The Bottle Ghosts (23 page)

“I know. Lieutenant Richman called to tell me. But I'm curious as to why the police would go to the trouble of asking for the missing men's dental records if N.C.I.C. was able to so readily identify the bodies without them.”

“A system belch. Dental x-rays and fingerprints—if there are any—on unidentified bodies are sent to N.C.I.C. as a matter of routine. We sent them off, and N.C.I.C. replied that they didn't have a match. That's when Offermann decided to get the records of your missing guys. Then we got another message from N.C.I.C. saying ‘Oops, we goofed: we do have matches on both.' It happens.”

“Well I appreciate your keeping me posted. Let me know if anything else turns up, okay?”

“Goes without saying. Now I've got to grab a bite of lunch and get back to work. See ya later.”

Three more attempts, after lunch, to reach Brian Oaks, and three more hangups when I kept getting the machine, and I finally gave up. I called just as I was leaving the office and left my home phone number. I told him it was very important that I talk with him as soon as possible, but didn't go into any further detail. He'd probably assume Jonathan and I were having some sort of crisis and might have a policy of not even contacting group members outside of the group setting. I'd find out.

*

Right after dinner, while Jonathan was busily tending to a very scraggly Boston fern he'd brought home, I called Greg Barnett, whose partner, Fred DeCarlo, was apparently the first of the Qualicare group's members to disappear.

The phone was answered on the first ring with an androgynous “Hello?”

“Greg Barnett?” I asked, not sure if I had the wrong number.

“No, this is Lynn,” the voice said, thus leaving the issue of gender hanging in mid air.

“Uh, is Mr. Barnett in?”

“He works nights. Can I help you with something?”

“Well, yes, if you would.” I decided to just plunge right ahead. If I'd reached the wrong Greg Barnett I could always find a way of backtracking when I talked to him. “My name is Dick Hardesty, and I'm a private investigator. I'm working on a case and I thought perhaps Mr. Barnett might have some information I need.” I paused, still not sure I had the right number, until I thought of a question that might help resolve it.

“Uh, do you happen to know if Mr. Barnett is a member of Qualicare?”

Not having a clue who I was talking to, I didn't really want to go into too much detail. And I didn't even want to mention Fred DeCarlo's name for fear of the risk of opening a can of worms.

“Yes, he is. Does this have something to do with his insurance plan?”

Well, that wasn't much of a help, really. An awful lot of people belonged to Qualicare.

“It's vaguely related, yes.” I sensed the conversation was getting a bit off track. “Would you ask Mr. Barnett if he could give me a call when he gets up in the morning? I'd appreciate it.”

“Sure, I can do that.”

I gave him…her…Lynn…my office number and my thanks and hung up.

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.”