The Angel of Darkness - Caleb Carr [83]
“Where to?” I called back, though I was pretty sure of what the answer would be.
“Number 39 Bethune Street,” the Doctor answered. “With any luck the Hunter woman and her husband haven’t moved—and if they have, the new tenants may know where they are now!”
“It’ll be fastest if I cut through the park,” I said. “And use a few—shortcuts.”
“Then do it, do it!” the Doctor yelled, at which I slapped the reins against Frederick’s haunches and raced off down the park’s East Drive, heading south.
CHAPTER 15
Frederick had just bounded at a crisp trot off of the Central Park carriage drive and onto the broad grass plain of Sheep Meadow (a questionable thing for me to ask of him, I know, but a shortcut’s a shortcut) as the Doctor began to speak to his assembled colleagues:
“When we first undertook criminal investigative work together,” he said, “we accepted as our starting point the idea that the criminal mind could be, medically speaking, sound, and formed like any other healthy person’s—through the context of individual experience. I have seen nothing, professionally, during the last twelve months to convince me that the true incidence of mental disease among criminals is any higher than I thought then. Nor have I heard anything about this Hunter woman which would suggest that she suffers from either dementia praecox”—which was the term alienists used in those days for what they’re now starting to call ‘schizophrenia’—“or one of the lesser mental pathologies. She may be impulsive, and extremely so—but impulsiveness, like extreme anger or melancholia, does not on its own indicate a disease of the mind. The fact that she is also capable of elaborate calculation, particularly within compressed time frames, supports the notion that we are dealing with someone who is quite sane.”
Mr. Moore shook his head and looked off toward Central Park West as we rejoined the carriage path. “Why do I find myself wishing we could be up against a lunatic this time?” he said with a sigh.
“You’ve got good cause to, John,” Lucius said. “Lunatics may be dangerous sometimes, but they’re a hell of a lot easier to track.” The detective sergeant started scratching at his pad again. “Please go on, Doctor.”
“We begin, then,” the Doctor continued, “with the notion that this woman is sane—she has kidnapped a child and may well have killed others, for reasons that we can postulate.”
“And what do we do if we catch her?” Marcus asked. ‘You’re talking about a real sacred cow, Doctor—no matter how many women knock off kids in baby farms, no matter how many crones make fortunes running abortion parlors, no matter how many mothers kill their offspring, people don’t like to get near cases that deal with women’s relationships toward children being anything other than healthy and nurturing. You heard Mrs. Cady Stanton the other night. That’s the majority opinion: if women are doing something bad concerning birth and kids, either they’re crazy or men and the society that men have created are behind it somewhere.”
The Doctor was trying to stop Marcus with an impatient hand. “I know, I know, Detective Sergeant, but it will be our job, again, to ignore popular sentiment and focus on facts. And the most salient fact is this: we are faced with a woman whose behavior embodies what appear to be two diametrically opposed attitudes and acts. The one is nurturing; the other, destructive. Perhaps even murderous. If we accept that she is sane, we must link them.”
“Tough,” Mr. Moore said. “Very tough.”
“Why, John?” the Doctor asked as we exited the comforting greenery of the park at its southwest corner, then passed by the Riding Academy and moved through some very sparse traffic around the Columbus Monument. “Who among us can’t claim to embody conflicting urges and conflicting goals at times? Take yourself.