Chapter Eight

People in Chicago are of two opinions on the main branch of its public library. Some of them love its large, imposing red brick structure, topped with what look like huge greenish metal gargoyles and filigree, making the building unique among Chicago’s other architectural treasures. Those same people would say that a city as large as Chicago should have such an imposing structure, a testimony to Chicago’s intellectual life. Others hate it, thinking the structure an embarrassment, gothic and shockingly modern all at once, a waste of taxpayer dollars when a perfectly good structure existed before, right on Michigan Avenue.

Now, as Ed made his way through the streets of the Loop to enter the library’s quiet portals, he was not thinking of architectural innovation or even the need for such a building. He wondered what he would find as he scanned microfiched images of old Chicago Tribunes, looking for answers.

Ed made his way quickly to the periodicals section of the library, then felt lost among all the materials there. He was ashamed to admit that he’d never been here and didn’t know where to begin.

“Can I help you find something?”

Ed turned at the sound of the deep, slightly raspy voice and saw a young man, tall, with dark, curly hair, his face enhanced by a reddish mustache and goatee. He wore jeans, hiking boots, and an off-white cable-knit sweater a size or two too large. Ed’s first impulse was to refuse the offer. After all, he had been a detective with one of the largest police forces in the country and should be able to figure things out for himself. And who was this guy anyway?

“You work here?” Ed asked, sizing up the man, noting his youth and his casual dress. Shouldn’t an employee wear something more official-looking?

The guy gave him a lopsided grin, his full lips turned up at one corner. “Five years. Is there something in particular you were looking for?” The guy’s blue eyes seemed to flash for just an instant, and Ed had to wonder if there was more than a solicitation for help going on here. As always, he wondered how obvious his sexual orientation was. Ed was about to dismiss the guy when he looked around once more, daunted by the imposing stacks of periodicals, the drawers upon drawers of newspapers and magazines.

“I wanted to check out a couple old Tribunes. Could you point me in the right direction?”

“What did you need?”

“August seventeenth, a couple of years ago. I’d just like to see all the papers around that time.” It had been a long time since Ed had been in the library. “I suppose I’ll need to use one of those microfiche readers?”

The librarian chuckled. “Oh, we haven’t used those in quite a while. You can just look up the papers on the computer terminals.” He gestured toward tables with computers on them. “Easy peasy. Let me know if you have any trouble.”

“Sounds great.” Ed was relieved. This might go much quicker and more easily than he had thought. Ed made his way over to a seat in front of one of the terminals and arranged his pen and legal pad on the wood surface of the desk. He realized he could probably just print out what he needed, but Ed was an old school kind of guy. He could feel eyes on him as he started to search. His new helper was looking back at him. When he saw Ed staring, he turned quickly and disappeared.

It didn’t take long for the librarian to return. He smiled at Ed and asked, “Got a name?”

Ed snorted out his own small version of a laugh. “Ed Comparetto.”

“Okay, Ed. I’m Peter. Peter Howle. I’ll be right over at the desk.” He gave Ed that dazzling smile again. “If you need anything, anything at all.”

“Thanks again.”

Peter stood behind him for several uncomfortable moments before walking away.

Ed whispered to himself, “Jesus.”

It didn’t take him long to find what he was looking for. Timothy Bright’s death was front-page news. Ed stared for a long time at what appeared to be a college yearbook photo. Even though the photo was grainy, reduced to dots too large to provide much of a fine resolution, Ed could see that the man identified as victim Timothy Bright was the same man he had talked to when he investigated the first murder last summer. There was, even in the poorly reproduced photograph, the same air of boyish innocence, the boyishness carried almost a little too far for someone his age.

Ed hadn’t even read the accompanying story, and already he was chilled. This was the same guy he had talked to, there was no doubt about it, and yet here Timothy Bright was, in front of him, dead, in a newspaper two years old.

His detective instincts failed him. How could this be? An amazing case of look-alikes, made even more improbable by the fact that the look-alikes shared the same name?

Ed’s stomach churned, the unreality of the situation slamming into his psyche, making him queasy, making him want to forget the whole business. He wanted to stand and go back to his apartment, open today’s Tribune, and just look for a new job.

But that wasn’t an option. How could he leave this behind? He had to find out what was going on. This all seemed impossible, but it had happened. It had happened to him; he knew he had spoken to this person.

Maybe the Timothy Bright Ed talked to was a ghost, appearing because he had died the same way one of his brothers had died, and he wanted to point Ed in the right direction. Maybe this ghost had a message from beyond that would finger the killer, who was, perhaps, the same twisted individual who had murdered Timothy Bright nearly two years before.

Bunk. Timothy Bright was alive when Ed spoke to him. Ed had put an arm around him, and the flesh and bone beneath his arm felt as solid as his own. No ethereal wisps of ectoplasm, but blood, muscle, hair, and bone.

And all that physical reality was perfectly embodied in the neatly boxed photograph on the front page of a two-year-old Chicago Tribune, with its simple yet chilling caption: “Homicide victim Timothy Bright.”

In spite of the queasiness and dizzying cold fingers touching his spine, Ed turned his attention to the story, forcing his eyes to scan the type. The story told him basically the same news Joey had brought him the other day, but it was fleshed out with detail Joey may have been too embarrassed to admit. Things like how the victim was found nude, with evidence of sexual molestation. That his rectum had been perforated by a sharp object, which was the injury the coroner had determined had killed him. Postmortem stab wounds and evidence of strangulation.

Ed swallowed, mouth suddenly dry, tasting of cotton. The same signs of hatred of gay men he had witnessed the day he met Timothy Bright were all here in this story. Timothy Bright looked like the victim of a fag basher from hell, much as his “friend” Tony had appeared to be such a victim, floating in his bathtub of gore.

Other details: the victim’s apartment was in a state of disarray, looking almost as if it had been ransacked. Blood-spattered walls and signs of struggle.

Near the end of the story, Ed found that Timothy Bright was survived by Helene Bright of Wilmette, his aunt and former guardian.

A voice came back to Ed, buzzing with what now seemed a macabre intensity through his telephone. “Timothy Bright was my nephew.” Ed noted the name on his legal pad. He could find Helene Bright, and like it or not, she would talk to him.

“Find everything you need?”

The voice startled Ed enough that he jumped. He turned to find Peter Howle standing behind him. Peter leaned over and looked at the screen. “Pretty gruesome stuff.”

“Yeah, very gruesome,” Ed mumbled. “I think I’ve got all I need…at this point.” Ed didn’t want that to be taken as a double entendre, so he added, “Thanks a lot. You’ve been very helpful.”

“All done?”

Ed massaged his temples. “I guess so. Although I don’t know if I’m any less confused than when I came in here.”

Peter laughed. “I don’t know if I’m any less confused than when I came in here.”

“Yeah, well, I guess we’ve all got our problems.”

Peter leaned over to close the browser window. Ed watched as the image of Timothy Bright disappeared. He wished he could make the image disappear as easily from his mind.

“If you need any more help with your research, give me a call.” Peter held out a Post-it note. His phone number was written across the yellow surface.

Ed didn’t want to be rude. He took the paper and stuffed it into his jacket pocket. He then swept his pad and pen into the black leather backpack he had brought with him and stood.

“Thanks again.”

“Any time.”

Ed left the library with the feel of Peter Howle’s eyes burning into his back and the image of Timothy Bright’s photograph burning into his memory.