The Snow Angel (22 page)

At that moment, the young television reporter, Nanci York, was rounding the corner, headed for Mosely's office. On impulse, Easterly stopped her. “Nanci, I apologize for the way I talked to you yesterday.”

The reporter nodded. “I understand. You were upset about the boy.”

“How would you like to make your bones in this market?”

“What do you mean?” York asked.

“Can we talk off the record?”

“Of course.”

“Come to my office. The public should know who really screwed this thing up.”

B
ryson State Penitentiary sat on a bluff overlooking a polluted river and dominating a barren, icy landscape. Even to the two hardened detectives, the place looked forbidding.

Bryson was not one of those modernistic, glass-and-steel “humane” institutions with the false promise of rehabilitation. This place had been built in the late nineteenth century. Thirty-foot walls gave it the appearance of a medieval fortress. The walls were topped with razor wire and surveillance cameras, and guards with assault rifles manned the towers.

Before entering the front gate, Bell pulled the Pontiac to the side of the road. He opened the trunk and stashed the briefcase containing the whiskey bottle and marijuana. Then he and Kane presented their credentials at two separate checkpoints. They surrendered their sidearms to the chief guard, and passed through a final metal detector. Throughout the clearance process, the two men didn't speak to each other.

The deputy warden who met them was a career bureaucrat named Gardner. Gardner was not a happy man. He was annoyed that his routine had been interrupted on short notice by a pair of out-of-state detectives,
whose names he barely caught. Gardner showed Kane and Bell to his office. He collected Siamese fighting fish. There were six of them in different tanks around his office.

Gardner sat down at his desk and leaned back, hands behind his head. He was trying very hard to look important. “So you want to interview Messrs. Jones and Heath,” he said. “I'm sure you're aware of their histories.”

“We know they're not candidates for Citizen of the Year,” said Bell.

Gardner held up two thick files. “Both of these clowns are serious trouble. Mr. Jones, the Afro-American, is a career criminal with a fondness for armed robbery of convenience stores. Jones considers himself a political prisoner and loudly promotes that view within the black population. He's been attending AA and NA meetings. But that's a con job to get us to lighten up on him.

“Mr. Heath is a redneck, a leader of the white supremacist movement. He's doing life on his third strike. On the outside, Heath dealt drugs and stolen guns. He's also a self-styled political activist, on the white side of the street. To us, he's a major troublemaker. He requires constant supervision and discipline.”

Kane checked his watch. “What's your point?” he asked.

“These two men are the kind who would love to kill each other, slowly,” Gardner said.

“Yeah, we sort of figured that,” Bell said.

“I find it peculiar that these two are your informants,” said Gardner. “I mean, these are the last guys I'd expect to cooperate with the police. Tell me: How did you pull it off?”

“That's confidential,” said Kane.
This prick is really beginning to get on my nerves.

Gardner studied Kane, feeling the hostility. “All right,” he said at last. “I'm having them brought up to the interview rooms. Follow me, gentlemen.”

As they walked out behind Gardner, Bell and Kane passed three white trusties in his outer office. They were watching a television set tuned to CNN that was once again playing Darryl's Santa Claus commercial, filmed a year ago.

Out in the corridor, Gardner laughed. “Pizza King's sure getting a lot of free advertising. You don't think
they
killed the kid, do you?”

Kane and Bell glanced at each other. For a split second, their eyes locked in mutual contempt for this asshole. Gardner caught their
expressions. “Hey, it was a joke. You need a sense of humor in a hellhole like this.”

“Let us get on with our work, okay?” Bell said.

“Right,” Gardner said. He started walking, irritated.

The corridor seemed endless. The trio passed a dozen convicts on a work detail, painting the corridor. All were black. Gardner noticed the quizzical look on Bell's face. “It's not what you think,” he said.

“What
do
I think?” Bell asked.

“Yes, we do segregate inmates by race, quite often,” Gardner said, still walking. “It's necessary to maintain order, with all the racial tensions in here. If you ever worked in a prison, you'd know what I mean.”

“You don't say,” Bell said.

Gardner now was even more defensive. “Look, contrary to what the NAACP says, we didn't cause those tensions. The separation policy has been upheld by several courts.”

“Do I look like I'm from the NAACP? Why are you telling me all this?”

“Because I can tell you're wondering. And, no, we don't give all the dirty jobs to the blacks. The white work details get their share of grunt work, too.”

“Mr. Gardner, I have other things on my mind,” Bell said. But he glanced at the dark faces covertly watching them pass. He noted the hatred in their eyes.
What is it like to be a black man in a place like this?

Gardner was anxious to change the subject. “So you think the killers are Bryson alumni?”

“That's what we're here to find out,” answered Bell.

“It wouldn't surprise me a bit. Here we get the worst of the worst. Men sent to Bryson are less than human, that's the truth. Animals, most of them.”

Kane, silent until now, abruptly stopped walking. Gardner also stopped, as did Bell. ‘Did I say something
else
wrong?” Gardner asked.

“My brother did time here,” Kane said evenly, fixing Gardner in a murderous glare. “In this very institution.”

“He did? What was his name?”

“Kane. Same as mine. It works that way with brothers.”

“Billy
Kane?” Suddenly Gardner was frightened.

“Yeah. Billy Kane.”

“I—I
thought
you looked familiar.”

”‘Less than human,' is that what you said?”

“Come on now, don't twist my words! I said most of them. I didn't mean every one…”

“No, don't backpedal, Mr. Gardner.
Animals,
that's what you said. I think my partner here, Detective Bell, heard you say the same thing.”

Gardner looked at Bell imploringly. “I said
most
of them. You heard me say that.” But Bell just shrugged. Gardner reflexively stepped back one pace from Kane.

Kane held Gardner in a hateful stare. “So if Billy was an animal, and since we were brothers, I guess that makes me an animal, too. Right? Do you see anything wrong with my reasoning here?”

“Jesus Christ, I didn't mean it that way!” Gardner said. He looked again at Bell for a sign of support. Like most bullies, Gardner was a coward. Bell said nothing, just kept watching Gardner, now flushed and looking down at the ground.

“You're a gutless piece of shit,” Kane said. He resumed walking. “Like my partner said, let's take care of business.”

They walked the rest of the way in silence. Finally they reached the first interview room. Two guards stood at the door. “Jones is in here, Heath is down the hall,” one guard said.

“We'll take them separately,” Bell said. “I talk to Jones, he takes Heath.”

Gardner gestured for the guards to open the door to Calvin Jones' room. Then he practically ran back to his office.

E
asterly stood alone on the snow-covered roof of police headquarters, ten stories above the sprawling city. It was here that she came when she needed to think. A rare winter sun warmed her face, but she barely noticed. Sirens wailed in the distance. She scanned the horizon and spotted a black smokehead. Yet another of the city's decrepit buildings was going up in flames.

Easterly reviewed her anonymous-source conversation with the young reporter, York, during which she had laid out the details of how the attempted rescue of Darryl Childress had been botched. She hoped
to God she had done the right thing. The public had a right to know these things. That's how democracy worked. At the same time, she wondered what, if anything, she should tell David about it.

There were no personal secrets between her and David. But he never pressed her for details of her job. He left it to her discretion how much she chose to tell him. He, too, was in a trade requiring confidentiality.

But this leak to York crossed between her two worlds, the professional and the personal. If York turned out to be unreliable, their conversation could cost Easterly dearly.

Easterly did not regret what she had told York. But now she wished she had thought out her decision more carefully. In her outburst at Demarest yesterday she had all but threatened to go to the press. Mosely would remember that.

I have to be more careful. I'm about to become Chief of Detectives in one of the nation'
s
major cities.

On the other hand, she reasoned, she could simply deny being the source. York could have gotten her information elsewhere. Any number of disgusted cops could have talked to her. What could Mosely do, polygraph his new Chief of Detectives?

Easterly shoved her hands deeper into her pockets.
At least Nanci York is photogenic. If she does do a story about the FBI screwing up this case, it'll get noticed.

She walked back to the stairwell and returned to work.

The bespectacled Calvin Jones was showing off his intellect, testing Bell politically. Bell was prepared for it. Calvin's kind always pulled jive like this.
Motherfucker probably doesn't even need glasses.

The first minutes of the interview were devoted to Jones' monologue justifying his membership in the BLF—the slave mentality of the black race, the inherently oppressive nature of the white ruling class, the racist history of capitalism, the Black Panthers, the old Black Liberation Army, the passion of Brother Malcolm. During the tirade, Calvin Jones quoted Ellison, Baldwin, Richard Wright and Angela Davis. Predictably, he condemned Martin Luther King, Jr. as an Uncle Tom.

It was the kind of rhetoric Bell had been hearing since his own youth. But he let the punk run his mouth. Intelligent thugs need to flaunt
their self-perceived superiority, since they have nothing else going for them in their sorry lives. Somehow
sounding
intelligent made them feel morally superior.

They also need to rationalize their crimes, to absolve themselves of responsibility and thus fend off guilt. You can't be an effective criminal if you feel guilty. Class Struggle in America always provides a great rationalization. A common street crime becomes a political act, a statement against the establishment. So a common street criminal can now define himself as a political hero—at least
to himself.

But Bell wasn't here to win a political argument with a dirtbag. He let his thoughts run as he waited for Jones's lecture to wind down, so he could try some flattery, which often works well with suspects who admire themselves too much. “Tell me something, Calvin,” Bell said at last. “How come you kept your slave name?”

The question surprised Jones. “What are you talking about?”

“Well, Calvin Jones is a pretty common name for a man of your talents. You need something more
distinctive.
You know, for the history books. Like your cousin Malik.”

Jones considered that. “Well, it happens that I am looking for a better name—something from African history. Or maybe something American but more distinctive—like, say, ‘Eldridge.' Have you read
Soul on Ice?”

“Everyone has.”
It's working. This idiot thinks I respect his mind.

“So what's your opinion of Brother Eldridge? From a
po-lice
perspective?”

Bell shrugged, indicating indifference. “By the time he died, Eldridge Cleaver was a born-again Christian Republican. I'd select a different name.” Bell looked at his watch. “Look here, my passionate friend, time's getting short. Malik said you have some information about this dead child.”

“First you tell
me
something, Brother Bell. Why did you become a cop?”

Bell smiled. “I could give you the usual speech about criminals oppressing our race, or about stopping black children from falling into a life of crime. But do you want the real reason?”

“I asked, didn't I?”

“I enjoy shooting people.”

For a long moment, the young blowhard just stared at the huge detective. Then he laughed, missing the joke. “Oh, man, an honest pig.”

Pig. Am I in some kind of time warp here?
Bell leaned forward in his chair. “Listen to me, brother, all this bullshit aside: who killed the little boy?”