Those Bygone Dog-Star Days - Chapter 16 of 37
~ Chapter 16 ~
The Litchfield Branch Library rose, though awkwardly squat among the adjacent skyscrapers, an imposing white against a brilliant blue sky. It was only five stories compared to its neighbors, but its Italian Renaissance revival style conveyed a type of imperial confidence the taller glass-and-steel buildings seemed castrated of. It glowed of an architectural era that stood out among the ennui.
I beelined through a small park. It echoed the brilliance of the sky, only now capturing it in brilliant emerald. A wedding party, I could only assume, mingled on one of the crisscrossing paths. The women wore a mesmerizing tangerine. Hopping over a small fence, I crossed the cobbled street in front of the pillared building and descended cement steps to the first level. The heaviness of the humidity came back in force as I pulled open the brass door. Air conditioning wafted around me and I quickly stepped inside the cooler sanctum.
As looming as the building was, the first floor was almost claustrophobic. Lights, sunken into the ceiling, illuminated patches of the floor while glaringly bright dioramas behind glass dotted the walls. Passing a metal detector and the checkout counter, I relievingly stepped into the marbled stairwell where there was more room. Natural light from large, arching windows flowed in, wrapping its self around the pillars. The light reflected off of me in a glow that temporarily lit the dark crevices of the cornices. My sandals flip-flopping on the stone, I made my way up to the third floor where the periodicals were.
Behind heavy, fire-proof doors stood an archive of the past one hundred years. A frescoed ceiling accented with intricate chandeliers stood above a well-polished gray stained maple floor. A central circular information desk the color of the floor stood patiently in the middle of the grandiose room that was lined with even more columns. Few darkly stained wood tables covered the floor and even less people occupied them. Spinning racks of current magazines stood to the left of my entrance, spaced with cushy armchairs. This was where the majority of the marginal Populace of the Periodicals gathered. Past them off in a room to the left were the archived magazines. My attention was to a smaller room connecting the two.
After about a half hour scanning newspaper headlines from the past year, my eyes started aching. The library was disturbingly quiet as though all sound was consumed. I stood up from the table housing the microfiche reader I was staring at and stretched. A small, rectangular window overlooking a street below and beyond that, the river, gave the only noticeable light. A small plaque dedicated to someone I never heard of stood beside the window. Sighing, I sat back down, wishing I had gotten a drink at the café on the first floor before making my way up here.
Body Found in Warehouse Police responded to a call around 8:30 am on Tuesday about a body found in a Zephrys Shipping warehouse along Lexington Parkway. The victim, a male Canan around 30, was beaten, stabbed, and shaved in what appeared to be, as Officer Wilkes states, "A particularly brutal mugging."Marcus Hughes, the president and owner of Zephrys Shipping is assisting the police in investigating how the victim and perpetrator were able to get past the warehouse's security system.
This was it. I felt my excitement grow. The blurb was buried in the middle of a section of the entire newspaper. It certainly didn't get the headline of day, but why would the death of an unidentified Canan get any particular notice from any other death, be it accidental or intentional, around here? Every day there's news of someone dead or assaulted from the previous night. I supposed I should have been grateful for the small blurb.
My vision blurred for a second as everything became more real. This article gave a certain tangible proof that Bo existed. Stories from people were stories, but somehow the print in front of me sank my stomach even more than Kat's words. This was the guy that Aaron loved, and saw murdered. I tried to put myself into what he saw that night and tried to gauge my reaction. My imagination failed to place me inside of a darkened warehouse with the life of the one I loved...
(...Aaron.)
...expiring before me while I was helpless. Never had I thought I would find something that was literally unimaginable. I scanned the next few days' worth of papers looking for any follow-up.
Body from Warehouse was College Student The body discovered in a warehouse last week has been identified as Bo Long, 28, of Crestview School of Law. Police are still looking for the suspect but are hindered by a malfunction of the security cameras at Zephrys Shipping. Mr. Hughes has issued a statement expressing his apologies for the malfunction and will be investigating it further. He has also extended a hand to the family of the victim saying, "No family should be devoid of their son."
Way to bury the lead, I thought, sitting back in my chair. I tried to think if there was any follow up to the warehouse's security footage, but I really didn't pay any attention to anything like this last year. It would take forever to scan every newspaper from now until there'd possibly be something written. The best way to get any update, I contemplated, would be to just go to Officer Wilkes himself and ask about any updates.
My phone rang alarmingly loud in the confined space and I started. It was Aaron.
"Hey, babe," I answered, "You sound tired. Oh?... I'll be over in a- oh, okay. Well get some rest then. Love you."
The skyscrapers out the window had taken on a shadowy-rust color. I put away the microfiche and walked out to the bus stop.