The Alienist (38 page)

“Were any theories formulated?”

“Both were assumed to have been reprisal raids by war parties. But there’s an interesting detail in the case involving the grandfather. It happened in the late fall of ’89 near Fort Keough, during the period when the last great reservation was broken up. There were a lot of disgruntled Sioux around, mostly followers of Sitting Bull and another chief called”—I scanned my notes quickly with one finger—“Red Cloud. Anyway, a small cavalry detail stumbled onto the murdered family, and the lieutenant in command initially laid the crime off to some of Red Cloud’s more bellicose subordinates. But one of the older soldiers in the company said that Red Cloud’s band hadn’t launched any murder raids lately, and that the dead grandfather’d had a history of run-ins with Bureau agents and army men at another fort—Robinson, I think it was. Apparently the man had accused a cavalry sergeant at Robinson of trying to sexually assault his grandson. As it turned out, the sergeant’s unit was in the Fort Keough area when the family was killed.”

Kreizler hadn’t been paying much attention up to that point, but these last facts brought him around. “Do we know the soldier’s name?”

“Wasn’t included in the file. Hobart’s going to do a little digging at the War Department tomorrow.”

“Good. But make sure you cable the information we have now to the detective sergeants in the morning. The details can follow.”

We then went over the rest of the cases I’d culled, though for various reasons we eventually ruled them all out. After that, we dove into the stack of names that Kreizler had gathered at St. Elizabeth’s, and succeeded in eliminating all but a few of them over the next several hours. Finally, at well past one o’clock in the morning, I retired to my room and poured out a healthy whiskey and soda, which I only managed to get halfway through before I fell asleep in my clothes.

Thursday morning found me back at my desk at the Interior Department, lost in more stories of unsolved deaths on the frontier. Along toward noon Hobart returned from his brief trip to the War Department, where he’d discovered a disappointing fact: The cavalry sergeant who’d figured in the story about the murdered grandfather had been forty-five years old at the time of the incident. That made him fifty-two in 1896: too old to fit the portrait we’d painted of our killer. Still, it seemed worthwhile to make a note of the man’s name and last known whereabouts (he’d opened a dry goods store in Cincinnati after retiring from the army), just in case the age portion of our hypothesis turned out to be wrong.

“Sorry I couldn’t have brought better news,” Hobart said, as I jotted down the particulars. “Any interest in lunch?”

“Plenty,” I answered. “Pick me up in an hour, I should make it through the 1892 cases by then.”

“Fine.” He started to move away from the desk, then touched his jacket pocket and seemed to remember something. “Oh, John. I meant to ask you—this search of yours is definitely confined to the frontier states and territories, is that right?” He pulled a folded paper from his pocket.

“That’s right. Why?”

“Nothing. Just an odd story. I found it after you left last night.” He tossed the piece of paper on my desk. “But it won’t work—happened in New York State. Chops?”

I picked up the paper and began reading it. “What?”

“For lunch. Chops? There’s a splendid new place on the Hill. Good beer, too.”

“Fine.”

Hobart sped away to catch a pretty young archivist who’d just passed my desk. From the direction of a nearby staircase I heard the woman squeal, and then there was a slapping sound and a little yelp of pain from Hobart. Chuckling quietly at the fellow’s hopelessness, I leaned back in my chair to study the document he’d left me.

It related the curious story of a minister named Victor Dury and his wife, who in 1880 had been found murdered in their very modest home outside New Paltz, New York. The bodies had been what the document called “most foully and savagely torn to bits.” Reverend Dury had formerly been a missionary in South Dakota, where he’d apparently made enemies among the Indian tribes; in fact, the constabulary in New Paltz had decided that the murders were an act of revenge on the part of several embittered Indians who’d been sent east by their chief for that very purpose. This bit of “detective” work had been the result of a note from the assassins found on the scene that explained the killings and stated that the dead couple’s teenaged son was being taken back to live among the Indians as one of their own. It was quite a grim little tale, one that would have been of obvious use to us had its setting been further west. I put the paper aside, but in a few minutes picked it up again, wondering if there wasn’t at least a chance that we were wrong about our killer’s geographic background. Finally deciding to discuss the matter with Kreizler, I tucked the document away in my pocket.

The rest of the day offered only two cases that held out any hope of advancing our investigation. The first involved a group of children and their teacher who’d been slaughtered during their studies in an isolated schoolhouse; and the second, yet another prairie family who’d been massacred after a treaty violation. Realizing that the two accounts were meager reward for a long day’s work, I set my sights on the Willard Hotel, hoping that Kreizler had had better luck during his second day of research. But Laszlo had discovered only a few additional names of soldiers who’d served in the Army of the West during the fifteen-year span we were investigating, then been institutionalized in the capital because of violent, unstable behavior, and finally suffered from some sort of facial disfigurement. Of these few, only one fell within the general age range that we were looking for (about thirty). As we sat down to dinner in the hotel dining room Kreizler handed me the case file on this man, and I offered him the document that told the tale of the Dury murders.

“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

T
his 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, Massachusetts, at the time of the murders.

I grabbed another sheet of the hospital file and scanned the notes penned by John Beecham’s admitting alienist, in an effort to find the specific cause of the corporal’s confinement. Despite the sloppiness of the doctor’s handwriting, I soon had it:

“Patient was part of force requested by governor of Illinois to quell disturbances arising from strikes in Chicago area beginning May 1st (Haymarket riots, etc.). During May 5th action against strikers North Chicago, soldiers ordered to open fire; patient subsequently found stabbing corpse of one dead striker. Lieutenant M—discovered patient
in flagrante;
patient claims M—always ‘had it in for him,’ etc., and was constantly ‘watching’ him; M—ordered patient relieved of duty, regimental surgeon pronounced him unfit for service.”

Then followed the comments on sadism and delusions of persecution that Kreizler had already told me about. In the rest of the file I found more reports written by other alienists during Beecham’s four-month stay at St. Elizabeth’s, and I scanned them for further references to the man’s parents. There was no mention anywhere of his mother, and very little talk of his childhood generally; but one of the final assessments, written just before Beecham’s release, contained the following paragraph:

“Patient has applied for writ h.c. [
habeas corpus
] and continues to claim nothing wrong or criminal in behavior; says society must have laws and men to enforce them; father was evidently a very godly man, who emphasized importance of rules and punishment of violators. Recommend increased dosage c. hydrate.”

Just then Kreizler came speeding back to the table, shaking his head. “Nothing. Their arrival must have been delayed.” He indicated the various papers I was holding. “Well, Moore, what do you make of it all?”

“The timing matches,” I answered slowly. “Along with the location.”

Kreizler clapped his hands together and sat back down. “I never would have
dreamed
of such a possibility. Who could have? Kidnapped by Indians? It’s almost absurd.”

“It may
be
absurd,” I replied. “I haven’t gotten the impression in the last couple of days that Indians take many male children captive—and certainly not if they’re as old as sixteen.”

“Can you be certain of that?”

“No. But Clark Wissler probably could. I’ll put in a call tomorrow morning.”

“Do that,” Kreizler answered with a nod, taking the Interior document back from me and again studying it. “We need more particulars.”

“That occurred to me, too. I can telephone Sara, and put her onto a friend of mine at the
Times
who’ll let her into the morgue.”

“The morgue?”

“Where back issues are kept. She could find the story, it must have made the New York papers.”

“Yes—yes, it would have.”

“In the meantime, Hobart and I’ll see if we can find out who this ‘Lieutenant M—’ is, and whether or not he’s still in the army. He might be able to supply more details.”

“And I’ll return to St. Elizabeth’s, and talk to anyone who had any personal knowledge of Corporal John Beecham.” Kreizler lifted his wineglass with a smile. “Well, Moore—new hope!”

Anticipation and curiosity made sleep difficult that night, but morning brought the welcome news that the Isaacsons had finally arrived in Deadwood. Kreizler instructed them by wire to stay put until they heard from us that afternoon or evening, while I went to the lobby to place my telephone calls to New York. It took some doing to get through to the Museum of Natural History, and locating Clark Wissler was an even greater challenge; but when his voice finally did come through the line he was not only helpful but quite enthusiastic—largely, I think, because he was able to say confidently that the story described in the Interior Department document was almost certainly a fabrication. The idea that any Indian chieftain would dispatch assassins all the way to New Paltz—and that they would reach that destination without incident—was outlandish enough; but the further assertions that, having committed the murders, they would then leave behind an explanatory note, kidnap rather than kill the victims’ adolescent son, and make their way back across the country without ever being noticed was too far-fetched even to be considered. Someone, Wissler was sure, had put a none-too-clever bit of trickery over on the obviously dull-witted authorities in New Paltz. I thanked him heartily for his help, then rang off and ’phoned Number 808 Broadway.

Sara answered in a very edgy voice: Apparently there’d been a lot of interest displayed in our headquarters during the previous forty-eight hours by a variety of unsavory characters. Sara herself had been followed fairly constantly, she was certain of that; and even though she never went out unarmed, such close scrutiny was nerve-racking. Boredom only worsened things: Because Sara had had little to do since our departure, her mind was free to focus all the more on her spectral stalkers. For this reason the thought of activity, even if it was only research at the
Times,
acted as a tonic on her spirits, and she devoured the details of our latest theory with relish. I then asked her how long she thought it would be before Cyrus would be able to accompany her around town, to which she answered that although the big fellow had been released from the hospital, he was still too weak to leave his bed at Kreizler’s house.

“I’ll be all right, John,” she insisted to me, though her words lacked some of their usual conviction.

“Of course you will,” I answered. “I doubt if half the criminals in New York are as well armed. Or cops, for that matter. All the same, get Stevie to stick with you. He’s quite the item in a brawl, even at his size.”

“Yes,” Sara answered, with a calming laugh. “He’s already been very helpful—sees me home every night. We smoke cigarettes together, though you needn’t tell Dr. Kreizler that.” I wondered for a moment why she persisted in calling him “Dr. Kreizler,” but there was more pressing business at hand.

“I’ve got to go, Sara. Telephone as soon as you have anything.”

“All right. Watch out for yourselves, John.”

I rang off and went to find Kreizler.

He was still in the cable office, putting the last words to a wire that he proceeded to send to Roosevelt. Phrasing his sentences vaguely (and putting no signature to the message), Laszlo asked Theodore to contact first the office of the mayor of New Paltz, in an attempt to ascertain whether a family or person named Beecham had lived in that town at any point during the last twenty years, and second the authorities in Newton, Massachusetts, to see if one Adam Dury still resided there. Anxious as we both were to get replies to these questions, we knew that they would take time, and that we still had plenty of work to do at St. Elizabeth’s and the Interior Department. Somewhat reluctantly, we left the cable office and went out into another magnificent spring morning.

Even though there were many details to be attended to that day, it was impossible for me to keep my mind from wandering back to the larger mysteries surrounding John Beecham and Victor Dury, and I’m sure Kreizler experienced much the same thing. Several questions became particularly persistent: If the story about Indian assassins was, in fact, false, who had concocted it? Who had actually committed the murder, and what had happened to the younger Dury boy? Why was there so little discussion, in the hospital records, of John Beecham’s early life, and no mention at all of his mother? And where was that obviously troubled man now?

The day’s work brought no answers to these questions: neither the Interior nor the War Department could supply further details of either the Dury murder or John Beecham’s life before his commitment to St. Elizabeth’s. Kreizler fared no better at said hospital, which, he told me that evening, was neither required nor empowered to find out where a patient was going once he had secured his release through a writ of
habeas corpus.
In addition, none of the few members of the nonmedical staff who had been at the hospital at the time of Beecham’s commitment could remember anything about the man other than his facial spasms. He was apparently utterly unremarkable in his outward manner, a fact that, while frustrating in terms of our present purposes, did fit in nicely with the proposition that our killer was not a man who would attract any notice save at the time of his violent acts.

The only useful bit of information that did emerge on that Friday was brought to the Willard in the evening by Hobart Weaver. According to War Department records, the lieutenant who’d had John Beecham relieved of duty in 1886 was one Frederick Miller, since promoted to captain and currently serving at Fort Yates, North Dakota. Laszlo and I knew that an interview with this man might prove invaluable; yet a trip to Yates would take the Isaacson brothers in the opposite direction from their original destination, the Pine Ridge Agency. Still, it was the most solid lead we’d been able to develop, and on balance seemed worth the detour. And so, at six o’clock that evening, Kreizler and I sent a wire to Deadwood, telling the detective sergeants to secure passage north immediately.

As for incoming messages, the cable office had received a wire from Roosevelt, saying that there was, in fact, a man living in Newton, Massachusetts, named Adam Dury. Theodore still hadn’t heard from New Paltz regarding our question about a man or family named Beecham, but he was pursuing the matter. Kreizler and I were left with little to do but wait and hope that we’d hear more from either Roosevelt or Sara later in the evening. After telling the desk clerk that we would be in the bar, Laszlo and I retired to that dark, richly paneled room, then sought out a secluded spot along the lengthy brass rail and ordered a pair of cocktails.

“While we wait, Moore,” Kreizler said, sipping his sherry and bitters, “you can edify me about this labor disturbance that led to John Beecham’s commitment. I have a vague recollection but nothing more.”

I shrugged. “Not much to explain. In ’86 the Knights of Labor organized strikes in every major city in the country for May 1st. The situation in Chicago got out of hand very quickly—strikers fought breakers, police busted up strikers, breakers went at it with cops—a mess. On the fourth day a big crowd of strikers got together in Haymarket Square, and the cops arrived in force to keep things orderly. Somebody—nobody knows who—threw a bomb into the police ranks. Killed a few. It could’ve been a striker, or an anarchist trying to start trouble, or even an agent of the factory owners, looking to discredit the strikers. The point was, the governor had a good excuse to call out the militia and some federal troops. The day after the bomb blast, there was a strikers’ rally at a mill in one of the northern suburbs. The troops showed up, and their commander later claimed he ordered the strikers to disperse. The strike leaders said they never heard any such order. Whatever the case, the troops opened fire. It was an ugly scene.”

Kreizler nodded, going over the thing in his mind. “Chicago…the city has a fairly large immigrant population, does it not?”

“Sure. Germans, Scandinavians, Poles—you name it.”

“There would have been a good number of them among the strikers, don’t you think?”

I held up a hand. “I know where you’re headed with this, Kreizler, but it doesn’t necessarily mean anything. There were immigrants involved in every strike in the country at that time.”

Laszlo frowned a bit. “Yes, I suppose so. Still—”

Just then a young bellboy in a brass-buttoned red uniform entered the bar, calling out my name. Jumping up, I went to the lad, who told me that I was wanted by the desk clerk. Kreizler followed as I dashed out front. The clerk handed me his telephone, and as soon as I took it up I heard Sara’s very excited voice:

“John? Are you there?”

“Yes, Sara. Go ahead.”

“Sit down. We may be onto something.”

“I don’t want to sit down. What is it?”

“I found the story of the Dury murder in the
Times.
There were featured articles for about a week, and smaller notices after that. Just about anything you’d want to know about the family was in them.”