It showed a grainy color picture of a body, covered with a white sheet, being carted off on a stretcher. “Murdered Man Found by the Railroad Tracks” read the headline in bold but small print. The story was very brief. It did not give the person’s name or any hint of who he was or where he had worked. It just said that the police had found the body of an unidentified man by the tracks and that there was an ongoing investigation to determine the cause of his death.
To this uncaring city, it was just the faceless fatality of a nobody—but to an experienced cop such as Lombardo, the short shrift given the facts was evidence that somebody had acted quickly to quash the details. He knew that when this newspaper passed on a story like this, it had probably been bribed or pressured to do so. A juicy advertising contract from the government or a company was more effective at determining editorial policy than social concern. So much for freedom of the press. But the most likely suspect of suppressing the story was the University. The jaded investigator that Lombardo was could understand a company that didn’t want bad publicity that might hurt business, or a politician trying to keep stuff from the public that might hurt his chances in an election, but the University? How could the news of the death of one of its employees hurt or damage the University? It didn’t happen on campus; nor was it related to any University activity or to his job—apparently. So, why had they scrambled their forces to suppress it?
To the ever-suspicious mind of an investigator, this was more than concern for the family’s feelings as the Director of the Computer Center had alleged; this seemed more as if the University was trying to hide something.
He threw the paper into the cardboard box he reserved for old newsprint and went upstairs to change.
Before going into his bedroom, he went into the small room he used as a studio. It had shelves filled with books in English and Spanish. He had had a large bookshelf built into one of the walls, with an integrated desk where he had his computer. He sat down and went through his emails quickly; there was nothing of any importance so he typed out an email to a friend: “Need your advice, when can we meet?”
He clicked the Send button and then went into a third room. This he had turned into another studio but dedicated to his hobby, painting. The easel held the unfinished portrait of his ex-wife and his sons when they were two and three years old. He touched the paint. It was dry. He would be able to go back to it when he had the time—rather, if he ever again had the time. He looked at the photograph he was using as a model. His ex-wife looked beautiful, the innocence of a young mother lighting her face; his sons, chubby babies, looked firmly at the camera with expressions that presaged the determined lawyer the oldest one would become and the gentle intellectual of the youngest one was. Lombardo had at times said that he missed them, but he never explained why he did nothing about seeing them.
From the closet of the third bedroom, he got a well-pressed, white shirt (all of his shirts were white), a tie,
and a fresh t-shirt. Then he went into the bathroom to change.
He looked into the mirror. A gaunt, thin face stared back. His dark features were musty, like unpolished leather—the result of the thousands of cigarettes he had smoked throughout his life. He pulled at the skin that hung down from his chin to the top of his sternum; it seemed as if the circles under his eyes were getting darker by the day. He combed his graying, lanky hair and then brushed the back of his hand over the black-and-white specks of beard. He sighed, “I’ll have to shave.”
When he left the house, the bright afternoon sunlight made him squint as if he were a rabbit coming out of its hole. He fished for his sunglasses in his coat pockets but then remembered he had left them in the
To this uncaring city, it was just the faceless fatality of a nobody—but to an experienced cop such as Lombardo, the short shrift given the facts was evidence that somebody had acted quickly to quash the details. He knew that when this newspaper passed on a story like this, it had probably been bribed or pressured to do so. A juicy advertising contract from the government or a company was more effective at determining editorial policy than social concern. So much for freedom of the press. But the most likely suspect of suppressing the story was the University. The jaded investigator that Lombardo was could understand a company that didn’t want bad publicity that might hurt business, or a politician trying to keep stuff from the public that might hurt his chances in an election, but the University? How could the news of the death of one of its employees hurt or damage the University? It didn’t happen on campus; nor was it related to any University activity or to his job—apparently. So, why had they scrambled their forces to suppress it?
To the ever-suspicious mind of an investigator, this was more than concern for the family’s feelings as the Director of the Computer Center had alleged; this seemed more as if the University was trying to hide something.
He threw the paper into the cardboard box he reserved for old newsprint and went upstairs to change.
Before going into his bedroom, he went into the small room he used as a studio. It had shelves filled with books in English and Spanish. He had had a large bookshelf built into one of the walls, with an integrated desk where he had his computer. He sat down and went through his emails quickly; there was nothing of any importance so he typed out an email to a friend: “Need your advice, when can we meet?”
He clicked the Send button and then went into a third room. This he had turned into another studio but dedicated to his hobby, painting. The easel held the unfinished portrait of his ex-wife and his sons when they were two and three years old. He touched the paint. It was dry. He would be able to go back to it when he had the time—rather, if he ever again had the time. He looked at the photograph he was using as a model. His ex-wife looked beautiful, the innocence of a young mother lighting her face; his sons, chubby babies, looked firmly at the camera with expressions that presaged the determined lawyer the oldest one would become and the gentle intellectual of the youngest one was. Lombardo had at times said that he missed them, but he never explained why he did nothing about seeing them.
From the closet of the third bedroom, he got a well-pressed, white shirt (all of his shirts were white), a tie,
and a fresh t-shirt. Then he went into the bathroom to change.
He looked into the mirror. A gaunt, thin face stared back. His dark features were musty, like unpolished leather—the result of the thousands of cigarettes he had smoked throughout his life. He pulled at the skin that hung down from his chin to the top of his sternum; it seemed as if the circles under his eyes were getting darker by the day. He combed his graying, lanky hair and then brushed the back of his hand over the black-and-white specks of beard. He sighed, “I’ll have to shave.”
When he left the house, the bright afternoon sunlight made him squint as if he were a rabbit coming out of its hole. He fished for his sunglasses in his coat pockets but then remembered he had left them in the
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