WHEN MEL AND I LEFT BELLTOWN TERRACE EARLIER THAT morning, I don’t think either one of us anticipated our being involved in a takedown operation, but here we were—sort of—and it turned out to be one of the most elegant arrest situations any of the three of us had ever seen. Philip Rhodes walked up to the table, leaned over, and whispered something in Suzanne’s ear. She nodded. As soon as that hand played out, she collected her chips, stood up, and followed him from the room. Philip had seen to it that the whole thing happened without any disturbance to Suzanne’s fellow gamblers. When she went to collect her Ruger from the storage locker, I had no doubt that Chief Rhodes would be waiting.
We decided that it was best for us to stay where we were, remaining tucked away and out of sight until Suzanne had been removed from the premises. Lucinda used the wait time to call into her department and detail the situation to her superiors, ultimately speaking to the sheriff himself.
“He seems to want more probable cause before we go for a warrant,” Lucinda said when the conversation ended. “He wants me to call him back after the interview. Let’s hope she doesn’t decide to lawyer up on us.”
Philip reentered the room. “Okay, folks,” he said. “It’s a done deal. Ms. Nishikawa is on her way to the tribal police headquarters in the back of Alton’s car. Do you know how to get there?”
“I do,” Lucinda said. “I’ve been there before. Mel and Beau can follow me.”
We caravanned there, this time with Lucinda in the lead. Once at headquarters we waited in the public lobby while Suzanne’s booking process played out.
“Be sure to ask her who Danielle Nishikawa is,” I told Lucinda. “I still want to know who notarized Agnes Mayfield’s signatures on those quitclaim deeds.”
“Maybe I’ll start there,” Lucinda said after a moment. “If I come at her from way out in left field, she’s less likely to lawyer up.”
When Chief Rhodes escorted Lucinda into the interview room, Mel and I were on the far side of the glass, observing from outside rather than participating directly. Suzanne had been required to change into an orange jumpsuit. Sitting there alone and waiting for someone to show up, she looked angry, impatient, and out of sorts.
“I’m Detective Lucinda Caldwell, a homicide detective with the Kittitas County Sheriff’s Department.”
Maintaining her poker face, Suzanne made absolutely no response to Lucinda’s self-introduction. As far as I was concerned, that was telling. I believe I might have mentioned earlier that killers seldom ask many questions. Why should they? They already know.
“Who’s Danielle Nishikawa?” Lucinda asked.
That unexpected question, however, did provoke a reaction. Suzanne seemed puzzled. “She’s my mother. Why?”
“Would it be possible for me to speak to her?”
“I’m afraid not,” Suzanne said. “She developed dementia issues. Last summer I had to put her into a nursing home in Lake City. Unfortunately, she came down with a serious case of the flu and died last October.”
“When in October?”
“The tenth,” Suzanne replied, “As she had previously requested, my mother was cremated. Her memorial service was held the following Saturday.”
“Had she been ill long?” Lucinda asked.
“She’d been going downhill for several years, but last spring it started getting much worse. That’s when I finally had to break down and place her in a home.”
Suzanne’s answer might not have bolstered Lucinda’s case, but it certainly made my day. All along I’d wondered about the connection between Suzanne Nishikawa and Lenora Harrison, and now I had a possible answer. If Danielle’s symptoms had been serious enough for her to be admitted to a nursing-care facility sometime over the summer, how could she possibly still have been notarizing signatures early in August? Was it possible that two frail old women, Danielle Nishikawa and Agnes Mayfield, had been confined to the same facility by a pair of double-dealing daughters and had died within weeks of each other? That struck me as too much of a coincidence. As for Lake City? It’s a neighborhood located in the far northeast quadrant of Seattle—about as far from West Seattle as you can get. In terms of avoiding visits from inconvenient friends or relations, maybe that was the whole point.
“So what can you tell me about Petey Mayfield?” Lucinda was asking, suddenly veering the interview away from Danielle and taking it in a very different direction.
“Who?” Suzanne asked.
“Peter Mayfield was his name, but he went by Petey. He was murdered in October of last year. His remains were located along the bank of the Yakima River and have only just now been identified. I was wondering what, if anything, you might be able to tell me about that.”
“I believe I want to speak to an attorney.”
Without batting an eyelash, Lucinda smiled back at her. “I’m sure you do,” she said, rising to her feet, “and believe me, you’re going to need one.”
“How’d I do?” Lucinda asked when she joined Mel and me in the observation room.
“Take a look,” I said.
Back inside the interview room, Suzanne was on her feet and pacing back and forth. She hadn’t been especially worried earlier, but she was now.
“Chief Rhodes told me he’s going to leave her there for a while and let her stew in her own juices. I’m assuming she’ll be hiring a private attorney rather than casting her lot with a public defender.”
“You can count on it,” I said, looking back and forth between Mel and Lucinda. “How much do you want to bet that neither Agnes Mayfield nor Danielle Nishikawa died of natural causes?”
“I’d put the odds at ninety percent,” Mel said.
Lucinda nodded. “Me, too,” she said. “How many memory-care facilities are there in Lake City?”
Mel was already doing a Google search. “One only,” she said. “It’s called Lake City Memory Manor.”
By then I had my phone in hand and was dialing Alan Dale’s number. “Hey,” I said, “can you do me a favor?”
“Sure, what do you need?”
“I left a file folder on the side table in the family room. There are several papers inside, and one of them is a copy of Agnes Mayfield’s death certificate. Could you get it for me?”
“Sure,” he said. “Hang on.”
As he made his way from one room to the next, I could hear Athena crying in the background. Next I heard the sound of shuffling papers. “Okay,” he said. “Here it is. What do you need?”
“Look at the bottom where the signature is.”
“The one that says attending physician?”
“Right.”
“The signature is hard to read. It looks like Dr. something-or-other Blaine.”
“Does it say where he’s from?”
“Sure, he printed that so it’s more readable,” Alan replied. “It’s a place called Lake City Memory Manor.”
It was your basic eureka moment. I felt chills on my legs. “Thanks, Alan. You’ve been a great help.”
I ended the call and turned to Mel and Lucinda, who were watching me expectantly. “Well?” Mel asked.
“I believe we may have just uncovered a possible double homicide. Petey Mayfield might not have died in Seattle, but his grandmother did, and so did Danielle Nishikawa, both of them at Lake City Memory Manor.”
“And since they were both under a doctor’s care when they died,” Lucinda said, “no autopsies were required.”
“Right.”
“So somebody could have overdosed them on sleep meds or any number of other things, and no one would have been the wiser.”
Mel was giving me her look. “Isn’t it about time you called Captain Kramer?”
“Who’s that?” Lucinda asked sharply.
“He’s the guy who’s currently in charge of the homicide unit at Seattle PD,” Mel explained.
“He’s also a former partner of mine who would have given your pal Gary Fields a run for his money.”
“That says a lot,” Lucinda observed.
“It does,” I agreed. “He never wanted to do any of the work, but he sure made sure he got all the credit. He’s a guy I’m not eager to have a chat with now or ever.”
“Sounds like there’s a lot of history there.”
“And none of it good,” I added.
“So in terms of opening a joint investigation,” Lucinda said, “maybe it would be best if I were the one who gives Captain Kramer a call?”
It was all I could do to keep from reaching out and hugging the woman, but I don’t think Mel would have approved.