The Anonymous Source (An Alex Vane Media Thriller, Book 1) Read online

  Malina looked up. “I know what Demarcus was doing in the park that night, and I do not want any part of it. He has not been around here.”

  Tyree came from the corner and curled up on Malina’s lap.

  “How old is he?” Camila asked, smiling.

  “I’m two and three-quarters,” he said.

  “And precocious,” Malina added.

  Camila smiled at him as Malina stroked Tyree’s hair. He looked up at her. “Muppāṭṭi, you said not to lie. Grandpa was here.”

  “I said never to lie to a friend, to an honest man. This is a reporter.”

  Alex laughed loudly, but when Malina shot an icy look at him, he realized she hadn’t been joking.

  “But the lady is nice,” Tyree said.

  Malina smiled at the boy and spoke to Camila. “Demarcus came by last Thursday.”

  “That’s the day I first noticed him following me,” Alex said.

  “He stayed for about an hour. He walked from room to room talking about basketball. The times he had played with his dad in the park. He even asked if I remembered particular games from high school. Honestly, all those games are the same to me, but he was talking about them like they had just happened.”

  “Did he take anything with him?” Camila asked. “A bag? A package?”

  “Not that I saw.”

  “Mrs. Downton, that video has to be here,” Alex said.

  “What he means to say, Malina, is that Demarcus intended for us to have this video. Do you know where he might have put it?”

  “No, but you are welcome to look through his memory box. It’s on the top shelf in my peyaraṉ’s room now.”

  Malina led them into a small bedroom furnished with only a twin bed and a few plastic buckets filled with toys and stuffed animals. She opened the sliding door of a wide closet and pointed at the top shelf. “Up there.”

  Alex took down a box and placed it on the bed.

  “Please be brief,” Malina said from the doorway.

  Alex rummaged through the materials until Camila pushed him out of the way. “Have some respect,” she said.

  Alex sat on the bed and folded his arms. Camila took items out one by one, scanning them and placing them in a neat pile. “Mostly old photos and news clippings,” she said. “Yearbook. Old report cards. Some finger paintings and old assignments from school. No video.”

  “He said it was a little black thing. A tiny box or something.” Alex thumbed through the papers and photos, hoping to find the video stuck between the pages.

  “Come here,” Camila said. She was inside the closet, pointing at its ceiling.

  Alex got a chair and climbed up, running his fingers along a crease in the ceiling. “It’s a storage space,” he said.

  He pried it open from the corners, revealing a small compartment. Reaching in, he felt plastic and pulled out a thick garbage bag. When he looked down to hand it to Camila, she was no longer there. He stepped down and saw that she’d left the room. He opened the bag and pulled out another bag from inside it, then another. By the time he got to the fourth bag, Alex smelled the sweet, rich aroma of high-end marijuana. He sifted through dozens of small baggies before pulling out a small piece of rag.

  Wrapped in the rag was a black box, about one by two inches, with what looked like a black jacket button attached to the front and a tiny silver wire on the back.

  Alex smelled food. He put the baggies back in the plastic bags and returned them to the storage space. He walked down the hall but paused in the doorway when he saw Camila playing with Tyree on the floor of the kitchen. She stacked blocks up to the level of his head, then sat back as Tyree slapped them down, a huge smile spreading across his face.

  As the blocks scattered across the kitchen, Camila laughed. “Hey, I was building that,” she said in a deep, booming voice. Tyree laughed and gathered the blocks.

  Camila started building again as Alex stepped into the kitchen. “Found it,” he said.

  From the floor, Camila said, “Is that turmeric, Malina?”

  “Yes,” Malina replied, “I try to feed this one a little more traditionally. Sometimes I think Demarcus went bad because of all the food in this country. The only connection he had with Sri Lanka was that silly tattoo. Do you cook?”

  “Not much, but I do eat,” Camila said.

  “What tattoo?” Alex asked.

  “That tattoo on his neck was a jungle fowl. National bird of Sri Lanka. Instead of living the values of his culture, he got a tattoo to represent them. That was when I knew he had become an American.” She looked into the simmering pot, then at Camila. “Would you like to stay for dinner?”

  The tower was a foot above Tyree’s head when he knocked it down with both arms, cackling as blocks flew across the kitchen.

  “Hey. I. Was. Building. That.” Camila’s laughter cut through her mock angry voice.

  “Looks like you’re part of the family already,” Alex said.

  Camila hugged Tyree, stood up, and walked to the stove. “You asked if we wanted to stay for dinner?”

  “We really ought to be going,” Alex said.

  Malina turned toward Alex but did not look at him. “You found what you came for?”

  “I did. I found—”

  She held up her hand. “I do not wish to know anything about it.”

  “Thank you so much for the dinner offer,” Camila said.

  “Yeah,” Alex added as Malina led them into the hallway, “and thanks for your help. Really.”

  ”You’re welcome,” Malina said, “I hope you two find whatever you’re looking for. Good-bye.”

  When she had closed the door behind them, Alex handed Camila the recorder. “How do we watch it?” Camila asked, burying it in her purse.

  Alex smiled. “Ever been inside a real newsroom, or do you just critique them for a living?”

  Camila punched his shoulder. Alex faked a wince. They both smiled.

  Chapter 30

  Alex and Camila scanned the dark, quiet newsroom. A fluorescent light flickered above them. “The layout and design people are finalizing the paper,” Alex said. “Most everyone else has gone home. I hope our researcher slash tech-guy is still here.”

  They found James Stacy at his desk in the corner, staring at spreadsheets on both of his giant screens. “I figured you’d still be here,” Alex said. He pointed at the screens. “What’s that?”

  “Web traffic l-l-logs. They’re having me keep track of site visits, ads served, that kind of thing.”

  James turned toward them, then lurched back in his chair. He stared at Camila with his mouth open, then turned quickly back to the screens.

  “Don’t worry,” Alex said. “It’s just a woman. She’s not here to eat your soul or anything.”

  James took a long swig of soda as he handed Alex a manila folder. “Your l-l-l-list,” he said. “It’s l-l-long. Seventy-five p-people. It’s a b-b-big case.“

  Alex opened the folder and looked over the three printed pages, stapled in the corner. James had organized the list alphabetically, by last name, with a separate column explaining each person’s connection to the case. “Nothing about their religions?” Alex asked.

  “Didn’t think you were s-serious about that.”

  Camila pointed at the soda can on James’s desk. “You drink Jolt?” she asked. “I used to love Jolt. I thought they’d stopped making it.”

  James looked at her timidly. “You can still get the original cans on-on-on.” He cleared his throat with a giant cough. “Get them online.”

  “That’s awesome,” Camila said. “All the sugar, twice the caffeine.”

  James smiled and turned back to the screen. “What do you need, Alex? I thought you turned into a p-pumpkin if you stayed past four-thirty.”

  Camila retrieved the recorder from her purse and dangled it in front of James’s face.

  “Do you know how to watch whatever is on there?” Alex asked.

  James studied it. “Why? What’s on it? Anythi
ng to do with the Santiago c-case? Things were weird around here today. The Colonel was in his office all day and a couple suits came down.”

  “Nothing’s going on,” Alex said.

  “Then why do you have a thousand dollar surveillance camera and why are you bringing it to me at ten on a Monday n-night?”

  “Can you help me or not?” Alex asked.

  James opened a desk drawer and pulled out a box of wires and connectors. He tossed cable after cable onto his desk before finding a thin white wire. He connected it to the silver wire on the recorder, then connected the other end of the white wire to his computer. He opened a program called “Video Codec 5” on the large screen on the left side of his desk. He stood up. “I suppose you want me to l-leave?”

  “I promise I’ll explain at some point,” Alex said.

  “I n-need to get another s-s-soda anyway,” James said, walking away.

  Camila sat in James’s chair. Alex leaned over her and pressed play. The video was dark and grainy and showed the fountain in the center of Washington Square Park.

  “Damn, no audio,” Alex said. “But there’s a time stamp. Scroll forward.”

  Camila scrolled until the time stamp read 1 a.m. The video now showed trees and a garbage can, but was panning slowly across the park.

  “It’s weird to think that that’s Downton moving the camera,” Alex said. “Looking for customers.”

  “There,” Camila said. The shot had steadied, though the camera still wobbled.

  It was a wide-angle shot about fifty feet from the bronze statue of Garibaldi. On the left side of the frame there was darkness and a few trees. On the right, just the towering statue lit by a streetlight. The fountain sat between them. Alex leaned over Camila’s shoulder and squinted. Just under the statue, at the bottom-right of the frame, a man moved. He was medium-height and wore a white longshoreman’s cap. He rocked back and forth from leg to leg.

  Alex touched the screen with a finger. “That’s Martin.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What’s he doing?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Alex pointed at the darkness on the left side of the picture. “That’s the path that leads in and out of the park.”

  After a few minutes, a figure appeared and walked past the statue and toward the camera. Alex recognized Santiago right away. He was short, and as he got closer to the camera, Alex could make out his brown hair and expressionless face.

  When Santiago was about twenty-five feet from the camera, in between the statue and the fountain, he stopped and turned around. He appeared to be staring straight at Martin.

  Under the statue, Martin rocked back and forth, his white hat now lower in the frame.

  “What’s Martin doing?” Alex asked.

  Camila tapped on the screen. “Looks like he’s sick or something. Was he drunk?”

  “I don’t think so. People I’ve talked to say that witnesses from the bar are going to say he’d only had one glass of wine.”

  They watched in silence. Santiago stood motionless and Martin rocked back and forth in a doubled-over curl. The camera shook slightly, then Martin fell over.

  His hat hit the ground and landed about a foot from his head. Santiago took two quick steps toward him, then stopped. He stood for a few seconds, turned, and walked away from Martin, toward the center of the park. As Santiago neared the edge of the frame, the camera caught his face.

  Alex thought he saw a smile spread between the young man’s pockmarked cheeks. He turned to Camila. “What the hell?”

  Chapter 31

  Tuesday, September 10, 2002

  “He just stood there, watching,” Alex said, looking down at his plate.

  By just after midnight, they were sitting in the Apollo Diner a couple of blocks from the newsroom. The restaurant was empty except for a table of drunk twenty-somethings and a few people reading in booths. They had watched the video four times and scanned the thirty minutes on either side of it, but found nothing else of interest.

  Camila looked at Alex’s plate. “I watched a show about bodybuilders once and they eat just like you—five-egg omelet with triple spinach and coffee.” She stirred cheese into a bowl of onion soup. “What are you thinking?” she asked.

  “I’m trying to figure out what to do. I could write a story or call the cops, but part of me wants to just disappear.”

  “First of all, you’re not giving the video to the cops, at least not yet.” She swallowed a spoonful of soup. “Those guys can lose a video like this even faster than a newspaper can.”

  “And if my boss lied to me about who killed Downton, I don’t even want to tell him I have the video. But I have to, I can’t just . . . ” He trailed off and took a sip of his coffee. “Look, I know what you’re thinking, and there’s no conspiracy. Just a bunch of reporters and editors and owners, doing their best to handle pressure exerted from every direction while making a living. It only looks like a conspiracy from the outside because the final product is so often shitty. There is no ‘media.’ There are just thousands of people making millions of independent decisions, many out of fear, or just stupidity.”

  “Yeah but—”

  “All you academics who write books about ‘liberal bias this’ or ‘Fox news that,’ have no idea what actually goes on.”

  Camila put her spoon down and raised her voice. “But doesn’t the stuff that gets left out bother you? I’m not especially political, but I think it’s better to have more voices, more stories, more perspectives.”

  “People are lying to us and using us all day, every day, from every angle. Most of us are just doing our best to make a living and, if we’re lucky, get some truth out.”

  “That’s not exactly inspiring. You know, the fourth estate safeguarding democracy and all that.”

  She smiled but Alex went quiet and pushed eggs around on his plate. After a moment, he said, “It’s a chicken and egg thing. Do people get stupid by listening to us or do they listen to us because they’re stupid? A well-informed public has never existed. We just give the people what they want.” He paused. “Too many people are making a living bashing journalists.”

  “I don’t bash journalists. It’s not your fault.” She sighed. “None of this matters now. This is a real thing. Can you live with the way Santiago got executed in the press? The way your boss is sidestepping this story?”

  Alex sipped his coffee. “I don’t know . . . no. I can’t live with that.”

  “So what do you want to do?”

  Alex took a bite of omelet, chewed slowly, swallowed, and looked up at her. “I’m confused as hell, but I know that video directly contradicts the version we’ve been hearing from police and prosecutors for a year.”

  “And?”

  “Despite what you said in the taxi—which I appreciated, by the way—I am an asshole.” He paused. “I have to do something.”

  “What about your boss? If he lied to you about Downton . . . ”

  Alex finished his coffee and waved to the waitress, who came over and refilled his cup. “What’s your name?” Alex asked her with a broad smile.

  Short and stocky, she wore a brown Apollo Diner uniform and black rectangular glasses. “Mary,” she replied.

  “And, Mary, can I ask you a question?”

  “Sure.”

  “Do you consider yourself well informed?”

  “Pretty well informed, I guess.”

  “Do you believe what you read in the paper?”

  “Uh, well, I guess so,” she said.

  “And do you trust reporters?”

  “Hell no. Buncha lyin’ bastards, if you ask me.”

  Alex smirked at Camila, then looked back at Mary. “So reporters are lying bastards, but you trust what you read in the paper?”

  “Hmmm. Guess I never really thought about it,” she said, turning and walking away.

  “Touché,” Camila said. “So what are you gonna do?”

  “I’ll do what I do. I’ll write it.”


  “What about your boss?”

  “I have to believe he’s not in on it. And once he knows the video is real, he’ll have to run it.”

  Chapter 32

  The newsroom was dark and quiet. The first staff wouldn’t arrive until 5 a.m. and James had fallen asleep with his head on his desk. Camila watched over Alex’s shoulder as he stared at the blinking cursor on the blank screen.

  He knew he could approach the story from one of two angles. The first was to present only the content of the video, leaving out how it was obtained. The second was to connect the video to Downton, his story about the two young cops, and his murder. But this would mean trying to track down the two cops—days of work that might prove fruitless.

  He got out of his chair and paced. “I’m gonna leave Downton out of it,” he said, looking at Camila but speaking to himself. He sat down. “For now, the video is the story. I can track down the rest of it later.”

  “What about the weird calls you’ve been getting?”

  “Can’t run anything on those. Too vague at this point. If I can convince the caller to go on the record, or find out how he knows what he knows, that would change things.”

  “Do you know it’s a him?”

  “No, but that reminds me.” Alex reached for the manila folder James had given him and scanned the list. He recognized only a few of the names. He could cold-call them but doubted it would yield any results, especially at 1 a.m. He set the list aside, turned back to the computer, and started typing. Camila lay on her back on the floor and stared at the ceiling.

  After twenty minutes, Alex got up and did fifty pushups.

  Camila rolled over on her elbows to watch him. “Why do you do that?” she asked, laughing.

  “Clears my mind. You know, you might try moving your body at some point. It’s that thing just below your head.” He smiled at her. “Hey, can you go back to James’s desk, watch the video again, and find out exactly how long Santiago stood and stared at Martin?”