Chapter Twenty-Eight

From Helene Bright’s Journal

June 2, 1969

 

Well, Daniel has finally returned home. Summer has arrived and with it my brother and his so-called wife (although no judge or church has ever sanctioned their union). The two of them returned from Amsterdam two days ago, totally without warning. Mother was preparing lunch when a taxi rounded the bend in the driveway.

“Who on Earth can that be?” she asked, staring out the kitchen window at the Checker cab. “I’m not expecting anyone.”

I left the family room to witness the two of them exit the cab, to watch the cabdriver remove their luggage from the trunk. When Daniel pointed to the house, I knew who would be paying their cab fare, even though Daniel well has the means to do so.

“Mother, you better get your bag,” I called out.

I couldn’t remove myself from my place at the window. They were a bohemian spectacle. Hippies, I suppose is the correct term. Daniel in his paint-splattered jeans, jersey shirt, and knitted cap; Lanta in a long, flowered peasant-style dress with some sort of gauzy top that hid her weight. Her wheat-colored hair was pulled back away from her freckled face, and she looked for all the world like a child.

Except for the bundles she held in her arms. Yes, I did make the word a plural. There were two bundles in her arms.

“Oh my God,” I whispered to Mother. “She’s had twins.”

“Isn’t it wonderful?” Mother gasped. She rushed from the house to greet them, wiping her hands on her apron. I don’t know what’s wrong with the woman; she’s a disgrace. Her children are a disgrace, and she acts as if it’s some blessed event.

I stayed rooted to my spot, tears welling up in my eyes. Oh, Daniel, my Daniel, why did you do this to me? We had shared so many dreams growing up. The two of us at the helm of Father’s business, running it together, bringing new glories.

But Lanta, the bitch, came along and changed everything. Changed him, turning him from the values he had been raised on.

I watched Mother outside with them, digging in her purse to pay the cabdriver. He drove away, a trail of blue exhaust behind him. They stood in the driveway, embracing. Their faces were bright with laughter and smiles. There was no recrimination from Mother, nothing. How could she be so blind to the shame they’ve heaped on the family? I wonder now if I ever knew my own mother.

Look at her, outside in the sunlight, lifting the blankets to peer at the little creatures Lanta holds. Looking at them and grinning, as if this were something to be proud of. What will all of their friends say about these little bastards? Will she bring them to the country club and proudly introduce her grandchildren? And I can just see Lanta with them at some family gathering, she with her unstable ways and questionable morals.

As they came toward the house, I broke a plate on the kitchen floor and fled to the sanctuary of my bedroom.

*

Later….

They’re downstairs now. I can hear their voices. Laughing, talking amongst themselves as if nothing was wrong, when nothing could be further from the truth. Father has come home, and he too shocked me, accepting his son and his bitch and their wretched offspring.

Mother had been in my room, just about an hour ago, begging me to come downstairs and join them. I was having none of it. I banished her from my room, perhaps a bit too shrilly, but I just can’t abide this whole situation. Mother had tears in her eyes when she left the room. “Family’s family,” she said to me, pausing in the doorway. “If your values get in the way of that simple fact, Helene, then they’re not worth very much.”

I stared out the window and whispered, “Get out.”

And this whole situation is much worse than you might imagine. The children, twin boys, are not normal. Mother used the words “genetic abnormality,” but I know the root of the problem. One does not ingest every manner of drug and alcoholic beverage while pregnant and expect one’s offspring to come out healthy and normal. The havoc chemicals can wreak on one’s body are readily apparent, I’m sure, in the twins. How did Lanta even begin to imagine they would be normal?

One, Mother says, is perfectly all right. Both, she says are beautiful, with white hair and the deep blue eyes all babies have. She said they are virtually indistinguishable. The other, she told me, is profoundly retarded, that he is very quiet and that his brain is damaged.

No surprise! How can Lanta hold her head up? If I had done such a thing, my remorse would not let me. I know I sound hateful, but the two of them will pay all their lives for their heedless lifestyles. And I can’t say I feel sorry for them. If one puts one’s hand into the fire, one must expect to be burned.

I want no part of the twins, Timothy and Theodore. I want no part of my brother or Lanta. I have decided to move out as soon as I can.

There must be places where normal people live and carry their lives on decently.

Father is calling up the stairs now for me to come down to dinner. In the background, one of the imps is wailing. I will not grace them with my presence.

I want nothing to do with any of them.

*

Helene sat alone. He had loosened the rope around her ankles and wrists before he left. Certainly they were tight enough to render her unable to free herself, but at least now she felt warmth in her extremities, and her wrists and ankles tingled with the renewed blood flow. Outside, the sun was sinking behind the horizon, just half an orb across the grass, deepening the shadows around her and causing them to lengthen, to elongate, until they became strange, twisted shapes on the parquet floor and yellow rug.

She remembered much, sitting here, bound. There was little else to do. She had been so close to Timothy when he was growing up, and there were plenty of hugs for him, plenty of new clothes from Marshall Field’s, and plenty of bedtime stories. The stories were simple at first, just picture books allowing him to identify animals on their oversized pages. They had moved on to fairy tales, and it seemed these were the stories Timothy always liked best, especially the ones by the Grimm brothers. The darker the story, it seemed, the better he’d liked it.

And now she was playing out her own dark story with him. She racked her brain, trying to find a plausible solution for what had happened, for these recent events that had turned her world upside down. She had never believed in the supernatural. Tales of vampires, werewolves, witches, and ghosts were something she’d read to him at bedtime, the stuff of trashy novels and horror movies. There was plenty to be afraid of in the real world, and she had never seen any evidence of anything beyond that scary reality.

Could Timothy be a ghost? Even with all the evidence facing her, she didn’t think so. His hands, when he hit her or when he tightened and untightened her bonds, felt as real as anyone’s. The palms were soft, yet the calluses below where his fingers ended were rough. There was nothing ephemeral about his touch. Weren’t ghosts supposed to be wispy creatures, made up of some translucent material that one could move one’s hand through with no effort? Real blood, it seemed, coursed through Timothy’s veins, and his flesh had weight and substance.

And if he was a ghost, why had he aged? Oh sure, it had only been a couple of years since he died, but Helene took in that his hair had thinned more on top than when she had last seen him (a horrific flash then in her brain of a police officer lifting a sheet). There were the beginnings of crow’s feet around his eyes that she was sure hadn’t been there when he died.

Could this be an impostor, a look-alike usurping Timothy’s role among the living? First, what would a person hope to gain by slipping into the suit of someone else’s life, especially a life as twisted and unhappy as Timothy’s seemed to be? Besides, Timothy was someone she had brought up from infancy. She had always thought of him as her own son. No one, save maybe for Theodore, could bear such a resemblance.

And Theodore had been dead now for many years. Even if he were alive, he’d lacked the intellectual capacity to wreak such havoc. Hell, he’d lacked the intellectual capacity to even form words. He’d been little more than a vegetable, barely mobile, needing constant care and attention. Theodore could do nothing for himself. There had been no surprise when Timothy had informed her that he’d died. Helene had always been surprised he had survived as long as he did, damaged as he was.

She thought of Theodore. He had been as beautiful a child as Timothy, perhaps in some ways even more beautiful. A pure, almost angelic light had seemed to shine in him. His blue eyes were always clear and watchful, and the impish features both brothers shared seemed to carry in Theodore a more benign look. Where Timothy was impish, Theodore was more like an elf.

What had Timothy said to her? He had said she should now understand what it felt like to be a prisoner. She pretended not to know what he meant, but she knew.

How she had taken care of Theodore was no one’s business, and there was certainly never any unkindness to it. She had seen to it that he was always warm, never went hungry, and had a comfortable place to sleep. With his limited capacity, she was sure this was enough. He didn’t have the ability to want for anything more.

That she had kept him away from other people had nothing to do with keeping him a prisoner. She’d always thought she was protecting him. Anyone as profoundly different as Theodore would have been shunned, made fun of, and tormented if he had been exposed to other children or even other adults.

Timothy had said to her, just before all the bad things happened with David Long and he made the decision to move out, that she’d kept Theodore in his basement rooms because she was ashamed of him and the presence of a “drooling idiot” would seriously impede her life. He’d laughed at her when she said she did it only for Theodore’s protection.

Sitting here, tied down, confused, and tired, she reluctantly admitted to herself that there was some truth in Timothy’s accusations from so many years ago. She had always been so alone, having to raise the twins by herself, and Theodore was just too much for other people to take. He did drool, and the only sounds he could make were howling noises that were, at best, frightening. There was no need for anyone to see Theodore. They couldn’t have given him anything, and he would have only frightened or repulsed them. The only people who’d ever had any contact with the boy were Helene herself, Timothy, and the boys’ pediatrician.

She’d had the rooms in the basement constructed for maximum comfort for Theodore. Wasn’t her heart in the right place when she’d had the thick pile carpeting put in and the colorful wallpaper? Was she being a prison matron when she’d made sure he had plenty of toys to bang around, things to spin and to stare at? She had even had a television set put in his rooms, for which he seemed to have a fascination. And she spent time with him and made sure Timothy did too.

Had this been cruel?

“No one even knows I have a twin!” Timothy would scream at her over and over, especially after he’d reached adolescence and the fighting began in earnest.

She wondered why they needed to know. What good would it have done?

Helene closed her eyes and tried to shut her mind down. The room had gone dark now, and it was frightening to be sitting here like this in the pitch, unable to move or see, wondering what horror would leap out at her next, tied down here defenseless and unable to prepare herself for anything.

*

It seemed to Ed that everything was falling down around him. Nothing was good anymore. First he’d lost Dan—and again, even if it had been by his own choice, it didn’t give him any comfort; Dan was still the only man Ed had ever loved. Then he’d lost his job, through a situation so bizarre that if he had heard about it happening to someone else, he wouldn’t have believed it. And now Peter.

Peter had come along, forcing his way into his life with charm, a smile that electrified him, and sex that was more incredible than Ed could have ever dreamed it would be. Yet Peter was more than just a boy toy. He had a brain, and it was possible to have more than just a physical connection with him. There was a real warmth and comfort in their budding relationship that Ed believed could have very well led to love.

But now Peter was on his way out. He hadn’t come over the night before, and their conversation on the phone early this morning had been tense. Peter had accused him of being “obsessed” and told him that someone so obsessed could never give him the attention he deserved. Ed knew he was right, but that didn’t make the words any less painful. Peter had told Ed he didn’t want to see him anymore, at least not until he could put this whole thing behind him.

Ed pressed down on the accelerator. Perhaps seeing Helene Bright, showing up on her doorstep and forcing her to talk, would help put the whole situation behind him. If Peter could have only known how tired he was of everything connected with Timothy Bright and the murders and how much Ed himself wanted to get on with his own life, maybe he could have come to understand why he was so compelled to put the pieces of the puzzle together, if they did indeed fit.

He glanced down at a Post-it note on the seat beside him. It held Helene Bright’s address, gotten from the Department of Motor Vehicles by Joey Mantegno. “I really shouldn’t do this,” she had told him. “I really have no business with DMV.”

“But you know people there, and I know they’ll be willing to help you.”

Their friendship, forged in the trenches of the Chicago Police Department, was growing strained now that they no longer had an employer in common. Ed could tell Joey didn’t want to get the information for him, yet she was unable to say no. He knew he was putting her in a position where he was taking advantage of her good nature, and he hated himself for it. But there was no other way; he couldn’t do this alone.

He would have to make it up to her somehow. When—not if—he got back on the force…

He turned onto the brick driveway, marveling at the luxury of the pillared house just ahead. It was large. He wondered how someone could live in such a place and feel at home. He had never lived in such opulent surroundings and was certain he never wanted to.

The house was dark, and Ed sat in the car for a few moments, thinking that his knock on the door would go unanswered. Not a single light shone from any of the windows. This was strange in itself. Even if there was no one home, you’d think in a place like this, Helene Bright would want to at least do the simplest thing one could to discourage burglars and leave a light or two on.

He cut the engine and summoned up what courage he had left. Even if she was home, he had no guarantee she would speak to him. She had been cold on the telephone when he had called, almost offended that he had mentioned her nephew. Having him show up unannounced would probably guarantee him an even chillier reception. Ed hoped his powers of persuasion would be enough to let him get his foot in the door.

Ed had, of course, considered that she could be helping Timothy. Family members were often on the wrong side of the law when it came to protecting their loved ones.

He got out of the car and approached the dark house. Its white exterior almost seemed to glow in the moonlight. He lifted the brass knocker and let it fall once, twice, three times. The house sounded hollow inside, as if it had been empty for a long time.

There was no movement from within. Ed pounded on the door, pounded and didn’t stop until his frustration reddened his knuckles, leaving him tense and frustrated.

Slowly he headed back to the car. Tomorrow was another day, and perhaps in the morning he could reach her. He knew this could be another dead end. The woman probably knew as much as Ed did about her “late” nephew’s whereabouts.

*

Helene tensed when she heard the low rumble of a car engine coming up the driveway. It would be Timothy, returning from whatever hell-bent mission he was on. Once she had thought she knew her nephew; now he was a stranger to her, with the emphasis on strange. She had no idea what he would do to her or even what his purpose was in returning to her and keeping her prisoner like this.

She dreaded the sound of the door opening and his quick gait across the floor. He had hit her several times already, and the slaps were often unprovoked. Tears sprang up in Helene’s eyes when she realized how much hatred he must have for her.

She waited, tense, for the sounds that would herald his arrival inside the house. Waited and then tensed more when she heard the fall of the brass knocker at the front door. Someone was here! Oh thank God.

Helene began to scream within the thick swatch of duct tape Timothy had slapped across her mouth before leaving. All that emerged from her lips and scorched throat was a loud mumble. She was sure it couldn’t even be heard in the next room.

She began rocking back and forth, trying by sheer force of will to move the chair, to somehow get out of the room and to the door. She would do it if she had to slither across the front entryway with the chair attached. She had to get out of this situation before it turned worse.

Anything could happen. And life, drab and desperate as it was, was suddenly something she longed to hang on to.

Whoever was outside was now pounding on the door. Perhaps it was someone who had tried to call and had been unable to get through, since Timothy had cut the phone lines before he left her earlier that day. The pounding grew harder, and she wished, wished so much there was some way she could let whoever was standing outside know she was within.

But it was no use. She couldn’t move the chair. Had she been able to do so, she would have done it long ago, crashing through the window if need be.

*

Ed thought he had heard something. It was too beneath his aural periphery for him to be able to discern what the sound was, but there was definitely something. He paused by the car, listening. No other sounds.

Maybe, he thought, maybe I should just make a check. Ed closed his car door and moved back toward the house once more. He made a circuit around the exterior of the house, pressing his face close to the windows, trying to see inside. As he got to the west side of the house, there was a tremendous bang. He moved quickly to the window from which he thought the sound had issued.

His eyes had already adjusted to the darkness. It was easy to see the figure lying on the floor. He couldn’t make out much, whether the figure was a man or a woman, but he could see that whoever it was was strapped to a chair.

Ed hurried back to the front door and found it locked, as he expected. Moving quickly, he went to the back of the house, where there was another door, also locked. He pulled a credit card from his wallet and tried to jimmy the mortise lock but discovered the door was also dead-bolted.

If it had been summer, perhaps there would have been an open window. But the house was sealed shut.

He had no other choice. He returned to the room where he had seen the figure, wrapped his jacket around his hand, and smashed the window. He shook the glass out of the jacket, put it back on, then reached in and undid the lock. By now, he could hear muffled cries coming from within the room.

He lifted the window and hoisted himself inside. Crossing the room, Ed located the light switch and flipped it.

A woman, slight in frame, with dark hair streaked through with gray, lay on the floor. In her eagerness to attract his attention, she had somehow caused the ladder-back chair to which she was strapped to tip over. There was a bright crimson spot of blood on her forehead from a wound she must have sustained in the fall. Other than that, she looked in relatively good shape.

Ed stooped beside her. She looked up at him with eyes that were bright with fear, made all the more apparent by the ashen pallor of her skin.

“This is gonna hurt,” he said, knowing there was no other way. He ripped the duct tape from her mouth in one quick motion, and she sucked in air, groaning softly.

“Are you all right?”

“Physically, yes.” The woman stared at him as he began to loosen her bonds. “Who are you?”

“My name’s Ed Comparetto. I used to be with the Chicago police force, but now I’m on leave.”

“What are you doing here?”

Ed tried to think of an answer while he finished getting her untied. When she was free, he helped her to stand and led her to a love seat in the corner of the room. She sat gratefully. It must have been painful to walk, after having her circulation reduced.

“I’m looking for your nephew, Timothy Bright.”

Her hand went to her mouth, and she looked wildly about the room, as if Bright himself was concealed there, somewhere among the shadows. “What do you know about him?”

“There have been several murders in Chicago’s gay community,” Ed said. “You’ve probably seen something about it on the news.”

The woman shook her head, staring at him. He began to feel uncomfortable under the intensity of her gaze. “I don’t really pay much attention to the news.”

“The first person I interviewed was a young man who gave his name as Timothy Bright. He was the one they told me discovered the body.”

“Timothy?”

“I know, I know. You’re going to tell me he’s dead.”

“Oh no, Mr. Comparetto, I’m going to tell you nothing of the sort.”

Finally, Ed thought, maybe we’re getting somewhere.

“In fact, I believe he’s very much alive.” Her gaze was now over his shoulder. “He’s standing right behind you.”