The Snow Angel (26 page)

She was startled to find a television crew waiting in Mosely's outer office. The chief's secretary took her aside and cautioned her that Nanci York was inside with Mosely and the FBI's Francis Demarest. Easterly felt her heart start to pound. She pulled herself erect and walked in.

Mosely and Demarest rose smiling when they saw her. She knew it was a show for York's benefit. “You wanted me, Chief?” Easterly said. She avoided looking directly at York. With her peripheral vision, she could see that the young reporter was equally nervous.

“Inspector, I believe you know Miss York here,” Mosely said.

Easterly extended her hand. “I've seen you on the tube. You're taking the town by storm.”

York's palms were clammy but her smile was perfect. “It's good to see you again,” the kid said. “Anything new on the investigation?”

“Not that we can talk about.” She noticed that Demarest's smile had vanished now that York's back was turned.

“Sit down, Inspector,” Mosely said. “Miss York is doing a piece about our response to the ransom demand. Some disgruntled officer—she won't reveal her source—has alleged that the situation was botched.”

“Botched?” Easterly prayed that her own palms were dry.

“Yes,” Demarest said pointedly, “something about how we usurped the lead in the case, and that the failure of the operation was thus somehow our fault.” His eyes were riveted on Easterly's face, studying her reaction.

“But the Bureau always takes the lead in a kidnap,” Easterly said with pointed irony. She turned to York, sending a cautionary message with her eyes. “We all
did
work together…”

“That's what we tried to explain to Miss York,” Mosely said. “Since you command Major Crimes, we were sure you wouldn't mind going on camera to refute whatever this unnamed source told her.”

Easterly was appalled by this Orwellian move. But she had to keep
her composure. “What do you want me to say?”

“Just answer her questions, truthfully,” Demarest said. “Tell the public how the arrest went bad despite our best
collective
efforts, that it was something that could not have been prevented, that it was an act of God—whatever comes to mind.”

An act of
God
! What a cynical prick!
“Sir, I don't know if I'm the appropriate person…”

“Inspector, you are the responsible command officer,” Mosely said. “Mr. Demarest and I, we're simply administrators.” He smiled again at York.

“Well, Inspector?” Demarest said. “Shall we bring the cameras in?”

“This is taking me by surprise,” Easterly said weakly. “Can I have a few minutes to review the facts?”

“Miss York is on a deadline,” Demarest said. He feigned sadness, another show for York. “The family is quite upset, as you can imagine. We'd like them to get it from the horse's mouth—how local and federal law enforcement combined resources in a professional manner to try and effect the safe recovery of their child. The tragic fact that it went bad was not for a lack of effort on our collective part.”

“We've explained all of that to Miss York,” Mosely said. “But it will sound self-serving and defensive if Mr. Demarest and I say it on camera.”

“Like most reporters,” Demarest said, “she's not familiar with police techniques. So we want her to get it from the command officer in the trenches. That's you.”

Easterly felt perspiration on her face. She prayed it didn't show.
My God, I would never pass a polygraph!

She turned to York and spoke slowly. “So what you want from me is a response to what your confidential source told you, is that correct?”

Confused, York looked back and forth between Mosely and Demarest. “If she does that—if she contradicts what the source told me—then I'll have to kill the story.”

“Well, we wouldn't object to that at all,” said Mosely. “We didn't think it
was
a story.” He smiled at Easterly. “What about you, Inspector? Do you see a story here?”

Easterly thought for a long moment. Then she said, “I'm sorry to disappoint you, Miss York, but your source is mistaken. This thing went by the book.”

York shrugged. “Then I guess the piece is dead.”

Mosely and Demarest smiled covertly at each other, relieved. Disgusted with them, and herself, Easterly checked her watch. “Now, if you all will excuse me, I have work to do.”

“Just one moment,” Mosely said. He turned back to York. “For the moment, this is off the record. You
will
be getting a real story from us, in just a matter of days, concerning Inspector Easterly. She's about to become Chief of Detectives, the highest-ranking woman in the history of this department.”

York didn't know how to react. “Is this a leak?”

“I guess you could call it that,” Mosely said, turning on the charm. “I'll give you a one-day jump before we make the official announcement. Provided you lay it on ‘informed sources', of course.” He grinned, pleased with himself. “We'll call it a consolation prize for what happened here today.”

“Congratulations,” York said, trying to force enthusiasm. She extended her hand.

“Let's wait until it's official,” Easterly said. She turned and walked out.

T
he sun was starting to set. The wind shifted, bringing dark clouds in from the north, fast, causing the temperature to plummet once again.

Kane and Bell pulled into a truck stop bedecked with Christmas lights on their own side of the state line. A blast of frigid wind greeted them as they emerged from the Pontiac.

“Christ, I hate this weather,” said Kane.

“I hate these short days,” Bell said.

“Everyone's days are short.”

“What?”

“Never mind. It was a stupid comment.”

They crossed the parking lot between two tractor-trailer rigs. Near the door of the diner was another newspaper box. The two detectives paused momentarily, gazing once more at their victim's innocent smile from the front page. Then they walked inside. Most of the other customers were
interstate truckers. On a jukebox Bing Crosby sang “Jingle Bells.”

“We don't have to sit together,” Kane offered.

“Don't be ridiculous,” Bell said.

The only available booth was beneath a festive Christmas wreath. The paper napkins were decorated with little figures of Santa Claus. The two cops sat down and studied the menu. A middle-aged waitress came over, wearing mistletoe on her blouse. Kane ordered a cheeseburger, Bell a salmon patty.

When she was gone, Kane reached into his coat pocket and took out the mug shots of Frederick Whitman and Thomas Blackstone. He studied them intently, memorizing the faces, picturing them with beards, eyeglasses and other disguises. “I'd sure like to be the one who takes down these two fucks,” he said.

“Get in line behind me.” Bell watched Kane continue to examine the pictures, avoiding eye contact. “I'm trying to remember when you were in Vietnam.”

“Seventy-two and again in seventy-five,” Kane said. “Right there at the end.”

“I was there in sixty-seven and sixty-eight.” Bell looked off into the distance, remembering. “Tet.”

“It was a different war.”

“Wars are all the same when they're shooting at you.”

“Special Forces, wasn't it?”

“Yeah. Covert operations.”

“With the spooks.”

Bell pondered that ambiguous word. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “With the spooks.”

They sat in silence again, each lost in his own thoughts. The jukebox switched to “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” The waitress brought the food. “Where you boys headed?”

“Nowhere,” Kane muttered.

The waitress looked at him curiously, recognizing a profoundly unhappy man.

“He means we're not truckers,” Bell explained.

The waitress smiled, the genuine smile of a kindly soul. “Well, Merry Christmas, gentlemen—two days early. God bless you.”

“Thank you,” Bell smiled. “The same to you.”

Bell and Kane started to eat. “Tell me something, Bell,” Kane said. “You really believe all this God stuff?”

”Most of the time.”

“Most of the time?”

“Sometimes I have my doubts,” Bell said. “I wouldn't be human if I didn't.”

“Where was God for Darryl Childress?”

“I don't know. When I meet Him I'll ask Him.”

“Was God in Vietnam?”

“Where are you going with this, Kane?”

Kane buttered his roll. “I stopped in a church yesterday. It was a church I went to as a kid, a Catholic church. St. Michael's. We called it St. Mike's. I stopped in just to see what it was like now.”

“Yeah?”

“While I was in there, I said a prayer for the kid. Then, six hours later, they find him with a bullet in his head, dumped in an alley like a piece of trash.”

Bell sat in silence, equally tormented by that image. “I don't know how to answer that,” he said at last.

Kane looked at him intently. “But you're a believer.”

Bell sipped his coffee. “Doesn't mean I don't wrestle with the same questions.”

“So how do you make sense of these things?”

“Sometimes I can't.” Bell stopped eating and looked into Kane's eyes. He saw the pain there. He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Here's what I do know. I'm a drunk. Two years ago I was at rock bottom, sitting on the edge of my bed with my pistol in my hand. I was trying to get up the courage to blow my brains out.”

Kane took a long swallow from his water glass, trying to hide his surprise. Bell noticed. “I had everything,” he continued softly. “I had my health, a good job, merit citations, a decent pension ahead of me. Most of all I had a wonderful family who loved me.”

“Then why would you want to cap yourself?”

“It's where my disease took me. My alcoholism. I got to where I couldn't see any point in living any more.”

“Disease? You think it's a fucking
disease?”

“Ask a doctor. Ask the AMA.”

“Those guys back there in the prison, they have a
disease?”

“Just like me. It's a soul-sickness, Kane, a spiritual cancer. No one asks to catch it. It's something that happens to us.”

Kane also lowered his voice. “So how come you didn't pull the
trigger?”

“I don't know. At the time I thought I was a coward. Now I believe it was divine intervention. For just a second, something opened my eyes. I could see what my death would do to the people who loved me.”

“Did you really think you were a coward?”

“Everyone's a coward sometimes.”

Kane looked up at the wreath, avoiding Bell's eyes. The jukebox switched to “Angels We Have Heard on High.” “That's what happened to me, you know, that night in the alley,” he said at last. “I was scared.
That's
why I didn't do the right thing—I was a
coward.”

“That's what I figured.”

Then Kane did look at Bell, imploringly. “Then you have to forgive me, right?”

Bell stared at Kane.
“What?”

“Forgiveness. You're a Christian. Doesn't your faith require you to forgive me?” Bell had no ready response. “Well?” Kane asked.

“It's not my place to forgive,” Bell said finally. “It's God's place.”

“But
you're
the one who hates me.”

Bell just sat there, confused.
He's right. The son of a bitch has got me there.
“Look, man,” Kane persisted. “Frank Lucas is dead. James Caldwell is dead. I'm the only one left. Can we bury this thing? You and I are getting old.”

“Are you sorry?” Bell asked.

“Sorry? Sorry it happened? Of course I'm sorry it happened. There hasn't been a single fucking day I haven't thought about it.” He lowered his eyes. “Along with lots of other things.”

Bell thought for a long moment. Then he took a deep breath. “Then, yes, I have to forgive you,” he said softly He could barely believe the words coming from his own mouth.

Without warning, Kane's eyes flooded with tears. He stood up hurriedly. “I have to go to the john.”

As Bell averted his own eyes, Kane turned and headed for the washroom at the rear of the diner. He staggered like a drunk, barely able to see.

Once inside, Kane leaned against the washbasin. He fought for breath, trying to focus through the tears.
What in the name of
God
is happening to me?

Then he became aware that “The Little Drummer Boy” was coming
from the jukebox. Kane stood there listening, once again studying his face in the mirror. The tears surprised the hell out of him. A face overflowing with tears cannot be that of a corpse.

After what seemed to take a very long time, the song finally ended. Kane washed his face, and walked slowly back to Isaiah Bell. “Let's go,” he said. “We have some killers to catch.”

E
asterly sat behind her desk, brooding about the afternoon's events. Mosely and Demarest had banished her excitement over the progress of the Childress investigation.

Her office was nearly dark. Night was again falling over the city. But she had only one small lamp burning, next to her sofa. The dim light matched her mood.

Easterly was pondering a phone conversation she'd just completed, with Nanci York. The kid had just lost her professional virginity.

“I didn't have any choice about going to Mosely,” the distraught York explained. “I told my editor what I had. He asked who my source was. I told him it was confidential. But I did use the pronoun ‘he.'

“He was pissed off by that. He demanded to know the race of my source. I asked what difference it made. He insisted, so I told him the source was white.”