Echoes of My Soul Read Online Free PDF Page A

blew two smoke rings.
    â€œThe kid’s a liar,” Ayala stated flatly.
    â€œI don’t know, Detective. I tell you, this kid wasn’t the type. He wasn’t all there, if you know what I mean, but sincere as all hell.”
    DiPrima passed the file back to Ayala. He turned the key in the ignition and the motor roared. He glanced at Micelli in the rearview mirror. He couldn’t get over what a rookie Micelli was—married to the ideals of justice, the swift and honest catching of a killer and closing a case. DiPrima continued to rev the engine, remembering when he was like that, decades ago. If only the system actually did work, he often thought. Things now . . . Well . . . they were different. Working for the Brooklyn North Homicide Squad had taken its toll. The endless crime, the lack of support from city taxpayers, the poverty and swindling, and the brutality—there was no end in sight. The Minnie Edmonds case, which he’d been poring over, was getting to him. He wanted answers. He’d seen that woman all cut up and left for dead. And maybe she was just another cold case; but just once, he wanted to know who did it. Just once, he wanted that somebody to pay for what he did. And sometimes, on a day like the one he was having, he just wanted out of Brooklyn altogether. If he couldn’t catch this killer, if he couldn’t give the Edmonds family a little bit of closure, then what was the point of it all?
    â€œYou okay there, partner?” Ayala called, his scruffy face twisting toward DiPrima.
    â€œI’m just thinking, that’s all.”
    DiPrima switched the car into gear and peeled out of the parking lot.
    â€œWhere we headed?”
    â€œBack to the station house. There might be something to this kid.”
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    Shellie Whitmore, George’s older brother, cradled George around his neck and shoulders with his right arm as they walked to the Schoenberg Salt Company. George, who was generally soft-spoken, presented his story proudly, giving an animated account of how he told the officer that the suspect said, “Help me, help me. The law is after me,” and how he illustrated for the officer where the suspect had escaped. Shellie listened intently to George, every so often rolling his eyes as if to indicate disbelief. Sensing George was winding down, Shellie stopped, turned to his brother and gripped his shoulder with his hand.
    â€œNow you listen to me. You shouldn’t be talking to no po-lice. And what you thinking, tellin’ his white ass whose runnin’ from johnny law?”
    George hung his head, clearly frustrated. Shellie pushed George away with his hand and then poked him, hard, in the chest.
    â€œAnd what you go on and tell that cop that you got yourself a job at Schoenberg’s? You ain’t got no job there.”
    George stumbled backward and struggled to regain his footing. His brother began walking, at a brisk pace, toward the entrance of the factory. And although George could barely see him in the near distance, as without glasses George could barely see anything, he still called out defiantly, “ Today I’ll have a job at the factory, Shellie. I will today, and that’s the truth.”
    George Whitmore Jr. did not, in fact, gain employment at the salt factory on that day. Having forgotten to bring his Social Security card, a prerequisite for work at the company, George was denied employment. To redeem himself, he visited his girlfriend, Beverly Payne. Greeting her at the door, he concocted a dramatic story of how he went down to the station house and looked through photos of mug shots, trying to identify the assailant. George spent the majority of the afternoon at Beverly’s, leaving late, long after the sun drifted behind the buildings and darkness fell, thick and heavy, over Brooklyn.

CHAPTER 3
    Two days later
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    B efore he was picked up by Detective Louie Ayala and Officer Tommy Micelli, George Whitmore