The University of Washington is the institutional center of a troubling gap in the investigation of Michael Burke: he went to Seattle for medical school, but the university’s records are not forthcoming, leaving Leimert Fusco unable to determine whether unusual patient deaths occurred under its care. The institution is also connected to Fusco’s inquiry into unsolved murders in the wider Seattle area, although the novel does not establish that those cases happened at the university or that the university was involved in them.

Seattle and Burke’s Medical Training

In Fusco’s reconstruction, Burke went to Seattle for medical school after being shaped by the example of Eldon Mate. The University of Washington enters the account as the institution whose records might help establish what happened during that period. The connection is consequential but not fully documented in the conversation: the account places Burke in Seattle for medical education and turns to the university for information, without providing a transcript, a patient list, or a confirmed case tied to his studies.

Burke’s arrival in Seattle also marks a change in his pattern of movement and ownership. Before buying a used Volkswagen van there, he had never officially owned a car. Fusco treats that first documented vehicle as one more detail in a life defined by repeated relocation, describing Burke as someone who keeps moving and is difficult to pin down. The van persists beyond the Seattle period: when Milo Sturgis asks whether Burke kept it, Fusco confirms that he did. The vehicle thus gives the investigation a concrete thread through an otherwise mobile history, even though the conversation does not say that the van was used in any crime.

Records and the Limits of Official Knowledge

The university’s response, as Fusco describes it, is not forthcoming. Officially, none of its wards experienced a pattern of unusual patient deaths. That statement does not establish that such deaths occurred, and Fusco offers no confirmed university death or medical record to contradict it. Instead, the scene holds two positions in tension: an institutional account that reports no pattern, and an investigator who doubts that the account settles the question.

The distinction matters to the case. Fusco’s suspicion is presented as suspicion, not as a finding about the university. He wonders whether records might reveal deaths during Burke’s time in Seattle, but the information available to the investigators does not answer that question. The missing records therefore function as a limit on what can be known: the university is a possible source of evidence, while its official statement provides no confirmation of the suspected pattern. The narrative leaves that uncertainty open rather than turning it into proof of either a cover-up or Burke’s responsibility for particular deaths.

Seattle-Area Unsolved Murders

Fusco’s investigation in the region extends beyond the possibility of deaths among the university’s patients. He identifies at least four unsolved cases involving girls who were cut up and left tied to trees in semirural locations within a hundred miles of Seattle. He considers these cases worthy of further study because their reported features resemble Burke’s previous work. The evidence does not identify the victims or connect them conclusively to Burke; resemblance is the basis for continued inquiry, not a solved attribution.

The conversation also separates these cases from the Green River murders. When the possibility is raised that Burke might be the Green River Killer, Fusco says the Green River scenes do not match Burke’s earlier work. His distinction narrows the claim: he is not proposing that Burke committed those prominent murders, but pointing instead to a smaller group of unsolved cases whose circumstances, in his view, merit comparison. The geographical proximity of the four cases to Seattle does not make them University of Washington cases, and the narrative does not supply a direct institutional connection between them.

Fusco’s Return and the Location’s Role

Later, Fusco tells Milo that he will fly to Seattle that night to press the University of Washington for greater cooperation and look into the unsolved cases. His planned return joins two strands of the inquiry: the university’s unavailable records and murders in the region that remain unresolved. Fusco notes that the region’s reputation for serial killings, together with the lack of resolution in the Green River case, makes local authorities reluctant to be reminded of other open cases. His account describes resistance to scrutiny, but does not specify which official or office has withheld which records.

The University of Washington consequently serves less as a fully depicted campus setting than as a disputed source of information. Burke’s medical-school period gives it a place in his chronology; the unanswered question about patient deaths makes that chronology potentially significant; and Fusco’s planned visit turns the institution into a live investigative lead. At the same time, the careful separation between official statements, Fusco’s suspicions, and the unsolved regional murders prevents the location from becoming a shortcut to certainty. What the university can establish remains unknown, and that absence is central to its role in the investigation.