Found Drowned

by Norris, Laurie Glenn;

  The old woman was rocking back and forth as if preparing to propel herself from the chair. Then another woman, wearing an apron over a dirty nightdress, limped into the room and the rocking chair stopped.

  She’s a dope addict, Hutt thought. How many times had he seen the same skin colour and haunted eyes on poor creatures around the wharves in Halifax? He had never thought of it happening to a country wife.

  “Have you come to tell us something about Mary? Have you found my Mary?”

  “Mrs. Harney, we’re here to ask you and your husband some questions. We’re very sorry for your loss.” Hutt rose from the table. “Your husband seems to think that Mary ran away. What do you think about that?”

  The old woman snorted and commenced rocking.

  “She got mad at me and ran away,” Ann said.

  “Why was she mad at you?”

  “Those two fought all the time.” Will shrugged. “If it wasn’t about one thing it was the other.”

  “Was Mary sent out to get the cows the night that she disappeared?”

  Ann looked at her husband then turned back to Hutt.

  “Yes,” she said slowly. “That was her job. And Mary loved the cows. It would take her forever to get them back to the barn. She would let them keep eating, make daisy chains to put around their necks.”

  “Were you surprised when she didn’t come back?”

  “It’s the first time my baby was ever out all night in the cold.”

  “What was she wearing the last time you saw her?” Hutt asked

  “She had on her plaid skirt and brown belt with her good jacket over it,” Will said. “I asked her why she was so dressed up just to get the cows in.”

  “Is that true, Mrs. Harney?” Hutt asked.

  At first Ann shook her head then she began to nod, her loose bun bobbing up and down.

  “Well, which is it? How was Mary dressed?”

  Will stood up. Ann started to cry.

  “She used to say things about my husband.” Ann swallowed hard and wiped the tears away with the palms of her hands. “I know they weren’t true. Will said Mary was crazy, when she said things like that.”

  “Ann,” Will said, stepping towards her.

  Sherman and Ryan stood up and grabbed Will by the arms. He struggled against them.

  “What kind of things did Mary say, ma’am?” Hutt asked.

  He rose from his chair and escorted Ann to the table to sit down.

  “Whatever she says, she’s lying,” Will warned.

  Hutt took both of Ann’s hands in his. “What did Mary say, ma’am?”

  She looked at him and then down at their hands. “She told me that Will watched her when she took baths. She told me he was always trying to touch her and that sometimes he would sneak into her bedroom.”

  “Jesus Christ,” said Will still struggling.

  Hutt let go of Ann’s hand and reached into his coat pocket for a handkerchief.

  “She said that Will wanted her to touch him.” She hesitated. “On…on his private parts,” she blurted and covered her swollen eyes with her hands.

  “But”–she grabbed for Hutt’s hands again—“I knew it wasn’t right. I knew that no husband of mine would do that. I told Mary to stop telling lies, making things up, and she never spoke about it again.”

  “The piece of cloth you have from Mary’s skirt, will you show it to me?” Hutt asked softly.

  “Oh, I could…couldn’t do that,” said Ann, looking at Will. “I’m saving it…I put it away for good. When Mary comes home, I’ll sew it back on her skirt.”

  “Mrs. Harney, I’m sorry, but your daughter is dead.” Hutt held her hands tighter. “She’s buried over on Prince Edward Island. I saw her myself. She’s dead.”

  “That’s not my Mary,” Ann said, opening her eyes wider. “Mary is someplace safe. Will said…she would always be near—”

  “For Christ’s sake,” Will shouted. “Can’t you see she’s not right in the head?”

  “Like mother, like daughter,” said the woman in the rocking chair.

  “Shut up over there,” Hutt bellowed.

  “How dare you speak to me like that in my own house. Get out. Get—”

  “One more word and I’ll arrest you for interfering with a police officer,” Hutt said. “I’m trying to conduct an investigation here. Now shut up.”

  He turned again to Ann. “What did your husband say?”

  “He said that it was better that Mary go away and that it was my duty, as a good mother, to let her go.”

  Will hung his head.

  “Why did she have to go away?” Hutt asked.

  Ann looked at her husband and then back at Hutt.

  “Mary was bringing shame on the family.”

  She put her hand over her mouth. It took a moment for her to continue. “Will said she was a disgrace, just like me, that she was an embarrassment to us all. He said we’d have to leave Rockley, just like we had to leave Merigomish.”

  She fumbled in the pocket of her apron, brought out the piece of fabric, and passed it back and forth from one hand to the other.

  “I have to go outside now,” she said and moved towards the porch.

  Hutt stood up.

  “William Harney and Ann Harney, in the name of her Majesty the Queen, I am placing you both under arrest for the murder of Mary Harney.”

  Ann kept moving towards the door as if she had not heard. Ryan held her elbow and escorted her out. The woman sprang out of the rocking chair.

  “You can’t take my son away. He looked for her just as hard as any of the rest of them.”

  She sank down and started to cry.

  “Ma, it’s all right, it’s all right. I won’t be gone long. Don’t worry. You’ll be all right here with Uncle John and the kids.”

  Sherman took a pair of handcuffs off his belt and locked them on Will’s wrists. As they walked outside to the buggy, Ryan came around from the back of the house still holding Ann gently by the arm.

  “See what I mean,” he said. “All she wants to do is go ’round and ’round the house in circles.”

  As she walked Ann spoke to herself and pressed the faded piece of plaid to her breast.

  I drift with the current, tossed to shore with the storm.

  Oxford

  Nova Scotia

  October 9, 1877

  Will shared the village’s tiny jail cell on two occasions: once with a man charged with vagrancy and then with a young boy arrested for setting fire to his grandparents’ house. Ann slept and ate at the home of the jailor, Charles Murphy, in the custody of his wife, Myrtle.

  “Please let Mrs. Murphy wash that filthy nightgown for you. It can practically stand by itself,” Beatrice said to Ann, who was lying on the bed looking up at the ceiling.

  “They took Mary’s skirt patch away from me,” she said, ignoring her sister’s remarks.

  “They need it for the hearing, Ann. You know that. They said you could have it back when it’s all over.”

  “It’s the only thing I had left of Mary.” Tears welled up in her eyes.

  Beatrice patted her sister’s hand. “Right now you need to get some rest. You’re exhausted. But first we’re going to get you out of that thing and give you a bath. It’ll help you sleep.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  Beatrice left the room and went down the hallway. She returned a minute later with Myrtle Murphy on her heels.

  “Now, Ann, there’s a hot bath waiting for you in the kitchen. There’s no men around, so there’s no reason to be shy,” Myrtle assured her.

  Ann looked up at the two women defiantly and clutched the bedclothes beneath her.

  “My dear, you’re getting into that tub supposing I have to break your neck doing it,” Myrtle said. “I’ve handled tougher c
ustomers than you, don’t think I haven’t. Miss Hennessey, you grab her lower limbs and I’ll lift her up under her arms.”

  “No, Beatrice, don’t! For God sake’s let me be.”

  “It’s for your own good, Ann. Please let us help you.”

  “We can do this the easy way or the hard way but we’re going to do it,” Myrtle said between her teeth as she grabbed Ann under each arm.

  Ann yelled and kicked her feet, releasing her legs from Beatrice’s grasp.

  “Don’t bother being gentle, Miss Hennessey. Like you said, it’s for her own good,” Myrtle said as she heaved Ann up into a sitting position.

  “She’s not very heavy. We can get her down the hall and into the kitchen. She’ll squawk but between the two of us she’ll get a half decent wash.”

  ***

  An hour later, Ann was back in bed, sleeping in a fresh nightgown. Myrtle had burnt the old blue one up in the kitchen stove.

  “It’s little more than a rag,” she proclaimed, stuffing it in with the poker.

  Myrtle and Beatrice sat at the kitchen table drinking tea. The younger woman tried, unsuccessfully, to hold back tears.

  “I’ve lost my mother, my niece, and now my sister just like that. I’m ashamed to say it, but I’m glad mother’s not alive to witness all this,” she said, taking a handkerchief out from under her dress sleeve.

  “You’ll get through it, dear. It’ll all get settled.”

  “Ann arrested for murdering her own daughter! How is that possible? How could they ever think she’d do such a thing?”

  “It’ll be all right dear, you’ll see.” Myrtle patted Beatrice’s hand and refilled her teacup. Beatrice whispered, “I feel like everything’s crumbling around me. My father shouldn’t be left by himself with only the help to look after him. I’m caught in the middle.”

  “My dear,” Myrtle said, “don’t fret about things that you can’t control. It does no good. You need rest. Go back to the hotel. The hearing starts tomorrow morning. Both you and Ann will need all your strength for that. She’ll be fine with me. I gave her something to calm her down. She’ll sleep like a baby until morning and if not I can control her. Don’t worry about that.”

  Beatrice made her way back to the Starr Hotel. She would wait and write to her father after the hearing. She collapsed on the bed fully clothed and slept the rest of the day.

  ***

  The preliminary hearing was held in the main room of the Oxford Odd Fellows’ Hall. It was a large space that took up the entire length of the building, with a low ceiling and three large eight-over-eight windows running down its length. Two more windows flanked its front double doors. Plaques engraved with the names of local honoured members of the International Order of Odd Fellows decorated the walls. Queen Victoria, hand to her cheek, looked down upon the room from a sepia photograph. Beneath its massive frame, in the middle of the back wall, four men were seated behind a ten-foot-long table.

  “Thank God all the windows are open,” a woman in a tight dress commented to the friend beside her fanning the air with a doubled-up copy of the Chignecto Post. “Not that it really makes a lot of difference,” she continued, “with all those fools plugging them up, it’s a wonder we have any air in here at all.”

  Men, boys, and a few young girls not able to fit inside the crowded room were indeed peeking in the hall windows. Some were perched on the shoulders of friends. Others stood on ladders braced against the outside wall. Inside, all the wooden chairs facing the four justices were occupied. Everyone was eager to hear, first-hand, what had happened to Mary Harney. People from as far away as Halifax and Saint John were among the onlookers. Besides those seated inside and pressed against the windows, a group of latecomers crowded around the front door.

  It was noisy and Justice Joseph Oxley, the chairman for the hearing, was not in a good mood. He didn’t like to be rushed, and that’s exactly the way he felt. His tongue protruded out of the corner of his mouth as he concentrated on the notes in front of him. The swell of talk was making his head ache all the more.

  The door opened and Sherman and Ryan walked into the room. Oxley leaned over and whispered to the man seated next to him at the long table.

  “Tom, it’s goin’ to be a long day.”

  “Morning, gentlemen.” Sherman walked along the front of the table, shaking the hands of each of the justices. Oxley introduced them in turn, Thomas Black, Harry Carter, and Howard Hingley.

  “Should I bring them in now?” Sherman asked.

  Oxley nodded, then, looking over the top of his spectacles at the crowd before him, he motioned for Sherman to step aside, and raised both his gavel and his voice. “Ladies and gentlemen, if you want to stay here and observe this hearing, you’d all better quiet down, and I mean right now!”

  The crowd came to attention as the gavel fell.

  Oxley nodded his head in approval.

  “Gentlemen, let’s proceed,” he said, looking at his watch. “Hopefully the clerk will show up soon. Until then, I’ll take notes myself.”

  “Bring them in.” Sherman nodded to Ryan, who had been waiting at the door. The constable touched his hat, turned, opened, then closed the door behind him, causing the noise level emanating from the crowd outside to rise and fall. A few minutes later, he returned with the prisoners. A woman limped slowly into the room. Ryan, his hand on her elbow, pointed her towards the justices. She wore an emerald green dress too large for her, and her eyes were red and swollen. A smartly dressed woman walked beside her with her arm around her waist, squeezing through the crowd. After them came a man with blond hair, his head bowed. His shackled hands and feet caused him to shuffle, and his appearance drew immediate reaction from the onlookers.

  “There he is.”

  “Murderer!”

  “Should be strung up.”

  “Shut up or I’ll clear this room.” Oxley pounded on the table with his gavel again.

  “Constable, tell that bunch outside to quiet down too or I’ll have the lot of them thrown out,” Oxley commanded. “My damn head is pounding enough as it is.”

  Ryan nodded and went back out the door.

  “Pipe down, all of you.”

  While Ryan retraced his steps, the trio had stopped and waited for him. Ryan led them to the three ladder-back chairs which faced the justices. The limping woman stopped in front of the middle chair, turned, and dropped herself into it. The shackled man sat on her left with the other woman on her right. Ryan walked back to the door and stood with his rifle resting over his right arm.

  Before anyone had a chance to speak, there was a tentative knock. Ryan moved aside and a tall, skinny man with a notebook, pen, and inkwell came into the room.

  “My apologies, Justice Oxley, gentlemen,” he said. “Trouble with the milking this morning.”

  “That’s fine, we’re not started yet.” Oxley pointed towards a desk and chair to his right. Eamonn Walsh took off his coat and hung it carefully over the back of the chair. He sat down, rolled up his sleeves, opened his notebook, and placed his pen and inkwell on the desk beside it, then he folded his arms and looked at Oxley.

  Justice Oxley began. “This is a very serious matter and needs to be dealt with promptly and carefully.” He nodded at the clerk, who dipped his pen in the inkwell. “This is the preliminary examination of Michael William Harney and Ann Helen Harney, who have been brought before us on the suspicion of murder of their daughter Mary Harney.”

  The woman in the green dress lifted her head. Tears spilled out of her closed eyes, over her cheeks, and fell off her chin into her lap. She did not make a sound or move to wipe them away. The other woman dabbed at her own face with a pink, monogrammed hanky.

  “This examination will be conducted by myself, Justice Oxley, with Justices Black, Carter, and Hingley, here in Oxford, Cumberland County, Nova Scotia, on this, the tenth day of October in the year
of our Lord eighteen hundred and seventy-seven.”

  Oxley waited a moment for Eamonn to catch up. “The purpose of this preliminary examination is to ascertain whether there is sufficient evidence to bring Michael William Harney and Ann Helen Harney to trial for the murder of Mary Harney. There’s a number of people to hear from today, so let’s get started.”

  Sherman was the first witness called.

  Oxley began. “We’ve looked over Detective Hutt’s report as well as the coroner’s report. They’re both very thorough.”

  Sherman nodded.

  “Is there any proof besides the say-so of William Harney that the body on Prince Edward Island is that of Mary Harney?”

  “We have a positive identification of a patch taken from the skirt worn by the victim, sir,” Sherman said. “The father identified it as such and the mother becomes frantic at the sight of it.”

  “Do you have it in your possession?”

  “Yes, sir. After the mother was incarcerated, the jailor’s wife was able to get it away from her.”

  Sherman took a small brown envelope out of his vest pocket and handed it to Oxley. He extracted the fabric from it, looked at it for a moment, and passed it down the table.

  Justice Carter spoke up. “Any other proof?”

  “No, not right now,” Sherman replied. “As Hutt’s report says, the body was just in too bad a state of decomposition to travel, and the rest of the clothes are missing. We had men over on the Island looking for them and they’ll continue to keep an eye out. There were certainly signs of struggle on the body, indicating that she’d been badly beaten and had fought back.”

  Justice Carter asked, “What happened that the girl’s clothes are gone?

  Sherman spent the next ten minutes retelling the story of the missing clothes.

  Oxley called Freda Mills as the second witness.