The Alienist

leadership.

I’d just reconciled myself to this conclusion when I heard a key turning in the front door. Sara came bustling in, umbrella and grocery parcels in hand, her movements and air nothing like they’d been that morning. She was stepping and talking quickly, even lightly, as if nothing at all had happened.

“It’s a flood, John!” she announced, shaking her umbrella and depositing it in the ceramic stand. She took off her wrap, then lugged her parcels back toward the little kitchen. “You can barely get across Fourteenth Street on foot, and it’s worth your life to try to find a cab.”

I looked back out the window. “Cleans the streets, though,” I said.

“Do you want something to eat?” Sara called. “I’ll get some coffee going, and I brought food—sandwiches will have to do, I’m afraid.”

“Sandwiches?” I answered, not very enthusiastically. “Couldn’t we just go out somewhere?”

“Out?” Sara said, reemerging from the kitchen and coming over to me. “We can’t go out, we’ve got—” She stopped as she caught sight of the Isaacsons’ telegram, then picked it up carefully. “What’s this?”

“Marcus and Lucius,” I answered. “They got confirmation on John Beecham.”

“But that’s wonderful, John!” Sara said in a rush. “Then we—”

“I’ve already sent a reply,” I interrupted, disturbed by her manner. “Told them to get back as soon as they can.”

“Even better,” Sara said. “I doubt if there’s much more for them to discover out there, and we’ll need them here.”

“Need them?”

“We’ve got work to do,” Sara answered simply.

My shoulders drooped with the realization that my worries about her attitude had been well founded. “Sara, Kreizler told me this morning that—”

“I know,” she answered. “He told me, as well. What of it?”

“What of it? It’s over, that’s what of it. How are we supposed to go on without him?”

She shrugged. “As we went on with him. Listen to me, John.” Grabbing hold of my shoulders, Sara led me over to my desk and sat me on it. “I know what you’re thinking—but you’re wrong. We’re good enough now without him. We can finish this.”

My head had started shaking even before she finished this statement. “Sara, be serious—we don’t have the training, we don’t have the background—”

“We don’t need any more than we have, John,” she answered firmly. “Remember what Kreizler himself taught us—context. We don’t need to know everything about psychology, or alienism, or the history of all similar cases to finish this job. All we need to know is this man, his particular case—and we do, now. In fact, when we put together what we’ve gathered during the last week, I’ll bet that we know him as well as he knows himself—perhaps even better. Dr. Kreizler was important, but he’s gone now, and we don’t need him. You can’t quit. You mustn’t.”

There were undeniable bits of truth in what she was saying, and I took a minute to digest them; but then my head began to shake again. “Look, I know how much this opportunity means to you. I know how much it could have helped you convince the department—”

I shut up instantly as she took a good cut at my shoulder with her right fist. “Damn it, John, don’t insult me! Do you honestly think I’m doing this just for the opportunity? I’m doing it because I want to sleep soundly again someday—or have your little trips up and down the eastern seaboard made you forget?” She dashed over and grabbed some photographs off of Marcus’s desk. “Remember these, John?” I glanced down only briefly, knowing what she held: pictures of the various crime scenes. “Do you really think you’re going to spend many easy hours if you stop now? And what happens when the next boy is killed? How will you feel then?”

“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 board. “It’s just speculation, but—”

“John,” Sara said, admonishing me good-humoredly. “That entire board is just