by Martha Carr
She was on a boat.
Mia jogged up next to the team from KOMO 4, who were watching as Gabriela glided through a patch of lily pads in an orange and blue pedal boat.
“What’s going on?” Mia asked, squinting through the dusk to see what Gabriela was doing.
The producer, Victoria Black, shot her an irritated glance, then looked back at the boat.
“Verduna rented a boat,” Sam said.
“The police aren’t interested in being first on the scene?” Mia asked.
“They think this whole thing is a prank,” Victoria said.
That had occurred to Mia as well. “Did she find anything?”
“Obviously, we don’t know,” Victoria snapped.
Mia wasn’t sure if Victoria had recognized her, but thought she probably hadn’t. Even though her boss, Alex, was well known, Mia was a behind-the-scenes kind of person. She kept the office running smoothly, but avoided the spotlight.
But she knew that TV folks were notoriously protective of their scoops. And Victoria had every right to be. Mia could text Alex a photo and a paragraph of text and it would be viral well before the ten o’clock news.
Mia heard a low buzzing sound and looked around. The sky was darkening but still held a soft orange glow.
Then she saw the drone.
It was beige or gray and was just emerging from over a row of trees about a block to the east. It was heading toward her, toward the lake. As it came closer, Mia saw that it was one of those new ones, about a foot square, with a few spinning blades on the top and a camera mounted on its underside. They’d grown popular lately, but Mia rarely saw them flying in the city. She glanced around, wondering who was flying it. Probably a hobbyist, she thought. Or possibly even a journalist, hoping to get footage of the bones. But she didn’t see anyone controlling it.
“There!” Victoria said.
Mia spun back around and saw Victoria pointing out at Gabriela, who’d made it about a hundred yards out on the lake and had stopped in the center of a patch of lily pads. Sam held up his microphone and Brady trained his camera on him. From behind Brady, Mia could see that the shot captured Gabriela, out on the boat, and Sam on the left side of the frame.
Gabriela leaned over the side of the boat, then slowly pulled something up out of the water. Something white. Bright white.
Victoria and her crew were hyperfocused, Brady slowly zooming in as Sam narrated. “What we may have here is the discovery of the bones of D.B. Cooper, the infamous skyjacker who committed one of the greatest unsolved crimes in American history.” He paused as Brady continued his slow zoom toward Gabriela and the boat. “Out on the still waters of Green Lake, Seattle Times reporter Gabriela Verduna is leaning in—you can see her leaning in—and now she appears to be...yes, she appears to be pulling out the bones. The bones that...wait, now she’s...it’s hard to tell what she’s doing…”
He trailed off, but the camera was still rolling and Mia stood on her tiptoes to watch through the viewfinder on the camera.
“We’re trying to see,” Sam continued. “We believe that Seattle Times reporter Gabriela Verduna may have...wait...she…”
Gabriela had pulled something bright white onto the boat, but it definitely wasn’t a skeleton. It was too white, and, if it was a bone at all, it was just one long bone. The more Mia looked, the more she thought it was an oar, or possibly a piece of plastic tubing.
Mia heard a splash and saw that someone had jumped into the water, and was swimming out toward the boat. She recognized Michael Clovis from The Stranger, an old boyfriend and the most resourceful reporter she’d ever met. “Michael!” she called.
He was kicking vigorously and swimming with one arm, cell phone held just above the water with the other. “Michael, what the hell are you doing?”
He ignored her and continued swimming. As serious as the situation was to the TV crew, to Gabriela, and to Michael, Mia couldn’t help but laugh under her breath as the drone passed over her head and began crossing the lake.
She watched in silence for a few seconds as Gabriela fiddled with the white object out on the water.
“What’s she doing?” Victoria asked.
“Reading, or something.” Sam had dropped his professional, newsy voice, and was staring out at the water as well.
Gabriela’s head was tilted, and she appeared to be reading or looking at her phone. The drone was right over her now, hovering about thirty feet above the boat.
On the shore, Victoria’s phone rang. “Yeah,” she said into it. Then, to Sam and Brady, “We’re going live.” She paused as they got situated. “In three, two, one…”
Sam was a pro, and he was ready with his newsiest voice. “This is Sam Roberts, live from the eastern shore of Green Lake, where Seattle Times reporter Gabriela Verduna is…”
Mia tuned him out and pulled out her phone, then snapped a few crummy pictures of the scene. Next, she opened Twitter and pulled up Gabriela Verduna’s profile. Like many reporters, she often sent out information as she got it because it was better to be first on a story via Twitter than it was to be second or third on a story in the newspaper.
As she stared at Gabriela’s profile, new tweets started popping up
(1/4) BREAKING: In a boat on Green Lake. First to the bones. But there are no bones. Only a note, tied to an old mop handle.
(2/4) BREAKING: Note appears to be from source who sent letter one week ago. Note says:
(3/4) BREAKING: “An absence of lies does not equal truth. A partial truth that ruins a man is as wicked as an outright lie, perhaps more so.”
(4/4) BREAKING: Note concludes, “Visit Pike Place Market for more breaking news.”
Attached to the third tweet was an image of the note, which had been written in block lettering on a plain white index card. It was sitting on two small ziplock bags, one of which had loose bits of duct tape hanging off it.
Michael had reached the boat and was now holding onto the side with one hand, phone held high and pointing into the boat as Gabriela tried to swipe it away. The whole thing made Mia slightly depressed, and deeply grateful not to be a journalist.
Mia backed away slowly, not wanting Victoria to notice her leaving, snapped a few more photos, then pulled up the Uber app.
Three minutes later, she was speeding toward Seattle’s most famous tourist destination, home of local crafts, fresh produce, and flying fish: Pike Place Market.
On the ride over, Mia texted all the photos to Alex and cc’d Bird, the managing editor of The Barker, Alex’s #2.
By the time the Uber pulled up at Pike Place market, a massive crowd had formed. Mia had to hop out a block away, behind a row of TV vans that were blocking the streets. Gabriela’s tweets had already been retweeted 65,000 times, so locals were swarming the area along with the media.
After the crowd, the next thing Mia noticed as she shut the door of the Prius was the buzzing. She looked up and, at first, didn’t see the drone. But, just as she started moving toward the center of the crowd, she saw it emerge from behind a five-story apartment building.
It was moving toward the center of the crowd, a couple hundred feet off the ground, and Mia moved with it. She knew right away that it was the same one she’d seen at Green Lake.
A commotion was breaking out in the crowd, about half a block away, right near the historic Starbucks, the original store that had been in operation since 1971.
She heard shouts and the whole crowd seemed to move together in a giant sway. Mia squeezed through to the front fairly easily. Occasionally, she yelled, “Press. I’m with The Barker,” which held no legal standing but did make some people move out of her way.
When she made it to the front of the crowd, she pulled out her phone and opened her camera app. But when she saw the scene everyone was gathered around, she knew she didn’t need to take any pictures. Bird had beat her to the scene.
Bird was a small man, about five foot six, with black hair in a low fade. He usually glided around the offi
ce like a hummingbird, but now he stood stone still, camera pointing at a dead body.
The dead man was big and beefy, probably around fifty, and bald. Mia recognized him right away.
“Is that Rich Dog?”
Bird swiveled around on his heels. “Mia, there you are. Alex sent me down. And yeah, that’s Rich Dog.”
Rich Dog was the nickname of Richard Doggson, former linebacker for the Seattle Seahawks. After eight years of hall-of-fame play, he’d retired and gone into local broadcasting, rising quickly from sports commentator to sports anchor to news anchor on the 5 o’clock news. Seattle had loved him on the field, and loved him even more off of it.
Now, his extremities shot out at odd angles and blood was pooling around his torso. His trademark round Harry Potter glasses were cracked and bent on his large, lifeless head.
Bird was taking pictures and texting them to Alex, so Mia put her phone away. “What’s going on?” she asked.
“People are saying he jumped.”
Instinctively, Mia looked up. They were on the street across from Pike Place market, where open-air restaurants and gift shops served a mix of tourists and locals all day. Just above them, a sleek, green and grey apartment building rose above them. Balconies jutted out from it, most of which had potted plants and mini-trees visible through the railings.
The drone was right above her as well, and was descending slowly on the scene.
“Bird,” Mia said, “can you handle this? I have an idea.”
Without waiting for a response, Mia took off through the crowd. She didn’t know for sure if the note from Green Lake was referring to the dead body, but the drone was the only thing that connected them.
The crowd had grown in the couple minutes she’d been at the front, and, by the time she made it to the edge, it was surrounded by police cars.
The officers were trying to disperse the onlookers as Mia made her way through and scanned the outer edge of the crowd. She walked quickly, glancing up at the balconies above her every few seconds and tracking the drone out of the corner of her eye. Many of the balconies had people on them, some holding glasses of wine, most craning their necks or staring down at phones, trying to figure out what was going on below.
But none were holding a remote control for a drone.
After a lap around the crowd, she retraced her steps, walking in the opposite direction. The drone had moved a little lower, and seemed still be right over the spot she’d left Bird and the body. She pulled out her phone and texted Bird.
Mia: Anything new?
Bird: Police have moved us back, about twenty feet. He definitely jumped. A dozen people saw it. Sent photos to Alex. Still no idea what’s going on. Wait…
Mia stared down at her phone, then shot glances around the crowd.
Another text arrived.
Bird: There’s a note on the body. Police are reading it now.
Mia waited. Thirty seconds. A minute. She was about to try to wedge her way back to the front of the crowd when she noticed the drone moving back across the crowd toward her, about fifty feet up. She followed it with her eyes, across the crowd, then traced a line at street level in the direction the drone was heading.
That’s when she saw him.
About fifty yards away, a man whose face looked familiar was standing on the edge of a narrow alley. He was about fifty, with light brown skin and black hair, and large rectangular glasses. At first, he’d appeared to be just another guy, tapping on his phone. But then she saw that it wasn’t a phone. It was the remote control.
She walked toward him, losing sight of him for a minute as a crowd passed. When he came back into view, she snapped a few photos from about forty feet away, just before her phone dinged with a new text.
Bird: Got photo of note as police read it.
The phone dinged again with a photo text. The image was grainy and Mia assumed it was because Bird had taken it from far away, then zoomed in on it. A white thumb was in the corner, but it was clearly a white notecard, like the one found at Green Lake.
THERE WILL BE BONES. BUT NOT THOSE OF DB COOPER. RETURN TO GREEN LAKE.
Bird: I’m totally stuck in this crowd. Get back to Green Lake.
When Mia looked up from her phone, the drone was gone and the man was sprinting down the alley, away from the crowd, drone tucked under his arm. Mia bolted after him, but lost sight of him as he turned left out of the alley.
By the time she made it to the street, he was hopping onto a black and red motorcycle and peeling away. Mia jogged up the block, hailed a taxi, and hopped in. “Green Lake, as fast as you can,” she panted.
Back on her phone, she studied the photos. She’d taken ten in just a few seconds, and all but two were blurry or had been blocked by someone in the crowd. But one showed clearly that he’d been holding the remote control, and the other was a decent shot of his face.
And the more she stared at it, the more she thought she recognized him.
She group-texted it to Alex, Bird, and a couple other senior staff at The Barker.
Mia: Is this who I think it is?
By the time the taxi left downtown Seattle and crossed into the residential neighborhoods near Green Lake, her phone was dinging repeatedly.
Alex: I recognize him.
Bird: He looks like...what was his name?
Alex: Isn’t that the guy from the triple murder?
Mia had already been searching Google Images on her phone to confirm, and, by the time Alex’s second text arrived, she’d already confirmed the man’s identity.
Mia: It’s Kamal Nassar. Something strange is going on. Almost at Green Lake. Call the police.
Mia had no idea what was going on, but doubted it was a coincidence that Nassar had been flying a drone over the scene.
In the 1990s, Kamal Nassar had become a cautionary tale in journalism circles. Born in Egypt, Nassar had moved to Seattle in the late 1980s to pursue a PhD at The University of Washington, studying communications. He’d been a good student, on schedule to get his PhD at the age of twenty-seven, younger than most.
Then, in 1993, a rare triple murder took place in Bellevue, a rich suburb of Seattle. The victims were three teenaged girls, all white.
The shooter had been spotted by two witnesses, both of whom described a man with light brown skin and black hair, of average height and weight. Within twenty-four hours, Nassar was the lead suspect. Why? No one knew for sure.
Nassar had been in the area that night, and didn’t have an alibi. Plus, police had found a bit of graffiti on the wall of an alley, just down from where the bodies were found. The graffiti read: الموت إلى الكفار. Roughly translated from the Egyptian Arabic, it meant: Death to Infidels.
Police had leaked a story about an anonymous tip that started their focus on Nassar, but they often did that when they didn’t want to reveal methods. Most likely, they’d focused on Nassar because of his father, who was an Egyptian TV commentator known for his anti-western views. Tensions were already high in 1993, due to the attempted World Trade Center bombing, and it was likely that Nassar’s name had been on a watch list of some kind.
When the papers and local TV heard that Nassar was the lead suspect, they went nuts. A racially-charged killing—with possible terrorist implications—had happened in Seattle, and the public was devouring the story like candy. Reporters staked out Nassar’s home and swarmed the UW campus. Within a day, CNN, NBC, and even an Egyptian film crew were trying to get interviews with his peers at UW. People spit on him on the street, racist graffiti appeared on his office door, and for his own safety, UW placed him a on temporary, paid leave.
By the end of the week, every person in the country knew Kamal Nassar’s face. To most, it was the face of terror.
Problem was, he wasn’t a terrorist. At least, that’s what the police concluded after ten days. Turned out that one of the teenaged girls had a crazy ex-boyfriend. Apparently, they’d broken up a month earlier and he’d been planning a Romeo and Juliet thing,
but got cold feet after killing her and her two girlfriends. He’d killed himself in his bedroom ten days later, confessing to the whole thing in a note.
Police announced that the case was closed after matching the gun he’d used to kill himself with the gun than had killed the three girls. Nassar was cleared in a short note released to the papers.
Some people might have easily come back from such a public shaming. But Nassar quickly learned that terrorist killings run on page A1, retractions and apologies on page A32.
When the real killer was discovered, the news covered it for a couple cycles, then moved on. There wouldn’t be a trial, and there were no unanswered questions. Just a tragic case of a “troubled youth.”
Of course, UW invited Nassar back with open arms, but he decided to take the rest of the semester off to deal with the aftershocks. But one semester had turned into two, then into a year, then into forever. Nassar had never returned to school.
Instead, he’d started a newsletter, and eventually a blog, about how criminal suspects are treated in the media. He railed against sensationalism, false reporting, and the way a rabid media and bloodthirsty public fed off each other and destroyed reputations. He even self-published a couple books on the subject. Every few years, he would pop up on a public access TV show, talking about his issues but, for the most part, he’d been forgotten.
The Uber slowed behind a line of about six TV vans, which Mia assumed were now broadcasting live. During her ride, the suicide note had been tweeted out and shared a hundred thousand times. She weaved past dozens of reporters and hundreds of onlookers, trying to shove her way to across the path and to the edge of the lake.
The sun was gone and and the evening was growing chilly. Mia scanned the crowd, looking for action, for movement, but nothing was happening. Just hundreds, possibly even thousands, of people, staring at the lake, staring at their phones, talking quietly. Everyone was waiting for something to happen.
