The Alienist - Caleb Carr [199]
“Sara,” I protested, my voice rising to match hers, “I’m not talking about what I’d prefer here! I’m talking about what’s practical.”
“How practical is it to walk away?” she shouted back. “Kreizler’s only doing it because he has to—he’s been hurt, hurt as badly as anyone can be, and this is the only way he can find to respond. But that’s him, John. We can go on! We’ve got to go on!”
Letting her arms fall to her sides, Sara took several deep breaths, then smoothed her dress, walked across the room, and pointed to the right side of the chalkboard. “The way I see it,” she said evenly, “we’ve got three weeks to get ready. We can’t waste a minute.”
“Three weeks?” I said. “Why?”
She went over to Kreizler’s desk and picked up the thin volume with the cross on its cover. “The Christian calendar,” she said, holding it up. “I assume you found out why he’s following it?”
I shrugged. “Well, we may have. Victor Dury was a reverend. So the—the—” I tried to find an expression, and finally latched onto one that sounded like something Kreizler would have said: “The rhythms of the Dury house, the cycle of the family’s life, would naturally have coincided with it.”
Sara’s mouth curled up. “You see, John? You weren’t entirely wrong about a priest being involved.”
“And there was something else,” I said, thinking back to the questions that Kreizler had put to Adam Dury just as we were leaving the latter’s farm. “The reverend was fond of holidays—gave some rattling good sermons, apparently. But his wife…” I tapped a finger slowly on my desk, considering the idea; then, realizing its importance, I looked up. “It was his wife who was Japheth’s chief tormentor, according to his brother—and she gave the boys hellfire and brimstone over holidays.”
Sara looked very gratified. “Remember what we said about the killer hating dishonesty and hypocrisy? Well, if his father’s preaching one thing in his sermons, while at the same time, at home…”
“Yes,” I mumbled, “I do see it.”
Sara returned to the chalkboard slowly, and then did something that rather struck me: She picked up a piece of chalk and, without hesitation, jotted down the information I’d given her on the left-hand side of the board. Her handwriting, at that angle, was not quite as neat and practiced as Kreizler’s, but it looked like it belonged there, just the same. “He’s reacting to a cycle of emotional crisis that’s existed all his life,” Sara said confidently, setting the chalk back down. “Sometimes the crises are so severe that he kills—and the one he’ll reach in three weeks may be the worst of all.”
“So you’ve said,” I answered. “But I don’t remember there being any significant holy days in late June.”
“Not significant for everyone,” Sara said, opening the calendar. “But for him…”
She held the book out to me, pointing to one page in particular. I looked down to see the notation for Sunday, June 21st: The Feast of Saint John the Baptist. My eyes jumped open.
“Most churches don’t make much of a to-do about it anymore,” Sara said quietly. “But—”
“Saint John the Baptist,” I said quietly. “Water!”
Sara nodded. “Water.”
“Beecham,” I whispered, making a connection that, though perhaps a long shot, was nonetheless apparent: “John Beecham…”
“What do you mean?” Sara asked. “The only Beecham I found any mention of in New Paltz was a George.”
It was my turn to go to the board and pick up the chalk. Tapping it on the boxed-off area marked THE MOLDING VIOLENCE AND/OR MOLESTATION, I explained at high speed: “When Japheth Dury was eleven, he was attacked—raped—by a man his brother worked with. A man who’d befriended him, a man he trusted. That man’s name was George Beecham.” A small, urgent sound came out of Sara, and one of her hands went to her mouth. “Now, if Japheth Dury, in fact, took the name Beecham after the killings, in order to begin a new life—”
“Of course,” Sara said. “He became the tormentor!”
I nodded eagerly. “And why the name John?”
“The Baptist,” Sara answered. “The purifier!”
I laughed once and wrote these thoughts down in the appropriate segments of the