White Fire Read Free Page A

perusing.
    “There are a number of reasons why this is a great opportunity,” she went on. “First, the city has good records on most of these executed criminals—names, rap sheets, and trial records. Those who were orphans raised in the Five Points House of Industry—about half a dozen—also have some childhood records. They were all executed in the same way—hanging—so the cause of death is identical. And the cemetery was used for only seven years, so all the remains come from roughly the same time period.”
    She paused. Carbone was slowly turning over the pages, one after another, apparently reading. There was no way to tell what he was thinking; his face was a blank.
    “I made a few inquiries, and it seems the parks department would be open to having a John Jay student examine the remains.”
    The slow turning of the pages paused. “You already contacted them?”
    “Yes. Just a feeler—”
    “A feeler…You contacted another city agency without seeking prior permission?”
    Uh-oh. “Obviously I didn’t want to bring you a project that might get shot down later by outside authorities. Um, was that wrong?”
    A long silence, and then: “Did you not read your undergraduate handbook?”
    Corrie was seized with apprehension. She had in fact read it—when she’d been admitted. But that was over a year ago. “Not recently.”
    “The handbook is quite clear. Undergraduate students are not to engage other city departments except through official channels. This is because we’re a city institution, as you know, a senior college of the City University of New York.” He said this mildly, almost kindly.
    “I…Well, I’m sorry, I didn’t recall that from the handbook.” She swallowed, feeling a rising panic—and anger. This was such unbelievable bullshit. But she forced herself to keep her cool. “It was just a couple of phone calls, nothing official.”
    A nod. “I’m sure you didn’t deliberately violate university regulations.” He began turning the pages again, slowly, one after the other, not looking up at her. “But in any case I find other problems with this thesis proposal of yours.”
    “Yes?” Corrie felt sick.
    “This idea that malnourishment leads to a life of crime…It’s an old idea—and an unconvincing one.”
    “Well, it seems to me worth testing.”
    “Back then, almost everyone was malnourished. But not everyone became a criminal. And the idea is redolent of…how shall I put it?…of a certain philosophy that crime in general can be traced to unfortunate experiences in a person’s childhood.”
    “But malnourishment—severe malnourishment—might cause neurological changes, actual damage. That isn’t philosophy; that’s science.”
    Carbone held up her proposal. “I can already predict the outcome: you’ll discover that these executed criminals were malnourished as children. The real question is why, of all those hungry children, only a small percentage went on to commit capital crimes. And your research plan does not address that. I’m sorry, this won’t fly. Not at all.”
    And, opening his fingers, he let her document drop gently to his desk.

2
    T he famous—some might say infamous—“Red Museum” at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice had started as a simple collection of old investigative files, physical evidence, prisoners’ property, and memorabilia that, almost a hundred years ago, had been put into a display case in a hall at the old police academy. Since then, it had grown into one of the country’s largest and best collections of criminal memorabilia. The crème de la crème of the collection was on display in a sleek new exhibition hall in the college’s Skidmore, Owings & Merrill building on Tenth Avenue. The rest of the collection—vast rotting archives and moldering evidence from long-ago crimes—remained squirreled away in the hideous basement of the old police academy building on East Twentieth Street.
    Early on at John Jay, Corrie