The Science of Growing Apart

11- Daniel

The only downside to what just happened was that I lied so hard right to Kim's face. I didn't have a meeting scheduled with any witnesses at all, but I had to say something to get her to say yes. If I was stuck in the petty crime stories for much longer, I would combust.

I wasn't worried, I just had some extra work to do and I needed to do it fast. It was 10 A.M. and I had until the end of the day to, not only somehow find somebody to interview, but also write the entire article before 9 A.M. the next day. Twenty-three hours to mold my story felt like it would be a tiny miracle, but I would make it happen.

Finding the man who found the body was surprisingly easy, as he did an interview with a news station right after it happened and he was still wearing his gas station uniform. The gas station was just a couple of blocks from the house where a man's body laid on the front porch of his house for several days before the gas station guy, on the news his name was Eduardo, smelled a stench coming from his neighbor's house and decided to investigate.

Searching for Eduardo helped me take my mind off of the embarrassment that was my phone call with Casey the night before. In fact, I became so preoccupied with pulling something out of my ass for the story that I didn't have a single beat to worry about anything else.

My first miracle of the day came at noon when I tracked Eduardo down at the gas station and begged him to use his break for an interview. Paying my sources, known as checkbook journalism, was not only frowned upon in the industry but also against policy at my specific journal. So without being able to pay him, it took a lot of convincing to finally get him to agree (bribed him with a name drop in the article), but he finally agreed.

The whole story was quite sad after listening to Eduardo talk about the incident. He didn't know the dead man very much at all. The only thing he could tell me about him was that he was particular about the way his lawn looked and that he didn't really have very many friends or family.

That checked out, since the man laid on his porch for five or six days before Eduardo found his body. Nobody came to check on him or noticed that he hadn't been in contact with them for almost a full week. He vanished from the world without even a whisper.

I ran from the gas station to the coroner's office to the home of the crime and then to the police station to gather as much information as I could about the porch body.

Daniel Cruz was his name, dead from two gunshot wounds to the chest, dead five and a half days when Eduardo found him. No immediate family, no body to claim the body. No suspects.

It felt like every time I learned a new piece of information about the victim, the story got even sadder. But the sadder the story, the harder I felt pushed to work on it. Somebody had to tell this man's story. Somebody had to give him a voice and let the world know that he existed.

Giving people a voice was why I became a journalist in the first place. To find the truth and send it out into the world, no matter how ugly or sad it may be. That's what I was doing (or trying to do) with Shiloh and now, that was what I was doing for Daniel Cruz.

–

It was passed dinner time when I finally returned to my apartment that night. After quickly feeding my grumpy cat, I immediately sat myself on the couch and started playing an ambient music from a Spotify playlist to help me focus.

Once my laptop whirred awake from its nap, I began writing like my fingers were on fire. I imagined who Daniel Cruz was, and I imagined the horror Eduardo must have felt when coming upon such a grotesque sight on that porch. They were sad things to imagine and it made my entire body heavy, but I sipped on my coffee and I continued.