City of Echoes by Robert Ellis Read Free Book Online Page A

murder: Novakoff, who had just turned eighteen, was last seen walking out of the Tap Room, a popular bar on Ventura Boulevard in Sherman Oaks. She had gone missing for a week before her body was found.
    That’s all Matt remembered—a single press conference, a single night on the news. He turned to check on Cabrera, caught him staring at Lane as if the North Hollywood detective needed to do a psycho stint with the department shrinks in Chinatown, then turned back.
    “Where’s this going, Frankie?” Matt said in an edgy voice.
    Lane lit another smoke without answering the question, then knelt down and unzipped his backpack. After a quick peek through the trees, he reached into the pack and dug out two three-ring binders. Two murder books.
    “You guys remember Millie Brown?” he said. “It was a big case. Lots of media attention. She was raped and murdered eighteen months ago. Your supervisor, Bob Grace, was the lead investigator before his promotion.”
    Cabrera stepped forward, losing his patience. “Who doesn’t remember? They got the guy. Ron Harris. He was the girl’s teacher. They had him solid. Rock solid. Enough of the guy’s DNA to repopulate the planet. Harris couldn’t face the music and did himself in after opening statements. What’s this gotta do with the price of coffee? Nothing, because it’s bullshit. I’m sorry you lost your partner, man. But we’ve got work to do. Not sit here and waste time doing group therapy.”
    Matt watched Cabrera step away and attempt to pull himself together. Then he turned back to Lane and found him still kneeling on the ground, still fidgeting and checking his back. He knew that people experienced grief in different ways. Because Lane had been Hughes’s partner, because Matt knew Lane himself, he felt like he owed him something. He owed him, but not right now. Not today with Cabrera around and their murder case circling the drain.
    “Denny’s right, Frankie. We’re looking for the bandit. We don’t have time for this. We need to get out of here.”
    Lane shrugged and took a hit on his smoke, as if he hadn’t heard what either one of them just said. He stood up and started leafing through one of the murder books. Matt could see Millie Brown’s name printed on the spine.
    “Brown was murdered eighteen months ago,” Lane said. “It took a year to bring Ron Harris to trial. Your partner’s right. Harris couldn’t take it and killed himself after the first day. In all that time the department never released a single detail about how Millie Brown was murdered or the condition her body was in when they found her. Because Harris hung himself, nothing was made public in court. These are photographs from the girl’s crime scene. Take a look.”
    Lane found the page he was looking for and passed the binder over to Matt.
    “How’d you get this, Frankie?”
    “Grace gave it to me and Hughes ten days ago. Now take a look.”
    “Why would Grace give you guys his murder book?”
    Lane’s eyes shifted. “Take a look.”
    Matt finally gave in, lifting the murder book closer. There were four photographs set in a plastic sleeve. Four photographs of a nude Millie Brown stretched out on her stomach on the ground. Matt couldn’t be certain from just four photos, but the wounds appeared to be confined to the girl’s face. Harris had posed her body to maximize the shock for whoever found her. Her arms and legs were spread open. Her wrists and ankles had been tied to stakes driven into the ground. Although it was difficult to see with all the blood, it looked like what was left of the girl’s face was resting on a pane of mirrored glass about the size of a sheet of copy paper.
    As Matt examined the images, memories began to surface about the girl’s murder and the horrific cloud it had cast over the city. The story had been impossible to escape, particularly in the six weeks leading up to the trial. Millie Brown had been a senior in high school and the daughter of