Driving south on Shilshole Avenue I saw the unmistakable orange of a smashed pumpkin on the side of the road. Just like that it took me back ten years to when the pumpkin on our porch was stolen and reappeared as pulp in the street.
Ten years ago was the fall following the September 11th attacks and every day was an attempt to find some normalcy in our everyday lives, or at least a pretense for sake of the grade school carpool. The big orange pumpkin, left by our own street’s Great Pumpkin of a neighbor had been a comfort. Until I realized that someone had stepped onto our property to take the pumpkin and then smashed it.
This was the same time that anthrax had been sent through the mail and every white powder was suspicious. It was before the television stations fully resumed the safety of normal programming but had changed the banner beneath continuously breaking news to announce, “War on Afghanistan.” The sound of an airplane overhead was nerve-wracking even as Heavenly Blue morning glories bloomed and the last blackberries ripened in the sun.
I was hoping for the day the headline size would return to normal on either “The Seattle Times” or the not yet defunct print edition of the “Post-Intelligencer.” Then Assistant United States Attorney Thomas Wales was shot as he worked in his office basement on Queen Anne and it seemed like there could never be a normal again. Not when someone could be shot point blank on a residential street just blocks from my next door neighbor’s Queen Anne salon. Wales was her client. He was a father. He spoke out against gun violence. He was likely killed because of his job, making him the first Federal Prosecutor in U.S. history to be slain in the line of duty.
I heard about his murder just before I realized the pumpkin was gone and those two things became linked forever. It seemed as if danger could be on your property, whether it was a stranger picking up a pumpkin or an assassin taking aim from outside your basement window. It was one of the moments when you ask yourself, what sort of world are we living in and how can I raise a child in it?
Of course we all kept on. The pumpkin was replaced and duly carved. The anthrax threat was forgotten. The war in Afghanistan grew to include the war in Iraq and somehow we continue to live as though we are not at war. The September 11th Memorial has been built and the 10th anniversary has been honored in print and television. Life goes on. Ballard has a new library and park, new buildings and businesses. But Tom Wales’ killer has never been found.
The FBI recently launched a new awareness campaign about his murder in hopes of still solving a case that some feel got lost in the aftermath of September 11, 2001. His murder represents something that couldn’t be rebuilt; it’s almost like an unfilled grave for me.
The trail, as they would say in a mystery novel, is getting very cold. Ten weeks since the vehicle didn’t stop after hitting PATH employee Mike Wang. Eleven years since Donna O’Steen was murdered in her home on Sunset Hill after taking her daughter to a piano lesson. Ten years since an assassin stood on a quiet street on Queen Anne. Who is responsible, I still want to know.
But even before the smashed pumpkin brought back memories of 2001, I did see gap that had been closed, a pit literally filled, the former Dexter Pit Park. Bicycling on Dexter Avenue on my way to join a Memorial Bike Ride for three cyclists who recently died on Seattle streets I noticed a pocket park. The Thomas C. Wales Park opened last October and was formally dedicated last April. I was out of town. I missed the notice and even in the six months since, I still hadn’t realized there was a park.
Perhaps it was finally discovering the park that made the sight of the smashed pumpkin take me back to that time. Shortly afterward there was a press conference announcing the new campaign to find who was responsible for the murder of Thomas Wales. The leaves are turning; there are pumpkins on the porches. The nights may be turning cold but the search continues.
The United States Department of Justice is offering a reward of up to $1,000,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible for the murder of AUSA Thomas Crane Wales. 1-800-CALL-FBI or write FBI-Thomas Wales, P.O. Box 2755, Seattle, Washington 98111
Anyone with information pertaining to the hit and run that killed Mike Wang is asked to call SPD (206) 684-8932, likewise contact SPD with any information concerning Donna O’Steen’s murder on November 8, 2004.
