No Regrets

those numbers called in to Pat Lamphere.
    Kit Mitchell, another of the Exotica’s managers, recalled hiring Ayala on April 16, paying him about one hundreddollars a week to bounce. Mitchell’s and Pomarleau’s recall of how long Ayala had worked for them didn’t match. Pomarleau said he’d only been there for a week, while Kit said it was six weeks.
    “He came in on the first of June and said he’d been with someone who did something wrong and he had to leave town on a bus,” Mitchell said. “He said he was going to see his family. He sold most of his things: radio, TV—real cheap. He took his duffel bag and left in a cab for the bus depot.”
    Mitchell gave the detectives a list of the phone calls Ayala had made, the last two on June 1. The calls were to Walnut Creek, California, San Francisco, and Texas. The two numbers called in Texas were the last calls. These numbers seemed to indicate that the rapist had headed for the Lone Star State.
    On June 12, a photo of the Los Angeles George Ayala arrived. This photo, along with the one of the George Ayala from the Exotica, was included in a mug “lay-down” with six other photos of similar individuals. The L.A. George and the Exotica George didn’t look anything alike.
    Lamphere and Nordlund went to Harborview Hospital and showed the photo montage to Arden Lee. She immediately picked number seven as her assailant. That was of George Allen Ayala, late of the Exotica. Yung Kim of the Korea Tavern also picked George Allen Ayala.
    The investigators called the number Ayala had called in Texas on June 1. When they asked for George, they were told he was at work. Asked if George had recently returned from Seattle, the woman on the other end of the line said there were three George Ayalas in the family, and the “Seattle George” was the nephew. “I saw him just lastSunday,” she said. But when she realized who was calling her, she suddenly turned frosty and refused to give any more information.
    Apparently, there were many, many families in Texas cities with the surname Ayala, but Pat Lamphere felt they had reached the right family. On June 14, she sent a teletype to Austin requesting information on George Allen Ayala. Word came back that the suspect was born on February 11, 1950. As he hit his teens, he began to build a lengthy rap sheet in Texas. Since 1967, he’d been investigated for charges including assault to murder, vagrancy, felony theft, suspicion of burglary, parole violation, burglary with intent to commit theft, and assault with a deadly weapon. He’d been discharged from parole six years before the attack on Arden Lee.
    The San Francisco charges involving commercial sex (pimping), sexual assault, and dangerous drugs had happened since. Arden Lee had made an almost-fatal mistake in judgment. George Allen Ayala was not the kind of man a girl would choose to follow down a dark path—or even a well-lighted one.
    Nordlund and Lamphere placed another phone call to Texas City, Texas. This time they spoke to George Ayala— not the suspect but his uncle. He insisted he hadn’t seen George Allen Ayala for some time, about seven years, although he called occasionally. “He called on the first of June and said he was in Seattle. I have no idea where he is now.”
    The man they were looking for appeared to have successfully escaped both from Seattle and from the detectives who tracked him. On June 27, Noreen Skagen received a call from Kit Mitchell. “I got a letter from George Ayala,” he said. “It’s postmarked San Francisco.I’ll read it to you. He says: ‘Sorry had to leave you. Had problems. Am home with family. Would appreciate your sending clothes. Sure is hot here in Texas. Will send address. George.’”
    It was about to get even hotter in Texas for George. On July 6 at 6:30 P.M. , Nordlund and Lamphere received a phone call from Constable J. B. Cucco of Harris County, Texas.
    “We’ve arrested George Ayala for burglary down here. Understand you’d like to talk to him?”
    They would.
    Ayala, in a talkative mood, had volunteered to Cucco that he knew he was wanted in Seattle for “beating up a whore.”
    “We’ve got a good burglary case on him,” Cucco said, “but we probably won’t proceed with it if you want him.”
    The Seattle detectives said they would be more than glad to extradite Ayala and would send specifics of the warrant down to Houston, the seat of Harris County.
    “George seems to want to talk,” Cucco