The Alienist - Caleb Carr [132]
This moment of relaxed satisfaction passed quickly, however. Kreizler produced his small notebook and reminded us that there were just five short days till the Feast of the Ascension, the next significant date on the Christian calendar. It was now time, he said, for our investigation to dispense with an attitude of pure research and analysis and move toward a posture of engagement. We had gained a good general idea of what our killer looked like, as well as how, where, and when he would strike. We were ready at last to try to anticipate and prevent that next move. I felt a sudden flood of anxiety in the pit of my very full stomach at that statement, and Sara looked to be experiencing much the same sort of reaction. But we both knew that this development was inevitable; was, indeed, what we’d been actively working toward since the beginning. And so we stiffened our resolve as we left the restaurant and gave no voice to any sort of apprehension.
Once outside I felt a very meaningful tug on my arm from Sara. I turned to find her looking away from me, but in a way that clearly indicated that she wanted to talk. When Kreizler offered to share a hansom with her as far as Gramercy Park she declined, and as soon as he was gone she ushered me into Madison Square Park and under a gas lamp.
“Well?” I said, noticing that her aspect had become somewhat agitated. “This had better be important, Sara. It’s been a hell of an evening, and I’m—”
“It is important,” Sara answered quickly, producing a folded sheet of paper from her bag. “That is, I think it is.” Her brows came together and she seemed to be weighing something carefully before showing me the paper. “John, how much do you actually know about Dr. Kreizler’s past? His family, I mean.”
I was surprised by the topic. “His family? As much as anyone, I suppose. I visited them quite a bit when I was a boy.”
“Were they—were they, well, happy?”
I shrugged. “Always seemed to be. With good reason, too. His parents were about the most socially sought-after couple in town. You wouldn’t know it to see them now, of course. Laszlo’s father had a stroke a couple of years ago, and they stay pretty shut up. They have a house on Fourteenth Street and Fifth Avenue.”
“Yes,” Sara said quickly, surprising me again. “I know.”
“Well,” I went on, “back then they were always throwing big parties and introducing luminaries from all over Europe into New York society. It was quite a scene—we all loved going there. But why do you ask, Sara? What’s this all about?”
She paused, sighed, and then held the piece of paper out to me. “I’ve been trying all week to understand why he was sticking so stubbornly to the idea that a violent father and a passive mother raised our killer. I developed a theory, and went through the records of the Fifteenth Precinct to test it. This is what I found.”
The document was a report filed by one Roundsman O’Bannion, who, on a September night in 1862—when Laszlo was a boy of only six—had investigated a domestic disturbance at the Kreizler home. The yellowing report contained just a few details: it spoke of Laszlo’s father, apparently drunk, spending the night in the precinct house under