The Snow Angel Read Online Free Page B

Kane each picked up a stack of photos of the missing boy. Then they left the gym by separate doors.
    When they were gone, Jablonski turned to Easterly. “Ain’t love grand?”
    â€œWhat’s that all about, Stan? I’ve never heard the details.”
    â€œIt happened before you came on the department, when Kane was a rookie and Bell was three or four years on the job. They both worked Patrol in the Tenth Precinct. Kane was partnered with a redneck named Lucas, who was a known racist. Lucas blew away a black kid in an alley one night—his name was Colson or Caldwell, something like that. He was fourteen or fifteen years old. The kid supposedly pulled a gun, but word went around that Lucas planted it on the corpse.”
    â€œAnd that Kane covered for him. Yeah, I vaguely remember hearing about it.”
    â€œIt was a big deal for awhile. Lucas was cleared by a Board of Review, primarily thanks to Kane. So there was a lot of bitterness on the part of the black officers. Kane was a kid, but he took a lot of heat.”
    â€œWas Bell involved?”
    â€œNot in the shooting. But he was heavily involved with the Afro-American Police Officers Association, as they called it back then. He was one of their organizers. He was pretty militant. That was the term they used in those days, militant. This AAPOA, they conducted their own investigation, came up with some stuff about Lucas’ background that made him out to be a bigot, which of course he was. Bell and the other AAPOA officers tried to pressure the D.A. to take it to a grand jury, but he refused.”
    â€œI remember reading about that, too, all the tension on the street.”
    â€œNot just on the street, boss. A lot of the white coppers hated Bell, same as a lot of the black coppers hated Kane.” Jablonski paused, remembering. “It was a different department back then, Inspector. Women in this building didn’t have it easy, either.”
    â€Oh, how I remember.” Easterly smiled sadly. “You don’t need to remind me.”
    â€œEverything’s changed now. Bell saved a white copper’s ass one night, and that gave the more reasonable white guys a more reasonable point of view. Most of the old-time rednecks are retired now, or dead, and Bell’s got a great street rep. So that shit’s all ancient history around here.”
    â€œExcept for Ralph Kane.”
    Jablonski just shrugged. “Except for Ralph Kane.”
1245 hours
    R oberta Easterly washed her face in the women’s room on the fifth floor of the ancient police station, examining her graying hair. She was pleased that she still had some of her good looks. But one thing was sure: her days posing as a call girl were long past.
    She dried her hands, then walked down the corridor to her office, passing photographs of the city’s police chiefs, portraits dating all the way back to the Civil War. All, of course, were men. She entered her office, closed the door, sat down at her desk and put her head in her hands. She needed to slow down and think.
    Easterly began mentally cataloguing each of the righteous kidnapping cases during the seven years she had been in this job. She couldn’t recall any with this M.O.
    A memory like hers was a mixed blessing. It certainly made the job easier—at least it did back in the old days, before computers. But it didn’t help her insomnia on those lonely nights when her husband slept peacefully next to her.
    She thought about those female officers she knew who had married other cops. In some ways it would have been easier to have a police spouse, someone who had personally experienced the “Horror Show,” her private name for the parade of atrocious memories.
    On the other hand, marriage to a good-natured adoption lawyer like David Goldman helped in other ways. David provided a different perspective, reminding her regularly that life also included happy things.
    She smiled as she