The Alienist

Kreizler, Moore, Sara, Cyrus, and Stevie quietly slip out of Castle Garden unnoticed. The Isaacsons stay behind, accompanied by Roosevelt, who deals with the gathering mob directly. Outside Battery Park, Moore spots Paul Kelly and concludes that Kelly must be responsible for riling up the mob.

Back at 808 Broadway, Mary Palmer prepares breakfast. Kreizler appears displeased with Mary’s presence at headquarters, and Sara seems to know why. Moore is confused, though he does sense “some very odd chemistry” among Kreizler, Sara, and Mary (155). Kreizler sends Mary back to the institute with Stevie and Cyrus. Kreizler, Moore, and Sara then begin to review what they have learned, including Kreizler’s observation that all the killings have occurred near water. A weary and still-disturbed Sara doubts Kreizler’s assertion that the water indicates the killer’s religious-inspired feelings of sin and guilt. Outside in her carriage, Sara tells Moore that Kreizler seems relentless about this case, as if it is somehow personal to him. Before driving off, Sara also tells a dumbfounded Moore that Mary’s romantic feelings for Kreizler are obvious.

Moore awakens at his grandmother’s house, feeling irritated and lonely. Sara is accompanying Kreizler on an assessment of a woman from Long Island who recently tried to kill her own children with a knife (161). Moore is convinced that Sara harbors romantic feelings for Kreizler, which makes him feel sorry for Mary. He decides to go to Kreizler’s house and invite Mary out for an afternoon at the theater. When Moore reassures Mary that he only means to thank her for the delicious breakfast, she cheerfully accepts, and together they enjoy an entertaining afternoon complete with short moving pictures, a new medium. On the quiet walk back to Kreizler’s through Madison Square Garden, Moore studies Mary and wonders if her childhood resembled that of the killer. Back at Kreizler’s, the alienist seems delighted that Mary enjoyed an afternoon out of the house.

Based on evidence from Paresis Hall and Castle Garden, Marcus theorizes that the killer has substantial mountaineering experience, which enables him to descend from urban rooftops into open windows and then climb back out again with his victims. Moore and Marcus enter the Golden Rule Pleasure Club, a “pestilential little hole” run by a “large, repulsive” madam named Scotch Ann, who specializes in “effeminate young boys” (170). Moore explains that urban moral crusaders have singled out this particular house as a prime example not only of social degeneracy but of the police corruption that enables and profits from it. Upon seeing Moore and Marcus, Scotch Ann complains that she already pays the police $1,000 per month, so two rogue cops had better not try a shakedown. Marcus assures her that they only want information about the murdered boy. Scotch Ann then describes Ali ibn-Ghazi—called “Fatima” at the pleasure club—a 14-year-old son of Syrian immigrants. Moore and Marcus learn from one of the other boys that ibn-Ghazi, like Georgio Santorelli at Paresis Hall, was never seen leaving on the night of the murder. On the rooftop, Marcus finds additional evidence that the killer has climbing experience. Moore hears “a small, frightened voice” (176).

A small boy, no older than 10, appears on the Golden Rule rooftop. The frightened child, named Joseph, recalls that “Fatima’s saint,” a man who said everything would be okay, “was kind” to Fatima “and was going to take her away from Scotch Ann to live with him” (178). Joseph further indicates that “Fatima” hated being alone with customers and that some customers enjoyed it even more when the boys tried to resist them. Heartbroken at this boy’s cruel fate, Moore tries to entice Joseph away from the Golden Rule, thinking that perhaps Kreizler would accept him at the institute, but the boy appears skeptical. Moore explains that in 1896, according to the nation’s customs, assumptions, and laws, there was no such thing as childhood. Moore and Marcus discuss the case on the walk back from the Golden Rule. They realize that they are working with one basic assumption. They have no idea who the killer is, what he does, or why he frequents pleasure clubs that offer young boys made up like girls, but they know, according to Kreizler, that he is sane.

At 808 Broadway, Moore learns from Lucius that Ghazi’s father, like Santorelli’s, received a sinister visit from two priests, one of whom wore an Episcopal ring. Moore senses a much larger conspiracy to frustrate the investigation. Kreizler, Moore, and Sara continue making assessments of other people who committed violence against children. They search the newspapers for cases outside of New York City. Cyrus and Stevie offer unexpected insights as to the mental state of the killer during and after the crime, as well as to his possible sexual proclivities. Kreizler appears to be working himself beyond the point of exhaustion. Sara again suggests that the case seems personal to Kreizler, as if it involves “something old and deep” (191).

On a beautiful spring evening, the team gathers for a drink at Brubacher’s Wine Garden on Union Square. Moore arrives first. The streetcar conductors on Broadway have a habit of taking Union Square’s “Dead Man’s Curve” at a high rate of speed, prompting Moore and other gambling types to sit on Brubacher’s terrace and place morbid wagers on the probable fates of unsuspecting pedestrians. Kreizler and Lucius are next to arrive, followed by Marcus and Sara, whose faces suggest that “something extraordinary ha[s] occurred” (194). Marcus runs inside to place a telephone call to Toronto, and Lucius appears startled as he grasps the significance of his brother’s call to that particular city.

Sara hands Kreizler an envelope. Inside is a letter addressed to Mrs. Santorelli, who brought it to police headquarters, where Sara managed to translate its basic message into Italian. The letter’s author complains about “LIES” in the press and “dirty immigrants” whose “little children shit all around, which is dirty, dirtier than a Red Injun” and then claims that on February 18 the author saw the “boy parading himself, with ashes and paint on his face,” so he “trussed him and did him quick,” then “collected his eyes and took his ass and it fed me for a week, roasted with onions and carrots” (196). Moore expresses shock and outrage at the notion that a cannibal could be deemed sane, which is what they have assumed to this point based on Kreizler’s work, but Kreizler and Lucius point out that the letter’s author is only claiming to have eaten his victim’s flesh.

Following a phone conversation with a handwriting expert, Marcus proceeds to analyze the letter. He concludes that the author studied a system of penmanship introduced to the United States in 1880, which makes him no older than 31, and that the author understands the principles of grammar but is trying to appear ignorant, which makes him a practiced liar. Kreizler pulls Moore aside, reminds him of the balled-up rag in the carriage outside Roosevelt’s office, and warns him to be careful because the killer has been watching them from the beginning.

At 808 Broadway, the group settles in for a long night of analysis and discussion of the letter’s contents. They conclude that the killer is working alone; that he is a sadist who revels in the thought of further tormenting the boy’s mother; that he enjoys the sporting aspect of stalking his victims; that he seems particularly bothered by deceitful behavior despite being a skilled liar himself; and that everything in his character stems from childhood experiences.

As the conversation turns to family dynamics, Kreizler assumes a violent father. When Lucius and especially Sara object to Kreizler ruling out a vicious mother in the killer’s past—“There is more than one kind of violence,” Sara insists—Kreizler ignores the suggestion and appears “ready, even anxious, to move on” (206). Kreizler steers the conversation toward the killer’s apparent hatred of immigrants, his morbid imagination (likely forged from childhood stories meant to terrorize), and his fixation on all things related to the buttocks, including feces. A frustrated Sara again pleads with Kreizler to consider the role of a mother, particularly during infancy, when few men have any meaningful involvement in the child’s day-to-day care. Kreizler acknowledges her point but again moves on without accepting her broader thesis of a woman’s central role in shaping the killer’s character. Discussion turns to the derogatory reference to Indigenous people, which suggests a possible frontier upbringing, as well as the reference to February 18 (Ash Wednesday) and ashes on Georgio Santorelli’s painted face, which highlight the case’s possible religious context. The team discusses at length the likely significance of the Christian calendar, for the murders occurred on feast days, as well as the mysterious involvement of the two priests. Kreizler notes that the killer’s sexuality cannot be assumed from his actions, as he probably does not even differentiate between sex and violence.

Finally, and for the third time, Sara insists upon a mother’s formative role, prompting Kreizler to slam his hand on the desk in defiance and declare that a woman cannot possibly have been involved. Before leaving, Sara coolly asks why Kreizler bothered to consult her on creating an imaginary female profile in the first place. Moore and the Isaacsons exchange looks, knowing that “Sara had been right and Kreizler inexplicably, pigheadedly wrong” (220).

In the week following the tense exchange between Kreizler and Sara, the team goes on with the investigation. Moore interviews Henry Codman Potter, New York’s Episcopal bishop, and Michael Corrigan, the city’s Catholic archbishop. Neither man succeeds in allaying Moore’s suspicions that the killer has some connection to the priesthood. Back at headquarters, Marcus and Moore discuss the priest theory, while Lucius and Sara poke holes in their arguments by focusing, for instance, on the killer’s possible military background.

Kreizler appears suddenly and insists that Moore go with him right away to the train station. Kreizler has arranged an interview with a prisoner at Sing Sing. Aboard the train, Kreizler startles Moore by identifying his interviewee as Jesse Pomeroy, a notorious child killer whose horrific acts of torture and mutilation more than two decades earlier were all the more shocking for the fact that Pomeroy himself was only 12 when he began killing. Early in his career, Kreizler had found Pomeroy sane. Kreizler also recalls that Pomeroy had a facial disfigurement about which he was sensitive. A phone call with Kreizler’s mentor, Dr. Adolf Meyer, has convinced Kreizler that he was wrong to dismiss Sara’s argument for the centrality of a mother’s role, and that he needed to look into that problem more broadly, starting with Pomeroy.

Kreizler and Moore enter Sing Sing Prison, accompanied by a guard named Lasky, “an enormous, ill-shaved man of appropriately black temperament” (231). A shackled Pomeroy awaits at the end of the cell block. Moore describes the horrors of the penal system as he observes them up close, including some of the prison guards’ preferred instruments of prisoner-control, which are really instruments of torture. Pomeroy is reading when Kreizler and Moore enter. Moore notes Pomeroy’s harelip, “pocked skin,” and “milky, repulsive left eye” (232). Pomeroy remembers Kreizler and claims that the Kreizler misdiagnosed him, for he was mentally ill when he tortured, killed, and mutilated those other children. Kreizler counters that he had never seen mental illness caused by envy, suggesting that Pomeroy acted from jealous rage at kids who did not suffer from his disfigurements. Pomeroy finally explains that he killed those children because he had to stop them from staring at him like he was a caged animal. Pomeroy then recalls that his mother always stared at him too, always hovered around him, but would never kiss his face. Finally, when Kreizler and Moore stand up to leave, Pomeroy grabs a concealed shard of glass from his boot.

Pomeroy jams his stool under the doorknob, assures Kreizler and Moore that he has no intention of harming them, and begins yelling taunts at Lasky, who waits in the hallway outside. The irate prison guard pounds on the door as Pomeroy continues to mock him. Finally, Lasky forces the door open, disarms the laughing Pomeroy, and begins punching the prisoner repeatedly. Kreizler tries to intervene and put a stop to the violence, but Pomeroy keeps laughing, and Lasky keeps punching. Moore grabs Kreizler and insists that they need to leave immediately before more guards arrive.

On the train ride home, Kreizler notes the significance of Pomeroy’s aversion to scrutiny, along with the fact that no one, including his own mother, wanted to touch him. The latter point explains why Pomeroy continued to laugh as Lasky beat him, for violence was the only form of physical human contact Pomeroy had ever known.

Sara meets Kreizler and Moore for another late dinner at Delmonico’s. Kreizler apologizes for his recent behavior, and Sara graciously accepts. Sara now believes that the killer, like Pomeroy, also has a deformity. Kreizler agrees, even speculating that it has something to do with the eyes. Sara theorizes that the killer’s mother never wanted to have children and thus resented the one(s) she had. Furthermore, the combination of unwanted pregnancy on one side and unwanted scrutiny on the other suggest limited options for the mother and close living quarters for the family, a sign of poverty. Kreizler applauds Sara’s work and reminds the group that the next Christian feast day is only five days away. Outside, Sara shows Moore an 1862 police report that describes a domestic incident that resulted in Kreizler’s drunken father going to jail for one night, while a surgeon tended to “a young boy whose left arm had been badly shattered” (245). Having solved the mystery of Kreizler’s disfigured left arm, as well as his fixation on a violent father, Sara and Moore decide to burn the police report.

With help from Roosevelt, Cyrus, and Stevie, the investigators plan to split into teams of two and surveil four of the likeliest disreputable establishments from which the killer will select his next victim. Moore walks to the Golden Rule, meets young Joseph at a nearby billiard hall, and puts the boy on alert by describing the killer’s likely physical appearance, including height and facial disfigurement. Moore returns to 808 Broadway, where he finds Kreizler and the Isaacsons debating the question of why the killer struck on some religious holidays but not others. The two-person teams and their locations are settled: Marcus and Sara to the Golden Rule, Kreizler and Roosevelt to Paresis Hall, Lucius and Cyrus to the Black and Tan, and Moore and Stevie to the Slide on Bleecker Street.

The Feast of the Ascension passes with no sign of the killer, and the team returns to the investigative grind, making inquiries of asylums nationwide and then reviewing the replies. One such reply, from St. Elizabeth’s in Washington, DC, catches Lucius’s eye, for St. Elizabeth’s houses soldiers and sailors deemed unfit for service on account of mental illness, which would confirm suspicions that the killer has a military background. On Pentecost Sunday, 11 days after the Feast of the Ascension, the two-person surveillance teams position themselves once again. From the Slide, Moore spots what he thinks is the back of Lucius’s balding head on the rooftop of the Black and Tan. Fifteen minutes later, “a series of urgent shouts” from Lucius prove, in fact, that Moore had seen the killer (258).

Racing to the Black and Tan rooftop, Moore and Stevie find Cyrus badly injured and bleeding from a blow to the back of the head. Lucius explains that he had decided to get coffee and had been gone for only 15 minutes. Ernst Lohmann, 14, is missing from his room inside the Black and Tan. Roosevelt promises to marshal his police forces and search the waterfronts, though Moore persuades him to be discreet and keep the details from his men. Kreizler and Sara accompany Cyrus to the hospital while Moore, Stevie, and the Isaacsons return to 808 Broadway. At 4:30 a.m., Sara telephones from police headquarters on Mulberry Street with news that the boy’s body was discovered at the Statue of Liberty. It will be impossible for Kreizler’s team to investigate the crime scene amid the commotion, so they will have to settle for examining the body once it reaches the morgue.

Moore suspects that Paul Kelly’s influence with the immigrant communities explains the angry mob gathering outside the morgue. Lucius examines the body of young Ernst Lohmann and finds that this time the killer removed the boy’s heart and only the left eye. Roosevelt stuns Kreizler and Moore by observing that he has never seen such bodily mutilations “short of a red Indian,” a reference to several corpses he saw years earlier in the Dakota Badlands (272). Kreizler asks Sara and Lucius to look into the killer’s possible military background by contacting the War Department.

Outside the morgue, Kreizler is recognized by a member of the angry mob who blames the alienist for taking away his daughter. Amid the growing menace, Moore sees a former prizefighter, Eat-’Em-Up Jack McManus, hanging on to the side of an approaching carriage that belongs to his current employer, Paul Kelly. The mob’s wrath dissipates at the sight of Kelly, who urges Kreizler and Moore to join him for a ride in his carriage.

Inside the carriage, Kelly thanks Moore for keeping his name out of the newspapers, admits to riling up the mob, and declares that it is about time the immigrants put a scare into the city’s elites. Kelly also makes it clear that he is familiar with Kreizler’s work.

Kelly drops off Kreizler and Moore at the Museum of Natural History. Inside, the anthropologist Franz Boas greets his old friend Kreizler and directs him to the museum’s resident expert on Indian culture, Dr. Clark Wissler. When informed of the murder case’s broad outlines, Wissler expresses concern about linking such horrors to Indigenous culture, a subject on which the public already harbors dangerous misconceptions. Kreizler assures him of the investigation’s profound secrecy, at which point Wissler explains that these specific mutilations relate to a Sioux myth regarding the afterlife. The Sioux, however, would never take their butchery to such lengths, never engage in cannibalism, and never target children. This convinces Kreizler that while the killer has some knowledge of the Sioux methods of mutilation, he lacks any awareness of their cultural meaning and thus equates Indigenous culture with extreme savagery. This also means that the killer must have spent time on the frontier, most likely as a soldier in the US Army.

Back at headquarters, Kreizler decides that he and Moore must go to Washington, DC, to investigate matters at the War Department, St. Elizabeth’s, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, where Moore has a useful contact. The Isaacsons will pursue the frontier angle by making a trip west, first to Deadwood, South Dakota, and then to a Sioux Reservation. Sara will stay in New York City and maintain appearances on Mulberry Street. Kreizler and Moore make a brief stop at the hospital to check on Cyrus.

Outside the hospital, Kreizler and Moore are suddenly accosted by Patrick Connor, the former police sergeant, and forced at gunpoint into an ambulance. The harrowing abduction takes them to 219 Madison Avenue, a location Kreizler and Moore instantly recognize as the home of John Pierpont Morgan, New York’s most powerful financial titan. Passing through Morgan’s famous “Black Library,” Kreizler and Moore spot a small group of men staring back at them: Bishop Potter and Archbishop Corrigan, each accompanied by a priest; Anthony Comstock, “the notorious censor of the U.S. Post Office”; and Thomas Byrnes, the former police inspector whom Roosevelt replaced (292). Morgan waits at his desk, looks up, and greets Kreizler and Moore.