The Alienist - Caleb Carr [254]
CHAPTER 46
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It was all so much hot air, of course. Oh, Roosevelt dragged us down to Mulberry Street, all right, and locked us up for a few hours in his office, where we got one hell of a lecture about honor and trust and living up to one’s word; but eventually I told him the truth about what had happened that night, although not until I was fairly sure that Kreizler and the Isaacsons had had enough time to get where they were going. I explained to Theodore that I hadn’t really lied to him, since I myself hadn’t known what was going on before I showed up at the opera; indeed, I said, I still didn’t have explanations for many of the things that had happened up on the reservoir walls, although I intended to get them. And I promised that as soon as I did, I’d come straight to Mulberry Street and share the information. Roosevelt calmed down considerably as I was saying all this; and when Sara pointed out that the important thing, about which there could be no doubt, was that Beecham was dead, Theodore’s mood began to brighten considerably. As he’d told us several weeks earlier, the successful conclusion of the case meant a great deal to him personally (although, given the affair’s many complexities, he’d never be able to make much hay out of it professionally); and by the time Sara and I finally got up to leave his office, at about four o’clock, Theodore had traded criticism of some of that night’s developments for characteristically effusive praise of our team’s work as a whole.
“Unconventional, without doubt,” he clicked, putting a hand on each of our shoulders as he walked us out, “but, all in all, a magnificent effort. Magnificent. Think of it—a man with no connection to his victims, a man who could have been anyone in this city, identified and stopped.” He shook his head with an appreciative sigh. “No one would ever believe it. And to get Connor in the bargain!” I saw Sara wince just a bit at that; but she worked hard to conceal the reaction. “Yes, I will very much enjoy hearing just how our friend Kreizler cooked up that last part of his scheme.” Theodore rubbed his jowl and stared at the floor for a few seconds, then looked up at us again. “Well, then—what will you all do now?”
It was a simple question, yet one whose implications were, I suddenly discovered, thoroughly unpleasant. “What will we—?” I echoed. “Well, we—that is—I don’t really know. There are—details to tie up.”
“Of course,” Roosevelt answered. “But, I mean to say, the case is over—you’ve won!” He turned to Sara, as if expecting agreement.
She nodded slowly, looking as confused and uncomfortable as I felt. “Yes,” she finally managed to say, in the face of Theodore’s expectant expression.
There followed a long, peculiar pause, during which the vague but unsettling emotion that had been produced by the thought of the case being over took a stronger hold on each of us. In an attempt to banish it, Theodore changed the subject deliberately.
“At any rate,” he said, with a slap of his hands to his chest, “a fortunate and intriguing end. Timely, as well. I leave tomorrow for St. Louis.”
“Ah, yes,” I said, happy to talk about something else. “The convention. It’ll be McKinley, I take it?”
“On the first ballot,” Theodore replied with mounting gusto. “The convention is merely a formality.”
I gave him a needling smile. “Picked out a house in Washington yet?”
As always, Theodore grew stormy at any suggestion that he indulged in ambitious maneuvering; but then, remembering that I was an old friend who would never have questioned his basic motives,