Melodie Johnson Howe is in Vermont, dashing through the snow in her brand new Uggs. Melodie kindly asked award winning journalist Kathleen Sharp to fill in, and we’re pleased as punch to have her. Her fascinating essay reminds me of two things: first, that all good writing is creative writing, and second (with apologies to Karl von Clausewitz), that writing fiction is writing about the truth by other means. Enjoy! –JLW

THE OBJECTIVE HOAX

by Kathleen Sharp

Like many journalists, I have an unfinished novel turning yellow in my bottom drawer and some well-worn mysteries on my book shelf. I dream of writing fiction. It’s such a part of me, that before starting a non-fiction assignment, I refer to the shelf of great mysteries for inspiration. When I find a great passage about a character’s struggle with good and evil, I sigh. When I stumble upon an evocative depiction of a creepy mood, I get goose bumps. True, not many magazines assign long-form pieces that must have plot twists and morally ambiguity. Non-fiction editors like endings that tie things up neatly. But every now and then, you get a real-life source who offers you a puzzling, morally dangerous situation.

Not long ago, a young insurance agent called me with such a gift. He had read a nonfiction book I had written about a securities firm that had defrauded millions of people of $8 billion in investments. This caller claimed, in furtive tones, that there was another scandal brewing inside this very same conglomerate, this time, in its insurance division. He had discovered that the company’s software deliberately cheated clients of money every year. He had told his boss about the problem. But instead of correcting the wrong, his boss and their bosses had taken away his sales territory. They had placed him on probation and had stripped him of his bonuses. He lost pounds, clients and eventually his job.

Then, things really turned bad after he filed a whistle-blowing case. He, his wife and their five-year-old child found themselves being followed. Their phones were tapped, he said, and they were under constant surveillance. He had recently driven alone into the rustic hills of Northern California, where he’d been stopped by another car. Two assailants had jumped out and thrown a hood over his head. They had pistol-whipped him brutally, and warned him to drop his suit. Then, they threw him down an embankment and left. After regaining consciousness, he called 911 from his cell phone. When the police found his abandoned car hours later, it was dark. But they found him, too, with his face swollen, his ribs broken, and his lips recounting events for the officers at the scene.

The earnest man’s kidnap scenario seemed plausible to me. It was one of those rare stories that I had to jump on. I called a New York editor, got an assignment for a narrative piece, and flew north to meet my source. I spent days with the dark-eyed man, listening to the tapes of telephone calls that threatened him, his wife and his daughter. I visited his abduction scene. I met the cop on the case. But gradually, I grew uneasy. My reporter’s instincts went haywire. There was something more chilling about this story than I could have imagined.

Back in my office, I was stuck. Strangely enough, when I’m troubled about a real character in my journalism work, I turn to my shelf of mysteries. But neither Helen MacInnes nor Margaret Millar shed any light on this strange case of non-fiction. I turned to the stack of new crime books lying by the door and picked up the latest from Ann Rule, Too Late to Say Goodbye. The true-crime queen had once worked with serial killer Ted Bundy for The Stranger Beside Me, but not even Bundy had betrayed his author. There was Secrets Can Be Murder, by Jane Valez-Mitchell. It stood out because Mitchell had covered the Michael Jackson story for TV’s “Celebrity Justice” while I had reported the story for The Boston Globe. But Mitchell’s book just recounted some recent, gruesome murders and her sources had already been vetted. Then, I spied the work of mystery novelist Kate Clark Flora. She had wisely partnered with the detective on the case of the crime she wrote about. Finding Amy: A True Story of Murder in Maine book combined Flora’s story-telling gifts with the details gathered by detective Joseph K. Loughlin. Suddenly, I saw a way out of my own non-fiction mystery.

I had visited the police detective who had investigated my source’s abduction. Unlike the cop in Flora’s mystery, my guy was close-mouthed and clipped. Twice, he had had refused to comment on his investigation, and twice he had given me his cell number. So one night, I called to play a game of hypothetical with him. What if I didn’t believe that my source had been really abducted, I asked. “You’d be on the right track,” he responded. What would a detective do if he didn’t believe the victim, either, I pressed. “He’d arrest him for making a false police report.” A few more round of questions and I knew that my source had cleverly devised a great mystery, replete with telephone threats, a corporate surveillance gang, and a violent abduction. Talk about scary! This guy had actually recorded himself making threatening calls to his family. Worse, he had beaten himself up with a tire iron and thrown himself off a mountain. The crowning touch was enlisting me, an unwitting reporter in his crime.

His motive? I later learned that he was about to file a wrongful termination suit against his employer who had fired him for bilking investors. A national magazine story about his travails might have swayed a judge and jury to award him $250,000 or so. And I would have been part of the hoax.

I suppose the worlds of mystery fiction and non-fiction are not so far apart. I know I lost time, money, and sleep on this wild-goose chase. But I finally got enough material for my own first novel.