“Do you want me to read it to you or not?”
“You could just as well.”
”A little over a year ago, area dentist Dr. Frederick Nielsen closed his Pioneer Square office and moved uptown. He told his old neighbors that he was sick and tired of his patients being hassled by drunks and panhandlers and petty criminals. He said he was moving his practice to a nicer neighborhood in the Denny Regrade.'
”Dr. Nielsen’s patients won’t have to worry about petty crime anymore, because their dentist died Saturday afternoon, brutally murdered in his recently refurbished office on the ground floor of one of Seattle’s newer high-rise condominiums “
”I can’t help wondering why Seattle P.D. has been keeping such a tight lid on this case. Maybe they don’t want people to know that it’s possible to be murdered in broad daylight in one of Seattle‘s posher downtown settings. After all, letting word out could be bad for business. Certainly it’s bad for developers and real estate magnates who are trying to sell the idea of downtown living to a largely indifferent suburban public.'
”Those suburbanites have every right to be indifferent. Why should they leave relatively crime-free neighborhoods in the north end or on the east side and come downtown where murders are almost routine?
”For years the Seattle homicide toll has been about one a week. Fifty-two a year. It would be interesting to know exactly how many of those occur in the downtown core.
”Seattle P.D. does acknowledge that Dr. Nielsen’s death is number thirty-one for this year. In case you don’t want to do the math yourself, that means we’re currently running five ahead of this time last year.
”If murders are up that much, it seems reasonable that the police department would be doing something definitive about it. Are they? Not as far as I can tell.
”A check with the Seattle P.D. media relations office revealed that only two homicide detectives are assigned to and actively working on the case of Dr. Frederick Nielsen. Those two, Detectives J. P. Beaumont and Allen Lindstrom, may be long-term homicide veterans, but they do not constitute the Seattle Police Department’s mounting a major, concerted effort to solve this case. Arlo Hamilton, Seattle P.D. public information officer, stated that so far there are no leads in Dr. Nielsen’s case. Not any. None.
“ ”Remember, I’m not talking here about a couple of nameless, drug-crazed addicts duking it out in a darkened alley between Pike and Pine at one o’clock in the morning. This is the bloody midday slaughter of a Seattle businessman who died in his downtown office at one o’clock on a sunny Saturday afternoon.'
”Broad daylight, folks.'
”And there aren’t any leads?'
”Come, come now, Seattle P.D. Certainly you can do better than that. Certainly you can afford to put more manpower into this case than just two measly detectives.
”It’s ironic that Dr. Nielsen moved out of Pioneer Square to escape petty crime. Obviously it didn’t work. Crime-major, not petty- came right along with him, loaded into the moving van along with his office equipment and furniture.'
”Dr. Nielsen tried a geographical cure for crime. Geographical cures usually don’t work because they never deal with the underlying problem. In this case the bottom line is that crime is rampant in our city streets.
”I don’t pretend to have all the answers, but I do have a suggestion or two. Maybe all the people who are planning to take a drive downtown to look at condominiums next weekend should call their real estate agents and cancel.'
”After all, if the mayor and the city council and the police department can’t make downtown Seattle safe to live in, if a law-abiding dentist can’t work there in his own office on a Saturday afternoon without putting his life in jeopardy, then maybe it’s time for people to vote with their feet, their moving vans, and their checkbooks.'
”The mayor’s office is busy promoting his In-Town-Living campaign. Maybe he should rename it. In-Town- Dying would be more to the point.“”
“That’s it?” I asked, when Peters stopped reading.
“Isn’t that enough? Why did he mention Nielsen by name? He claims to have talked to Arlo Hamilton. If that’s the truth, you can bet Max knew good and well that no next of kin notification had been made.”
“He did it to show off,” I told Peters. “To prove to himself and to us that he could do it with or without our help. And because he’s a first-class asshole.”
“What if the wife sees this article before your appointment this morning? Will she still show up?”
“That remains to be seen.” I didn’t say that LeAnn Nielsen’s appearance had never been a foregone conclusion. Now it was little more than a remote possibility.
“Speaking of which, I’d better hit the trail. Al doesn’t know we have an appointment at nine o’clock over in Madrona. I’d better get on the horn and tell him. By the way, were you able to come up with anything else on that Martin guy?”
“No such luck. Amy says she’s sorry but the name was all she could get.”
“Too bad,” I said, “but thanks for trying.”
As soon as I said good-bye to Peters, I called Al Lindstrom’s house in Ballard. Molly told me that Allen, as she calls him, was already on his way to the department, that I’d have to catch him there. So I hauled my tail out of bed, threw on some clothes, and headed for the Public Safety Building myself.
I didn’t bother to eat anything for the very good reason that there still wasn’t anything fit to eat in the house.
Al Lindstrom was on the phone when I came into our cubicle. His face was beet red. Veins stood out in a vivid blue pattern on his flushed forehead.
“What’s going on?” I asked when he slammed the receiver down, throwing the telephone halfway across his desk in the process.
“That was the prosecutor’s office. Remember that assault-with-intent case that was supposed to come up last week and never did?”
I nodded. “What about it?”
“It’s come up now, first thing this morning. The prosecutor’s office figures they’ll need us right around ten, maybe a little after.”
“What do you mean? We’ve got an appointment to meet with a lady from the shelter and possibly LeAnn Nielsen at nine o’clock. Where the hell do they get off not giving us any more warning than that?”
“Beats me. That’s what I was saying just as you came in,” Big Al said. “They said they tried to reach us yesterday, but I don’t have any messages about it.”
“We flat can’t do it,” I told him. “Our nine o’clock is at Thirty-fourth and Union. There’s no way we can be back by ten.”
Al snatched up the receiver and dialed. “This is Detective Lindstrom. I was talking with a Jeannie somebody about today’s court schedule. Yeah, let me talk to her again. I’ll wait.”
He drummed his fingers impatiently on the table while he waited for Jeannie somebody to come back on the line. When she did, he explained our predicament and then sat there shaking his head while she droned on and on, giving him no opportunity to get a word in edgewise. Finally he slammed down the receiver once more.
“She said they’d settle for one of us-they don’t care which-but somebody has to be at the courthouse at ten o’clock sharp or the guy is off the hook permanently. The judge will dismiss with prejudice.”
One of the major frustrations of being a cop, any kind of cop, is the hours spent tied to a desk or a phone waiting to put in a court appearance that may or may not ever come off. It’s like being hamstrung. You can’t go anywhere or do anything for fear the prosecutor’s office is going to call and tell you to show up in court on the double. If we happen to miss a court appearance, chances are the crook goes free.
Between the two of us, I don’t know who hates sitting around waiting to go to court more, Big Al Lindstrom or J. P. Beaumont. We’re pretty much neck and neck on that score.
“Wonderful,” I said. “Okay, I’ll flip you for it.”
Al shook his head. “Nope, you’d better keep the appointment with LeAnn Nielsen. After all, you’re the one who made it. Any ideas about what I should do while I’m locked up here? I’d at least like to make myself useful.”
“Try going through the Department of Licensing and see if you can get a line on Larry Martin’s VW. And check with both the crime lab and the medical examiner’s office to see if they’ve
come up with anything helpful. Those’ll do for starters. By the way, did you happen to read the P-I this
