The Alienist Part 26

Suddenly a doorway to our right burst open, producing a rotund, uniformed, and clearly terrified maid. (There were very few servants in the Roosevelt household: Theodore's father, a prodigious philanthropist, had given away much of the family fortune, and Theodore supported his family primarily through his writing and his meager salary.) The maid seemed oblivious of Sara's and my presence as she dashed over to take refuge behind the open front door.

"No!" she screamed, to no one that I could see. "No, Master Ted, I will not do it!"

The hall doorway through which the maid had appeared thereupon disgorged an eight-year-old boy who wore a solemn gray suit and spectacles much like Theodore's. This was Ted, the oldest son, whose status as scion of the family was amply demonstrated not only by his appearance, but by a rather intimidating young barred owl that sat perched on his shoulder, as well as by a dead rat that he held by its tail in one gloved hand.

"Patsy, you really are being ridiculous," Ted said to the maid. "If we don't teach him what his natural prey is, we'll never be able to send him back into the wild. Just hold the rat above his beak-" Ted stopped as he finally became aware that there were two callers standing in the doorway. "Oh," he said, his eyes brightening behind the spectacles. "Good evening, Mr. Moore."

"Evening, Ted," I answered, shying away from the owl.

The boy turned to Sara. "And you're Miss Howard, aren't you? I met you at my father's office."

"Well done, Master Roosevelt," Sara said. "It seems you have a good memory for detail-a scientist needs one."

Ted smiled very self-consciously at that, then remembered the rat in his hand. "Mr. Moore," he said quickly, with renewed enthusiasm. "Do you think you could take this rat-here, by the tail-and hold it about an inch above Pompey's beak? He's not used to the sight of prey, and it sometimes scares him-he's been living on strips of raw beefsteak. I've got to have a free hand to make sure he doesn't fly off."

One less accustomed to life in the Roosevelt household might've balked at this request; I, however, having been present for many such scenes, simply sighed, took the rat by the tail, and positioned it as Ted had requested. The owl spun his head around once or twice rather bizarrely, then lifted his large wings and flapped them in apparent confusion. Ted, however, had a good hold of the talons with his gloved hand, and proceeded to make some hooting, squealing sounds that seemed to calm the bird. Eventually Pompey turned his remarkably flexible neck so that his beak was pointing directly at the ceiling, grabbed the rat by the head, and proceeded to swallow the thing, tail and all, in a half-dozen gruesome gulps.

Ted grinned wide. "Good boy, Pompey! That's better than boring old steak, isn't it? Now all you've got to do is learn to catch them for yourself, and then you can go off and be with your friends!" Ted turned to me. "We found him in a hollow tree in Central Park-his mother'd been shot, and the other hatchlings were already dead. He's come along fine, though."

"Look out, below!" came a sudden cry from the top of the stairs, at which Ted's face grew very anxious and he hustled back out of the hall with his owl. The maid tried to follow him, but became transfixed by the sight of a large white ma.s.s that was bulleting down from the second floor atop the staircase bannister. Unable to decide which way to run, the maid finally crumpled to the floor and covered her head with a shriek, narrowly avoiding what might have been a very grim collision with Miss Alice Roosevelt, twelve years old. Slamming from the bannister to a carpet on the floor with well-practiced skill and a howling laugh, Alice proceeded to jump up, straighten her rather busy white dress, and hold a taunting finger out to the maid. came a sudden cry from the top of the stairs, at which Ted's face grew very anxious and he hustled back out of the hall with his owl. The maid tried to follow him, but became transfixed by the sight of a large white ma.s.s that was bulleting down from the second floor atop the staircase bannister. Unable to decide which way to run, the maid finally crumpled to the floor and covered her head with a shriek, narrowly avoiding what might have been a very grim collision with Miss Alice Roosevelt, twelve years old. Slamming from the bannister to a carpet on the floor with well-practiced skill and a howling laugh, Alice proceeded to jump up, straighten her rather busy white dress, and hold a taunting finger out to the maid.

"Patsy, you great goose!" she laughed. "I've told you, never stay still, you've got got to pick a direction and run!" Turning the delicate, pretty face that would, in several years, cut a swath through Was.h.i.+ngton's most eligible bachelors like a scythe through so much wheat, Alice faced Sara and me, smiling and curtsying ever so slightly. "h.e.l.lo, Mr. Moore," she said, with the confidence of a girl who knows, even at twelve, the power of her own charms. "And is this to pick a direction and run!" Turning the delicate, pretty face that would, in several years, cut a swath through Was.h.i.+ngton's most eligible bachelors like a scythe through so much wheat, Alice faced Sara and me, smiling and curtsying ever so slightly. "h.e.l.lo, Mr. Moore," she said, with the confidence of a girl who knows, even at twelve, the power of her own charms. "And is this really really Miss Howard?" she went on, more excitedly and ingenuously. "One of the women who works at headquarters?" Miss Howard?" she went on, more excitedly and ingenuously. "One of the women who works at headquarters?"

"It is, indeed," I replied. "Sara, meet Alice Lee Roosevelt."

"How do you do, Alice?" Sara said, extending a hand.

Alice was all mature confidentiality as she took Sara's hand and replied, "I know that a lot of people think it's scandalous that women are working at headquarters, Miss Howard, but I I think it's think it's bully bully!" She held up a small satchel, the drawstring of which was wrapped around her wrist. "Would you like to see my snake?" she asked, and before the somewhat startled Sara could answer Alice had produced a wriggling, two-foot garter snake.

"Alice!" It was Edith's voice again, and this time I turned to see her lithely moving down the hallway toward us. "Alice," she repeated, in the careful but authoritative voice she used with this, the only child in the house that was not her own. "I do do think, dear, that we might let newcomers in the house get their things off and sit down before we introduce them to the reptiles. h.e.l.lo, Miss Howard. John." Edith touched Alice's forehead gently. " think, dear, that we might let newcomers in the house get their things off and sit down before we introduce them to the reptiles. h.e.l.lo, Miss Howard. John." Edith touched Alice's forehead gently. "You're the one I depend on for civilized behavior, you know." the one I depend on for civilized behavior, you know."

Alice smiled up at Edith and then turned to Sara again, putting the snake back in the satchel. "I'm sorry, Miss Howard. Won't you come into the parlor and sit down? I've so many questions I want to ask you!"

"And I'd love to answer them sometime," Sara said amiably. "But I'm afraid we need to talk to your father for a few minutes-"

"I can't imagine why, Sara," Theodore boomed, as he emerged from his study and into the hallway. "You'll find that the children are the real authorities in this house. You'd be better off talking to them."

At the sound of their father's voice the other Roosevelt children we'd encountered reappeared and mobbed him, each shouting out the events of his or her day in an effort to gain his counsel and approval. Sara and I watched this scene along with Edith, who simply shook her head and sighed, unable to quite comprehend (as was anyone acquainted with the family) the miracle of her husband's relations.h.i.+p to his children.

"Well," Edith finally said to us quietly, still watching her family, "you'd better have pressing business indeed, if you intend to break the power of that that lobby." Then she turned our way, comprehension evident in her glittering, rather exotic eyes. "Although I understand that lobby." Then she turned our way, comprehension evident in her glittering, rather exotic eyes. "Although I understand that all all your business, these days, is pressing." I nodded once, and then Edith clapped her hands loudly. "All right, my terrible tribe! Now that you've almost certainly woken Archie from his nap, what about was.h.i.+ng up for dinner?" (Archie, at two, was the baby of the family; young Quentin, whose death in 1918 would have such a catastrophic effect on Theodore's emotional and physical health, had not yet been born in 1896.) "And no guests that aren't human tonight," Edith went on. "I mean that, Ted. Pompey will be perfectly happy in the kitchen." your business, these days, is pressing." I nodded once, and then Edith clapped her hands loudly. "All right, my terrible tribe! Now that you've almost certainly woken Archie from his nap, what about was.h.i.+ng up for dinner?" (Archie, at two, was the baby of the family; young Quentin, whose death in 1918 would have such a catastrophic effect on Theodore's emotional and physical health, had not yet been born in 1896.) "And no guests that aren't human tonight," Edith went on. "I mean that, Ted. Pompey will be perfectly happy in the kitchen."

Ted grinned. "Patsy won't be, though." won't be, though."

Reluctantly but without loud protest the children dispersed, while Sara and I followed Theodore into his book-lined study. Works in progress covered several desks and tables in this ample room, along with a plethora of open reference volumes and large maps. Theodore cleared off two chairs near one particularly large and cluttered desk by the window, and then we all sat down. No longer in the children's presence, Roosevelt seemed to take on a subdued air, one that struck me as odd, given events at headquarters in recent days: Mayor Strong had asked one of Theodore's chief enemies on the Board of Commissioners to resign, and though the man had refused to go without a fight, there was a general feeling that Roosevelt was gaining the upper hand in the struggle. I congratulated him on this, but he just waved me off and put a fist to his hip.

"I'm not at all sure how much it will amount to, John, in the end," he said gloomily. "There are times when I feel that the job we have undertaken is not one that can be addressed at the metropolitan level alone. Corruption in this city is like the mythical beast, only instead of seven heads it springs a thousand for every one that is cut off. I don't know that this administration has the power to effect truly meaningful change." Such wasn't the kind of mood that Roosevelt would tolerate for long, however. He picked up a book, slammed it down on his desk, and then looked at us through his pince-nez engagingly. "However, that's none of your affair. Tell me-what news?"

It didn't prove quite so easy to get our news out, however; and once Sara and I finally had, Theodore slowly sank into his chair and leaned back, as though his melancholy mood had just been validated.

"I've been worried about what Kreizler's reaction to this outrage would be," he said quietly. "But I confess I didn't think that he'd abandon the effort."

At that point I decided to tell Theodore the entire story of Kreizler's and Mary Palmer's relations.h.i.+p in an attempt to make him understand just how crus.h.i.+ng an effect Mary's death had had on Laszlo. Remembering that Theodore had also endured the tragic and early loss of someone very dear to him-his first wife-I expected him to react with sympathy, which he did; but a crease of doubt nonetheless remained lodged in his forehead.

"And you're saying that you wish to go on without him?" he asked. "You believe you can see it through?"

"We know enough," Sara answered quickly. "That is, we will will know enough, by the time the killer strikes again." know enough, by the time the killer strikes again."

Theodore looked surprised. "And when will that be?"

"Eighteen days," Sara answered. "The twenty-first of June."

Folding his hands behind his head, Roosevelt began to rock back and forth slowly as he studied Sara. Then he turned to me. "It's not just grief that's caused him to withdraw, is it?"

I shook my head. "No. He's full of doubts about his own judgment and abilities. I never really understood before how much he's tortured by that-self-doubt. It's hidden most of the time, but it goes back..."

"Yes," Roosevelt said, nodding and rocking. "His father." Sara and I glanced at each other quickly, both of us shaking our heads to indicate that we had not divulged the story. Theodore smiled gently. "You remember my bout with Kreizler in the Hemenway Gymnasium, Moore? And the night we had afterwards? At one point he and I were rearguing the question of free will-quite congenially, mind you-and he asked me when I'd learned to box. I told him how my dear father had built me a small gym when I was a boy and taught me that vigorous exercise represented my best chance of overcoming illness and asthma. Kreizler asked if, as an experiment, I thought I could force myself to live a sedate life-to which I replied that everything I'd ever learned and held dear required me to be a man of action. I didn't realize it right away, but I'd proved his point. Then, out of curiosity, I asked him about his own father, whom I'd often heard mention of in New York. His aspect changed-drastically. I'll never forget it. He glanced away, and for the first time he seemed afraid to look me in the face-and then he grabbed at that bad arm of his. There was something so instinctive in the way he did it, at the merest mention of his father's name, that I began to suspect the truth. Needless to say, I was utterly aghast at the thought of what his life had been like. And yet I was fascinated, too-fascinated by how different that life had been from my own. How does the world look, I often found myself wondering, to a young man whose father is his enemy?"

Neither Sara nor I could offer any answer to the question. For several minutes the three of us just sat in silence; and then, from outside, we heard Alice shout vehemently: "I don't care if he is is a a Strix varia varia, Strix varia varia, Theodore Roosevelt, Junior! He's not going to eat my snake!" Theodore Roosevelt, Junior! He's not going to eat my snake!"

That brought quiet laughter from those of us in the study, and got us back to the business at hand.

"So," Theodore said, with another pound of another book on his desk. "The investigation. Tell me this-now that we have a name and an approximate description, why not make it a standard manhunt and let my men turn the city upside down?"

"And do what when they find him?" Sara replied. "Make an arrest? With what evidence?"

"He's been a lot smarter than that," I agreed. "We've got no witnesses, and no evidence that would be admissible in court. Speculations, fingerprints, an unsigned note-"

"Which shows at least several signs of deceptive script," Sara threw in.

"And G.o.d knows what he'll do if he's captured and then released," I went on. "No, the Isaacsons have said from the beginning that this is going to have to be a flagrante delicto flagrante delicto case-we'll have to catch him at it." case-we'll have to catch him at it."

Theodore accepted all this with several slow nods. "Well," he eventually said, "I fear that presents us with a new set of challenges. Kreizler's departure from the investigation, you may be surprised to learn, won't make things any easier for me. Mayor Strong has learned of the rigor with which I've been searching for Connor, and why. He views that search as another way in which this department might be connected to Kreizler, and has asked that I not jeopardize my position by letting my personal relations.h.i.+p with the doctor make me overly aggressive. He's also heard rumors that the Isaacson brothers are pursuing an independent investigation of the boy-wh.o.r.e murders, and he's ordered me not only to stop them, if the rumors are true, but to proceed with great caution regarding the case generally. You probably haven't heard about the trouble last night."

"Last night?" I said.

Roosevelt nodded. "There was some sort of a gathering in the Eleventh Ward, supposedly to protest the handling of the murders. The organizers were a group of Germans, and they claimed it was a political event-but there was enough whiskey in evidence to float a small s.h.i.+p."

"Kelly?" Sara asked.

"Perhaps," Roosevelt answered. "What's certain is that they were on their way to getting well out of hand before they were broken up. The political implications of this case are growing more serious every day-and Mayor Strong has, I fear, reached that deplorable state where concern over the consequences of action leads to paralysis. He wants no precipitate steps taken in this matter." Theodore paused to give Sara a small, only half-serious frown. "He's also heard rumors, Sara, that you've been working with the Isaacsons-and as you know, there are many who will protest vehemently if they find out that a woman is actively involved in a murder investigation."

"Then I'll redouble my efforts," Sara answered with a coy smile, "to conceal that involvement."

"Hmm, yes," Theodore noised dubiously. He studied us for a few seconds more, then nodded. "Here's what I'll offer you-take the next eighteen days. Find out all you can. But when the twenty-first comes around, I want you to tell me everything you know, so that I can post officers I trust at every potential murder site and avenue of escape." Roosevelt pounded one beefy fist into his other hand. "I will not have another of these butcheries."

I turned to Sara, who gave the deal quick consideration and then nodded certainly.

"We can keep the detective sergeants?" I asked.

"Of course," Roosevelt answered.

"Done." I put my hand forward and Theodore shook it, taking his pince-nez from his nose.

"I only hope you all have have learned enough," Roosevelt said, as he turned to shake Sara's hand. "The idea of leaving my post without solving this case is not one that I relish." learned enough," Roosevelt said, as he turned to shake Sara's hand. "The idea of leaving my post without solving this case is not one that I relish."

"You planning to quit, Roosevelt?" I jibed. "Has Platt finally made things too warm for you?"

"Nothing of the sort," he replied gruffly. Then it was his turn to coyly reveal his legion of teeth. "But the conventions are coming up, Moore, and then the election. McKinley will be our party's man, unless I'm mistaken, while the Democrats look as though they'll actually be foolish enough to nominate Bryan-victory will be ours this fall."

I nodded. "Going to campaign, are you?"

Theodore shrugged modestly. "I've been told that I can be of some use-in both New York and the western states."

"And if McKinley should prove grateful for your help..."

"Now, John," Sara chided sarcastically. "You know how the commissioner feels about such speculation."

Roosevelt's eyes went round. "You, young lady, have spent too much time away from headquarters-dashed impudence!" Then he relaxed and waved us toward the door. "Go on, get out. I've got a pile of official papers to sort through tonight-being as someone seems to have stolen my secretary." young lady, have spent too much time away from headquarters-dashed impudence!" Then he relaxed and waved us toward the door. "Go on, get out. I've got a pile of official papers to sort through tonight-being as someone seems to have stolen my secretary."

It was nearly eight o'clock by the time Sara and I got back out onto Madison Avenue; but between the exhilaration of having been allowed to continue our investigation and the warmth of the clear spring night, neither of us felt much like going home. Nor were we in any mood to lock ourselves back up in our headquarters and wait for the Isaacsons to show up, although we were anxious to talk to them as soon as they got back. As we began to stroll downtown a happy compromise occurred to me: we could dine at one of the outdoor tables in front of the St. Denis Hotel, across the avenue from Number 808. Thus positioned, we'd be sure to spot the detective sergeants on their return. This idea suited Sara thoroughly; and as we continued our march down the avenue, she became more thoroughly delighted than I'd ever seen her. There was little of the usual edgy intensity in her manner, though her mind was quite focused and her thoughts were consistently sharp and relevant. The explanation for all this, when it came to me during dinner, wasn't particularly complicated: despite what Theodore had said about the possible official and public reaction to her involvement in the investigation, Sara was, for the moment, her own woman, a professional detective-in fact if not in name. In the days to come we would face many trials and frustrations, and I would have much cause to be grateful for Sara's increasingly good spirits-for it was she more than anyone else who became the driving force behind the continuation of our work.

My consumption of wine that night was such that by the time dinner was over, the hedges that separated our table outside the St. Denis from the sidewalk were proving insufficient to contain my ardent attentions to the many lovely women who were innocently drawn to the still-bright windows of McCreery's store. Sara became quite impatient with my behavior and was on the verge of leaving me to my fate when she caught sight of something across the street. Following her indication I turned around to see a cab pulling up in front of Number 808, from which Marcus and Lucius Isaacson stepped rather wearily. Perhaps it was the wine, or the events of recent days, or even the weather; but I was absolutely overjoyed at the sight of them, and, leaping over the hedges, I dashed across Broadway to offer profuse greetings. Sara followed at a more rational pace. Both Lucius and Marcus had apparently seen a good amount of the sun during their sojourn on the high plains, for their skins had darkened considerably, giving them a warm, healthy look. They seemed very glad to be back, though I wasn't sure they'd stay that way once they heard about Kreizler's resignation.

"It's amazing country out there," Marcus said, as he pulled their bags off of the hansom. "Puts an entirely different perspective on life in this city, I can tell you that." He sniffed at the air. "Smells a lot better, too."

"We were shot at on one train ride," Lucius added. "A bullet went right through my hat!" He showed us the hole by poking a finger through it. "Marcus says that it wasn't Indians-"

"It wasn't Indians," Marcus said.

"He says that it wasn't Indians, but I'm not so sure, and Captain Miller at Fort Yates said-"

"Captain Miller was just being polite," Marcus interrupted again.

"Well, that may be," Lucius answered. "But he did say-"

"What did he say about Beecham?" Sara asked.

"-he did say that, although most of the larger bands of Indians have been defeated-"

Sara grabbed him. "Lucius. What did he say about Beecham?"

"About Beecham?" Lucius repeated. "Oh. Well. A great deal, actually."

"A great deal that comes down to one thing," Marcus said, looking at Sara. He paused, his large brown eyes full of meaning and purpose. "He's our man-he's got to be."

CHAPTER 38.

Tipsy as I was, the Isaacsons' news, related as we got them some food at the St. Denis, sobered me up in a hurry: Apparently Captain Frederick Miller, now in his early forties, had been a.s.signed to the headquarters of the Army of the West in Chicago as a promising young lieutenant in the late 1870s. He had chafed under the boring strictures of staff life, however, and asked to be sent farther west, where he hoped to see active service. This request was granted and Miller was dispatched to the Dakotas, where he was twice wounded, the second time losing an arm. He returned to Chicago but declined to take up his staff duties again, electing instead to command part of the reserve forces that were kept on hand for civil emergencies. It was in this capacity that, in 1881, he'd first come across a young trooper named John Beecham.

Beecham had told his recruiting officer in New York that he was eighteen at the time of his enlistment, though Miller doubted that this was true-even when the still-green trooper had arrived in Chicago, six months later, he seemed younger than that. However, boys often lie about their age in order to enter the military, and Miller had thought little of it, for Beecham had shown himself to be a good soldier-well disciplined, attentive to detail, and efficient enough to have made corporal within two years. True, his persistent requests to be sent farther west to do some Indian fighting had annoyed Beecham's superiors in Chicago, who weren't particularly anxious to have their better noncommissioned officers lost to the frontier; but overall, Lieutenant Miller had been given little reason to be anything but satisfied with the young corporal's performance until 1885.

In that year, however, a series of incidents in several of Chicago's poorer sections had exposed a disturbing facet of Beecham's personality. Never a man with many friends, Beecham had taken to going into immigrant neighborhoods during his off-duty hours and offering his services to charitable organizations that dealt with children, particularly orphans. At first this had seemed an admirable way for a soldier to make use of his time-far better than the usual drinking and fighting with local residents-and Lieutenant Miller had not concerned himself with it. After several months, however, he'd noticed a change in Beecham's mood, a decided s.h.i.+ft toward the sullen. When Miller asked the corporal about it he received no satisfactory explanation; but soon thereafter the head of one of the charities showed up at the post wanting to talk to an officer. Miller listened as the man asked that Corporal Beecham be prohibited from coming near his orphanage again; when asked why he was making such a request, the man declined to say any more than that Beecham had "upset" several of the children. Miller immediately confronted Beecham, who initially became angry and indignant, declaring that the man from the orphanage was only jealous because the children liked and trusted Beecham more than they did him. Lieutenant Miller, however, could see there was more to the story than that, and pressed Beecham harder; the corporal finally became immensely agitated and blamed Miller and the rest of his superiors for whatever it was that had happened. (Miller never did find out the exact nature of the incidents.) All such trouble could have been avoided, Beecham said, if those officers had complied with his request to be sent west. Miller found Beecham's manner during this conversation alarming enough to warrant sending him on a long leave. Beecham spent that leave mountaineering in Tennessee, Kentucky, and West Virginia.

When he returned to his unit, at the beginning of 1886, Beecham seemed much improved. He was once again the obedient, efficient soldier Miller had first known. This image proved an illusion, however; and it was shattered during the violence that followed the Haymarket Riots in the Chicago area during the first week of May. Sara and I already knew that Beecham had been sent to St. Elizabeth's Hospital after Miller had found him "stabbing" (as the doctors put it) the corpse of a dead striker during the May 5th melee in the northern suburbs; we now learned from the Isaacsons that this "stabbing" had borne a chilling resemblance to the mutilations of both j.a.pheth Dury's parents and the dead children in New York. Revolted and horrified at finding the blood-drenched Beecham standing over a carved-up corpse whose eyes had been gouged out with an enormous knife, Miller had not hesitated to relieve the corporal of duty. Though the lieutenant had seen men driven to acts of blood l.u.s.t in the West, such behavior was uniformly predicated upon years of savagely violent encounters with the Indian tribes. Beecham, on the other hand, had no such history, and no such rationalization for his actions. When the regimental surgeon examined Beecham after the affair, he quickly p.r.o.nounced him unfit for service; and Miller added his hearty concurrence to this report, prompting Beecham's immediate dispatch to Was.h.i.+ngton.

Thus ended the tale that the Isaacsons brought back from the Dakotas. Having told it without pause, the two brothers had also been unable to eat, and now addressed their food voraciously as Sara and I informed them of all we'd learned in their absence. Then it was time for the hard news about Kreizler and Mary Palmer. Fortunately, Marcus and Lucius had by then both gotten most of their dinner down-the story destroyed what was left of their appet.i.tes. Both men were obviously apprehensive about the idea of continuing the investigation without Laszlo; but Sara stepped in with an even stronger sales pitch than the one she'd given me and within twenty minutes had convinced the detective sergeants that we had no other option than to press on. The story they'd brought back only gave her more ammunition with which to prosecute her campaign-for there was now little doubt in any of our minds that we knew the ident.i.ty and history of our murderer. The question was, could we devise and execute a method of finding him?

By the time we left the little restaurant, at close to three o'clock that morning, we'd managed to convince ourselves that we could. The task was still a daunting one, however, and not to be undertaken until we'd all gotten some sleep. We made directly for our respective domiciles, relis.h.i.+ng the prospect of that rest; yet by ten o'clock Thursday morning we were back at Number 808 Broadway and ready to map out a strategy. Both Marcus and Lucius seemed a bit disoriented by the shrinking of our circle of desks from five to four, as well as by the appearance of a new hand on the big chalkboard; but they were, after all, experienced detectives, and when they turned their attention to the case, all extraneous issues eventually became just that.

"If no one else has a particular starting point in mind," Lucius announced, reacquainting himself with the materials on his desk, "I'd like to suggest one." The rest of us mumbled general a.s.sent, and then Lucius pointed to the right-hand side of the chalkboard, specifically to the word ROOFTOPS ROOFTOPS. "Do you remember, John, what you said about the killer after you and Marcus went to the Golden Rule that first time?"

I shuffled through my memories of the visit. "Control," I said, repeating the word that had come so clearly to me the night we'd stood on the roof of Scotch Ann's miserable hole.

"That's right," Marcus chimed in. "On the rooftops he's consistently displayed thorough self-confidence."

"Yes," Lucius said, standing up and going to the board. "Well, my idea is this: we've spent a lot of time understanding this man's nightmares-the real nightmare that was his past and the mental nightmares that haunt him now. But when he plans and commits these murders, he's not behaving like a tormented, frightened soul. He's aggressive, deliberate. He's acting, acting, not just not just re reacting-and as we saw in his letter, he's fairly impressed with his own cleverness. Where did he get that?"

"Where did he get what?" I asked, a bit confused.

"That confidence," Lucius answered. "Oh, we can explain the cleverness-in fact, we already have."

"It's deviousness," Sara said. "The kind that hara.s.sed children often develop."

"Exactly," Lucius said, bobbing his balding head quickly. Then he produced a handkerchief for the inevitable wiping of his ever-sweaty scalp and brow-I was delighted to see the nervous little move again. "But what about the confidence? Where does a boy with his past get that?"

"Well, the army would've given him some," Marcus answered.

"Yes, some," Lucius judged, pursuing his new role of lecturer with ever more gusto. "But it seems to me that it goes back farther than that. Didn't Adam Dury tell you, John, that the only time his brother's facial spasms calmed was when they were hunting in the mountains?" I affirmed that Dury had told us as much. "Climbing and hunting," Lucius continued. "He seems to be able to relieve his torment and pain only through those activities. And now he's doing it on the rooftops."

Marcus was staring at his brother and shaking his head. "Are you going to tell us what you're talking about? It was one thing to play cat and mouse with Dr. Kreizler, but-"

"If you will please give me a minute, thank you very much," Lucius said, holding up a finger. "What I'm saying is that the way to find out what he's doing with his life you will please give me a minute, thank you very much," Lucius said, holding up a finger. "What I'm saying is that the way to find out what he's doing with his life now now is to follow the trail of what makes him feel secure, instead of the trail of his nightmares. He's hunting and killing on the rooftops, and his victims are children-all of which suggests that having control over situations is the most vital thing in his life. We know where the obsession with children comes from. We know about the hunting and trapping. But the rooftops? As of 1886, he hadn't spent much if any time in a major city-yet now he's thoroughly mastered them, so much so that he even trapped is to follow the trail of what makes him feel secure, instead of the trail of his nightmares. He's hunting and killing on the rooftops, and his victims are children-all of which suggests that having control over situations is the most vital thing in his life. We know where the obsession with children comes from. We know about the hunting and trapping. But the rooftops? As of 1886, he hadn't spent much if any time in a major city-yet now he's thoroughly mastered them, so much so that he even trapped us. us. That kind of familiarity would take some time to develop." That kind of familiarity would take some time to develop."

"Wait," Sara said, nodding slowly. "I'm beginning to see your point, Lucius. He leaves St. Elizabeth's and wants to go to a place where he can be fairly anonymous-New York is a likely choice. But when he gets here he finds that he's completely unfamiliar with how life works on the streets-the crowds, the noise, the agitation. It's all very strange, perhaps even intimidating. Then he discovers the rooftops. It's a completely different world up there-quieter, slower, fewer people. It's much more what he's used to. And he finds out that there's a lot of jobs that require spending a great deal of time on those rooftops-he barely needs to come back down to the streets at all."

"Except at night," Lucius added quickly, again holding up a finger, "when the city's much less crowded, and he can familiarize himself with it at his own pace. Remember-he hasn't yet killed during the day. He understands the nighttime rhythms thoroughly, but during the day-during the day I'm willing to bet he's up there almost all the time." Lucius's forehead continued to sweat as he quickly went back to his desk and grabbed some notes. "We talked about the idea of a daytime job that keeps him on the rooftops after the Ali ibn-Ghazi murder, but we never did much with it. I've been going back over everything, though, and it seems to me to be the best way to track him at this point."

I groaned once with purpose. "Oh, G.o.d, Lucius-do you understand what you're suggesting? We'll have to canva.s.s every charity and mission society, every company that uses salesmen, every newspaper, or medical service. There's got to be a way to narrow it down."

"There is," Marcus said, his tone only slightly more enthusiastic than mine. "But it's still going to involve one h.e.l.l of a lot of footwork." He got up and crossed over to the large map of Manhattan Island, pointing at the pins that had been stuck into the thing to mark abduction and murder sites. "None of his activities have taken place above Fourteenth Street, which suggests that he's most familiar with the Lower East Side and Greenwich Village. He probably lives as well as works in one of the two areas-our theory that he doesn't have much money fits in with that. So we can confine our search to people who do business in those neighborhoods."