The Black Echo

Praise for Michael Connelly ‘Connelly is one of the great crime writers, a novelist who creates a fictional world so succinctly, and inhabits it so purposefully, that you are convinced it must be real. His mastery of place and character, his ease with dialogue, his control of plot gives his books a subtlety that is irresistible’ Daily Mail ‘A clever plot, full of twists, to make a first-rate legal thriller’ Sunday Telegraph ‘Connelly’s fifth novel to feature roguish defence lawyer Mickey Haller is even better than last year’s The Black Box’ Mail on Sunday ‘Expect surprises and plenty of dark moments in this punchy legal drama from an ever-reliable writer’ Financial Times ‘Connelly is superb at building suspense’ Wall Street Journal ‘In the crime fiction stakes Connelly is comfortably in the upper bracket’ Daily Express ‘A clever thriller with a brilliant double twist but also a heart-felt examination of the difference between natural justice and the law’ Evening Standard ‘Connelly masterfully manages to marry an absorbing court-room drama with a tense and exciting thriller of detection’ The Times ‘While the themes of Connelly’s LA crime novels are familiar (power, envy, corruption), his plotting is anything but’ Esquire ‘A story that’s as old as the genre itself but Connelly’s skill is such that it all feels entirely fresh and vibrant, but heartbreakingly poignant too’ Irish Sunday Independent Dedication This is for W. Michael Connelly and Mary McEvoy Connelly Contents Praise for Michael Connelly Dedication Title Page Acknowledgments Part I: Sunday, May 20 Part II: Monday, May 21 Part III: Tuesday, May 22 Part IV: Wednesday, May 23 Part V: Thursday, May 24 Part VI: Friday, May 25 Part VII: Saturday, May 26 Part VIII: Sunday, May 27 Part IX: Sunday, May 20 Epilogue The origins of The Black Echo About the Author By Michael Connelly Copyright Acknowledgments I would like to thank the following people for their help and support: Many thanks to my agent, Philip Spitzer, and to my editor, Patricia Mulcahy, for all their hard work, enthusiasm and belief in this book. Also, thanks to the many police officers who over the years have given me an insight into their jobs and lives. I also want to acknowledge Tom Mangold and John Pennycate, whose book The Tunnels of Cu Chi tells the real story of the tunnel rats of the Vietnam War. Last, I would like to thank my family and friends for their encouragement and unqualified support. And, most of all, I am indebted to my wife, Linda, whose belief and inspiration never waned. PART I Sunday, May 20 The boy couldn’t see in the dark, but he didn’t need to. Experience and long practice told him it was good. Nice and even. Smooth strokes, moving his whole arm while gently rolling his wrist. Keep the marble moving. No runs. Beautiful. He heard the hiss of the escaping air and could sense the roll of the marble. They were sensations that were comforting to him. The smell reminded him of the sock in his pocket and he thought about getting high. Maybe after, he decided. He didn’t want to stop now, not until he had finished the tag with one uninterrupted stroke. But then he stopped – when the sound of an engine was heard above the hiss of the spray can. He looked around but saw no light save for the moon’s silvery white reflection on the reservoir and the dim bulb above the door of the pump house, which was midway across the dam. But the sound didn’t lie. There was an engine approaching. Sounded like a truck to the boy. And now he thought he could hear the crunching of tires on the gravel access road that skirted the reservoir. Coming closer. Almost three in the morning and someone was coming. Why? The boy stood up and threw the aerosol can over the fence toward the water. He heard it clunk down in the brush, short of the mark. He pulled the sock from his pocket and decided just