by Ron Finch
The customer is always right, Maureen repeated to herself. The customer is always right. I must be polite. I must be polite. She took a deep breath and tried to smile. “You’re right. I apologize. I didn’t recognize you. We’ve been very busy. Do you have a copy of the newspaper notice?”
From her very expensive purse Henny produced her copy of the notice. “As you can see, and if you can hear,” she added impolitely, “I am here about my inheritance.”
“Yes, of course,” said the receptionist. “Mr. Tome is looking after that matter. I’ll get him for you now. You may have to wait for a few minutes. He’s currently with another client.”
“Thank you,” said Henny somewhat mollified now by the apparent respectful manner of the receptionist.
About ten minutes later Mr. Tome appeared. He was a small, neat man in his mid-50s with a ready smile. He greeted Henny graciously and asked if she would accompany him to his office. He then called in the receptionist, Maureen, and asked that she prepare coffee for them. He also asked Maureen to walk over to the bakery down the street to purchase a couple of those excellent pastries they were famous for in Toronto.
Mr. Tome, who loved detective stories, had very efficiently used the ten minutes that Henny had spent waiting for him in the reception area. He had made two important telephone calls. The first call had been to Chief Petrovic in Chaseford.
When the chief had answered his phone, he’d heard a voice he didn’t at first recognize say, somewhat mysteriously, “Hello, it’s Tome. We have landed the fish.”
Chief Petrovic had quickly caught on. “Make sure it’s an allowable catch,” he had said. “We don’t want a problem with the game warden.” After a brief pause Chief Petrovic had added, “Take some time to make sure that she has the proper credentials identifying her as Henrietta Harriet Allenby. Once you have verified her status, you may have to stall for time. I talked to the assistant chief in charge of detectives in Toronto last week. I’ll call him now, as soon as I hang up. The assistant chief has promised to send someone promptly to your office.”
Tome had waited three or four minutes and then phoned the Toronto police and asked for the assistant chief in charge of detectives. Tome had had to wait a couple of minutes before being put through to the assistant chief. As soon as he’d mentioned his name, the assistant chief had said, “I just finished talking to Chief Petrovic. I have one of my detectives and a police officer on the way to your office.”
“I do love those pastries,” said Mr. Tome after Maureen had left. “I’m sure you’ll enjoy them.”
This fellow seems a very pleasant gentleman, thought Henny. I wonder if he’s married. She said, “You’re very thoughtful, Mr. Tome. I’m certain the pastries will be delightful.”
“Well, I guess we’d better get down to business,” Tome said. “I’ll need to see some sort of identification. We wouldn’t want to give the money to the wrong person.” He chuckled.
Henny smiled back at him, chuckling as well. “Oh, I’m the right person,” she said. “Here’s a copy of the letter sent to Harold and Marion Featherstone from the Central Registry files of the Immigration branch of the Canadian government verifying my arrival in Toronto. They picked me up in Toronto in May of 1901. I was only 11 years old at the time. The world was a very confusing place to me, but the Featherstones were very good to me. When I heard that they had disappeared I was devastated.”
Mr. Tome looked at her sympathetically, disguising his feelings as best he could. He was very good at it. He had been acting in courtrooms in Toronto for many years. “Do you have any current identification?” he inquired.
Henny produced her Illinois driver’s license and her American passport. Mr. Tome took his time examining them.
“Well, everything seems to be in order here,” he said finally. “I need to step out of the office for a moment. If the receptionist returns with the pastries before I get back, please help yourself.” He smiled and left.
A moment later there was a knock on the door and two men entered the room. One was obviously a policeman in uniform, the other one just behaved like a policeman. Henny was startled. She had been expecting either Mr. Tome or the receptionist. She didn’t know what to think. She wasn’t left wondering for long.
The plainclothes man said, “I’m Detective Pilsner. You are under arrest for the murder of Henrietta Harriet Allenby.” He then started to read Henny her rights. He only got about four words out before she started screaming loudly.
“You’re out of your mind! I just proved to the lawyer a few minutes ago, in this very office, that I am Henrietta Harriet Allenby. I am quite clearly alive. I certainly didn’t kill myself.”
While she was screaming, the uniform policeman cuffed her. The immediate effect of which was louder ranting. Det. Pilsner waited her out. When she paused for breath he read her rights to her.
“Do you want to leave the building quietly or do you want the two of us to carry you out to the cruiser?” said Det. Pilsner.
“I’ll go with you,” she said, “but you’re making a big mistake. This is total nonsense. I’m not talking to anybody until I get a lawyer.”
Henny quieted down. The two policemen took her out into the reception room. She started screaming again when she saw Tome and the receptionist drinking coffee and eating those ‘special pastries’ that Tome had promised her. The policemen forced her out through the front door of 186 Yonge Street and into the cruiser. It was not a pleasant ride to the police station.
AS SOON AS THE PHONE call with Tome ended, Chief Petrovic brought Cst. Herman into the office. “I know you love to drive, Peter,” the chief said, smiling.
“That smile tells me that something good has happened,” said Cst. Herman.
“Our plan is working,” said the chief. “Henny Allenby, a.k.a. Nancy Featherstone, or, according to her latest identification, Henny McCann, saw the newspaper notice and crossed the border to Toronto from the US to collect her inheritance.” Then he added, almost muttering, showing his frustration, “It’s a wonder she can keep track of herself. One or two more aliases and we would probably never have caught her.”
“When do we leave?” asked Cst. Herman.
“I think we should leave now,” said Chief Petrovic. “It will take us at least two and a half hours to get to Toronto. Let’s allow three hours by the time we get to the Toronto police station and locate Henny. It’s about 10:30 in the morning right now. If we do leave now, and stop for an hour for lunch in Hamilton, we should get to the Toronto police Station about 2:30 this afternoon.”
“Are we going to interview her in Toronto, Chief?” asked Cst. Herman.
“No, I want to bring her back to Chaseford. That’s closer to the scene of her crimes. Maybe that will upset her. I know she won’t feel bad. I don’t think she’s capable of remorse,” said Chief Petrovic. “But maybe it will shake her up.”
“So, we get the pleasure of her company all the way back?” asked Cst. Herman.
“Yes. Aren’t you happy that I had that heavy screening installed between the front seat and the back seat?” replied the chief. “Let’s go get in the car.”
CHIEF PETROVIC AND Cst. Herman pulled into the parking lot of the Toronto police station a little after 2:15 in the afternoon. They’d had a decent lunch at a place in Hamilton that Chief O’Donnell had recommended to them. The last part of their trip to the Toronto police station had taken less than an hour, so they were not road-weary.
The Chief and Cst. Herman thought they were prepared for their brief meeting at the Toronto police station. They would take custody of the prisoner, now formally identified as Henny McCann, and transport her to Chaseford. As they waited at the desk, however, they could hear quite a tumult behind the closed doors of a hallway to their left.
Suddenly, the doors burst open and a woman in restraints was carried towards them by two burly policemen. The woman, at a very high volume, was shouting something that sounded like, “Toronto Secret Police”, and “Nazi pigs�
�, laced profusely with profanities that seemed to increase in volume and vulgarity the closer she approached the desk.
“Package for the Chaseford police,” shouted one of the policemen. He could scarcely be heard above the screaming vitriol spewing from the bundled prisoner. “We’d like to complete this exchange as soon as possible,” the policeman shouted. “The assistant chief told us that, if you so wished, we could place her in your vehicle for you once the transfer paperwork is complete.”
“We would appreciate that,” shouted Chief Petrovic. He took the policeman aside so they could speak at a normal volume. “Has she been screaming like this long?” he asked.
“Only since she was apprehended, Chief,” answered the policeman with a smile.
With the paperwork completed and the packaged prisoner installed in the back of the police car – behind the protective screen – Chief Petrovic and Cst. Herman reluctantly climbed into the front of the cruiser. They didn’t know what to expect during the trip back to Chaseford.
THE FIRST FORTY-FIVE minutes of the trip was torture. Chief Petrovic and Cst. Herman had agreed beforehand not to respond to her shouting in any obvious manner. At times, the desire to gag her or slap her was almost overwhelming. Instead, they stopped the car and got out about every ten minutes to take a break. Eventually, the shouting began to die down. It was replaced by a continuous litany of demands. This noise level was easier to ignore.
By the time they reached Chaseford there was only an occasional demand or comment from the rear seat of the car. Henny seemed to have calmed down considerably. The chief and Cst. Herman had weathered the storm, although they did have serious headaches.
It was about 6 o’clock when they reached the police station in Chaseford. “I want both constables Jarvis and Franklin here before we remove her from the car,” said Chief Petrovic. “You stay with the car Peter, while I go and make a couple of phone calls. You can get out of the car if you wish.”
Cst. Jay Jarvis and Cst. Joel Franklin were at the police station within fifteen minutes. When they arrived, the chief looked at them and said, “I’m sorry to interrupt your evening, but we may need your help. So far Henny’s been a very difficult prisoner. Incidentally, she was married a few years ago. Her name is now legally Henny McCann.”
Constables Jarvis and Franklin said nothing but thought that, at the moment, Henny appeared calm and rested whereas Chief Petrovic and Cst. Herman appeared haggard. They knew better than to ask about the trip.
Chief Petrovic pointed at Jay and Joel and said, “You two are taking her the next time she needs to be escorted somewhere.” The chief appeared to be grumpy.
Cst. Jarvis and Cst. Franklin were able to escort Henny McCann to her cell, where they removed her restraints without any problem. When they told her that she would receive her supper within half an hour, she responded, “Thank you very much. I’m quite hungry. I didn’t get any lunch. You two are the nicest policemen I’ve ever met.”
She said this within earshot of Chief Petrovic and Cst. Herman. They looked at each other in astonishment.
“Is that the same person we met at the Toronto police station and escorted to Chaseford?” Chief Petrovic asked Cst. Herman.
“The change in behaviour is amazing,” answered the constable. “She seems like a different person.”
Thursday, April 13th
“IT’S BEEN MORE THAN four months since that first body part came to our attention back in December,” said Chief Petrovic. “At the beginning, it seemed like an almost impossible case to solve. But we kept working, doing lots of legwork, and following up on lots of leads. Now we have a suspect locked up in one of our cells. But this certainly isn’t a simple case. We still don’t have the bodies of the murder victims. The body parts we discovered are beyond the capabilities of forensic science to identify. I wonder how many more murders our suspect has committed? What really happened to her husband, Dr. McCann, for instance?”
“Aside from the confession she made to Johnnie Polizzi and Ernie Stanzio when she was high on drugs, what real evidence do we have?” asked Cst. Smith.
“None, really. But Henny McCann is a complex person,” said the chief. “I wanted to get her back to Chaseford because I think when she’s confronted in an interview, even with the limited evidence we have, because we have the recorded testimony from Polizzi and Stanzio, we’ll get a confession.”
We looked at Chief Petrovic skeptically.
“Remember, we’ve seen two very different sides of her personality. On Wednesday, when she was arrested in Toronto, she became a raving, wild, ungovernable person. The police in Toronto had to put her in restraints to carry her to our car. It was all Cst. Herman and I could do to put up with her screaming rant all the way back to Chaseford. I think the person that Cst. Herman and I saw on the trip behaved like Nancy Featherstone. I think that’s the person that murdered her parents and Henrietta Allenby.
“But since she arrived at our jail last night she’s been a model prisoner. She’s been pleasant and agreeable. I think that’s the way Henny McCann behaves.
“Constables Smith, Jarvis, and Franklin, you haven’t seen her when she’s in a state of rage. Regardless of her current behavior, be extremely cautious when you’re around her. I believe she’s capable of anything.
“As you are aware, we have not interviewed her yet. She will only speak to us about the charges in the presence of her lawyer. She is a wealthy woman and consequently she has hired the best criminal defense lawyer in Ontario, Fred Donaldson. He has an office in Toronto. He will be present for our first interview with her at 1:30 this afternoon. Cst. Herman and I will conduct the interview. Peter and I will take the rest of the morning to get prepared. This morning’s meeting is over.”
FOUR PEOPLE SAT AT the table in Chief Petrovic’s office. Cst. Herman and Chief Petrovic sat on one side of the table; across from them sat the lawyer, Fred Donaldson, and the accused, Henny McCann. The chief and the lawyer had agreed that the chief’s office was the best place to conduct the interviews. Donaldson further stipulated that no one else could be present in the interview room except for the recording secretary, Sherry Simpson, the police chief’s secretary, who was going to act as the recording secretary for the interviews. Sherry understood she was legally bound by the rules of confidentiality to reveal nothing about the interviews. Sherry was seated at a small table at one end of the room where she was visible to all four participants.
Chief Petrovic started the interview by asking the accused to identify herself.
“I’m Henny McCann, an American citizen from Springfield, Illinois,” said Henny.
“Was your maiden name Henrietta Harriet Allenby?” asked the chief.
“That was my maiden name,” Henny confirmed. “I identified myself using that name at the law office of Wilson, Tome and Johnson on Yonge Street in Toronto. I had papers that proved my identity. I am eligible for the inheritance.”
Chief Petrovic ignored the last couple comments. He did not want to upset her. He suspected that, if that happened, she would become irrational.
Before he could ask his next question, Chief Petrovic was interrupted by the lawyer. Donaldson opened his briefcase and pulled out a newspaper clipping. It was a copy of the notice that had been placed in the newspapers under the title ‘Missing Heir.’
“Is this inheritance legitimate or was this notice just a ploy to entrap my client?” Donaldson asked.
The chief looked Donaldson in the eye and responded, “It’s a legitimate inheritance from the estate of Harold and Marion Featherstone. They were a prominent local family. We also wanted to speak to her about a murder investigation we’re conducting.”
“Well then, I think arrangements should be made so that she can obtain her rightful inheritance. Then she can leave your jail, leave Canada, and return to her home in Springfield, Illinois,” Donaldson said authoritatively.
“Oh, I don’t think it’s that straightforward,” said Chief Petrovic. “There seems to be s
ome doubt as to whether she really is Henny McCann.”
“That’s preposterous,” exclaimed Donaldson. “I’ve looked at her identification. All of it identifies her as Henny McCann, wife of former prominent surgeon, Dr. Frank McCann, of Springfield, Illinois.”
“Well, I have two sworn affidavits from American citizens that she is Nancy Featherstone, born just outside of Chaseford, Ontario,” answered Chief Petrovic.
That’s when the screaming started. Henny leaped up, sprawling across the table, and put both of her hands around Chief Petrovic’s throat, clamping her teeth around one of his ears. Sherry Simpson started screaming. Donaldson and Cst. Herman jumped to their feet and each took hold of one of Henny’s hands, trying to pull them from around the chief’s neck. It was chaos.
The men shouted at Henny, trying to get her to release the chief’s ear, but she simply snarled. All of a sudden, there was a tremendously loud bang. Henny screamed, releasing the chief, and he backed away, his ear damaged but whole. There was a fair bit of blood.
There was a temporary lull and then Henny resumed her shrieking, repeating ferociously, “You’re all evil! I will make you pay! I’ll get you all! You’ll pay with your lives!” Interspersed among these phrases were profanities and other garbled sentences that no one could decipher.
By this time, the other three constables had arrived in the office. Cst. Franklin and Cst. Jarvis managed to get Henny’s hands behind her back and handcuffed her.
“Sorry for discharging my firearm in your office, Chief,” yelled Cst. Smith above the uproar from Henny. “There’s some minor damage above your window from the bullet. I thought the noise might startle her and give the rest of us a chance to intervene.”
Henny’s full-volume rant continued as she was taken down the hallway to her cell. Five minutes ago, they’d been conducting a formal interview in a routine fashion; now everyone was in a state of shock. Chief Petrovic sat at the table, carefully inspecting his ear, while Sherry Simpson leaned against one of the filing cabinets, eyes and mouth wide open. The lawyer, Donaldson, now quite pale and momentarily speechless, was once more sitting down at the table across from Chief Petrovic.