The Alienist - Caleb Carr [73]
Our hansom released us at Bowling Green, and we crossed over to enter Battery Park. Kreizler’s calash stood at the curb on Battery Place, with Stevie Taggert aboard and huddled in a large blanket.
“Stevie,” I said. “Keeping an eye out for the precinct boys?”
He nodded and shivered. “And staying away from that,” he said, nodding toward the interior of the park. “It’s a awful business, Mr. Moore.”
Inside the park, a very few arc lights directed us along a straight path toward the prodigious stone walls of Castle Garden. Formerly a heavily armed fort called Castle Clinton, the structure had been built to guard New York during the War of 1812, after which it was turned over to the city and converted into a covered pavilion that saw years of use as an opera house. In 1855 it was transformed again, into New York’s immigration station; and before Ellis Island usurped that role in 1892, no fewer than seven million transplanted souls had passed through the old stone fort in Battery Park. City officials had recently been casting around for some new use to make of the thing, and had decided on housing the New York Aquarium inside its round walls. That remodeling was now under way, and the telltale signs of construction greeted Sara and me even before we could clearly make out the fort’s walls against the night sky.
Under those walls we found Marcus Isaacson and Cyrus Montrose standing over a man who wore a long greatcoat and had a wide-brimmed hat clutched tightly in his hands. There was a badge pinned to the man’s coat, but at the moment he looked anything but authoritative: He was seated on a pile of cut boards, holding his pale face over a bucket and breathing hard. Marcus was trying to ask him some questions, but the fellow was clearly in some kind of shock. We approached, and both Cyrus and Marcus nodded our way.
“The watchman?” I asked.
“Yes,” Marcus answered. His voice was energized but tightly controlled. “He found the body at about one o’clock, on the roof. Apparently he makes his rounds every hour or so.” Marcus leaned over the man. “Mr. Miller? I’m going back upstairs. Take your time, come back up when you’re ready. But under no circumstances are you to leave. All right?” The man looked up, his dark, grizzled features full of horror, and nodded blankly. Then he quickly bent over the bucket again, though he didn’t retch. Marcus turned to Cyrus. “Make sure he stays put, will you, Cyrus? We need a lot more answers than we’ve gotten.”
“All right, Detective Sergeant,” Cyrus answered, and then Marcus, Sara, and I went through the mammoth black gates of Castle Garden.
“The man’s a wreck,” Marcus said, jerking his head back toward the watchman. “All I’ve gotten out of him is a passionately sworn statement that at twelve-fifteen the body was not where it is now, and that these front doors were bolted. The rear doors were chained, I’ve checked them—no sign of tampering with the locks. I’m afraid it’s all very reminiscent of the Paresis Hall situation, John. No way in or out, but someone managed it all the same.”
The renovation of the interior walls of Castle Garden was only half-finished. On the floor space between all the lathing, plaster, and paint sat a series of huge glass water tanks, some under construction, some finished but unfilled, and some already housing their designated occupants: various species of exotic fish, whose wide eyes and skittish movements seemed all too appropriate, given what had occurred in their new home that night. Flashes of silver and brilliantly colored scales caught the light of a few dim worklamps that were on, increasing the eerie impression that the fish were a terrified audience searching for a way out of this place of death and back to