The Alienist - Caleb Carr [10]
“Rats and birds?”
“The eyes,” Roosevelt answered. “Detective Sergeant Connor puts that down to rats, or carrion pickers. But the rest of this…”
There hadn’t been anything in the papers about these other two killings, although there was nothing surprising about that. As Roosevelt had said, murders that appeared insoluble and that occurred among the poor or outcast were barely recorded, much less investigated, by the police; and when the victims were members of a segment of society that was not generally acknowledged to exist, then the chances of public awareness shrank from slim to none. I wondered for a moment what my own editors at the Times would have done if I’d suggested running a story about a young boy who made his living painting himself like a female whore and selling his body to grown men (many of them ostensibly respectable men), who was horribly butchered in a dark corner of the city. I would have been lucky to escape with a dismissal; forced internment at the Bloomingdale Asylum would have been the more likely result.
“I haven’t spoken to Kreizler in years,” Roosevelt mused at length. “Although he sent me a very decent note when”—for a moment his words became awkward—“that is, at a very difficult time.”
I understood. Theodore was referring to the death of his first wife, Alice, who had passed away in 1884 after giving birth to their daughter, who bore the same name. His loss that day had been doubly staggering, for his mother had died within hours of his wife. Theodore had dealt with the tragedy typically, sealing off the sad, sacrosanct memory of his bride, and never mentioning her again.
He tried to rouse himself, and turned to me. “Still, the good doctor must have called you here for a reason.”
“I’m deuced if I can see it,” I replied with a shrug.
“Yes,” Theodore said with another affectionate chuckle. “As inscrutable as any Chinaman, our friend Kreizler. And perhaps, like him, I’ve been among the strange and awful too long, these past months. But I think I may be able to divine his purpose. You see, Moore, I’ve had to ignore all the other killings like this one, because there’s no desire to investigate them in the department. Even if there were, none of our detectives is trained to make sense of such butchery. But this boy, this horrible, bloody mess—justice can only be blind so long. I’ve a scheme, and I think Kreizler has a scheme—and I think you’re the one to bring us together.”
“Me?”
“Why not? Just as you did at Harvard, when we all met.”
“But what am I supposed to do?”
“Bring Kreizler to my office tomorrow. Late morning, as he says. We’ll share thoughts and see what can be done. But mind you, be discreet—as far as anyone else is concerned, it’s a social reunion of old friends.”
“Damn it, Roosevelt, what is a social reunion of old friends?”
But I’d lost him to the rapture of a plan. He ignored my plaintive question, took a deep breath, barreled his chest, and appeared far more comfortable than he had to that point. “Action, Moore—we shall respond with action!”
And then he grabbed me around the shoulders in a tight hug, his enthusiasm and moral certainty all back in full force. As for my own sense of certainty, any kind of certainty, I waited in vain for its arrival. All I knew was that I was being drawn into something that involved the two most passionately determined men I’d ever known—and that thought offered me no comfort as we went back downstairs to Kreizler’s carriage, leaving the body of the pitiable Santorelli boy alone on that tower, high in the freezing sky that was still untouched by any trace of dawn.
CHAPTER 4
* * *
Cold, cutting March rain came with the morning. I rose early to find that Harriet had, mercifully, prepared me a breakfast of strong coffee, toast, and fruit (which she, drawing on the experience of a family full of inebriates, believed essential for anyone who imbibed often). I settled into my grandmother’s glass-enclosed nook, overlooking her still-dormant rose garden