The Bottle Ghosts

by Dorien Grey

  I was just checking for Pete Warlum’s number when the phone rang.

  “Dick Hardesty.”

  “Dick, this is Brian Oaks. I got your message.”

  “Thanks for calling back, Brian. I…I have some things I think we really have to talk about.”

  “About the group?” It took a second for me to realize that was a rather strange question.

  “As a matter of fact, yes. There’s something I have to tell you first. I’m a private investigator, and…”

  No pause from his end. “I know.”

  “You do?” I was taken pretty seriously aback for some reason. “May I ask how and when?”

  “Not until the police called about Andy. And then I recalled that I’d run into Pete…ah…a former member of the group who had dropped out some time ago, and he’d mentioned that his lover had disappeared. I thought at the time he just meant he had picked up and left. But then this Andy thing, and…you and Jonathan being the newest members of the group and you having listed your occupation as ‘researcher’—clever touch—on a hunch I looked in the phone book and there you were: Hardesty Investigations. I called the number after office hours and recognized your voice on the machine.

  “I assume it was Pete who hired you, though why he might think anyone in the group might know where Sam had gone, I can’t imagine. But now with Andy going missing, too…. Is there a connection? Exactly what is going on here?”

  I found it interesting that he assumed it was Warlum who had hired me. Either he didn’t know that Sam Roedel and Andy Phillips weren’t the only two missing, or, having let Warlum’s name slip, he wanted me to think he didn’t.

  “Well, there are really several things I’d like to cover with you, if I could, and as soon as possible. When could we get together?”

  There was a moment of silence.

  “Tuesdays and Wednesdays I see patients at my home.” Another pause, and the faint sound of pages turning. “…ah…I had a patient call just a while ago to cancel his two o’clock tomorrow afternoon. Would you like to come over then?”

  “That’d be fine. You’re on Ridge, right?”

  “Forty-two-ten. I have a private entrance to my office, so if you’ll just come down the walk to the back of the house…”

  “Will do. Thanks: I’ll see you at two o’clock.”

  With luck I might be able to talk with Barnett at least before going to Oaks’. Of the two, Barnett and Oaks, I was pretty sure that I could learn more from Oaks.

  While I had the phone in my hand, I decided to try Pete Warlum one more time, and was a little surprised to hear the phone being picked up after the second ring.

  “Hello?”

  “Peter Warlum?”

  “Yes.”

  “Mr. Warlum, my name is Dick Hardesty, and I’m a private investigator. I’m working on a case involving members of the Alcohol Counseling group you belonged to at Qualicare. I’d like to talk to you, if I could, about Sam Roedel and his disappearance.”

  “Ah,” he said, noncommittally “Well, I don’t know what I could tell you. I’ve sort of put all that behind me.”

  ??? Now that’s a rather strange reaction, I thought. His lover disappears and he ‘puts it behind’ him?

  “I’m sorry. I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

  “Nothing to understand, really. Sam just left.”

  “Just left? You mean just left the house?”

  “No, no. I mean he just left…me.”

  “But you reported him as missing to the police.”

  “Yes, I know. But in the first several days after he left, I was really pretty upset. Then I realized he’d just done it again.”

  This guy was confusing the hell out of me.

  “Done it again?” I felt just a little stupid.

  He sighed.

  “I met Sam in a bar maybe three years ago. He’d just gotten into town. Didn’t even have a suitcase! Just the clothes on his back. I took him in, and we became lovers. He’d never talk about his past, where he’d come from…and I thought I loved him, so I never asked. But it was a rocky road from the first, and especially when it became clear he was an alcoholic. I belonged to Qualicare, and when I heard they were starting an alcohol counseling program for gay couples, I signed us up, thinking maybe it would help. Sam went along—he usually went along with just about anything—but it didn’t really do much good. I kept hoping, but…”

  He was quiet for a minute, and I didn’t say anything, giving him time to finish.

  Finally, he picked up where he’d left off: “Things just kept going downhill, and we both knew the relationship was pretty much over. And then I came home one night, and Sam was gone. Just gone. No matter what else he’d done while we were together, he’d never just…gone. I just sat around and waited, and worried, and finally called the police and filed a missing person’s report. Then, when I didn’t hear anything from the police and nothing from Sam: not a phone call, not a card, nothing, I realized that he’d just done it again. I guess I’d always known that I loved him a lot more than he loved me…if he did at all. And somewhere, in some other bar somewhere, some other guy was picking him up and starting the whole thing over again.”

  “He didn’t take anything when he left?”

  “Nope. Nothing. I guess I was lucky there; he could have robbed me blind, but he didn’t. The only things missing were the clothes he was wearing. Exactly the way I found him.”

  “Did you say anything to Qualicare?”

  “No. Why should I? What could I say: ‘Hey, guys, my lover just dumped me’? It was embarrassing enough to realize that’s what he’d done; I wasn’t about to advertise it.”

  “But aren’t you concerned that something…might have happened to him?” I still wasn’t quite able to understand where this guy was coming from.

  “Sure, at first. But if something had happened, somebody would have found out. I told the police. They knew. If anything had happened to him, they’d have found him and told me. It’s been well over a year. He’s gone, and I’ve accepted it.”

  I’m afraid that little conversation had so thrown me for a loop that I couldn’t think of anything else to say at the moment. So I just thanked him for talking with me and hung up.

  Talk about denial! He hadn’t even asked why I was curious about the Qualicare group, and I realized that there really wouldn’t be much point in making matters worse for him. It was bad enough that he thought his lover didn’t love him—and I had no way of knowing if that might be true or not—but it would probably be even worse for him to think Roedel might really have loved him but was probably dead.

  Love is a very, very strange thing, and how we react to it is even stranger.

  *

  It was nearly eleven o’clock Tuesday morning when the phone finally rang.

  “Hardesty Investigations.”

  “This is Greg Barnett,” the no-doubt-about-gender voice said. “You wanted to talk to me?”

  “Yes, I did. And I appreciate your calling. You and Fred DeCarlo were members of a counseling group at Qualicare, right?”

  A slight hesitation, then: “…Yeah. You’re a P.I., right?”

  “Yes, and…”

  “Have you found out something about Fred?” His voice had the edge of anxiety.

  “I’m afraid not, but I wondered if I could talk with you for a few minutes regarding the Qualicare group, and maybe find out a little more about Mr. DeCarlo’s disappearance.”

  “Sure. I’ll do anything that might help find out what happened to Fred. He’s dead, I know, but I want to know what happened and where he is.”

  “Well perhaps we can talk about all this in person.” I was curious as to how he reached the conclusion that DeCarlo was dead, but didn’t want to pursue it over the phone.

  “Uh, sure. Where and when? I work nights, like Lynn told you, but…”

  I was curious about Lynn, too, but assumed I could figure that out when we talked. I glanced quickly at the piece of paper
on my desk, on which I’d written everyone’s names, phone numbers, and addresses.

  “I have a two o’clock appointment this afternoon not too far from you. Maybe we could meet somewhere in your neighborhood at around one?”

  “You can come over here if you want. Lynn’s at work, so we can talk freely.”

  “That’d be great.” I glanced quickly at my notes to make sure I had his address. “I’ll look forward to seeing you.”

  *

  I pulled up in front of Barnett’s building at ten ’til one, found a parking place practically in front of the door, and took a walk around the block to kill some time. I entered the lobby and pushed the buzzer for Barnett’s apartment at three minutes ’til and, when he buzzed me in, found my way to his ground floor apartment.

  Barnett, when he opened the door, turned out to be something of an eyeful. Around six feet tall, short black hair, hunk-of-the-month good looks, tank top, gym shorts, great looking legs. We shook hands and he gestured me into the living room and to a seat, taking a chair directly across from me.

  “So what’s going on?”

  “Good question. I’m investigating the disappearance of several members of Qualicare’s Alcohol Counseling group. Mr. DeCarlo was apparently the first one to disappear.”

  Barnett’s lips tightened, his jaw moved forward, and he scowled. “I knew it!” he said. “I knew Fred just didn’t take off! I never had a clue that it might be related to the group, though. How many others are missing?”

  “Several, over the last six months. Tell me the circumstances of Mr. DeCarlo’s disappearing.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t think there were any ‘circumstances.’ I had to go out of town for a couple of days—my dad had just died and there were a lot of things to be taken care of back home—and when I got back, Fred was gone. Period. No note, none of his stuff missing, nothing.”

  “What did you think might have happened?”

  “Well, I thought at first he’d gone off on a bender, but he’d really been doing well: he’d been sober for a couple of months. I think the group really helped on that.”

  “Excuse me for asking, but were you two getting along? Did Mr. DeCarlo…uh…play around?”

  Barnett grinned—a very sexy grin, as my crotch immediately noted. “Fred and I had…an arrangement, but not the usual one you might think of. We never just went off one on one; we did three ways pretty regularly. That’s how I met Lynn, in case you were wondering.”

  The boy’s a mind reader, I thought.

  A really hot one, my crotch volunteered.

  He gave a head-nod to a photo on the table beside my chair; a studio portrait shot of a very sexy guy around thirty, straddling a wooden chair with his arms folded across the back.

  “That’s Lynn. Pretty hot, huh?”

  Oh, my, yes! my crotch said.

  “Yeah, really.”

  I decided I’d better move right ahead before things heated up any more than I sensed they already were.

  “So when did you go to the police, and when did you come to the conclusion that Mr. DeCarlo might be dead?”

  “I held off calling the police several days. I checked everyone and everyplace I could think of first. Friends, relatives, bars, the hospitals. Nothing. So then I went to the police as a last resort. They didn’t exactly instill confidence that he’d turn up any time soon, but they assured me that most missing men do turn up.”

  He stretched his open palms along the tops of his legs (his great legs, my crotch amended), and gave a deep sigh.

  “But after a while…. At first when I began to think he was probably dead, I kept calling the police asking if they’d found anyone. They hadn’t. I even went to Fred’s dentist and got copies of his dental records and took them down to the police, just in case. Nothing.”

  He was quiet a moment, his face reflecting a mixture of sadness and resignation.

  “So I gave up and decided it was time to get on with my life. I couldn’t really do that if I kept thinking Fred might still be alive somewhere.” He paused, his eyes apparently focused on a spot just over my left shoulder. Suddenly, realizing he’d wandered off, he refocused his eyes on mine, and continued.

  “Anyway, Lynn started coming by to console me, and one thing led to another, and…” he looked at me intently. “Do you think you’ll be able to find out what happened?”

  “I hope so,” I said, sincerely. “What can you tell me about the Qualicare group? Anything you can think of now that might not have occurred to you before?”

  He thought a minute.

  “Do you remember everyone who belonged when you did?”

  More thought, then slowly: “No last names, but…Benicio, Ted, Jay, Victor, John, Keith, Carl…maybe a couple others I can’t remember…Andy? Not everybody was at every meeting.”

  “Did you ever socialize with any of them?”

  Barnett shook his head.

  “No, that was a ‘no-no’; Oaks made that pretty clear. I remember that new receptionist…Nowell…though. What a number that one was! Fred and I thought about asking him if he was into three ways—we figured a little socializing with him would be okay, since he wasn’t a member of the group.”

  “And did you?”

  “Ask him? I didn’t. Fred might have. If he did, the answer was obviously no.”

  “Do you remember anything in particular about any of the other members?”

  His lower jaw moved slightly forward, and the tip of his tongue appeared at the corner of his partially open mouth as he thought.

  Oh, this guy is hot, my crotch whispered.

  I told it to shut up.

  “Well, Carl has a chip on his shoulder about the size of a small Sequoia. I felt sorry for Jay. He’s way too cute to have to put up with that shit. And then there was Keith sitting there like a statue with his Bible; that always bothered me somehow; and Paul breaking into tears just about every time I saw him over how he hated being a drunk, and then they wouldn’t show up for the next meeting because he was out getting smashed, though Frank would always have a good excuse as to why they’d missed the meeting. And Andy making a pass at everyone while poor John just sat there. He’s another one who could do a lot better for himself.” He stopped for a moment, then looked at me. “That’s about all I can think of.”

  I glanced at my watch and saw it was about time to go. “Well, thanks again for your time, Mr. Barnett…”

  “Greg,” he corrected with a very slow breaking smile that spread into something more.

  “…I really appreciate it. And if I find out anything at all, I’ll let you know, I promise.”

  The smile faded for a moment, and he said: “Please don’t misunderstand, Mr.—”

  “Dick,” I said quickly.

  “…Dick…. If I had any real hope that Fred was still alive—any at all—but I don’t and there is nothing I can do about it and that frustrates the hell out of me. What really bothers me is that if he is dead, where is he? Why hasn’t anyone found him?” He shook his head in bewilderment. “While Fred was far from perfect and I’m pretty sure that if he kept on drinking the alcohol would have killed him eventually, I could maybe have accepted that easier than this not knowing. It may sound odd, but I do still love him and wish he were back.” He sighed again, heavily. “But he won’t be back, and I’ve simply got to keep going.”

  “I understand,” I said as I got up from my chair; and I did understand.

  He got up, too, and walked me to the door.

  As we shook hands, he held it just a bit longer than normal and looked at me closely.

  “Are you any chance into three ways?” he asked with a smile.

  Yes! Yes we are! Yes! my crotch said eagerly.

  “Used to be, but I’m in a relationship now, and…”

  He released the handshake, but kept the smile.

  “No problem,” he said, and opened the door.

  You know, you used to be a lot of fun, my crotch grumbled.

  I
ignored it and walked to the car.

  Chapter 10

  Only a block or so from Riverside Park, Ridge is a pleasant residential street of older, 1930s style bungalows, and Brian Oaks’ home was a classic example. A large, full front porch, Tudor beam motif beneath the eaves of the second floor, which extended over the porch and was supported by heavy wooden square-post columns. Solid, no nonsense houses with a warmth and charm that all but disappeared after the end of WWII. It sat, as did all its neighbors, well back from the street on a relatively narrow lot, with a driveway running close beside the house, leading to a one-car garage at the rear. On the neighbors’ side of the drive was a tall hedge which provided privacy for both houses, and on either side of the driveway was a narrow strip of grass, then a sidewalk directly beside the house.

  A small, discreet sign on one of the columns beside the porch stairs dissuaded Oaks’ clients from climbing to the porch by pointing toward the driveway with the words: “Office Entrance.”

  I’d arrived a few minutes early, as always, and parked across the street. I sat in the car waiting for two o’clock, taking the opportunity to just relax and enjoy the warm afternoon. I idly watched a young boy approach, pulling a wagon with a much smaller girl riding in it. She was clutching the sides of the wagon as though she was going ninety miles an hour and feared being thrown out. They approached and passed me, the little girl returning my grin and turning her head to watch me as they moved past. I followed them in my rear view mirror until they passed out of sight.

  I saw someone emerge from the rear of Oaks’ house and walk up the driveway to a car parked directly in front of the house. I waited until he had driven off, then got out of the car and crossed the street.

  There were only perhaps 8 feet between the back of the house and the front of the garage, but I could see tall hedges on the far side of the property as well, with an equally tall wooden fence across the back of the lot.

  The screen door at the rear of the house had another small sign: “Come in,” and as I opened it I heard a soft, one-note chime. I entered the house to see a closed door directly to my right (to the basement, I imagined) and four steps leading up into a small, very comfortable room with two chairs, a table with a brass lamp flanked by neatly stacked magazines. A partially open door across from the chairs revealed a small bathroom with another door on the far side. On the third wall was yet another door that I assumed led to Oak’s office. The limited wall space featured several really nice paintings and watercolors, which I assumed to be the work of Oaks’ lover, Chad.