.

About four months later, frustrated by the lack of answers, Maureen's sister and father traveled to Pahrump. They talked with police, her co-workers and Paul.

Kathleen recalls her father confronting Paul, using curse words she'd never heard come out of his month. Paul coolly leaned back in his recliner and said, "Jim, I swear I didn't do anything to her."

Expecting an arrest at any moment, Jim Fitzgerald wanted to keep Paul from selling the couple's properties to fund his defense. The father went to court to be appointed Maureen's guardian.

He faced an uphill battle. The law favors a husband over a father, said Shawn Morris, the lawyer he hired.

At the hearing, Morris said, he told the judge Paul was being investigated for Maureen's murder.

"The courtroom went silent. It went totally silent," the lawyer recalled.

Paul proclaimed his innocence. He also complained authorities had questioned him 11 times, although they had formally interviewed him only twice. That's all the judge needed to hear, Morris said. Maureen's father was named guardian.

It was only temporary, however. Paul says the judge erred, and he was able to wrest guardianship away from Maureen's father this past March. The way he did it was to change Maureen's legal status to that of missing person.

But that meant he couldn't divorce her -- a de facto victory for Maureen's father.

"I'm not after his money," says Jim Fitzgerald, 73. "I'm after him."

Nevada, land of all-night wedding chapels and quickie divorces, allows a missing person to be declared dead after only three years. In February, Paul can petition to remove Maureen's name from the couple's properties.

He can then sell them and leave Pahrump.

Open investigation

The disappearance of Maureen Erin Fitzgerald Fields is not a cold case but cooling every day.

Police feel they have enough reason to arrest Paul Fields and charge him with the death of his wife. "We sent one case to the district attorney's office, and that is Paul Fields," said Sheriff Tony DeMeo. But District Attorney Bob Beckett has told Maureen's family he doesn't think there is sufficient evidence at this stage to charge Paul.

There is no statute of limitations for murder, so authorities can take their time before charging a suspect. A defendant who is acquitted can never be tried again, even if more evidence -- perhaps even a body -- were found.

"I would love to get to the bottom of it," said Beckett, who declined to discuss the specifics of the case. "I remember talking to the lady at the bank. She was a nice person."

The police investigation remains open.

Paul lives quietly, supporting himself with real-estate and credit cards. He is a member of Choice Hills Baptist Church, bumping up his attendance to twice a week after Maureen vanished.

Pastor Carl England, along with his wife, Angie, are in Paul's camp, seeing Maureen as a woman who probably ran off. They don't pay much attention to what the pastor calls "all the scuttlebutt."

Haunting uncertainty

Police believe Maureen is dead.

Paul -- who they believe is the only person benefiting from her death -- is their only suspect. They doubt she left with a lover; no one else went missing at the same time. They find it unlikely that kidnappers took her and left her wallet and car.

Pahrump's battered-women's shelter will help a woman leave town, but Director Clelia Pinza Garrity said they always get word to authorities the woman is safe.

Maureen's loved ones say she wasn't savvy enough to create another identity for herself to get away from Paul. Since her fingerprints are on file, she'd have been unable to get work at another bank.

And police return to these bedrock beliefs: She wouldn't have left her dog.

And a woman so concerned about the feelings of others that she brought doughnuts to work would surely have contacted her heartbroken mother.

They feel they've caught Paul in many lies. But even if he is lying, does that make him a murderer?

Howard's rejoinder: "Then what happened to his wife?"

That uncertainty haunts Maureen's friends and family. "I just want to know before I die that my friend got a decent burial -- because she's out there in the desert being eaten by animals and snakes," said her friend Paula.

If police suspicions are correct, she is a long, long way from the cozy North Arlington, N.J., neighborhood where she grew up. She's about 2,585 miles from home, her desert resting place one of silent, barren beauty.

Several years ago she received a surgical jaw implant made of titanium, complete with a serial number. If someday it emerges amidst the sagebrush, they'll know they've found her.

In the desert, titanium lasts forever.

(Reporter O'Brien may be contacted at kobrien@starledger.com.)