This is exactly right.

This story contains adult content and language.

Listener discretion is advised. It's all of our greatest fear is that some terrible act of violence takes away those we love or affects ourselves.

There was a spectacular cannonade at dawn in Brooklyn.

Daybreak in Manhattan brought fish horns, fireworks, and drums.

At 7 o'clock, the military units mustered for a huge parade on

Broadway. The Belfree at Trinity Church in Lower Manhattan rang with patriotic tunes like Red, White, and

Yankee Doodle. New Yorkers filled their picnic baskets with ice tea, pot roast, and sour dough rolls. This was New York City. It was the 4th of July

1870. The city's corrupt kingmaker was William Boss Tweed.

He presided over speeches inside a massive red brick building called Tammany Hall in Union Square.

And just a few blocks away, Edward Ruloff stood up from his desk.

The academic shuffled around two rented rooms above a dry goods store on Third

Avenue in Irving Place. It had been more than 25 years

since his life was derailed, a quarter of a century since he killed his wife and

child.

He had served a decade-long sentence,

only to be jailed once again before escaping,

being recaptured, and then finally walking away

from Tompkins County legally.

He was a failed academic, though he still had hope.

His manuscript would be finished in less than a year.

Inate wisdom had served Edward well into middle age,

...