Dance of the Bones

“The initial homicide, the one I’m working on, happened forty--plus years ago. A guy named John Lassiter was convicted—-twice over—-of murdering a former pal of his, someone named Amos Warren. I was the investigating officer on that original case, and Lassiter has been in prison for thirty years or so. An outfit named Justice for All recently negotiated a plea deal, but he won’t take it—-because he won’t plead guilty to something he didn’t do.”


“Surprise, surprise,” I muttered. “Where have I heard that before? You didn’t fall for that old line, did you? Is Lassiter the one asking you to reinvestigate the case?”

“Earlier this morning I talked to Lassiter’s daughter, Amanda Wasser. She’s the one who got JFA involved, but, yeah, Lassiter asked to see me because of my connection to TLC. The guy who prosecuted Lassiter isn’t exactly pure as the driven snow, so I decided to do some asking around. A few minutes ago, I finished interviewing Lassiter himself. I’m going with my gut here, but I think he’s the real deal.”

Walker may have been a believer, but I wasn’t. Busting my butt for a convicted killer wasn’t my idea of how to spend a quiet Saturday afternoon. Still, I was a little curious about the unsolved case here in Washington.

“What about the other case you mentioned,” I asked, “the one up here? Can you give me any further details on that?”

“I have a box full of paper files,” Walker said, “but I don’t want to try going over those by phone. Lassiter’s daughter has been amassing information on the case for years. That’s the box of files I just told you about, but she says she has digital copies of everything she gave me. If you would give me your e--mail address, I can have her send you the digital copies of everything pertaining to the Kenneth Myers homicide.”

I gave him my e--mail address. “Tell her she’s welcome to send me the stuff, but I’m not making any promises.”

The call ended. I made myself some coffee, went into the family room, took a seat in my not--recliner, and picked up my computer. I intended to send Mel a note telling her about what Jim and I had found on our shopping spree along with photos of what we’d -ordered, but when I opened my mail program I found a series of e--mails from [email protected]. The first one was entitled SPD. Archives. KMyers.

I opened the attached file, intending to glance at it briefly and move on, but I didn’t.

The first page was nothing more or less than your basic bureaucratic CYA disclaimer:

The following information is being sent to Ms. Amanda Wasser in answer to her request under the Freedom of Information Act. It is the policy of the Seattle Police Department to cooperate fully with such requests when releasing information to the public is not considered to be detrimental to ongoing investigations.

The next page included an overview along with photos of the items in the evidence box, and there wasn’t much: a frayed leather belt, the remains of a pair of leather shoes, a gold pendant engraved with the names Calliope Horn and Ken Myers, a pair of prescription glasses, and two bullet fragments that were identified as .22 longs. There was no notation that the fragments had been sent out for testing, but that was hardly surprising—-that kind of testing costs money. After all, solving cold cases wasn’t necessarily a top priority back in the early ’90s, and since these were skeletal remains only, the Kenneth Myers case was stone cold from day one.

But this was a new century and a new time in solving cold cases. Before continuing, I made a note to myself to ask my friend Seattle PD assistant chief Ron Peters to have the two .22 bullets sent to National Ballistics Laboratory.