@margret, I am embarrased to say I did not think of setting it to Null. I actually had already tried readReports = "" and when the compiler complained I thought it could not be done. Simple, but good lesson.
@Erel, good idea to force service to run more often. When I start the Dalvik Debug Monitor and watch the VM Heap's Allocated memory, it does stay close to constant. I even stopped forcing garbage collection as I know that is not recommended. (Hey, I was desperate!) Thanks for the advice.