by A. C. Fuller
Green Lake Bones
A Media Thriller Short Story
A.C. Fuller
Contents
Two Notes About the Story
About Green Lake Bones
Green Lake Bones
Introducing Ameritocracy
Preview: OPEN PRIMARY (Ameritocracy, Book 1)
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Introducing The Alex Vane Media Thrillers
About the Author
Green Lake Bones first appeared in the Close to the Bones anthology, and is printed here with permission.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
About Green Lake Bones
The worst mistakes in journalism history are about to be front page news.
A mysterious letter arrives at every news outlet in Seattle, claiming that the long-lost bones of infamous skyjacker D.B. Cooper are somewhere in the murky waters of Green Lake.
But when office manager Mia Rhodes arrives at the lake, there are no bones. Just a group of ravenous reporters and a strange drone hovering over the scene. Along with the entire Seattle media, Mia is lead on a chase through the city that reveals a murderous plot aiming to destroy the U.S. media forever.
And as the motives of the killer emerge, Mia realizes that she’s the only one who can stop it.
Green Lake Bones
Seattle, Washington
Mia's phone chirped as she shuffled into her apartment, nudging the door closed with her heel and kicking off her T-straps on the way to the kitchen. She dropped a bag of groceries onto the counter, pulled the phone from her purse, and looked down at the caller ID: Alex Vane.
She pressed "Ignore" and began unpacking the groceries, mostly cartons of prepared foods from the hot bar at Safeway.
Alex was her boss at The Barker, the online media company where Mia spent sixty hours a week coaxing seventy employees into following her fine-tuned office systems. Alex's management style oscillated between laissez faire and micromanaging. A call at seven p.m. on a Tuesday—only an hour after she'd left the office—was not going to get a response.
After unpacking the groceries, she flopped onto the couch, phone in one hand and a warm tub of macaroni and cheese in the other. Before she could take a bite, her phone dinged with a text.
Alex: Call me ASAP.
She set the phone face down on the coffee table and dug into her dinner. She'd skipped lunch and, after a ten-hour day during which she'd overseen a computer emergency, a bookkeeping emergency, and a coffee pot emergency, she deserved a night off.
Then her landline rang.
No one called the landline other than her mother, whose early calls every Saturday morning served as Mia's alarm clock. She slid the macaroni next to her phone and jogged across the room, one hand reaching out to the phone, the other unfastening her bra in the back. If Alex had bothered looking up her home number, it must be urgent.
She grabbed the old cordless off the wall and returned to the couch, stretching her legs so her toes pressed into the armrest. "Gah! What Alex?"
"Are you at home?"
"No, you called my landline and caught me on the train."
"Right, right. Sorry. How far do you live from Green Lake?"
"Half a mile."
"We need you over there. Now."
Mia sat up. Alex's voice was tense and she could tell that he was in story-breaker mode. The Barker wasn't The New York Times. Hell, it wasn't even The Huffington Post. It ran a mixture of celebrity gossip, clickbait listicles, and blog posts on a wide range of social and political topics. It rarely broke news and never broke important news. But, from time to time, Alex got a tip on something local and sent his staff to chase it around the city.
Mia said, "What? I mean, what's going on?"
Alex sounded like he might fall into the phone out of sheer excitement. "He sent out another message. The bones are in Green Lake!"
"Alex, c'mon."
"Seriously. Bird is gonna head down there, too, but if you run over you might beat everyone. Even the cops."
Mia let the phone drop away from her ear a little, but not because she was surprised. She was exasperated. "Do I really need to do this, Alex? This whole story is probably BS."
"Mia, c'mon, take your phone. We'll throw you a bonus worth a day's pay and, if you get pictures and text them to me in the next half hour, a week's pay. That's a lot of shoe money."
This perked Mia’s interest a little. And what if the bones actually were in Green Lake?
"What else did he say?" she asked, already up and out of her black slacks and white dress shirt.
"Nothing. Just sent another letter to all the major Seattle news outlets."
She slid into a pair of black jeans that had been hanging over the back of her couch. "And he counted The Barker among them?"
"Well, no. We didn't get the letter. Bird got the scoop from a friend."
Mia wiggled into a pair of running shoes without untying the laces. "Green Lake is big, Alex."
"That's part of the adventure."
Mia shoved her cell phone into her pocket and shoveled a large bite of macaroni and cheese into her mouth. "I'll go," she said through the mouthful of food.
"Text me when you get there."
Mia trudged down Fourth Avenue toward the eastern shore of Green Lake. To her, exercise usually meant the miles she walked around the offices of The Barker six days a week. So, despite being miffed by the fact that she was still working, she tried to convince herself that it was alright because she needed the exercise. Plus, the summer sun was still warm and she was getting paid.
The Seattle media had been on edge for a week, ever since an unsigned letter arrived at The Seattle Times, The Stranger, Seattle Weekly, and five or six other local papers, plus the newsrooms of all the network affiliates: ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox. The sender claimed to know the exact details of the infamous skyjacking perpetrated by D.B. Cooper, including how he died and where his bones lay. The sender also claimed that, within a week, all the details would be revealed to the media.
Cooper's case had dominated the news in the early 1970s and remained one of the great unsolved cases in U.S. history. The basics were simple: A man calling himself Dan Cooper—who later became known as D.B. Cooper due to a journalist's error that stuck in the public consciousness—boarded a flight from Portland to Seattle on November 24, 1971. After a few sips of bourbon and a cigarette, he asked a flight attendant to sit next to him, claiming to have a bomb.
Cooper demanded—and got—$200,000 in cash and a full tank of fuel, then released all the passengers and ordered the crew to fly to Mexico. After the plane took off, he opened the aft airstair and parachuted out into the night.
Despite one of the largest search operations in U.S. history, D.B. Cooper was never found. Over the years, hundreds of theories circulated. Some thought he'd died on impact after parachuting out of the plane. Others thought he escaped. The media went nuts covering the story. After forty-five years of dead ends and useless theories, the FBI suspended its investigation.
Until the letter arrived from the mysterious sender a week earlier, most had forgotten about D.B. Cooper.
The sun was beginning to set over the trees around Green Lake as Mia entered the path, which ran a three-mile loop around the lake. Right away, she saw that she'd been beaten to the scene by at least four others.
First, she noticed the team from KOMO 4 News—Sam Roberts, Brady Doyle, and Victoria Black—a reporter/cameraman/producer team that only covered sensational local news. Mi
a didn't watch local news anymore, but she imagined they'd been hyperventilating over the letter all week.
Next she spotted Gabriela Verduna, a Seattle Times reporter who'd survived the layoffs of the last fifteen years because she had better police sources than any other reporter in Seattle. Mia knew her to be brilliant, ambitious, and relentless, so it didn't surprise her that Gabriela wasn't on the shore next to the TV crew.
She was on a boat.
Mia jogged up to the crew from KOMO 4 as Gabriela glided through a patch of lily pads in an orange and blue pedal boat.
"What's going on?" Mia asked, squinting out at the water through the dusk.
The producer, Victoria Black, shot an irritated glance in Mia's direction, then looked back at the boat.
"Verduna rented a boat," Sam said, training his camera at the water.
"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 Gabriela find anything?"
"Obviously, we don't know," Victoria snapped.
Mia wasn't sure if Victoria had recognized her from The Barker, but thought she probably hadn't. Even though her boss Alex was well known around town, Mia was a behind-the-scenes kind of person. She kept the office running smoothly, but avoided the spotlight.
TV folks were notoriously protective of their scoops, and Victoria had every right to be. If there were any bones in Green Lake, Mia could text Alex a photo and it would go viral well before the ten o'clock news went on air.
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 emerged over a row of trees about a block to the east, its gray plastic form heading toward her, toward the lake. Mia could see that it was one of the new ones, about a foot square, with spinning blades on top and a camera mounted on the bottom. They'd grown popular lately, but she rarely saw them flying in the city.
Mia glanced around, wondering who was flying the drone. 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 around. Victoria was pointing at Gabriela, who'd made it about a hundred yards out on the lake and stopped at the center of a patch of lily pads. Sam held up his microphone as Brady trained his camera on him. From behind Brady, Mia saw 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.
But it was too big to be a bone. And it flapped slightly in the soft wind. To Mia, it looked like a white plastic garbage bag.
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…we'll stay with this shot as long as…"
He trailed off, but the camera was still rolling and Mia stood on her tiptoes to watch through the viewfinder.
"We're trying to see," Sam continued. "We believe that Seattle Times reporter Gabriela Verduna may have...wait...she…"
Gabriela pulled something white out of the plastic garbage bag, 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 a plastic oar, or possibly a piece of tubing.
Mia heard a splash. Someone had jumped into the water and was swimming 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 his awkward, one-armed swim as the drone passed over her head and began crossing the lake. As serious as the situation was to the TV crew, to Gabriela, and to Michael, Mia couldn't help but laugh under her breath. The speed of the news cycle was increasing every year, and the desperation of reporters was rising in lock step.
She watched in silence as Gabriela fiddled with the white object out on the water.
"What's she doing?" Victoria asked.
Sam stared out at the boat. "Reading, or something." He'd dropped his professional, newsy voice.
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 five, four, 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 scrolled through Gabriela's Twitter feed, new tweets popped up.
(1/4) BREAKING: In a boat on Green Lake. First to the bones. But there are no bones. Only a note tied to a plastic mop handle, which was inside a garbage bag.
(2/4) BREAKING: Note appears to be from the source who sent letter to Seattle media 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 your next clue."
Gabriela had attached an image of the note to her fourth tweet. It was written in block lettering on a plain white index card and sat atop two small ziplock bags, one of which had loose bits of duct tape hanging off it.
Out on the water, Michael reached the boat. Mia watched in awe as he pushed himself up with one hand while clicking pictures on his phone with the other. Gabriela smacked his arm away, forcing him to take pictures while treading water, his head barely above the surface.
The whole thing made Mia slightly depressed and deeply grateful not to be a journalist. She backed away slowly, not wanting Victoria to notice her departure. After snapping a few more photos, she ordered an Uber.
Three minutes later, Mia was speeding toward Seattle's most famous tourist destination, Pike Place Market—home of local crafts, fresh produce, flying fish, and, if the note was accurate, more news about the bones of D.B. Cooper.
On the ride over, Mia texted the photos to her boss and cc'd Bird, the managing editor of The Barker, Alex's number two man.
By the time the Uber approached Pike Place Market, a massive crowd had formed. Gabriela's tweets had already been retweeted 65,000 times, so locals swarmed the area along with the media. Mia had to hop out a block away, behind a row of TV vans that blocked the street.
She heard the buzzing as soon as she reached the edge of the crowd. She looked up, but didn't see the drone. 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. Slim and just five feet two inches tall, Mia could squeeze 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 she didn't need to take any pictures. Bird had beat her to the scene.
He was a small man, about five foot six, with black hair in a low fade. He usually glided around the office 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 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. "How did he…I mean…what happened?"
Bird looked at her briefly. "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. 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.
