"Or shall we try something like 'jackass,' Mr. Chapman? Both in 'Marginalia' and in 'Politian.' You'd be surprised at how many scholars rely on this kind of thing. The book is in its twelfth printing."

Like every other author I'd ever met, Zeldin neglected to mention the size of each printing. I didn't expect they were large.

"As much as I've admired Poe's work," I said, "I certainly know very little about his life. Perhaps it would be useful if you would spend some time telling us about him."

"It's Edgar Allan Poe who brought me here, to this very place," Zeldin said, spinning his chair around to face the three of us.

"To New York?" Mercer asked.

"To the Bronx. To these Botanical Gardens."

"We knew he lived in Manhattan," I said. Recently acquired knowledge, for me, but the skeleton had made an indelible impression.

"But his last home, Miss Cooper-in fact, the longest residence of his adult life-was here in the Bronx."

I looked to Mike, my outer-borough expert, for confirmation. He shook his head.

"Poe Cottage. You don't know it? You'll enjoy seeing it," he said, explaining to Mike that it still stood on Kingsbridge Road, in a small park dedicated to the poet. "It was not only his last real residence, poor soul, but the only one still standing. They'd best not tear that one down or every writer in America will be up in arms."

"And these gardens?" I asked.

"Well, they hadn't been created as a formal botanical sanctuary then. In fact, this whole area wasn't even considered to be the Bronx in those days. It was a very rural village, part of Westchester County, known as Fordham. The building in which the skeleton was found in Greenwich Village? Poe had to leave that house because his wife was suffering from tuberculosis. The doctors insisted that she could only survive with the help of fresh country air."

"So they moved out here?"

"Yes, ma'am. To the little farmhouse on Kingsbridge Road, near One Hundred Ninety-second Street and the Grand Concourse. He loved to walk, Poe did. He spent long days traversing the farmlands in this Fordham area, much of it here in these very woods that make up part of our Botanical Gardens property. Even to the gorge at the river, where that accident occurred this week. The waterfalls fascinated him."

"You sure he walked right here?" Mike asked.

"Would you like to read his letters, Mr. Chapman? He describes the area in exquisite detail, from the cottage to this forest to the High Bridge that carried water from the Croton Aqueduct over the Harlem River to Manhattan."

"His story called 'Landor's Cottage'?" I asked tentatively.

"Now you're onto it, Miss Cooper. That describes the little house he rented for his family, the one that still stands in Poe Park. One hundred dollars a year. He used to find great tranquillity in walking the heights, looking out over Long Island Sound. You could see it then from his doorstep, before all the high-rise buildings went up and got in the way of the view. There was a group of Jesuits at something called St. John's, not too far away-"

Mike interrupted. "Yeah. They're the ones who founded Fordham College."

"Well, there you go, Mr. Chapman. He used to love to walk over to have discourse with the Jesuit scholars and use the books in their library. We'll get you into this, too."

"I'm about as deep in as I want to get, thanks. But now I understand why he named a character Montresor," Mike said.

Zeldin expected another wisecrack.

"That name doesn't mean anything to you?" Mike asked. "You know Randall's Island?"

We all did. It sat in the East River, between Manhattan and the Bronx.

"John Montresor was a British captain during the Revolutionary War. He bought that island and moved his family there, spying for the Brits and advising them where to base invasions in New York Harbor. He's the guy who witnessed Nathan Hale's execution, the reason we know Hale's last words."

"'I only regret,'" Zeldin said, "'that I have but one life to give for my country.' I'm impressed, Mr. Chapman. I guess Poe didn't have to look much further than his backyard to dig up some names for his tales."

"You talked about the tragic circumstances of Poe's life yesterday," I said. "Would you mind telling us what they were?"

I had a notepad ready. I was hoping the salient facts would be things I could later compare against the life of a vengeful killer who may have been identifying too closely with the great writer.

"Poe's grandfather was a Revolutionary War hero. Somewhat celebrated in Maryland, where the family had settled. His father, David, was the typical black sheep, even back then."

"In what way?"

"Defied the general's wishes by dropping the study of law to become an actor. And a drunk. And married beneath his class, to a woman of no pedigree. An all-round ne'er-do-well," Zeldin said.

"Whom did he marry?" I asked.

"An itinerant actress named Eliza. A young woman who toured with small companies playing comic juvenile roles and ingénues. Edgar was their second child, born while Eliza was performing in Boston in 1809."

I had to remind myself, now that the events of Poe's life seemed to be responsible in some way for the recent deaths, that Poe himself had lived two hundred years ago.

"A daughter came along two years later, and by the time of her birth, David Poe had disappeared. He was only twenty-five years old."

"What do you mean, disappeared?"

"Exactly that. He was never heard from again. I can't tell you what became of him, where he lived thereafter or when he died. He simply vanished from their lives. Estranged from his parents in Baltimore, already deeply in debt with three babies to support, lousy reviews for his stagecraft, and a serious alcohol problem, he simply abandoned Eliza and the children."

"So Poe never knew his father?" I asked. "Eliza raised the children alone?"

Zeldin shook his head. "She didn't have the chance. The local newspapers wrote of her 'private misfortunes.' The baby girl was rumored not to be David Poe's child, and within months Eliza had moved her little family to Richmond to try to make a new life for them. She had a catastrophic health failure and become a bedridden charity case shortly after she arrived. Before Edgar was three, his beloved mother had died."

A broken home, illegitimacy, alcohol abuse, and now three orphaned children-it all sounded like an overwhelmingly dismal start to the boy's life.

"Who raised them?"

"Another emotional blow to the young trio. They were separated from each other. David Poe, senior-the parental grandfather who lived in Baltimore-agreed to take in the oldest child, whose name was William Henry. And a local family named Mackenzie took in the infant girl, Rosalie. It was Edgar who was the hardest to place."

"At the age of three?"

"Yes, Miss Cooper. As it happened, a well-to-do merchant in Richmond was convinced by his wife-they were childless-to raise young Edgar. He became a ward of John and Frances Allan-"

"So that's where the name Allan comes from," Mike said. "I just assumed it was his given middle name. I didn't know he'd been adopted."

"Adoption might have been an easier path for him, Mr. Chapman. John Allan was a tough taskmaster. He refused to adopt the boy. Allan was entirely self-made and used his own childhood deprivation to try and instill in young Edgar that kind of school-of-hard-knocks experience. Sort of 'Why should I hand you anything that I had to work hard for?' So the only promise he made the Poe family was that he would provide the boy with a liberal education."

"I take it the Allans held up that part of the bargain," Mercer said.

"Yes, they actually moved to England for a time, where Edgar's first serious schooling began. They sent him from there to Scotland to board for a year when he was only seven, where he was quite lonely. Five years later, when John Allan's business failed, the family returned to Richmond. You know about his stay at university?"