Poisoning the Pecks of Grand Rapids Read online

  Dr. Schurtz asked for a sample of the embalming fluid. He wanted to bring it to Dr. Vaughn for analysis. Potter turned to Kane, who had handled the actual embalming. Kane explained that he used an old family recipe and would prepare a batch for Dr. Schurtz right away.

  Next, they spoke with Dr. William Porter and Dr. Albertus A. Moore.

  Porter, who attended Columbia with Dr. Jacob Cornell, said he first saw Hannah Peck two days before she died. “She was very ill,” Porter recalled, “showing every evidence of Bright’s Disease. I treated her accordingly, but she did not respond to the treatment. I cannot imagine how any intimation gained currency that her death occurred from any other cause.” Porter did remark, however, that he considered Hannah’s death unexpected.

  Dr. Albertus A. Moore, who tended to John Peck from March 4 until his death on March 12, likewise stood by his diagnosis. “The death of Mr. Peck, in my opinion, was caused by nephritis and heart disease,” Moore snapped, defensively.

  If Vaughn were to find arsenic in John Peck’s stomach, Moore said, it did not come from his medicine bag. “During that time, I gave him no medicine that contained even the slightest quantity of arsenic.”25 Like Porter, Moore described John Peck’s death as unexpected; although Peck suffered from some type of stomach ailment, he didn’t believe it would kill him and was shocked when he heard of his patient’s death.

  From New York, Wishart and Schurtz traveled to Raritan, New Jersey, where they spoke to Dr. Cornell. The elderly physician, who lived in a large manor with his sisters, Phoebe Swinton and Anna Hardwicke, greeted the two Grand Rapids investigators in the front parlor.

  Wishart handed the “K. Adams” telegram to Dr. Cornell, who eyed it suspiciously.

  “You and I are both old friends of John Peck,” Wishart said, “and I married Clara Peck to Dr. Waite. Tell me, as man to man, did you or did you not send that telegram of warning to Percy Peck?”

  Dr. Cornell shook his head. He didn’t write the telegram, but he did have his suspicions. His nephew, Arthur Swinton, told him about a curious incident when he bumped into Waite at the Plaza Hotel restaurant. Waite was with an attractive young woman and became flustered when he noticed Swinton enter the room. He told Swinton that he had just performed an important surgery, and this woman was his nurse. After the complex operation, Waite explained, they had decided to take a break for lunch.

  Cornell described a visit he made to John Peck on the evening of March 11. Peck appeared “clear eyed,” although he complained of a stomachache. Waite had gone to a nearby pharmacy to pick up a prescription for a sedative Dr. Moore had scribed.

  When Waite returned, Cornell noticed something peculiar. “Dr. Waite gave Mr. Peck some medicine and soon after, I heard my old friend groan.” The next day, he received a call from Clara informing him that Peck had died. “I was shocked because I had satisfied myself that Mr. Peck was gaining in health.”

  The next day, when he came to pay his respects, he had received an icy reception from Dr. Waite. Cornell found Waite’s demeanor so bizarre that he remarked about it to his niece Elizabeth Hardwicke.

  Dr. Cornell shrugged. It was probably nothing. An old man’s suspicions didn’t add up to evidence of wrongdoing.

  He then chastised the clergyman. “You know, it is a terrible thing, an awful responsibility for any man to assume—to accuse another human being of murder. Doctor, I want to tell you that no man should ever make such an accusation until he is sure beyond a doubt.”26

  On the afternoon of Thursday, March 16, the surviving members of the Peck family met to hear the reading of John Peck’s will.

  Percy Peck browsed through a stack of the week’s newspapers as he waited for Clara and Arthur to arrive. He nodded as he read the Monday, March 13 headline of the Grand Rapids Herald: “JOHN E. PECK, DRUGGIST AND FINANCIER, DIES; PIONEER BUSINESS MAN’S END COMES IN NEW YORK CITY; CONTRACTED COLD ON THE JOURNEY TO THE EAST.”27 No one, not even snoopy news reporters, knew about the autopsy or the covert investigation underway in New York.

  He folded the paper and placed it on his lap as Arthur and Clara walked into the front parlor of the Peck manor. Percy couldn’t believe his sister’s bedraggled appearance. Percy and Ella exchanged a quick glance.

  Clara struggled with her emotions during the reading. Several times, she buried her face in her hands. Each time, Arthur wrapped his arms around her shoulders, holding her tight. As he predicted, the Peck fortune passed into equal shares—each worth about half a million dollars—to Clara and Percy Peck. It was the payday Arthur had anticipated. Now, he just had to ensure his complete control over his wife’s half.

  After the reading, Arthur approached his brother-in-law.

  “Percy, we have had a lot of trouble of late. The deaths of your father and mother have been just as big a blow to me as they have been to you, and they have been even a bigger blow to Clara. I hate to think of such things, but I am afraid Clara has not long to live. You know her nervous temperament, and her physical condition, and I am afraid of the future.”

  Arthur also expressed his concerns about Aunt Catherine, who lived in New York City and had come to know her niece’s husband quite well in the past few months. “She is getting along in years and might die anytime. It is terrible that death should stare the Peck family in the face the way it has. It seems so queer. Ever since my marriage to Clara it has been death after death. Where will it strike next?”28

  Percy tried to keep his emotions in check, but Waite’s remark hinted at the imminent danger Clara faced. If Waite was making a play for the Peck fortune, Clara would be his next logical victim.

  Arthur hinted that Percy could also be a victim of this strange curse hanging over the Peck family when he chatted with Ella. “You know,” Arthur remarked, “I am afraid this is telling on Percy. I have been watching him the last few days, and I can see certain symptoms in him that were so evident in his father’s last sickness. I don’t want to scare you, but I don’t believe he will live six months.”

  From the Peck estate, Arthur escorted Clara back to the Pantlind. As they walked arm in arm to their suite, Arthur expressed his fears about the deaths occurring around them.

  “My dear,” he said, “let us talk about our private affairs.” His voice was gentle and reassuring. “I am going to take good care of you, but we should try to provide for one another. I think it would be a good thing if I made my will leaving all I have to you and if you would make your will similarly providing for me. Suppose you do it now.”29

  Reluctantly, Clara agreed. She sat down at the writing desk, jotted out a last will and testament on hotel stationery and handed it to Arthur.

  Arthur frowned as he read Clara’s bequest of almost $40,000 to various charities. He suggested she reduce her charity to half this amount, crumpled up the piece of paper and handed her a fresh sheet.

  Obediently, Clara redrafted her will as Arthur dictated, reducing the bequests to $20,000 and leaving the rest to him. She then folded the will and tucked it into an envelope addressed to Waite’s lawyer, Archibald Morrison, in New York.

  Arthur then suggested they should leave for New York on the next day’s train. It would do Clara good to leave Grand Rapids, he said, where memories of happier times lingered around every corner.

  Despite Cornell’s warning, Wishart believed that Waite had murdered both Pecks, so he turned to the Schindler National Detective Agency for help.30 On Friday, March 17, he met with super-sleuth Raymond Schindler.

  By 1916, Raymond C. Schindler—a protégé of legendary investigator William J. Burns—had acquired a formidable reputation. In 1911, he famously solved the case of a slain child with an ingenious ploy. He staged a murder to occur in front of the prime suspect and fast-talked a newspaper editor into reporting the incident. The suspect, terrified that he would be arrested as an accomplice in the fake murder, blurted out a confession to Schindler’s agent.

  Schindler listened intently to Wishart’s story. He had to hand it to the reverend. He
had gone about collecting evidence like a seasoned pro, but unlike Wishart, Schindler wasn’t convinced about Waite’s guilt. He agreed to join the investigation to find either proof of Waite’s scheming or, conversely, proof of his innocence.

  Schindler immediately wired Percy Peck, and the two concocted a pretense to keep Clara in Grand Rapids for her own safety. Percy would tell her she needed to remain home to sign some papers before she received her half of the inheritance.

  The ruse worked. Arthur didn’t want anything to stand between him and Clara’s inheritance. So he decided to return to New York by himself. On Friday evening, Clara escorted Arthur to the train station, where he boarded the Wolverine Express.

  By Friday evening, Ray Schindler’s doubts about Arthur Waite’s innocence had begun to evaporate. After discussing the matter with Percy, Schindler spent the rest of Friday afternoon visiting area hospitals in an attempt to find out anything he could. He discovered that Waite was not registered at a single hospital and was not licensed to practice dental surgery in New York. Despite a lack of income, Waite apparently enjoyed a playboy lifestyle. Schindler interviewed dozens of bartenders and maitre d’s around Manhattan. Waite was known as a big spender who wined and dined showgirls at nightclubs and restaurants all over the city.

  Formidable district attorney Judge Edward Swann, circa 1915. From the Bain News Service, Library of Congress.

  Schindler became convinced that Waite had murdered both Hannah and John Peck in order to gain control over his wife’s inheritance. He phoned Judge Edward Swann, the tenacious district attorney with powerful Tammany Hall connections.

  Swann was mildly irritated by the late-night call, but he knew that Ray Schindler would not bother him without good cause. After a few minutes on the telephone, he knew Schindler was on to something.31

  Swann called a meeting at Wishart’s suite at the Manhattan Hotel, where he and his assistant, Francis X. Mancuso, joined Dr. Perry Schurtz, New York medical examiner Dr. Otto Schultze and Raymond Schindler to discuss the case.

  When Swann walked into the room, Dr. Schurtz handed him the telegram he had received that afternoon from Dr. Victor Vaughn. It contained one word: “Arsenic.”32

  For the next hour, the men laid out the evidence they had uncovered, but Swann still wasn’t entirely convinced. The mass of circumstantial evidence, he admitted, painted an ugly picture of a possible poison plot, but in order to go forward with a case against Waite, he needed something more concrete.

  Raymond Schindler knew just where to look.

  4

  “SOMEONE IS AFTER ME”

  GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN; NEW YORK, NEW YORK

  Saturday, March 18–Tuesday, March 21, 1916

  With Waite en route to New York, Schindler realized he had a limited window of time. At eight o’clock on Saturday morning, he led a group to the Coliseum, where he cajoled the superintendent into opening the door of the Waite apartment.33 Inside, the investigators found some provocative clues.

  Dr. Perry Schurtz spotted glass slides labeled “typhoid.” Waite had apparently devoted a good deal of time to studying dangerous bacteria, which seemed odd for a man not even licensed to practice medicine.

  Dr. Otto Schultze found some interesting circumstantial evidence on the bookcase: the second volume of Woods Therapeutics and Pharmacology. Familiar with the work, Schultze plucked the book from the shelf and began thumbing through it.

  Three strips of yellowed paper were used to bookmark key sections Waite had apparently studied. Pages 331 and 332 contained detailed information about the effects of arsenic on the human system. Pages 158 and 159 contained a discussion of veratria and hellebore. Pages 662 and 663 contained information about expectorants.

  As Dr. Schultze dictated his findings, Schindler operative Andrew Taylor penciled the details into a notebook. When he finished, Dr. Schultze slid the book back into its place in the lineup of Waite’s medical literature.

  Meanwhile, Schindler poked around the bedroom. He stuck his head in the closet where suits, numbering more than one hundred, lined the closet walls. Waite, he mused, was quite the clothes hound.

  On the dresser, below a large, oval mirror, he spied photographs of the happy newlyweds. He picked up one of the frames and smiled, wondering if Clara had any idea about the false front her husband maintained.

  Feeling something on the back of the frame, he turned it over to discover a small packet of a white, crystallized substance. He dipped his pinkie finger into the powder and tasted it: cocaine. As he eyed the package, he wondered if Waite had fed an overdose to Hannah Peck or if a narcotics habit went along with the high life.

  While the others continued to snoop, Schindler installed a bug on the telephone. From this point on, every time Waite picked up the telephone, Schindler’s men would be listening.

  From the Coliseum, Wishart and Schindler raced to Grand Central Station, arriving just in time to intercept Waite’s train, due to arrive at 9:00 a.m. Schindler, who had never seen Waite, wanted the reverend to identify him. Wishart wore a fedora, the brim pulled down over his eyes, so Waite wouldn’t spot him.

  As soon as the Wolverine Express pulled to a stop in Grand Central Station, Arthur leaped out and raced to a telephone. Schindler kept a few paces behind Waite but didn’t take his eyes off his suspect.

  When Waite ducked into a phone booth, Schindler went into the adjacent booth and eavesdropped. He heard Waite ask the operator to connect him to the Plaza. A few seconds later, Waite asked for room number 1105. When no one answered, Waite hung up the receiver and wandered around the station. A few minutes later, he returned to the telephone booth and made a second call, but this time Schindler didn’t catch the number. He did, however, overhear Waite’s end of the conversation.34

  “Pay the bill, and get out quick,” Waite commanded. “I cannot meet you anymore at present because I am being shadowed.” He quickly hung up and rushed out of the station with Schindler on his heels.

  Schindler and Wishart tailed Waite to the Coliseum in a taxi while Andrew Taylor went to the Plaza to inquire about the guests in room 1105. The clerk handed over the hotel registry and pointed to the name “Dr. and Mrs. A.W. Walters.” Taylor showed a photograph of Waite to the clerk, who nodded. “A.W. Walters” was “A.W. Waite.”

  According to the hotel register, a “Mrs. Walters” had occupied the studio with Waite from February 21 to March 18. The couple registered as “Dr. and Mrs. A.W. Walters,” but they used the room only during the daytime, occupying the room for just one night: February 22.35

  The lobby of Grand Central Station, circa 1904. On the morning of March 18, 1916, Reverend Wishart and detective Raymond Schindler began tailing Waite after his arrival in New York. From the Detroit Publishing Company, Library of Congress.

  New York City’s Plaza Hotel. “Dr. and Mrs. A.W. Walters” occupied room 1105 from February 21 until “Mrs. Walters” officially checked out on March 18. From the Detroit Publishing Company, Library of Congress.

  “Mrs. Walters,” the clerk noted, had suddenly departed.

  Taylor smiled as he connected the dots. This “Mrs. A.W. Walters” was probably the person whom Waite ordered to “get out quick.” It was also likely that she was the pretty brunette whom Waite had introduced to Arthur Swinton as his nurse during their chance encounter in the hotel’s restaurant. Waite, it appeared, had a second wife.

  When the elevator opened to the second floor of the Coliseum, Waite found undertaker John Potter waiting for him. After the visit from Wishart and Schurtz, Potter realized that Waite could be in trouble, so he wanted to collect payment for the undertaking work done on John Peck’s body.

  Waite smiled as Potter asked him for payment, but his smile faded when Potter told him about the investigation taking place. His eyes widened when Potter said that Schurtz had asked for a sample of the embalming fluid.

  Waite knew they would find arsenic in John Peck’s body. He realized he had one chance to provide a convincing explanation for the p
resence of the poison. He would bribe the undertaker to say he used arsenic in the embalming fluid. It was a long shot; Waite knew the State of New York had banned its use in embalming years earlier, but if the undertaker agreed to the plan, it just might work.

  Waite asked Potter if the embalming fluid contained arsenic. Potter said he didn’t know and explained that Eugene Oliver Kane did the actual embalming work. So Waite asked Potter to send Kane to him.

  On Sunday morning, when he typically would be giving a sermon in Grand Rapids, Reverend Wishart continued to chase down leads in New York. He tried to phone Waite, but he didn’t reach him. So he dropped in on Arthur’s brother Frank and told a little white lie. Posing as a health officer, he told Frank he needed to speak with Arthur about allegations that Arthur was practicing medicine without a license.

  The trick worked. Eventually, Wishart reached Arthur on the phone. He introduced himself as a “Mr. Russell” and told Waite that the health department had received numerous complaints about him practicing without a license.

  After a moment of silence, Waite admitted he had never practiced medicine in New York.

  “Then you lied to your family and friends?” Wishart asked.

  Arthur admitted to lying and went on to explain that when he was supposed to be treating patients, he was, in fact, at the Plaza.

  Wishart now realized that Arthur Warren Waite lived a double life. He enjoyed the pleasures of two wives and occupied two residences, but there was one significant similarity: in both lives, he playacted as a practicing physician, when in reality, he didn’t even hold a license in the State of New York.

  Wishart contemplated Waite’s sins as a taxi drove him to the office of the Peck family attorney, Walter Deuel.

  Deuel smiled as he watched Wishart enter the room. The reverend wore a fedora and quipped, “The hat is my disguise. I thought I ought to dress for the part.”