Someone Shot the Messenger

After a gruelling day at work that left all his muscles tense, even behind his eyes, Daymond returned home. It was a chore to even get out of the soft tan leather of his car. With a slow groan and while using the car door for support, he lifted himself up and shuffled his way to his front door.

There, he noticed a package lying in wait for him at the entrance. He didn't remember ordering anything, and it didn't look as though it was ordered. The box was wrapped in brown paper, almost the type of waxy paper a butcher would wrap meat in, but not the same. Before opening the door, he picked it up and inspected it. There was a sender but no address: Jerome Smith. The middle of the package had his address and name written out, so there was no mistaking it was for him, but the sender…

Jerome Smith… Smith… Smith…

Daymond rolled the name around in his head and mouthed the words to get a feel for them. It sounded familiar like he should know who it was from, but he couldn't place it.

He hoisted the package under his arm and went inside his home. His dog, the only other occupant, and on many accounts the true master of the house, greeted him with a fervour that only a loving companion could deliver.

Daymond dropped the package on a shoe rack next to the front door and then gave his pup, Hunter, the attention he deserved. Daymond was rewarded with copious licks that smelled of the dry food he ate daily.

He closed the door, took off his shoes and jacket, then headed into the kitchen to prepare their meals. Hunter's meal was easy, a scoop of the premium dry food from the pantry. As soon as the pantry door was opened, Hunter began pacing back and forth excitedly.

Daymond held up a finger, and Hunter stopped his frolicking in an instant as he watched his master's finger and the cup of food in his other hand. Daymond slowly poured the food into his dog's dish but kept his finger up until he stood upright again. Then, after another short moment, he lowered the finger, and Hunter burst into activity again to eat up the food in great heaps.

Daymond went about preparing his own meal. He took out a bagged chicken salad, nothing fancy and certainly something he could afford to rectify, but he didn't have the energy to make something better. He did have the energy to open a bottle of Bordeaux, though, and so he poured himself a glass to let it breathe before he would drink it.

Daymond went to the couch, set up the recliner, and watched TV as he ate and drank. Soon, Hunter joined him on the sofa, and Daymond rested his hand on the pup's back while he drank his wine.

…

Daymond awoke to the sun gone, and the streetlights were now shining into his home in its place. The TV was still on, now to the news. He rubbed his face to alert himself as he listened to the headlines. Though he no doubt heard it all at his job at the paper, it didn't hurt to listen to what his colleagues, or competition, were reporting on.

First, they reported on local fluff mixed with small disasters, then covered the stocks falling again, and then moved on to politics. A politician made breaking news for being shot at a rally. The killer was caught, but there was suspicion around just how he had made it past security with a gun. The news also shared that many people on social media were calling it a hit because the politician previously worked as a lawyer and ran for office on an anti-corruption campaign. There were also rumours online that he had recently been working with all his contacts, new and old, to uncover a big scandal. It had turned into a full-blown conspiracy theory at this point, with many seeking obtuse clues online from dubious sources.

Well, if it was a hit, this would only bring more scrutiny on any corruption. Daymond thought.

The name of the politician suddenly clicked, and Daymond remembered the package. The politician killed was Jerome Smith, the same name on the box he had received. He had forgotten about the package because it seemed unimportant. Now, suddenly shaking from fear and suspicion, he looked over his shoulder at the package where it lay on the shoe rack.

Daymond got up from the recliner and turned around to look at the package more clearly. Hunter looked up at him, sensing something was amiss. The rumbling sound of a truck passing by made Daymond jolt and sent his heart racing like the beating of a jackhammer he felt all the way to his ears.

Daymond walked over to the package, each footstep as though lined in a pit of mud, his arms and spine stiff with the rigour of one who sensed death approaching or sensed death lying on a bench in his home.

After only a few steps, the labour was done, and he was close enough to pick up the package, but he still hesitated. Instead, he read the name of the sender once again, then looked over his shoulder at the news still talking about the shooting of Jerome Smith. He hadn't misread, and he hadn't misremembered. It was the same name, and he had no doubt in his mind that there was a connection.

Mustering up his courage as though holding hands against a flickering candle, Daymond wrested the package open to inspect its contents for himself. Soon his fear was replaced with curiosity, and it pushed his hands and fingers nimbly faster into the unassuming cardboard.

Inside, a full manila envelope met his gaze. Bolstered on by his curiosity, he undid the old-fashioned twine looped around the top of the bulking folder. He pulled out the hefty stack of pages and noticed that the first page was addressed to him, and it was written by Jerome.

"If you're reading this, I'm likely dead," it began, which caused Daymond's heart to sink back into despair, like a cold wind enveloping the candle he had tried so hard to protect.

He kept reading on, and the letter explained that it was sent randomly to him and him alone. He was only chosen because he was one of a few journalists within his mid-sized newspaper that Jerome had vetted long ago through his connections.

Daymond skimmed the letter, too filled with morbid curiosity of the rest of the novel beneath to give the preface his full attention. He moved onto the rest of the pile of documents to discover what could only be described as evidence of the largest ring of corruption in the country, maybe the world. It detailed who was involved, including international connections within the largest corporations and governments, and irrefutable evidence in the way of leaked taxes, black ledgers, and photos.

Daymond was stunned as he read page after page and looked at picture after horrifying picture. He couldn't stop himself and didn't realize that he was still standing in his entryway until after he had finished, and it was past midnight.

He sat down but didn't have the strength to go any farther than the shoe rack next to him. He pushed his footwear aside and laid the documents down next to him before he rubbed his face with his palms in a final attempt to rub away the sleep as though this were just a bad dream.

Daymond couldn't grasp the implications of the too far-reaching corruption he had sifted through, nor what such information being found and released would mean. In this day of modern misinformation and corporate propaganda, social media and waves of faceless supporters would do the bulk of muddying the waters for anyone wrapped up in the scandal found in this archive.

Despite the proof that Daymond's education and experience told him was valid, skeptics and the uneducated wouldn't believe it. The accused would lie and say it was fake when it came to light, and the truth would no longer matter in many people's eyes because there was no focal point. It was too large to contain in so many minds or in so small of screens.

And then there was the sender, Jerome Smith, a dead man. It was clear that he was assassinated. Before, it may have been a lone gunman who simply wormed his way into the rally, but now there was no doubt in Daymond's mind that he was the patsy for the elites named in this document. If they could kill a politician with that much security, how easy would it be to kill him?

He had become a journalist because he wanted to write and to make the news enjoyable. He didn't become a journalist to be a whistleblower for a global conspiracy and be killed for it. This was too much for him.

Hunter came over and rubbed against Daymond's leg, bringing him back to the here and now, and whined as though he sensed his master's distress.

If I die, who would take care of Hunter?

Daymond took the bulk of incriminating papers and headed to his back porch. When he opened the sliding door, a wave of cold air blew over him and chilled him to his bones in his simple clothes. It was as though the wind was telling him to stay inside, to not take that next step, but he ignored it.

He went to his barbecue, opened the lid, placed the papers inside and closed it before the wind could take them away. He turned on the gas to the highest setting and put his finger on the igniter.

He hesitated. The metallic hissing of the propane cut through the howling wind as his finger lay a mere inch from burning the scoop of a lifetime away. What if he was overthinking it? What if he wouldn't become a target, and he could stay alive? What good would killing him be once the news was already broken?

Beyond that, he thought about others in his profession who spoke truth to power. The ones who risked their lives to hold heinous people responsible for their actions who came before him. And what of Jerome, who entrusted him with this responsibility before he paid the ultimate price? Without this, his life would have been lost in vain.

Daymond cursed his cowardice, and he let his finger off the ignition with a heavy sigh, his breath turning to a cloud of vapour in front of him.

He was caught, entangled between obligation and fear as though he were caught in a snare in front of his barbeque. The mocking hiss of the propane gnawed at him as he waffled back and forth.

Daymond set his jaw, balled his fists, and made his decision.