The Last Journalist

Book 5: An Alex Vane Media Thriller

by A.C. Fuller

Genres: Financial Thrillers; Legal Thrillers; Political Thrillers; Media Thrillers; media thriller

Synopsis

Someone in Seattle is murdering journalists...and Alex Vane might be next.
On a cold, rainy night in Seattle, a legendary journalist is found face down in the street below a posh high-rise. Local police are calling it a suicide, but Alex Vane sees signs of murder.
With help from a brash young journalist, Alex pieces together clues from the dead man's extraordinary career. But an unexpected discovery leads him to believe that all those legendary scoops may have been built on a lie so great it led to his murder. If what he's discovered is true, it's proof of a conspiracy that could upend everything Alex believes in and rewrite American history. Just when he thinks he's cracked the case, another prominent investigative journalist turns up dead.
Is someone systematically killing reporters?
If so, why?

And is Alex next?

Release date: October 30, 2018

Publisher: Vivid Books

Print pages: 226

Sample

Chapter 1

 

Seattle, Monday, 10 PM

It always starts with a knock at the door.

Quinn Rivers told me that a few years back. I assumed it was a paranoid fantasy connected to one of her conspiracy theories, and it probably was. Quinn believed every conspiracy you’ve ever heard of, plus a few all her own. But the thing about conspiracy theories and paranoid delusions is that—sometimes—they’re true.

This was one of those times.

Tap tap tap. Ding dong. Ding dong.

I heard it from the plush comfort of my king-sized bed, where I lay beside my wife. We’d finally gotten our daughter to sleep, and Greta and I were looking forward to some time together,  an infrequent pleasure since Cleo was born six months ago. No one rings our doorbell at ten o’clock, so our dog Smedley barked and raced into the living room within seconds.

As I navigated the dark rooms of the house, the wind screeched and sheets of rain came in sideways and battered the windows. I flicked on the porch light and glanced through the peephole. Two Seattle PD officers, a man and a woman, stood beneath the overhang, their hats dripping. They looked cold and as unhappy to be standing on my porch as I was to see them there.

“It’s okay.” I pet Smedley’s head as he clawed at the door.

He studied me, as if to ask, Are you absolutely sure I shouldn’t eat whoever is on the other side of that door? I rubbed his head again, then gestured toward the couch. Assured the danger was over, he retreated to his favorite spot but kept his eyes on the door as I opened it.

“Alex Vane?” the woman asked. She was short, with neat bangs and a look that turned affable as the door opened, which was comforting. The news is never good when officers show up on your doorstep at ten o’clock at night.

I nodded slowly, glancing at the man who was sopping wet and wore a sour look.

“I’m Officer Sanchez,” the woman continued. “This is Officer Mallory. Would you be willing to come with us to identify a body?”

“Whose body?” A cold feeling pierced my guts. Someone I knew was probably dead. Again.

Sanchez and Mallory exchanged a look, then Mallory thumbed through a small notebook, cursing to himself quietly as he fumbled to unstick the soggy pages. “White male, age seventy, maybe seventy-five. Found outside a South Lake Union apartment building a little over an hour ago. No ID.”

My legs buckled and I stumbled backwards half a step before catching myself. “Burnside?” The realization hit me like a kick to the gut. They had to be talking about Professor Burnside. A look of recognition passed between Sanchez and Mallory, which confused me.

“Burnside, you say?” Mallory scrutinized me, then scribbled in his notebook.

“Will you come with us?” Sanchez asked. Her tone was still polite, but she pressed harder this time. The look in her eye made me doubt I ever had a choice.

“I met with him last night,” I said. “We had dinner. Burnside?...what?...why are you…”

Sanchez got the gist of my question. “Your address was one of two on a piece of paper we found on the body. We asked around the building nearby. No one knew him. No one who could give a positive ID.”

From their description of the body and location, it had to be Burnside, but my mind scrambled to make it someone else. Anyone else. There are a lot of seventy-year-old white guys in South Lake Union. Why not let it be one of them? I seized on another alternative—maybe this was a prank of some sort?

The wind shifted, spraying a blast of icy rain into my face and knocking Mallory’s hat off.

I began to close the door, but Mallory jammed it with his boot. He picked up his hat, shook off the rain, and stared right at me. “Mr. Vane, if you could accompany us to the morgue, it will probably only take an hour of your time.”

“Okay,” I said. “Just give me a minute to change.”

I turned back into the house, leaving the door cracked, the two officers standing there. I made eye contact with Smedley, who wanted to make sure I knew there were still strange people on our porch.

“It’s okay,” I told him. Then, without thinking, I spun on my heels. The piece of my mind that had been working to make the body someone other than Burnside hit on a shred of a clue. “Wait, did you two see the body?”

Sanchez and Mallory glanced at each other, confused, then nodded in unison.

“You didn’t recognize him?”

Mallory shook his head irritably. “That’s why we’re here.”

My heart lifted. Professor Holden Burnside was the most respected journalist in the United States—maybe in the history of the United States. He was the godfather of modern American political journalism. He had a dozen bestselling books and made regular appearances on cable news, often showing up as the stately voice of reason between crazed talking heads from the left and right.

If he was the dead man, surely one of them would have recognized him. It was a stretch, but one that sustained me long enough to get dressed, kiss Greta and Cleo goodnight, and follow Sanchez and Mallory into the bitterly cold Seattle night.

* * *

Burnside and I had met for a late dinner the previous night at a little seafood place downtown. When I arrived, he glanced up from the scotch and soda he’d been nursing and offered a weary smile. “Mr. Vane,” he said, not bothering to stand. “My best and worst student.”

The last time I’d seen Burnside was on a CNN panel about the biggest political scandals of the twentieth century, several of which he’d personally broken. That was about a year ago and, on TV at least, he’d worn his usual look—stoic but bright-eyed.

As I sat across from him, he looked older than I expected. His hair was grayer, though still flecked with brown, and his countenance somehow darker. I might have taken his comment as a joke, but Burnside never joked. Plus, he’d used the line on me before.

The first time was when I broke my first major story, which involved an NYU student falsely accused of a murder that had actually been committed by the CEO of Sun Media. When Burnside called to congratulate me, he said he was proud I’d broken the story, but deeply disappointed I’d chosen to break the story online, rather than at a real newspaper. “Predictable,” he’d said, “from my best and worst student.” Ever since, he’d treated me like his gifted but fundamentally lazy son.

I reached across the table and patted his shoulder awkwardly. “Good to see you.”

After ordering cioppino for each of us and asking about Greta and Cleo, Burnside pulled a reporter’s notebook from the inside pocket of his tweed jacket and got to the point. “I’m working on a new book and I want to ask you some questions.”

* * *

The morgue was ten minutes from my house. Sanchez offered me a seat in the back of their cruiser, but I wanted to be alone with my thoughts, so I followed them in my car.

Maybe it was the transition from exhausted near-sleep to driving through the slippery black streets of Seattle, to stumbling through an icy parking lot and into a brightly-lit morgue, but the next fifteen minutes went by in an odd, blurry haze. It might have been the shock of considering Burnside’s death. I don’t know, but none of what happened next felt right.

I followed Sanchez and Mallory in, passed a few other officers and a front desk attendant who made them sign in on a clipboard before they led me through a series of hallways to a large room.

The stale smell of formaldehyde hit me when they opened the door. On the ride over, I’d reflected on the fact that I’d never been to a morgue, imagining that it might smell like decomposing flesh. But there was none of that. Only a sickening, throat-grabbing chemical stench.

Within seconds, a slim Asian man materialized as if from thin air and opened one of the silver lockers on the far wall. He wore a white coat and moved with an expert’s confidence.

“Mr. Vane,” Sanchez said, “I know this may be difficult, but could you please come over here?”

My eyes were still adjusting to the light. Frozen, I stared at the spot where the bright white floor tiles met the even brighter white wall tiles, feeling like I’d be sucked into the space and disappear.

“Alex?” This time it was Mallory’s voice.

I urged my feet to move, and they did. Barely.

Dazed, I shuffled across the room and squinted down at the gurney as the man unzipped the body bag.

* * *

At dinner, Burnside had spent nearly two hours grilling me about my career. For reasons I couldn’t understand, he wanted the backstories on all my biggest scoops. We spent close to an hour on the NYU student and the anonymous source who’d led me to the truth, then another half hour on the follow-up reporting two years later, when the CEO had re-emerged in an effort to rig the 2004 presidential election on behalf of a group of media conglomerates.

Burnside knew my reporting better than I did, which meant he’d recently re-read my work, along with related stories from dozens of other reporters. Interestingly, he didn’t seem especially concerned with the stories themselves, but how I got the stories. He knew better than to ask for my sources, but he kept circling back to questions about how I interacted with them. Questions like, “At the time, did you consider what your sources had to gain by leaking the information you published?” Or, “Was it your idea to take the investigation in that direction or did a source push you there?” And, most surprising of all, “Have you ever had the feeling that a story, while accurate, did more harm than good?”

I answered honestly, and had a good time doing so. I’m in my late forties—young enough to keep doing good work, but experienced enough to enjoy reflecting on the ups and downs of my career. Not to mention, I’ve never minded talking about myself.

And there’s another thing. Professor Burnside was already a legend when I took his political reporting seminar at Columbia as a grad student. He’d broken dozens of big stories, including the love-child scandal that took down Democratic hopeful Payton Rhodes in the 1988 primaries, and a big one about Reagan’s possible knowledge in Iran-Contra. I was his student over twenty years ago, and his stature had only grown since.

No journalist in the country was more respected. No journalist was more feared in Washington D.C. For a clickbait sellout like me, even being mentioned in one of his books would be an honor.

Over coffee and Sambuca, he finally let me ask a question.”Professor, it’s an honor to be interviewed for your book, but you haven’t said anything about the actual subject, and I don’t see how my experiences could be relevant to any big political scandal. In total confidentiality—I won’t even tell my wife or baby girl—what’s the book about?”

He took a deep breath before answering. When he did, it was in the same measured, considered cadence he used on TV. “Well, you know that after my career at The Times ended, I started doing books. Deep dives into the major political scandals in American history.” He frowned into his glass. “When a man reaches his sunset years, he can’t help but reflect on his life.” He opened his mouth to continue, but nothing more came out.

“A memoir?”

“Not exactly. I’m doing a deep dive into myself. My career.”

“What do you mean?”

“Turns out, my career may be the biggest political scandal in American history.”

* * *

The right side of his face was caved in from his jawbone to his temple and his gray-brown hair matted with dried blood. But his long, sharp nose was perfectly clean and intact. It was unmistakably Holden Burnside.

Snippets of our conversation floated through me as I contemplated his motionless body. It was surreal. In my memories—fresh from the night before—Burnside felt so alive. He’d emanated years of accumulated wisdom and intelligence. His seriousness of purpose was infectious. The body before me was clearly his, but the man was gone.

I felt Mallory’s eyes on me and looked up. “So?” he asked.

“It’s him. Holden Burnside. Professor of journalism at Columbia in New York City. Legendary journalist and author. Father and husband. You didn’t recognize him? Really?”

“I did.” The mortician had stepped to the side after opening the body bag, but now stood beside me, studying Burnside’s body. “I’ve read a few of his books and seen him on the Sunday shows.” He eyed the two officers. “Don’t you follow politics?”

They shrugged and he addressed me. “How’d you know him?”

“I was his student. Once.”

“You’re a journalist?”

“Sort of.”

He shook his head. “Can’t believe he’s gone.”

Mallory came from behind and jammed his head between ours. “I hate to break up this little memorial, Mr. Vane, but we need to speak with Mr. Lee alone now.” He handed me a business card. “Officer Sanchez can walk you out.”

I was still dazed, but the journalist in me must have kicked in because I heard myself ask a question. “You said he had a piece of paper on him with my address. One of two. What was the other address?”

Officers Sanchez and Mallory exchanged a look. “Can’t tell you that,” Mallory said.

“Can you tell me if he had anything else on him?”

Mallory grunted. “If he’d had a wallet or other identification, we wouldn’t have needed you.”

Sanchez placed a hand gently on my forearm. “Look, Alex. We really can’t get into this too much.”

“Just tell me one thing. Did he have a notebook? Like a reporter’s notebook?”

“She said we can’t tell you anything,” Mallory growled. “What we need from you is contact information for his family. Can you give us that?”

I gave him the name of Burnside’s wife in New York City, then followed Sanchez and waited as she lit a cigarette under an awning out front. The wind howled and the rain came in horizontal sheets, soaking our feet.

“I know it says no smoking within twenty-five feet of the entrance,” she offered with a guilty smile, “but I’m not walking out into that. Were you close with…with the professor?”

She’d forgotten his name already. She’d written it in her notebook but, to her, his was just another body that meant nothing except paperwork in an unending loop of bodies and paperwork. I couldn’t blame her. As a journalist, I can’t get too attached to any one story, to any one line of research. My guess was, as a cop, she couldn’t allow herself to get too attached to any one victim.

When I didn’t respond, she gave me a side-eyed look, like she was offering me the cigarette. I don’t smoke, but the self-destructive act of smoking fit the moment. I took a long drag and blew the smoke into the rain, where it swirled up into the night.

She smiled as I handed her the cigarette. “I shouldn’t be telling you this. Mallory can be a real ass.” She took a long drag, then said through a cloud of smoke, “Burnside didn’t have a notebook on him.”

“The other address? Is there any way you can—“

“Not far from where we found the body.” She flipped through her notebook. “One-forty-one Drew Place, apartment thirty.”

“Why’d you come to me first?”

“Your address was crossed out, the other wasn’t. We figured you might have met with him.”

“We had dinner last night. I think I told you that already. Sorry. He didn’t say anything about another meeting. But he was always meeting with sources, with important people. I can’t imagine anyone wanting to kill him, though. Maybe the person at that address could be a suspect. You have people heading there now?”

“Suspect?” She cleared her throat and ashed her cigarette. “We sent some cops there for questioning, others are still working the scene, Alex, but he...he jumped. I’m sorry. This was a suicide.”

My legs buckled and I leaned on the door. “That’s not possible. I mean I just…”

The truth was, I didn’t know if it was possible. It didn’t feel right, but I doubt it ever feels right when someone you know commits suicide. The act is so final, so antithetical to life itself, my guess is that it always feels impossible to those left behind.

* * *

I drove home in a stupor, mind racing between a hundred different scenarios, eyes laser-focused on the shifting patch of road five feet in front of me. I kept picturing Burnside jumping from a balcony. Or a window. My imaginings mingled with memories of our dinner. It didn’t sit right.

When I came to the two-story Victorian Greta and I bought while she was still pregnant, my mind told me to turn into the driveway, park the car, crawl into bed, and tell my wife what happened. My gut urged me to drive to the scene, to the apartment building in South Lake Union where they’d found the body. I’d been trying to listen to my mind more, to pause and take the cautious approach in situations like this. Greta and I had agreed upon this course of action in couples counseling. The cautious approach was to sleep on the news and see how it felt in the morning.

But I couldn’t do it. I passed our driveway and made a u-turn. The site of Burnside’s death was only a few minutes away.

 

Chapter 2

 

Holden Burnside was famously understated. Every couple years he released a book. Every book became an instant bestseller, and every one broke all kinds of political news. And every year Burnside did the rounds on cable news and the Sunday morning political shows, presenting the damaging details and juicy gossip in his usual monotone, matter-of-fact manner. Yes, Chet, my reporting indicates that the President did in fact snort cocaine off a stripper’s ass in college. And how does this affect his current budget negotiations with Congress? Glad you asked...

I’d barely registered it when he’d said, “Turns out, my career may be the biggest political scandal in American history.” The way he’d said it, he might as well have told me he was strongly considering switching laundry detergents.

I’d sipped my Sambuca, trying in vain to read his blank expression. Of course, when the weight of what he’d said hit me, a hundred questions emerged. I’d known from the look on his face that he was serious, but what could he possibly mean? And how much would I be able to get out of him?

The answer, it turned out, was not much. I tried a dozen angles, questioning him on his major stories, prodding his connections to current politicians, even asking about his wife, who was involved in various charities back in New York City. Ever the professor, he complimented the tenacity of my questions, but gave me nothing.

Finally I gave up and, over cappuccinos, turned to my memories of Columbia. “Remember the saying you taught me on the first day of class?”

Burnside scratched the stubble on his chin. “It’s the same one I teach every class on the first day. I’m glad you remember it.”

Always carry a notebook, never give up a source, and, if your mother tells you she loves you, check it out. It’s a well-worn saying in journalism, somewhere between a maxim and a cliché. When Professor Burnside scrawled it on the whiteboard back at Columbia in the late nineties, I’d already heard it a hundred times, but he used it as a jumping-off point to explain his view of journalism.

“That’s easy to understand,” I said, “but difficult to execute in real life.”

“I notice you don’t have a notebook on you, unless it’s buried in that trendy blazer.”

I laughed at the idea of being trendy. Compared to Burnside, sure, but that wasn’t saying much. “I use an app on my phone.”

“That’s not the same.” He sighed, pulled out a pen, and tapped the notebook he had out on the table. “Ink, Mr. Vane. Paper and ink.”

Burnside came from the old school, before computers and cell phones, before they banned smoking in newsrooms. He didn’t donate to political parties, didn’t once express an opinion about politics in public. Rumor was he didn’t even vote. In his mind—and this is what he taught his students—journalists could and should separate all personal feelings from their stories and doggedly pursue the truth wherever it may lead. Facts were all that mattered. God didn’t live in the spin, in the pizazz, in the opinion. God was in the details. God was in the facts.

Burnside tried to shove the pen back in his jacket pocket but missed and dropped it on the floor. The coffee hadn’t sobered him much.

The drinking, along with the hit of caffeine, had me feeling philosophical. “It’s not the pen and notebook part that was hard to follow in my career. And not the giving up of sources. It’s the last part. ‘If your mother tells you she loves you, check it out.’ I’m fine with truth, accuracy, making absolutely certain I double-check everything, nail down every detail, but…I don’t know. You ever feel like the facts aren’t enough? That accuracy isn’t enough? That you can report all the facts in the world but the Truth—with a capital T—still eludes you? I just feel like…”

I trailed off. He locked his eyes on mine, and in an instant I was back in his classroom at Columbia, stammering a weak answer to a pointed question. Was he judging me?

Burnside smiled sadly. “It’s strange,” he said, his tone wistful, almost resigned. “For the first time in my life, I know exactly how you feel.”

* * *