The Anonymous Source by A.C. Fuller Page A

had been hit by a string of burglaries when he was ten. The paper had run sketches of two suspects and for weeks he’d worried about the two men climbing through his window at night. That was the closest he’d come to danger, and it had been imaginary.
    His head buzzed. Maybe he should just drop the story and get out of town. But he couldn’t be in any real danger—he never even saw the video.He pictured Downton sitting in the coffee shop and his eyes filled with tears. They felt cold rolling down his hot face. He wiped them away with his sleeve. He knew he didn’t have time for this.
    His instinct was to write everything he knew—Downton’s claims about the night Martin was killed, his story about the two cops, and his murder. He would need to find out more about Downton’s murder, but he was certain that it was connected to Martin and Santiago. Putting everything out in the open felt like it would shield him from any danger. But the video—he’d need the video. Downton had mentioned that it was at his mother’s house in Queens. She couldn’t be too hard to find.
    He stood and called Baxton. “Colonel, it’s Alex,” he said, pacing the small apartment as he spoke.
    “On a Saturday afternoon? Have I finally instilled a work ethic in you?”
    “This is serious, Colonel. You know that source I talked to you about who had something on Santiago?”
    “Yeah, the criminal. I remember.”
    “He got killed last night. Shot in his apartment.”
    “Well, you said he was a criminal, right? What happened?”
    “I’m not sure. No one at the scene would talk.”
    “You were there?”
    Alex stopped pacing and stared out at the traffic on Broadway. The late afternoon sun cast a golden light on the tops of the buildings and the street below was marked by long, irregular shadows. “Yeah. I was meeting him to get the video.”
    “You showed up and he was dead?”
    “Yes. Look, Colonel, you’ve gotta do something for me.”
    “Where’s this video supposed to be?”
    “I don’t know, maybe Queens. Look, I need you to call someone to find out what happened. You still have people in the department, right? Find out what sort of gun was used, who they are looking at, and whether there’s any connection to Santiago, or to drugs.”
    “Your source was into drugs? What was he, a dealer or a user?”
    Alex hesitated. “A dealer.”
    “I’ll make some calls, but no one is going to go on record for this, you know.”
    “I know. Tell them it’s for informational purposes only.”
    “If I do this for you, and it turns out to be just another drug-related homicide in Brooklyn, will you drop this guy?” Baxton asked. “Trial starts again Monday morning and I need a thousand words a day on it.”
    “Just call me back when you get something.”
    Alex put his phone on the desk and lay on the bed. His gaze followed the tiny cracks in the ceiling paint from one corner of the room to another as he imagined Downton, bloodied and lifeless, lying on the floor. He wondered whether he liked Downton, something he had never considered about a victim. Journalists were supposed to remain neutral and many had to set part of themselves aside to achieve this. For Alex, neutrality came easy. Sometimes he thought he had no feelings, no opinions, nothing solid that needed to be set aside. He was an excellent reporter, but it had never occurred to him to care about what he was reporting on—the sources or the victims he covered. But Downton had been attempting to do something good, had taken a risk, and it had gotten him killed.
    He was relieved that Baxton was going to help him, and when his phone rang he sprang across the room.
    Then he looked at the caller ID: 000-0000 .
    Taking a deep breath, he answered, “Hello?”
    “He was not the only one who knows what happened.” The voice again. Deep and distorted. Metallic.
    “Who is this?” he managed.
    “We have been over that. I can’t tell you. But I can say that Downton was not the