Fever Dream - Douglas Preston [127]
But Felder had not come here to look at books. He had come for the library’s equally vast collection of genealogical research materials.
He walked to the research assistance station that bisected the room, itself made of ornately carved wood, as large as a suburban house. After a brief whispered exchange, a library cart full of ledgers and folders was presented to him. He wheeled it to the nearest table, then took a seat and began placing the materials on the polished wooden surface. They were darkened and foxed with age but nevertheless impeccably clean. The various documents and sets of records had one thing in common: they dated from 1870 to 1880, and they documented the area of Manhattan in which Constance Greene claimed to have grown up.
Ever since the commitment proceedings, Felder had been thinking about the young woman’s story. It was nonsense, of course—the ravings of someone who had completely lost touch with reality. A classic case of circumscribed delusion: psychotic disorder, unspecified.
And yet Constance Greene did not present like the typical person totally out of touch with reality. There was something about her that puzzled—no, intrigued—him.
I was indeed born on Water Street in the ’70s—the 1870s. You will find all you need to know in the city archives on Centre Street, and more in the New York Public Library… I know, because I have seen the records myself.
Was this some clue she was offering them: some morsel of information that might clear up the mystery? Was it perhaps a cry for help? Only a careful examination of the records could provide an answer. He briefly wondered why he was doing this: his involvement in the case was over, and he was a very busy man with a successful private practice. And yet… he found himself damnably curious.
An hour later, Felder sat back in his chair and took a deep breath. Among the reams of yellowing documents was a Manhattan subcensus entry that indeed listed the family in question as dwelling at 16 Water Street.
Leaving the papers on the table, he rose and made his way down the stairs to the Genealogical Research Division on the first floor. His search of the Land Records and Military Service Records came up empty, and the 1880 US census showed nothing, but the 1870 census listed a Horace Greene as living in Putnam County, New York. An examination of Putnam County tax records from the years prior provided a few additional crumbs.
Felder walked slowly back upstairs and sat down at the table. Now he carefully opened the manila folder he had brought and arranged its meager contents—obtained from the Public Records Office—on its surface.
What, exactly, had he learned so far?
In 1870, Horace Greene had been a farmer in Carmel, New York. Wife, Chastity Greene; one daughter, Mary, aged eight.
In 1874, Horace Greene was living at 16 Water Street in Lower Manhattan, occupation stevedore. He now had three children: Mary, twelve; Joseph, three; Constance, one.
In 1878, New York City Department of Health death certificates had been issued for both Horace and Chastity Greene. Death in each case was listed as tuberculosis. This would have left the three children—now aged sixteen, seven, and five—orphans.
An 1878 police ledger listed Mary Greene as being charged with “streetwalking”—prostitution. Court records indicated she had testified that she had tried to find work as a laundress and seamstress, but that the pay had been insufficient to provide