The Last Journalist (An Alex Vane Media Thriller Book 5)

by A. C. Fuller

  She took a few silent breaths, like she was trying to calm herself. Greta returned with a steaming mug and Shannon held it under her face so the steam clouded her. "It started when I left your office. I saw a blue minivan, an older one, I don't know the model but one of the boxy ones. I remembered it because I remember when my friend Sarah's mom bought one when they were cool in the late nineties. Didn't think much of it. Went home. Worked on fixing the Burnside story—which we need to talk about, but later." She took a small sip of tea. "You got any booze to go with this?"

  "Just red wine." Greta's face was pinched. "Sorry."

  "After a few hours at home I went to the sub shop on the corner, and the van was there again. I figured it was just a different van, right? Weird but not alarming. Two hours later, I took another break to go to the YMCA and the van is parked across the street from my house. I took off, walking real fast down the street, and its lights came on. I took a left on the next block, and a minute later the van pulled a left behind me. That's when I started texting and calling you."

  "Why didn't you call the cops?" I asked.

  "I did. I called them too and the lady asked me where I was. By that point I was literally sprinting down the street. I ducked in an alley and ran through a yard and…well, I wasn't gonna wait around for the cops."

  "Take a few deep breaths," Greta said. "You're safe here."

  When she'd finished the tea, I found Officer Sanchez's card and called her. It seemed a safer bet than dialing 9-1-1. After giving her a brief summary of what happened, I put the call on "speakerphone" and passed the phone to Shannon, who told Officer Sanchez the same story she'd told me and Greta.

  "Well," Officer Sanchez said. "I can put this report in for you. You said you didn't get a license plate number?"

  "No," Shannon said.

  "I'll put it in the report, but I should tell you something. You watch the news, right? You know how big the story has gotten. The Seattle PD has received calls from every weatherman, beat reporter, news anchor, and low-level stringer in Washington State over the last…how long has it been since The Times published the letter?...twelve hours or so."

  "So what you're saying is there's nothing you can do?" I asked.

  "Hi again Alex, and yeah, that's what I'm saying. We're getting reports of hundreds of threats against journalists. They've been coming in steadily over the last year or two, but they've gone up exponentially today. Everyone who ever had a beef with a reporter is sending in threatening emails and voicemails. But here's the thing: as far as we know the killer didn't make any threats. He just killed. So if you're one of the ones getting threats, you're probably safe."

  "I wasn't threatened," Shannon said. "I got stalked."

  "And I'm sorry about that. Within ten minutes our cars in the area will be looking for a boxy, older model blue minivan. But the best you can do for now is lay low, hunker down for the night, and let us try to catch this bastard."

  Chapter 21

  Monday, 7 AM

  The next morning, we watched out the window as a taxi pulled up in front of the house. I'd wanted to call a Lyft but Greta thought a taxi was safer. "You never know who's gonna show up with one of those car services," she'd said. "The taxi guys have to be licensed at least."

  We planned to head to The Barker, where Shannon could finish her story in safety. Luckily, she'd backed up all her work on the cloud, so she wouldn't need to go home until this was over. Greta would then head to work with Cleo. Since she wasn't a journalist, we felt confident there was no danger to her as long as she wasn't with us.

  After studying the car and looking up and down the block, we bolted for the taxi. Greta held Cleo tight to her chest. I stayed half a foot behind her, searching from side to side for signs of trouble. It was all clear.

  Shannon and Greta got in the car first and I wedged in after them.

  Everything went smoothly, and as the taxi turned off our street, I could tell Shannon was beginning to feel more relaxed as well. "See," I said. "Smooth and easy."

  "What about on the other end?" Greta asked.

  "Taken care of," I said. "Security will meet us out front."

  "And if he's waiting on a nearby roof with a sniper rifle?" Shannon asked, only half jokingly.

  We went quiet for a moment, considering the possibility. "Then we're screwed," I said finally.

  When we pulled up to the office, something was wrong. I expected to see security guards out front, waiting to escort us in. Instead, three police officers stood near the bushes where Carlson slept, talking with the building security guards. Then I saw Carlson, waving his hands as he tried to explain something to the officers.

  "I think they're arresting him," I said as the taxi stopped. "Stay in the car while I check it out."

  I jumped out of the car and dashed over to Carlson just as he said, "I told you already, dude had a gun!"

  Instinctively, I shot glances around us. "Who had a gun?"

  A pudgy, red-faced officer scowled at me. "Who are you?"

  "Alex Vane, I work upstairs. Is Carlson under arrest or something?"

  "Not at all," the officer said. He angled his body to cut me off, and turned back to Carlson. "Tell me again, what did the man look like?"

  "Dressed kinda like me," Carlson said. "Dirty jeans and a green jacket. White dude, brown hair, medium build. Not fat like you but not skinny like him." He gestured back and forth between the pudgy officer's belly and another officer, who was leaner than me.

  "Any defining marks?" the pudgy officer asked. "Any other details?"

  "You mean other than the goddamn gun he pointed at me?"

  The pudgy officer sighed. "You told us about the gun. Have you been drinking Mr…."

  "He doesn't drink," I said. "This is his spot, he's always—"

  "And it's Carlson, just Carlson. No last name. Like Cher or The Rock."

  "Wait here." The skinny officer grabbed his partner's shoulder and they walked a few paces away where they spoke in low voices.

  I took Carlson's arm and tugged him toward the street. "What the hell happened? Who had a gun?"

  "Like I told them, I got here at six this morning from the shelter. Was too damn cold to sleep outside last night. Got here coffee in hand, ready to take my spot for the day. There was another homeless guy in my spot. I told him, as nice as I could, which I guess wasn't especially nice, to get the hell out of here. Dude smiled at me like I was the crazy one, like he couldn't stand me, like he hated me and everything I'd ever done or known or felt. An icy smile like I sickened him. Then he pulled a gun from his waist and said it was his spot today. I backed away slowly, then ran inside. Security knew me, let me call the police. When I saw the flashing lights I came back out and he was gone. That was just a few minutes before you got here. And the cops had the nerve to treat me like I was the damn criminal. I'm a valued part of the community."

  "You are," I said, but my mind was somewhere else. "The look he gave you…have you ever gotten that look from another homeless man?"

  "No."

  "Did he have a crazy feel, like he might be on drugs?"

  Carlson laughed. "Hell no. I've been around enough drugs to know it didn't have that vibe, man. I'm telling you, he looked at me like I was walking into a boutique purse shop, looking the way I look, asking if I can take a dump in their bathroom."

  "Hate?"

  "And then some."

  "Thanks," I said.

  The taxi was still double parked. Shannon was hunched down in the back seat, occasionally peeking out through the side window. I returned to the car and opened the door. "Let's go. Now!"

  "What's going on?"

  "I'll explain inside."

  I waved at Greta, looked up and down the block, and pulled Shannon into our lobby, then into the elevator. "He was waiting here," I said. "Probably to kill us both."

  Chapter 22

  The incident out front unnerved me, but gave me an idea.

  Back in my office, I spent five minutes telling Shann
on what Carlson had said. "If I'm right," I concluded, "you lost him last night and he staked out The Barker early this morning. Maybe he isn't only after you, but both of us."

  "Maybe, but last night he was definitely…well not definitely but…I have an idea. Pull up every single story written about the deaths of Micah and Suki."

  On dueling laptops, we re-read every account of the death of Micah Baumgartner, the science editor, and Suki Takasago, the freelance reporter. No eyewitness had seen either of the killings, but Carlson's description of a white guy with a medium build matched the description of a man seen walking away from the scene of Baumgartner's murder.

  The description came from a quote in a Seattle Times story, and had gone largely unnoticed because, well, one person saying they saw a white dude in a park isn't much to go on.

  The witnesses name was Jamila Abuz, a Turkish-American graduate student at The University of Washington. She'd given her description to the police, of course, and had then spoken with CNN, but when I found her on Twitter I realized she hadn't stopped there.

  For the last three days, she'd been talking nonstop about what she'd seen with anyone who would listen.

  @AbuzJamilia_WA: I tell the police I see a white guy walking away from the scene, and they do nothing. Racist much?

  @AbuzJamilia_WA: It's the feeling I got from the cops, ya know? Like they didn't want to believe me because I had brown skin.

  @AbuzJamilia_WA: I thought @seattlepd was supposed to be progressive, and now they're not even looking into my first hand description of the killer? Maybe they don't want to protect the First Amendment after all.

  There were over a hundred tweets along this line of thinking, and two more showed up while I read them. On a whim, I decided to tweet at her from my verified Alex Vane account.

  @Alex_Vane_Barker: Hi @AbuzJamilia_WA. Any chance you told CNN or anyone else any more details about how the man looked?

  I knew she was online, and unsurprised when she replied right away.

  @AbuzJamilia_WA: Is this for a story?

  @Alex_Vane_Barker: Yes.

  @AbuzJamilia_WA: Finally, I was wondering when someone would ask. CNN, those establishment hacks, DIDN'T RUN THE DETAILS. They left out two things. His shoes were those kinda orange-tan Rugged Blue brand work-boots.

  @Alex_Vane_Barker: How can you be sure on the brand?

  @AbuzJamilia_WA: Hello? Too lazy to read my profile?

  I clicked over and saw that, while the Seattle Times had listed her as a PhD student, they'd left out that she was studying the history of American fashion, with the aim of working in a museum.

  @Alex_Vane_Barker: Got it. And the other detail?

  @AbuzJamilia_WA: He had a small birthmark or rash or something. Like a port wine stain birthmark from the cheekbone down to the neck on the right side. Of course CNN left it outta the story for fear of someone taking vigilante justice against a white man.

  @AbuzJamilia_WA: Think they woulda left out that detail if he was black or brown?

  "Wow," I said to Shannon, who was reading the tweet conversation over my shoulder. "The birthmark thing is a key detail."

  She was probably wrong about the racial angle. CNN might have withheld those details at the request of the Seattle PD, as sometimes happens, or they might have deemed the details too unreliable to include since they came from only one witness. When questioning a source, though, you never question their motives openly—not at first. You get them to tell you everything, then corroborate it elsewhere.

  @Alex_Vane_Barker: Thank you. And I assure you we won't leave any details out of any story we decide to run. Can you describe the mark in any more detail?

  While I waited for her response, I tapped the intercom. "Mia, can you send someone down to the street to see if Carlson is willing to come up? Tell him lunch and dinner are on us."

  "Sure," she said.

  When I looked back at my phone, Jamila had replied.

  @AbuzJamilia_WA: Slightly irregular around the edges. Could been a food stain but, no. Birthmark if I had to guess. I have one on my thigh. Stood out more on his pasty skin.

  @Alex_Vane_Barker: Thank you.

  Five minutes later, Mia led Carlson into my office. Shannon sat beside me behind the desk and Carlson sat across from us.

  "Lunch orders?" Mia asked all three of us.

  "Anything you want that delivers," I said to Carlson.

  He didn't hesitate. "Spicy tuna roll, yellowtail sashimi, maybe eight pieces of that, shrimp tempura, large miso soup. And one of those salads with the ginger dressing."

  I raised an eyebrow.

  He flashed a wide grin. "Whole Foods sometimes gives me their leftover sushi at the end of the day, but I bet you know a place with even better fish."

  "I'll take care of it," Mia said.

  "And double the order for me," I said.

  "Just order me whatever they have that's deep fried," Shannon added.

  Mia left, and I turned my attention to Carlson. "How'd it end up with the cops?"

  "They were friendly enough. Talked to the building security, who convinced them that out front is my damn spot. My damn home. Why'd you want to talk to me?"

  "I—"

  "This is a damn nice office, by the way. Look at that view." He walked to the window and stared in the direction of the famous Pike Place Market.

  "You can practically smell the flying fish," I said.

  He chuckled. "That's a pretty lame line. And from my bedroom I can smell them."

  Shannon had grown impatient. "We wanted to ask you a couple questions about the man with the gun."

  "Sure," Carlson said, returning to his chair.

  "You told the police he was a white guy, maybe forty or fifty, right?"

  "Right. Brown hair. Didn't see his eyes but they were dark, maybe brown."

  "Did his shirt have a collar?"

  "A collar? Why? I don't know…no it didn't. It was like a sweatshirt, a dirty old sweatshirt."

  "With a hood?" Shannon asked.

  "No hood. The kinda thing you're wearing, actually. Like for working out."

  Shannon was a good questioner. The key was to avoid putting the detail in his head by asking leading questions, but instead to allow him to locate it himself if it was there. "If you can, Carlson—and thanks again for doing this—close your eyes and picture the man. Scan up from his sweatshirt slowly to his neck, his chin and cheeks, his nose, his eyes, his head, his hair. Now scan backwards, down from his hair to his eyes, nose, cheeks and chin, and neck. Anything else you noticed? Any details that might help us distinguish this guy from the other million middle-aged white dudes in Seattle?"

  Eyes still closed, Carlson said, "Dirt. He had a patch of dirt or something on his neck."

  "Do you remember which side?"

  "Right, right side. When he pulled the gun, my eyes hit it, then went straight up to his face. I can see the mark."

  "Mark?" I asked. "Or dirt?"

  "If it was dirt it was kind of reddish dirt, brown-red....coulda been a weird tattoo or something...no I think it was a mark of some sort. Birthmark maybe?"

  I shot Shannon a look. We had our killer.

  She was focused on Carlson. "How large?"

  "Few inches. Might have hit his cheekbone as well."

  "Anything else about the color?"

  "Reddish brown."

  "Was the sun over the buildings yet when you had the run-in with this man? Was he standing in the sunshine or in shade?"

  "Shade."

  "Is it possible it was red and looked more brown because of the shade?"

  "Possible, yeah. I don't know."

  Shannon let out a long sigh. "Thank you, Carlson. You didn't happen to see his shoes, did you?"

  "Man pulls a gun on you, you gonna check out his shoes?"

  She smiled. "I guess not. Food should be here soon. You want some coffee?"

  "Thought you'd never ask. I know where it is. Alex has had me up here for coffee a number of times." He stood and h
eaded for the coffee.

  Shannon turned to me. "The killer was out front. He was going to shoot me, or maybe us, from the bushes. Carlson saved our lives."

  My whole body tensed at the thought. For an instant, I saw myself getting out of the car with Greta watching as I was gunned down. "We owe him more than sushi."

  "We do, but the real question is what do we do now?"

  I shot her an incredulous look. "We write it."

  As Carlson wolfed his sushi lunch, then my sushi lunch, I did something I hadn't done much of over the last few years: I wrote an article that broke some news.

  Using the CNN piece and Jamila Abuz's tweets, I grilled one of Shannon's sources in the Seattle PD about the description of the man seen leaving the scene of the Baumgartner murder. He was defensive about the department's treatment of the case, and bristled at the accusations of racism. Turned out, he had no idea Jamila had been tweeting about the department and when I warned him of the PR nightmare headed his way, he was eager to confirm that she'd shared the same details with the department and they'd been looking into suspects fitting the description.

  Using quotes from my chat with Carlson, I wrote a six-hundred-word piece entitled New Details Emerge About Journalist Killer. Bird proofread and sent the story to our team for distribution. Minutes later, it was spreading like wildfire on Twitter. I texted a copy to Shannon's source within the police department as a courtesy right before it went live. Carlson assured me he hadn't mentioned the neck marking to the police, so our story was the only piece of evidence linking the "homeless" man in front of our building with the killer.

  Within hours, the story got over a million views. CNN and Fox News ran with it, and Jamila Abuz did a victory lap on MSNBC, enjoying her fifteen minutes of fame. Of course, she took credit for being the key witness in my story, but all I cared about was that she confirmed it on national TV.

  Meanwhile, Shannon was doing the harder task of rewriting her Burnside story. By dinnertime she was ready. Her hand hovered over her laptop's trackpad, but she hadn't pressed "Publish."