The Bottle Ghosts (17 page)

While Richman concentrated on his lunch and his thoughts, I had an idea.

“Is there any chance at all of bringing Marty Gresham into this? I know he's not officially a detective, but he hopes to be one day, and he knows as much about this case as anybody. He might even be willing to do it on his off-duty hours. That would save the department money and manpower.”

Richman paused in his eating, his fork halfway between plate and mouth. He stared at me a moment, then shook his head, lowering the fork to the plate. “I don't know. That might be a bit of a stretch. Still, he is pretty sharp—and pretty gung-ho. Let me run it by Offermann.”

“All we really need is for him to do is to call each of the group's members—and I'd include Oaks, of course, and even Oaks' receptionist, Nowell, since he's always there—and tell them that he's looking into a missing persons report on one of the group's members, Andy Phillips, and wants to know if they might have any information at all that might be helpful. And who knows, they just might. I know I couldn't call them, not if I want to keep my cover and stay in the group.”

Richman, concentrating again on his food, paused a moment without looking up at me and sighed. He finally raised his eyes to mine.

“You know, I spend so much time working on your cases, why don't you just join the force?”

“Great idea! The force is hiring open gays, now?”

I swear he flushed for a nanosecond, then said: “Touché.”

“Or you could always quit the force and become a P.I.”

He grinned. “Yeah, my wife would love that. She could always go out and get a paper route and sell the kids to a sweatshop to help pay the bills. You're lucky you're gay.”

I returned the grin. “I couldn't agree with you more!”

*

As soon as I got back to the office, I put in a call to John Bradshaw, who was not home. I noted he still had the answering machine, but had changed the message he'd originally put on should Jerry Shea call. Obviously, Shea never had called and I was rock-solid sure he never would. I was careful, in my message, to emphasize I had nothing specific to report, but that I did want to talk with him.

I then called Ted Kemper. There was no answer, and no machine picked up, so I decided to call him from home.

Just as I was getting ready to leave for the day, the phone rang, and I answered to hear Marty Gresham's “Hi, Dick!” He sounded very chipper. “Did you hear from Lieutenant Richman yet?”

“Uh, not since lunch.”

“Sorry. Maybe I'm jumping the gun. He said he was going to call you, and I thought he had. He probably got tied up. But I wanted to call and say thanks for suggesting that I might be able to help you on this missing persons thing. It'll look great on my record when I go for detective.”

“Well, I couldn't think of anybody better suited for the job. I gather Captain Offermann went for it?”

“I guess. Lieutenant Richman didn't go into detail, but when he asked if I'd be willing to do it even on my off-duty time I jumped at it. I'm meeting with him Monday morning before I start my shift.”

His enthusiasm reminded me a lot of Jonathan. “That's great, Marty. And thanks again for wanting to help.”

“No problem!” There was only a slight pause before: “I guess I'd better get off the line so the Lieutenant can get through to you. Uh, and would you mind maybe not mentioning that I called? I don't want him to think I was stepping out of line.”

“Our secret.”

Sure enough, I'd no sooner hung up from Gresham than the phone rang again.

“Hardesty Investigations.”

“Dick; Mark Richman. I got an okay from Captain Offermann, and Officer Gresham has agreed to help on his off-duty hours. Actually, I'm going to speak to his lieutenant to see if I can have a couple hours of his regular shift time—as long as it might take for him to contact everyone. It's not fair to ask him to do everything on his own time. Anyway, I'm meeting with him Monday morning before he starts his regular shift. I don't want his enthusiasm to carry him away on this investigation thing, so I'll stress that all we want to do is let everyone in the Qualicare group know that we're investigating Phillips' disappearance. Period. No mention of the others. As you said, if anyone might have any information on Phillips that could help, that would be icing on the cake. If they don't, I'll tell him to give them his extension at headquarters to call if they think of anything.”

“Great! I really appreciate your doing this.”

“Well, we're of course not being totally altruistic in this: Captain Offermann agrees that something very fishy is going on, but that right now, and until and unless a body shows up somewhere, there isn't sufficient evidence of any crime for the police to devote the time and effort a full-fledged investigation would require. So if we can get to the bottom of what's going on here through you, it's a win-win situation.”

*

All the way home and after dinner while Jonathan was studying, I kept thinking about just where this case was going—or, so far,
not
going—and what I should or could do about it. Tipping off whoever was responsible that he'd better watch his step from now on was all well and good and would (please, God!) keep him from doing whatever it was he was doing. But perhaps I should rethink my “infiltration” strategy. Maybe if I'd just gone right in from the beginning as a P.I. and let everybody know that I knew something was going on, Andy Phillips might still be alive. Maybe. Maybe not.

We'd been to only three meetings so far, but they had given me some idea of the dynamics of the group and the individuals in it. The only member to stand out as a potential suspect was Carl. He definitely had some very serious issues with alcoholics. But maybe he was too obvious.

The fact was that it was just too soon to start making a suspects list. I'd give it a couple more weeks and keep my fingers crossed.

When I'd not heard from John Bradshaw by nine o'clock, I called and left another message on his machine. Then I tried Ted Kemper's number. No answer. Well, it had been that sort of day.

*

Luckily, the weekend gave me a little time to just kick back. Every time the case would rise to the surface of my consciousness, like a gas bubble breaking the surface of a tar pit, I'd just ignore it. It worked for the most part.

Jonathan was up before I was on Saturday morning, and I walked into the living room to find him counting the new leaves on the ficus, which was beginning the slow transition from a tumbleweed to a recognizably living plant.

“Thirty-six!” he announced happily when he'd finished, and I secretly looked forward to the time when there would be too many for him to keep a running count. Well, it made him happy, so that was okay with me.

Saturday routines seem to be pretty much the same whether you're single or with someone: dishes, bed-changing, laundry, vacuuming, dusting, grocery shopping, bill paying, phone calls to friends. The only variation on this particular Saturday was a call from Jared Martinson, the former beer delivery truck driver now a real life professor of Russian Literature at a small college about an hour north of town. Jared said his idyllic life in the forests of academe was driving him crazy and that he was planning a trip to town to spend a night at the Male Call, his favorite leather bar. I told him, as usual, that he was welcome to use our spare bedroom, but knew it was just a token gesture: Jared never had a problem finding some friendly (and usually incredibly hot) stranger who would invite him to spend the night.

We did arrange to have brunch with him on Sunday before he headed back.

As Chris and I had when we were together, Jonathan and I had developed a Saturday-night-to-dinner, Sunday-to-brunch routine; sometimes with friends but often just the two of us. It was one of the nicest parts of being in a relationship, I realized.

I'd noticed, in Jonathan, a definite change from the puppy-dog hustler I'd met at Hughie's. He still kept his wonder and enthusiasm and innocence, but by the same token he was growing and maturing in the best sense of the word. Ever since the subject had come up at the meeting that night, I had became increasingly aware of the fact that it was somehow important to me to play the role of big-brother/protector, and that while Jonathan really needed protecting less and less, he was happy to let me think he did.

*

Brunch with Jared was always a lot of fun, though there was a very distinct difference “B.J.” and “A.J.”—”Before Jonathan” and “After Jonathan.” Before Jonathan and I had hooked up, Jared and I had brunch a couple times a month, and always ended up at either his place or mine engaging in various energetic forms of horizontal recreation which we both enjoyed thoroughly. But once I decided Jonathan provided just about as much horizontal exercise as even this jaded Scorpio could handle, Jared had segued wordlessly from “fuck buddy” to “good friend.” Though neither Jonathan nor I ever spoke of Jared and my past relationship, I knew Jonathan was well aware of it. If it bothered him in the slightest, he was wise enough to never let on.

Have I mentioned that I was rather fond of the kid?

*

I had a message from John Bradshaw on the machine when we returned from brunch, and I called him right away. He'd had a weekend business meeting and I could sense from his tone that possibly one of the reasons he had not somehow managed to call earlier was that he knew I didn't have anything specific to tell him, which in turn told me he was increasingly resigning himself to the idea that Jerry Shea was not coming back. Oddly, the possibility of Shea's being dead—let alone having met with foul play—had never come up in any of our conversations. I know it had to have occurred to him, but I could well understand that it was just too painful a concept for him to deal with yet. Better to think of Shea in the broad category of “missing” rather than contemplate the more unacceptable likelihoods.

“Have you found out anything from the group that might help?”

I reluctantly said ‘no,' but that I felt more confident than ever that somehow it was involved.

“Have you had a chance to think of anything else about anyone in the group that might help?”

Bradshaw was quiet for a moment. “Not really, I'm afraid. I did have a few thoughts about Brian, though—some little bits and pieces of information I picked up over the course of the sessions. Mostly he just sits there and listens, as you probably have noticed. But I gather he came from a pretty abusive alcoholic family. So he makes a good counselor: he can understand what everybody in the group is going through.”

Bob Allen had said basically the same thing when he first mentioned knowing Oaks.

“How about the others? Carl and Jay, John and Andy…” again, I said nothing about Andy's disappearance.

“Nothing I'm sure you haven't already found out for yourself. Carl's the wild cannon in the bunch; I'm sure he's spewed over everybody there at one time or another, though Oaks puts his foot down the second he starts to zero in on individuals. I don't know this for sure, but I suspect he physically abuses Jay; Jay's come into too many meetings with obvious bruises, though of course they're always accidents. Carl's not stupid, though; he knows just how far he can push the group without getting thrown out. Andy and John…well, that's another couple that's hard to figure out. Andy plays around a lot, and he uses his alcoholism to justify it; John could have anybody he wants: why he sticks with Andy is beyond me. Andy's always trying to put the make on Nowell, the receptionist.”

I was glad he mentioned Nowell before I did.

“What is Nowell's story, anyway? Do you have any idea?”

“Not a clue. I don't even know for sure if he's gay or not. My own guess would be ‘no,' but those form-fitting tee shirts and sprayed-on jeans? He's way too aware of how attractive he is
not
to be gay. If there is such a thing as a straight prickteaser, I think that's how I might sum him up. He's not exactly surly, but he never volunteers any information about anything not related to the group.”

Pretty much my own reaction.

“And how about Paul and Frank?”

“Really nice guys, but like Andy and John, they don't show up half the time. Paul's a manipulator. He'll sit there and say how he really,
really
wants to quit drinking—he's broken down a couple times during the meetings—but he can't quit or won't. He'll be doing okay, then he'll just disappear for days at a time. He works through temp agencies and only takes short assignments because he could never hold down a job where he had to be there every day without fail. And Frank's an enabler, always making excuses for Paul. It's not a very healthy relationship.” Suddenly, he gave a sharp laugh with not much humor in it. “But whose relationship in that group is?”

I'm afraid he had a point.

“Anything outstanding about Victor and Keith?” I figured I might as well bring up all the members while I was at it.

He thought a moment, then said: “Not really. Hard to really tell too much about Keith, since he almost never says anything unless he's specifically asked. I assume he's still carrying his 12 Step book and the Bible?”