Read Online In the Shadow of Gotham by Stefanie Pintoff - Free Book Online Page B

threatened rain but never produced it. Fog cloaked the Hudson River in a heavy shroud, entirely obscuring not only the Manhattan skyline but also the other ferries, barges, and transport boats that regularly journeyed between the city and points north. I could barely see the approach of other vessels, even when their foghorns sounded, so I turned away from the railing rather than anxiously mind what only the captain could control. I was always discomfited traveling on a boat of any kind. While I did not fear water, or even the experience of being on a ship itself, I did have a profound distrust of those who operated such vessels. With good reason, I might add: Accidents were common enough, given that greedy owners and captains seemed more concerned with their profitmargin than their passengers’ safety. Alistair also seemed restless and tense, and we said little to one another during the short half-hour trip.
    Alistair’s Center for Criminological Research was located at Columbia’s new Morningside Heights campus at 116th Street, which I’d never visited. I had spent two brief years at Columbia on scholarship until family circumstances forced me to leave. But that was over ten years ago, when the college still occupied cramped quarters downtown.
    Alistair’s research center, a small, redbrick house from the early 1800s, had lingered untouched even as McKim, Mead, and White’s buildings of columns and marble sprang up around it. We approached by way of a brick walkway covered with wet, slippery leaves. Following Alistair, I pushed open the black-painted door and made my way up a narrow, steep staircase with a faded blue carpet runner to the second floor where his office was located. Two men and a woman were there already, conversing quietly—for Alistair had telephoned ahead to convene this meeting. They sat around a massive oak table in the center of the room, covered by stacks of papers, files, and books.
    “Ziele,” Alistair directed, “do come in and take a seat.” He gestured to indicate where I should hang my coat. I placed my satchel on the floor beside it as a large dog with golden fur emerged from under the table to nuzzle my hand briefly.
    “Oban, back here!” The woman ordered the dog back to his former spot under the table.
    “I’d like you to meet my associate in sociology, Tom Baxter.” Alistair drew my attention to an unassuming man in his mid to late thirties, lanky and lean with a firm handshake.
    “Tom came to us just last year from Harvard,” Alistair explained. “We’re lucky to have him join us.”
    He continued with more introductions.
    “Fred Ebbings, professor of psychology.” I turned to greet a stooped, rail-thin man with hunched shoulders. He appeared to be older, well past sixty.
    “And my assistant, Isabella Sinclair—who is also my daughter-in-law,” Alistair added with a warm smile.
    I turned to the slim woman in her mid-twenties with smooth dark hair. Exceedingly pretty, she wore a white shirtwaist and tailored dark green skirt. “A pleasure, Mrs. Sinclair,” I said.
    “Likewise.” She offered a friendly smile, and her demeanor was refreshingly straightforward. “Professor Sinclair has already told us about you. It will be nice working with you.”
    In the days to come, I would learn that Isabella had been widowed two years prior. As Mulvaney had discovered, her husband Teddy, Alistair’s only son, had died tragically during one of his frequent trips to Greece. Teddy’s death had forged an odd partnership between Isabella and Alistair, as grief redirected her interests from the social pursuits considered normal for a young woman of her station toward Alistair’s criminological research. And, in an arrangement of which the extended Sinclair family highly disapproved, she continued to live alone, with only an old house keeper and the dog as chaperones, in the apartment adjoining Alistair’s—living space Alistair had procured for the young couple at the time of