The Snow Angel (28 page)

What the fuck am I still doing here? I just wanted a couple of drinks, and here I am, shifaced again.

Kane sat alone at the bar in Harvey's Place. Raunchy blues music again came from the little bandstand in the rear of the crowded saloon.

But he wasn't listening. He shifted his mind from his drunken self-recrimination and went back to reviewing the case. He reminded himself to call Vito Vitale first thing in the morning, get him the photos of the
two suspects. He reminded himself to re-visit Tiny Lawless and the West End Outlaws. Now that they had solid leads…

I shoulda gone to see those fuckers tonight. I should be there now. What kind of a sorry excuse for a cop am I?

He beckoned for another drink, then stared straight ahead at the mirror while Harvey reluctantly poured it.

“Hitting it kind of hard tonight, aren't you, Ralph?”

Kane focused his eyes. Harvey was looking at him with concern.

“What do you care?” Kane said.

“I have a license to protect. Are you driving?”

“I'm a cop, Harvey. You forget that or something?”

“How could I forget a little thing like that? But the laws, they've been changing. I don't want trouble with the LCC.”

“You won't have any fucking trouble with the fucking LCC.”

“Sorry, Ralph. This is your last one tonight.”

“You're cutting me
off?”

“Yeah, I'm cutting you off. I couldn't live with myself if you ran over a kid or something. Neither could you.”

Harvey turned and walked down the bar to serve someone else. Kane beckoned weakly at him, then went back to staring at the mirror. Once again, his was the face of a dead man.

Kane checked the date on his watch and laughed. It would be
perfect
if they caught the two shitheads tomorrow. Then, the day after, that's when he would finish the job—
Christmas Day! God Himself couldn't have arranged better timing!

Kane belted down his last drink. He tried to stand up but felt his knees grow wobbly. He beckoned to the barkeep. “You're right, pal. Get me some coffee.”

Once again Isaiah Bell sat in the den with the television volume down low. But now Vera sat with him, her thin body curled into his massive arm. They had tucked the kids into bed an hour before.

“Do you really want to watch the news?” Vera asked. “It's one horror story after the next. You need some rest.”

“I want to see what they're releasing about the case.”

An airline crash in the Atlantic knocked Darryl Childress out of the
lead news spot. But the boy's story still got a huge play. Mercifully, they had stopped running his commercials.

Because they didn't yet know about Blackie and White Man, the television stations were scrambling for new angles. One reporter interviewed a popular psychologist, who warned of the story's damaging effect on children. Many kids already had voiced fears for their own safety.

“What hypocrites!” Bell said. “First they sensationalize the crime. Then they create a story about how the sensational coverage scares kids.”

“Ikey told me tonight that he's frightened,” Vera said.

Bell felt like he had been slapped. “What did he say?”

‘I hope Daddy catches the bad men. I don't want them to hurt me.'

“Bastards!” Bell swore.

“I wish you wouldn't use that language.”

“Sorry.”

Vera took his hand. “Besides, which bastards are you talking about?” she asked gently, “the killers or the media?”

“All of them,” Bell said. “Plus the politicians. Let's not forget the politicians.”

“Baby, you know what resentments do to you.”

“It's pretty hard not to have resentments in my line of work.”

“Then maybe it is time to think about retirement. Find something less angry…”

“For God's sake, Vera, what am I going to do at my age?”

“What? You're going to be a cop forever? Ike, you're not a young man any more.” She touched his face. “I sure hope you get back to your meetings.”

Bell muted the television. “I went to one today, as a matter of fact,” he said. “In the prison.”

“The prison?” Vera exclaimed.

He stroked her hair. “Ralph Kane went with me.”

Vera sat up in disbelief. “You're kidding!”

“You heard me right. I took him to a meeting. With the convicts.”

“My God, Ike! How?”

“It's a long story. I kinda tricked him into it. He wasn't happy. But I think maybe he heard something.”

“Baby, that's—that's
wondeful!”
She shook her head in amazement. “I thought you hated him.”

”I do. But he asked for forgiveness.”

“Forgiveness?”

“For the Caldwell thing. He told me I had to forgive him. He said my religion required it. He pointed that out to me. The son of a bitch reminded me of my own beliefs.”

Vera laughed. “That man sounds like a clever cop.”

“He said it's been bothering him ever since it happened. The Caldwell thing.”

“This is wonderful,” Vera said. “This is
really
wonderful!”

“Vera, I can't stand the fool.”

“Ike, do you realize what a big thing this is?”

Bell shrugged. “Maybe he'll get it, maybe he won't.”

“Not for him. For you.” She leaned against him and nuzzled his neck. “You really
are
my hero.” She reached up and kissed him, passionately.

Then she closed the door of the den. She returned to her husband and changed the channel to MTV. They began to make love in the glow of the screen.

As Vera stroked his chest, Bell realized that he had gone an entire day without a cigarette. Maybe there was hope.

R
alph Kane sat alone in the dark, staring out at the sky. The moon was just past full now, and seemed to be resting atop the quiet two-flat across the street.

This was Kane's least favorite hour, the silent time before first light. It had been that way ever since Vietnam, where first light had always been a time of fear, a time when anything could happen, a time for the realization of horror.

Now Kane was sick to the center of his very being. The physical hangover, bad though it felt, was the least of it. He felt desolate, cowardly, guilty and weak.

Why is life so smooth, so easy, for some men? They have no trouble with it, none at all. What the fuck happened to me?

A hideous loneliness came over him. He needed human contact. He hated himself for that weakness. He stood up shakily to turn on the radio atop the refrigerator. Christ, there it was again, “The Little Drummer Boy.” He turned the radio off and sat back down.

Kane flashed back to yesterday, sitting with Bell in that diner. The memory embarrassed him, so he deliberately conjured up the girl in Saigon, then Darryl Childress, then his brother Billy, then his son Pete.

Pete. What would have happened to him if he'd had a decent father? God fucked him too.

Kane felt another wave of nausea come over him. He staggered into the bathroom.
No. God didn't do that to Pete. I did it.

Leaning over the toilet, he earnestly wished he were dead. But he was determined to stay alive long enough to avenge Darryl Childress—and, in the process, all the others.

Roberta Easterly's clock radio woke her with a lively country tune about fresh new love. She had slept soundly, despite last night's anxiety. It was the lovemaking that had done it. Great sex was the world's most effective sleeping pill.

She turned off the radio and climbed out of bed. She looked over gratefully at the sleeping David, then went downstairs to call Homicide.

She already knew the task force had not yet made an arrest; they were under orders to notify her. But she wanted to know how close they were.

Angus MacKenzie came on the line. “You're in pretty early, Gus,” Easterly said.

“I never went home.”

“I hope you slept on something more comfortable than my office couch.”

“I didn't sleep. I was out on the street with my people.”

“Should I remind you that you're a command officer?”

“I'm a policeman who happens to be a captain.”

Right answer.
“How close are we to these guys?”

“We're not,” the big Scot replied. “The Whitman house was dark all night. No one came or went. And no one on the street has seen a trace of these gents.”

“Or they're not telling us.”

“In a case like this, someone would tell us.”

“I think it's time we raid the house, then go public with White Man and Blackie.”

“That would be my suggestion,” MacKenzie agreed.

“Okay, then. Leave the stakeout intact and send someone for warrants. I'll see you at eight.”

After she hung up, Easterly felt her mood change. A wave of depression came over her.
Is this what Byron Slaughter lives with? No one should feel this way, not all the time.

She went for the paper and noted that the snow had stopped again. Once more the sky had cleared, but the air was considerably colder than yesterday.
Damn this weather. Why can't it be consistent?

Easterly fixed a quick breakfast and checked the front page. She vowed that the next time she leaked a story she'd first investigate the political views of the editors. The
Daily Times
had a strong anti-police orientation, so everyone knew that was not the place to take sensitive revelations. And now it was obvious that even photogenic television reporters operated under the same constraints.

This morning's paper led with the plane crash, naturally, along with sidebars about the history of the aircraft, horrified relatives, and the chilling last words from the cockpit. How much of the coverage was necessary, and how much pandered to the voyeurism of the public?
Easterly had been to enough murder scenes to know the insatiable appetite of bystanders for gory details. To most people, violent death was just a big movie—until the victim was one of
their
loved ones.

Easterly hated to think like this. She had been doing it more and more lately. It was an occupational hazard, she reasoned, the cause of police depression. This work contaminated almost everyone in it. That was why she desperately needed David, a sense of humor and some heroes in her life.

Below the front-page fold was a piece about the fears of the city's children in the wake of Darryl's murder. Normally, the story pointed out, school psychologists would be out in droves counseling the kids. But this was Christmas vacation, so children were home where they could see and hear about the murder, over and over, in endless gruesome detail.

Of course, the newspaper itself had seen fit to send a reporter to the private school Darryl attended. So, there in print were the predictable quotes from his teachers, many of whom were openly weeping, as they described Darryl in the most glowing terms. In another sidebar, a reporter managed to track down some of Darryl's little classmates—no doubt with the help of the school. And, of course, all of the kids said they were terrified for their own safety.