  The recent discovery of gravitational waves from GW170817, associated with a
short Gamma-Ray Burst (GRB) at a distance of $40$Mpc, has demonstrated that
short GRBs can occur locally and at a reasonable rate. Furthermore,
gravitational waves enable us to detect close by GRBs, even when we are
observing at latitudes far from the jet's axis. We consider here Compton
echoes, the scattered light from the prompt and afterglow emission. Compton
echoes, an as yet undetected counterpart of GRBs, peak in X-rays and maintain a
roughly constant flux for hundreds to thousands of years after the burst.
Though too faint to be detected in typical cosmological GRBs, a fraction of
close by bursts with a sufficiently large energy output in X-rays, and for
which the surrounding medium is sufficiently dense, may indeed be observed in
this way. The detection of a Compton echo could provide unique insight into the
burst properties and the environment's density structure. In particular, it
could potentially determine whether or not there was a successful jet that
broke through the compact binary merger ejecta. We discuss here the properties
and expectations from Compton echoes and suggest methods for detectability.
