Free Echoes of My Soul by Robert K. Tanenbaum Page A

desperate to shut that door—in fact, he needed to shut that door in order to survive. Try as he might, Mel was incapable of understanding what Max Wylie was going through; what it might be like to lose a daughter at the hands of a homicidal psychopath, and what it also might be like to have the whole city watch you crumble. Yet Mel tried. He thought of his wife, Betty, and of his young daughter, Elizabeth, and of the unborn child his wife was carrying. He reached deep, attempting to envision some madman laying a hand on them. A jolt rushed through him.
    â€œThe second point I’d like to clear up, Mr. Glass, if you’re still listening—”
    â€œOh, I’m listening, Mr. Wylie, believe me. . . .”
    â€œGood. Because when Mr. Whitmore was being questioned in the early-morning hours on Saturday, I was shown the photograph of the two girls in the car . . .”
    â€œYes, go on—” Mel grabbed his notepad and, cradling the receiver between his chin and ear, began frantically scribbling down notes.
    â€œ. . . and I told the police that the girl in the photo was not my daughter.”
    Mel froze, his mouth agape and eyes wide in disbelief. He swallowed, feeling a dry lump in his throat.
    â€œAre you listening to me?”
    Mr. Wylie’s voice sounded hollow traveling through the phone wires. Mel flinched.
    â€œDid you say that you told the police the girl in the photo was not your daughter?”
    â€œYes, you heard me right. I know my own daughter, and that sure as hell wasn’t her.”
    Â 
    The moment Mel Glass hung up the phone with Max Wylie, he dialed Detective Justy, who answered on the first ring.
    â€œTalk to me.”
    â€œI just spoke to Max Wylie. Can you arrange for me to get Whitmore’s statement to the Brooklyn detectives, his Q and A to Hosty, all the DD5s and police reports . . . the whole case file, including the autopsy protocols?”
    Without a pause Detective Justy answered. “It’s done. You’ll have it all tomorrow,” he promised.
    Mel hung up the phone, bolted out of his chair and headed down the hall toward the elevator banks. He had a number of cases hanging over his head that day, but he found himself suddenly fixated on one case only—that of Janice Wylie and Emily Hoffert. As he waited for the elevator that led upstairs to the trial courtrooms, he glanced down at his hands, noticing they were shaking. The issue of the blue blanket was one thing, and Max Wylie confirmed that he did indeed cover his daughter upon entering the bedroom. But Mel was floored by Max Wylie’s second bit of information. The simple notion that Max Wylie confidently stated that the photograph Detective Edward Bulger found on George Whitmore’s person—the photograph of two girls sitting in the open Pontiac convertible, which had To George From Louise on the back—the very photograph that the Brooklyn cops had deemed was of Janice Wylie, and being in the possession of Whitmore led to his arrest, was not a photograph of his daughter—why, it was simply incomprehensible. Here was a case of Murphy’s Law: when things went wrong, they literally turned nightmarish.
    â€œBut, Mr. Wylie,” Mel had remarked on the phone, shaking his head in disbelief, “are you sure?”
    â€œOne hundred percent, Counselor.”

CHAPTER 7
    M el Glass remained at work late, poring over all of the case file police reports given to him by Detective Justy. Although it was a Herculean task to digest the voluminous nature of these reports in a case of this magnitude and duration, Mel set out to read every police report, DD5s (supplemental detective investigative reports), and police laboratory reports, including the autopsy protocol of the deceased girls. To get a sense of what this entailed, an average case at that time would have a single UF61 (complaint report) and one or two DD5s. In contrast, the Wylie-Hoffert case had over one