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The Saddest Story I Never Wrote

It was the end of a long, terrible day filled with thugs, standoffish cops, madness and mayhem.
Nothing unusual.
That's the life of a cop reporter, but the very last call on the scanner turned out to be the worst crime of all.

It was a hot summer Sunday in the 90s, and I'd spent it running around as fast as my ailing car would go.
In the space of less than eight hours, I'd covered a homicide, a stabbing, a robbery, a car wreck and two fires. And that's not counting dry runs for things that turned out to be nothing.
Soon, I was driving around a nice residential neighborhood in Wichita Falls, looking for an address in the dark.
I finally found it and walked up to an officer I knew who was leaning against a patrol car in front of the house. He was one of the few who was consistently friendly and courteous.
Cops, in case you didn't know, don't usually like to talk to reporters. Or at least they like to give that impression.
I asked him what was going on, and he explained that a teenager had shot and killed himself, apparently upset over a breakup with a girlfriend.
Suicides usually go unreported in newspapers, but there are really no hard and fast rules.
I called the office, and the editor took a pass on a story.
That meant I was basically done. Finally, I had time to think about the day.
I saw someone walk quietly into the darkened house where the boy had lived and died. A deep silence had settled in around the block.
I turned around and walked away, feeling the weight of the day.
One of the things that drives me as a reporter is being able to -- sometimes finally -- know the whole story. I always want to know why.
I'd never know that in this case, but maybe that was a gift, a mercy.
For once, I didn't have to ask the hard questions. No doubt, somebody else already was.

Posted by Trish Choate at 01:09 PM | Permalink