The Lost Witness by Robert Ellis Read Free Book Online Page A

record. The program on her computer mirrored the first section in the
murder book and amounted to a journal. Every step she made in the investigation—what she was thinking, planning, or had ruled out—would be included. And she wanted to update the file
and print it so that she could give the chief and his adjutant copies when they met.
    She had come up with the idea last night when she couldn’t get to sleep. The only way to beat the micromanagers on the sixth floor was to flood them with paper. Keep them occupied with
something tangible or nearly tangible so that she could work the case.
    She checked her watch and started typing. After hitting the locker room, she had walked Jane Doe’s fingerprints up to the Latent Print Section on the second floor. Someone must have
prepped the way because SID agreed to make the run immediately. Lena was well aware of the backlog and assumed that the call to bump her to the head of the line had come from the chief, or even
Klinger. Still, she would have the results within a day—not a week—and that’s all that really mattered.
    She wanted to push Jane Doe through the system as quickly as she could. Hit the speed bumps fast with the hope that just maybe something would shake out.
    She wasn’t counting on anything. She knew the odds of SID identifying the girl were handicapped. In order to get a hit, Jane Doe’s fingerprints would already have to be in the
system. One look at Jane Doe’s clear brown eyes told Lena that she was an innocent. The chances of her committing a crime or working a job that required fingerprinting was just short of
nowhere.
    But at least she finally had an accurate physical description. Lena typed in the victim’s height and weight from her notes jotted down at the autopsy. On the way over, she had made another
call to Benson at Missing Persons and given him an update. Madina’s office had already sent over the autopsy photos, including close-ups of the victim’s belly ring and heart-shaped
tattoo. Benson would make a run through the database and have results for her in an hour or two. But that only covered Los Angeles. The California Department of Justice would make a second, more
extensive run. And with any luck, Lena would have their results in a couple of days.
    She moved the cursor up to the menu bar and hit save. When she reached for her coffee, she looked up and saw someone walking toward her from the other side of the room. It was Denny Ramira, the
crime-beat reporter from The Times.
    “What are you doing here, Ramira?”
    “I saw you on the street,” he said.
    “You followed me?”
    “Yeah. I’ve never been here before. Nice place.”
    “Don’t make it a habit, okay?”
    He smiled, still looking around. “Senator West digs you, Lena. You made his day by taking that picture with him. Did you see the paper?”
    She shook her head. She had left the house early this morning and didn’t open the paper.
    “You guys are friends?” she asked.
    “His office is helping me research something on the side. Maybe a book; we’ll see. It’s not that far along yet.”
    “A book about what?”
    Ramira smiled again. “You might steal my idea.”
    “Yeah, Ramira. I’ve got a lot of time on my hands. I really want to steal your idea.”
    “Okay, so I’ll give you a hint. It’s about crime. White-collar crime. You know, the kind where nobody goes to jail because everybody’s rich enough to buy their way
out.”
    Lena followed the reporter’s gaze to her laptop. He was trying to get a look at the screen, but his angle was off. As he stepped to his left, she closed the file, shut down her computer,
and started packing up.
    “Sorry, but I’m not real sure I want to find my reports in one of your stories.”
    “Hey, I wasn’t looking. Besides, if you had anything real, you’d give me a call. We’ve still got a deal, right?”
    He gave her a look, and she shot it back at him. Ramira was thin and angular, about her height, and