The Alienist - Caleb Carr [170]
“Born and raised in Ohio,” was my first comment on Laszlo’s find. “He’d have to’ve spent a lot of time in New York after his discharge.”
“True,” Kreizler said, unfolding the paper I’d given him as he set to work halfheartedly on a bowl of crab bisque. “Which presents a problem—he didn’t leave St. Elizabeth’s until the spring of ’91.”
“A fast study,” I commented with a nod. “But it’s possible.”
“I’m also not encouraged by the disfigurement—a long scar across the right cheek and the lips.”
“What’s the matter with that? Sounds fairly revolting.”
“But it suggests a war injury, Moore, and that rules out childhood distress over the—”
Kreizler’s eyes suddenly went very wide and he set his spoon down slowly as he finished reading the document I’d given him. Looking slowly from it to me, he then spoke in a tone of suppressed excitement. “Where did you get this?”
“Hobart,” I answered simply, putting the file on the soldier from Ohio aside. “He found it last night. Why?”
His hands moving quickly, Kreizler snatched some more folded papers from his inside pocket. Quickly flattening them on the table, he then thrust the pile across to me. “Notice anything?”
It took one or two seconds, but I did. At the top of the first sheet of paper, which was yet another form from St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, there was a space marked PLACE OF BIRTH.
In that space had been scribbled the words “New Paltz, New York.”
CHAPTER 32
* * *
This is the man they originally wrote to us about?” I asked.
Kreizler nodded eagerly. “I’ve kept the file with me. I dislike hunches generally, but I couldn’t get away from this one. There are so many particulars that match—the poor upbringing in a strictly religious household, and the one sibling, a brother. Remember Sara’s idea about his being from a small family, because the mother disliked childbearing?”
“Kreizler…,” I said, trying to slow him down.
“And that tantalizing reference to ‘a facial tic,’ which even in his hospital record is never explained in any greater detail than ‘an intermittent and violent contraction of the ocular and facial muscles.’ No explanation as to why.”
“Kreizler—”
“And then there’s the pronounced emphasis on sadism in the admitting alienist’s report, along with the particulars of the incident that caused his commitment—”
“Kreizler! Will you please shut up and let me look at this?”
He rose suddenly, all excitement. “Yes—yes, of course. And while you do, I’ll check the cable office for messages from the detective sergeants.” He put the document I’d given him back down. “I’ve a powerful feeling about this, Moore!”
As Kreizler dashed out of the dining room I began to carefully go over the first page of the hospital file:
Corporal John Beecham, admitted to St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in May of 1886, had at that time stated that he’d been born in New Paltz, the small town just west of the Hudson River and some sixty-five miles north of New York that had been the scene of the Dury murders. The specific date of birth cited was November 19, 1865. His parents were identified only as “deceased,” and he had one brother, eight years older than himself.
I reached over and grabbed the Interior Department document that told of the murdered minister and his wife. Those crimes had been committed in 1880, and the victims were listed as having a teenaged son who’d been kidnapped by Indians. A second and older son, Adam Dury, was apparently at his home just outside Newton,