Chapter Twenty-Five
When Ronald finally made a fateful phone call to Shao, it was done with immense trepidation. He’d missed a lot of work. He’d destroyed his phone. When he stopped responding to email, on William’s recommendations, he was for all the world knew, missing. But the world continued to turn. The news media found news worthy stories, and there was never a shortage of reporters to take up the slack where Ronald missed out.
“Where the hell have you been?” Shao asked.
Ronald stood just inside the office door looking mawkish. He didn’t say anything immediately. Instead, Shao ushered an astonished looking reporter from the office, and Ronald closed the door.
“The beard suits you,” she said. She stabbed at the keyboard on her desk. “Looks like we made seventeen attempts to call you,” she read from the monitor. “Tell me exactly why I shouldn’t just have you turn around and walk out of this office.”
“Do you even care what’s been going on in my life?” he finally asked. “What about ‘oh my, God, Ron, I was so worried about you.’ Not even something to make me think you cared at all if I was alive or dead.”
“No one’s heard from you.” Shao looked nonplused. “I assumed you were on a big story. But it’s not like you to at least check in. I was shocked.”
“What if I was dead in my apartment?”
For a moment, Shao made a face as if Ronald’s question held some newsworthy memento. But the look faded. “I honestly thought you were just done with all this and found another media outlet to write for.”
“Give me a little consideration.” Ronald remained standing. The conversation didn’t go at all as he planned. For some reason, Ronald believed he mattered. He believed, in the grand scheme of the news world, Shao gave a shit about him. But her attitude and the fact no one reported the shooting at the apartment, suggested someone kept secrets well sealed. “I’ve been away.”
“On assignment?” Shao asked. She made a face. “I hope you’re not thinking we’re going to pick up the tab. Or pay for your absent days.”
Ronald clicked his tongue. “Why am I even here?”
“There’s been some news since you’ve left. Have you been keeping tabs, at least?”
“I don’t know. What’s been going on, and I’ll tell you if I knew it already.”
Shao looked as if his words slapped her face. “What’s with the attitude?”
“Do I matter at all to you?” he asked.
Shao didn’t answer immediately. She had a look that suggested if she chose words that weren’t suited to Ronald, he’d find his way back under the rock he’d been camping beneath. “I think you’re a hell of a writer.” She cleared her throat. “If this was some ploy to get a raise, you can forget it. No one’s getting any raises for a while. If you’re not writing for TV news, you’re not important. What half the world doesn’t understand is that people like you and I are on the front lines. These TV newscasters get their fucking news from a teleprompter. We go out and dig through the trenches to get that copy first. Just so those pretty faces can regurgitate it on 24-hour news networks.
“I can’t say I’m not happy to see you back. But the facts are, you are a dinosaur living in a digital world. Just like me. They don’t care if the news was accurate. Instant media outlets can throw shit out there and if it sticks to something, so what. They can make a retraction later. No one cares about liability anymore. And news media can’t wait around for fact checkers.” Shao took a deep breath. It occurred to Ronald that she’d harbored that tale for a long while. She just needed someone to use as a target. Ronald was a ghost. No one looked up from their monitors when he walked into the office.
It was a jarring shock that he’d been unprepared for, to think he had some shred of dignity when he walked into the place, made Ronald recalculate his life. He intended a different outcome. He’d rehearsed the monologue. But in the end, it was Shao’s general indifference to his still being a good reporter, or even being alive, that made Ronald decide what was best for him.
“I hope you have a wonderful life,” he told Shao before he left her office.
She didn’t chase him out. She didn’t call to him from the office. When Ronald made it to the far side of the desk pool, he glanced once at Shao’s glass walls. She was on the phone. He suspected she contacted human resources. Shao finalized what he’d already intended to do.
***
Ronald walked the bustling sidewalks of DC. Tourists mingled with politicians. The place was pulsing with people just going about their lives. It was hard for him to think he’d spent weeks running and hiding. He believed the world was a righteous place where people who broke the law had to answer for it. But that wasn’t the case at all. He’d stumbled into a story about a greedy fat man who died because of his gluttony. If he didn’t find out, the guy would still be stealing. And no one seemed to care. At least, that’s how it felt.
Ronald went into a tavern on Pennsylvania Avenue. He was several blocks away from the infamous house at the end of the road. He didn’t wonder if any of the people behind the security gates ordered his death. It didn’t matter. Ronald drank two shots of whiskey. And then he drank a third.
When he’d run up a considerable amount on his account, Ronald left the tavern, wedging his way through the doorway and into the street. Somehow, it had turned from day to night while he wallowed in his self-pity. He knew a long way home. The roads were familiar to him. He’d read a book about a man who recognized the streets he walked even in the thickest fog because of the feel of cobblestones underfoot.
There were limited places in DC anymore with cobblestones. And nowhere Ronald knew he could tread on them. But there was truth in the notion. He’d lived in the city long enough. He’d made his way home on foot in the dark so many times before, that he knew the way, even with his eyes closed.
When Ronald got back to the apartment, he turned on all the lights. And then he drew all the curtains closed. Since the bullet smashed the beer bottle and wedged into the floor some yards inside the apartment, it didn’t break any glass. Ronald closed the balcony door and pulled the drapes closed.
He drew a bath. It wasn’t something he usually did but that night seemed important. When Ronald finally took his own life that night, he saw the blood pooled on the floor beside the bathtub. There was a jug of drain cleaner turned on its side. The contents spilled into the tub. Anyone else would feel the caustic liquid on his skin. But Ronald wasn’t like anyone else. He wasn’t important enough to have the luxury of a pleasant death.
It was weeks before they found the body. The closed apartment was hermetically sealed. It wasn’t until the landlord wanted the back rent before they started knocking. By the time the police broke into the studio, the body in the bathtub was unrecognizable. There was no question it was Ronald Hayden. The evidence only pointed to deliberate suicide. The submerged corpse was quickly cremated.