Tony Ng left the Imperial Lanes bowling alley on the morning after the killings and seemingly dropped off the face of the earth. He spent the following morning at his parents' residence in Seward Park before disappearing with more than $6,000 in cash on Monday, February 21, 1983, leaving his silver Datsun 280Z parked in the driveway.

He left police officers baffled.

Police searched Ng's locker at the Imperial Lanes and found only his bowling ball. "We can't even find that he ever had a traffic violation," Lieutenant Robert Holter commented. "He was a hard-working young man, with a social life and girlfriends and came from a real nice family that seemed to have a prospering business." Many leads pointed to San Francisco, Vancouver, B.C., Calgary, and Hong Kong.

Lieutenant Holter was an asset to the Wah Mee Task Force -- a special unit established specifically for investigating the crimes and, more importantly, tracking down Tony Ng. Holter was in Homicide and was known for carrying a Smith & Wesson beneath his jacket at all times. He was also a creative Lieutenant, beating whom he referred to as "slugs and pukes" at their own game. One Halloween, Holter knocked on the door of a drug dealer; dressed as a ghost, Holter was concealing a sawed-off shotgun under his sheet. He had arrived to serve a warrant. "Taking 'em by surprise," Holter later remarked. "That's normal police work. So they don't have time to flush narcotics down the toilet." He chased after all types of riff-raff, including a fetishist who knocked down young female pedestrians and ran off with their high-heeled shoes. Colleagues described Holter as a "policeman's policeman" -- a streetwise cop in the Mickey Spillane mold. As head of the Wah Mee Task Force, Holter was leading twenty detectives in the investigation of the Wah Mee murders and, more importantly, the search and capture of Tony Ng.

A search of Willie Mak's and Benjamin Ng's residences netted a combined total of $15,000 in cash, along with ten firearms, much ammunition, surgical gloves, a duffel bag, and a jacket. At Mak's residence, police recovered a red gym bag containing over $5,000 and handguns taken from two of the victims. Searching Benjamin Ng's room, police recovered $1,347 in cash in a straw basket, a loaded, snub-nosed .38 caliber revolver, and a pair of black gloves from on top of the dresser. Under the bed, they found an M-1 rifle and a partial box of spent .38 casings. In the closet, officers recovered four bundles of cash totaling slightly over nine thousand dollars.

Mak agreed to meet detectives at his residence, and then was driven to police headquarters for questioning. When asked where he had been during the killings at the Wah Mee, he said that he was bowling at the Imperial Lanes. When told that there was a survivor who had positively identified him, Mak confessed to the killings. "I did all the shooting," Mak told Seattle police sergeant Ron Sanford, adding, "There was no third man."

While being interrogated by Sergeant Sanford, Mak asserted, "You don't understand how tough it is out there. I can't get a job…and when I look for a job and I am with a white man, he always gets the job." Before the sergeant could finish his interrogation, Mak asked, "Realistically, what is the worst thing that will happen to me and what is the best?" Mak was trying to work a deal.

"The worst would be the death penalty," the sergeant replied. "The best would be released without being charged."

"If you can't promise me anything," Mak said, "I think I better have an attorney."

While the media was stereotyping the Chinese community as "violent" and "shadowy," and while Police Chief Fitzsimons was busy deflecting tolerance allegations, the family members of the deceased were trying to establish some closure to the tragedy. Doug Wheeler, a former counselor with the Seattle Police Department, was asked to console the victims' family members. Wheeler was a respected counselor who later offered assistance to relatives of the Goldmarks -- a Seattle family of four brutally murdered on Christmas Eve 1985. "When a crime like this happens," commented Linda Barker, Executive Director of Washington Victim Witness Services, "the immediate victims are the survivors."

Funeral services were held several days after the killings and, as one newspaper referred to the scene, the streets of Chinatown were filled with a "parade of black suits." At many of the services, wine was spilled on the graves. This Chinese tradition reflects regard for the wine of life spilled; small papers containing biographies of the dead were also burned, freeing the spirit of the deceased. Many of the dead were buried at Lakeview Cemetery, a historic site where various Seattle pioneers and celebrities are buried.

At Wing Wong's funeral, his sons read from a speech they had prepared earlier. "Our dad -- gardener, soldier, cook, teacher, and father -- it seems like only yesterday you held our hands and we walked together in Chinatown. We felt so proud. It's ironic that such a tragedy occurred….Dad, we'll always remember."

The Reverend Gillespie, a Presbyterian minister, said, "Prayers should be offered not only for the dead, but we must also pray for the confused minds of those who have caused so much sorrow for all of us."

After the services, Chinatown was quiet, yet packed with mourners. A bakery owner in the area commented, "It is a tradition that after a funeral the survivors, the family, invite everyone to a restaurant. They get together and talk. I have seen many today."

The killings had seemingly affected every person in the city. For days, different people coped differently with what had happened, and journalists were quick to report.

A Wah Mee Club regular, Ging Jon "Richard" Lee, commented on how lucky he was to not have been one of the victims. Lee, a slight man with horn-rimmed glasses, owned a suburban Seattle restaurant and gambled at the Wah Mee once or twice a week. He planned to gamble on the fateful evening, but he was late closing his restaurant. By the time he did arrive, at about 1:45 a.m., he was unaware of what had happened. When he turned down the alley toward the Club, he saw police officers and knew something was wrong. "I almost went in," Lee told a reporter, "but my better sense told me not to. I am so damned lucky. I could have been there. That's pretty frightening. I think I'm quitting gambling."

Those in the area at the time of the killings recounted their experiences. The man who lived in the apartment directly above the Club reported that he heard nothing that night. "There is only a wood floor between me and [the Club]," the man reported. "My French poodle wakes up if he hears a firecracker a half-block away and he didn't make a sound all night."

Others visited the Wah Mee Club to sate their curiosities. Strangers began removing items from the Club. Someone stole a plaque that read "RING BELL" from outside the Club entrance. Another individual stole the button that patrons pressed to activate the bell and await the guard's furtive stare from inside the office. Some would rattle the entrance doors, chained and padlocked by homicide detectives, and search the area outside the Club for Wai Chin's bloodstains. And they would peer through the single clear brick and eye the interior of the office. The office remained lit twenty-four hours a day, and one could clearly see a calendar hanging on one of the office walls.

While members of the Chinese community coped with their losses, attorneys for the defense and the prosecution began preparing cases for two of Seattle's most high-profile trials ever.

Chapter Nine | "I saw the guns pointing. Bap-bap-bap -- like a firecracker -- and I saw the fire come out of the guns . . . . Bullets were flying all out."

This story originally appeared as a serialized feature in Asian Focus newspaper