The Bottle Ghosts

by Dorien Grey

  “You look tired, Mr. Hardesty,” Offermann said.

  No shit? I thought. “I guess I am,” I said.

  “Well, we’ll try not to keep you too long, but I’d like you to tell everyone here everything you know about Chad Bleeth, Brian Oaks, and the other missing men. Officer Gresham has just received the reports from the Freeport police and we’ve been going over them, so we already know a bit about Mr. Oaks and his interesting past.”

  I took a deep breath, leaned forward to rest my forearms on the desk, and began.

  “I think,” I said in conclusion, “that it was my mention of the disappearance of Charles Whitaker…who wasn’t even a member of the group…that somehow triggered whatever it was that led to Chad Bleeth’s death, and I’m deeply sorry for that, though I had no way of knowing.”

  Deputy Chief Buralli spoke for the first time. “Since Mr. Oaks’ whereabouts are unknown, and it appears he left in some haste, Captain Offermann has ordered in a team to dig up Oaks’ entire back yard on the assumption that the other missing men may also be buried there. What puzzles me is…do you sincerely believe that the victims’ alcoholism was the reason for their death? I find that an incredibly weak motivation.”

  “With all due respect, Deputy Chief. I’ve found that logic is not always a factor in a killer’s motivations. That they were all alcoholics, yes, but…my gut tells me that somehow there is more to it here.”

  “Such as?” Lieutenant Ingram asked.

  I shook my head. “I’m sorry, I really don’t know. But there’s something…”

  “But what of Mr. Bleeth?” the Deputy Chief asked. “Was he alcoholic, too?”

  “From what I understand, yes. I spoke with Brian Oaks’ brother, and it seems Brian sought out alcoholics in some strange way, to try to save them from themselves.”

  “Well,” Offermann said, “we have issued an all-points bulletin for Mr. Oaks with every law enforcement agency in the state. We have his description and the description and license number of his vehicle, and have notified the N.C.I.C.. Chances are very good that he won’t get too far and we will have him in custody before long. Detectives Carpenter and Couch are interviewing Oaks’ brother as we speak, to see if he might know where Brian Oaks may have gone. And while the department will now take complete control of the case, I would like thank you and Officer Gresham on behalf of Chief Black, Deputy Chief Buralli, and everyone else in the department. Without your efforts, these deaths might very well have gone literally unnoticed.”

  Offermann rose, followed by everyone at the table including me, shook hands all around once more, and the meeting was over. I walked out with Marty Gresham, thanking him for everything and wishing him luck on his goal of becoming a detective—which now, with this attention from the department’s higher-ups, seemed more than likely—and left the building.

  Something is not right, my mind kept repeating: Something, something, something…

  *

  Horror movie fake fog. Everything in shades of grey. Flat horizon, then a figure, far off, coming closer. Wearing one of those billowing white negligees like the lady vampires always wear when they get out of their coffins at night. Hair piled high: obviously a wig. A powdered wig. Closer. Can’t see the face, but the eyes…bright…not pretty-bright, but scary bright. Like hot coals.

  Coming closer. Singing something I can’t make out. I can’t move. Closer. I can see a mouth. Grinning. Horrible grin. Then a voice: ‘Hello, sweetie. I’m Charlene…’

  I awoke with a start, waking Jonathan as well.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah, sorry. Just a bad dream, I guess.”

  Jonathan moved closer, putting an arm across my chest. “Me, too. I just can’t imagine Brian killing all those people. And his own lover! How could he do that? How could he kill his own lover? It doesn’t make any sense at all.”

  He was absolutely right, of course. I kissed him on the forehead and pushed him gently back onto his pillow. “Go back to sleep now.”

  “Okay.” And within a minute I could tell from his breathing that he was indeed asleep. I wasn’t so lucky.

  Why would Brian Oaks kill his lover? Why now? And why bury him in their own back yard, especially if that’s where all the other bodies are buried? And then all but put up a sign saying ‘Dig Here!’ over the body? And where does Oaks think he’s going to go? He has to know he’ll be caught! No, no, no! Something is not right!

  ‘Hello, sweetie. I’m Charlene…’

  *

  I arrived at work Tuesday morning to see the light on my answering machine blinking. I tossed the paper on my desk and pressed “Play.” Mark Richman’s voice said: “Call me when you get in.”

  I didn’t even stop to make coffee before dialing City Annex.

  “Lieutenant Richman.”

  “Lieutenant. Dick.”

  “Thought you’d like to know the crews worked all night to dig up every square inch of Oaks’ yard.”

  “And no bodies.”

  There was a slight pause. “And you aren’t surprised.”

  I sighed. “No. Not really. It was too easy. Too obvious. Either Oaks is playing with us for some really weird reason, or…”

  “Or what?”

  I shook my head. “I have no idea. But something isn’t right, and it has something to do with Charles Whitaker.”

  “Hmmm,” Richman said. “This is one of your gut things?”

  “Yep, I’m afraid so.”

  “I’ll check it out.”

  *

  Needless to say the rest of the day was pretty much a total loss. The morning paper carried the story of the discovery of “a body (name withheld pending identification of next of kin)” in the yard of a “noted psychologist” (also unnamed) who was being sought for questioning.

  I sat around hoping for a phone call from Tim, whom I’d called at home the night before to tell him what had happened. He’d said the body had come in just before he left work, but that one of the other examiners was assigned to it, so he knew nothing but would get back to me as soon as he did. I knew, of course, that since he never called me from his work when it involved a case, he wouldn’t be able to call until he could get away either at a break or at lunch.

  I went through two pots of coffee, which of course did wonders in calming my throttle-to-the-floor thought processes, and tried to do some organizing for my upcoming St. Louis trip for Glen O’Banyon. I really didn’t want to go with everything as up in the air as it was, but I knew I had no choice if I expected to be able to keep paying my bills.

  I was just considering calling down to the lobby diner for lunch when the phone rang.

  “Broken neck,” Tim said with no introductory comments. “Instantaneous. Not another mark on him, which sort of rules out an accidental fall. I’d say he was taken completely by surprise and had no chance to react. Oh, he did have some scraping on the backs of his heels, which indicates he was probably dragged from the house into the yard.”

  “Which means the blood on the carpet by Oaks’ desk wasn’t his?”

  “The lab is still checking on that, but offhand I’d say ‘no.’ I’ll let you know when they find out for sure.”

  I had another thought. “Any evidence of alcohol or drugs in Bleeth’s system?”

  “Nope, none. He was totally sober when he died.”

  “Thanks, Tim. I appreciate it, as always.”

  “You’re welcome. And now I’ve got to run grab some lunch. I’ll talk to you tonight at home if not before, okay?”

  “Okay. Give my best to Phil.”

  “Will do. Later.”

  I watched myself replacing the receiver onto the cradle in slow motion. If the blood isn’t Bleeth’s, whose is it?

  I was pretty sure I knew, and I didn’t like it one bit.

  *

  Jonathan was waiting for me, Manhattan in hand, when I walked into the apartment. His usual big grin was much more subdued, and our hug was a little longer and a little tigh
ter than usual.

  “Anything?”

  I shook my head as he handed me my drink and walked me to the sofa.

  As I sat down, Jonathan went into the kitchen for his Coke and when he returned to sit next to me, I filled him in on what little I’d been able to find out. Then we sat there in silence for quite some time, until Jonathan said: “Brian’s a nice guy. Why would he do this?”

  I realized that Jonathan didn’t know what I knew about Brian’s past, about his father, about his first lover, Kent, and the cloud of suspicion that had forced him to leave Freeport and return here; about what Ben Oaks had said. I told him. Jonathan just listened, watching me. When I’d finished, he shook his head.

  “I still don’t believe it.”

  Since I could almost sense the air of depression in the room, I thought it time to change the subject…at least a little.

  “You were working at Qualicare today?”

  “Yeah,” Jonathan said, taking a drink of his Coke. “We’ll probably be there another week or so, on and off.”

  “And did you happen to see Nowell?”

  He nodded. “Yeah, I talked to him for a few minutes about what had happened.”

  “What did he have to say about it?”

  Jonathan drained his Coke and set it on the coffee table. “Not all that much, really. But then, you know Nowell. I like him, but he’s a very private guy. I could see in his eyes that it had hit him hard, though.”

  He suddenly looked toward the kitchen and sniffed the air. “Oh, oh,” he said, getting up quickly, “something’s burning.”

  I got up to follow him into the kitchen and set the table.

  *

  Tim called sometime after dinner, while Jonathan sat on the floor with his textbook, intermittently glancing up at the TV show I was watching—the rerun of a sitcom. I’d remembered it as being very funny the first time I saw it, but the humor largely escaped me this time around.

  I hastily turned the sound down, leaving it loud enough for Jonathan to hear if he was interested, and picked up the phone.

  The blood on Oaks’ carpet, Tim said, was type AB Negative: a check of Qualicare’s medical records showed Brian Oaks’ blood type to be…AB Negative. I hadn’t known what the blood types would be, but I had known in my gut they would match.

  So something happened to make Brian Oaks bleed. A fight with Chad? Chad didn’t have a mark on him other than his scraped heels: no other scrapes, scratches, bruised knuckles. And Chad was sober when he died, ruling out a drunken confrontation. Chad had picked up something and hit Brian with it? If so, what? There wasn’t a lot of blood—probably more than a nosebleed, but nothing that looked anywhere like a really serious loss. The room was in perfect order, and I’m sure the police had gone over it with a fine-tooth comb. I made a mental note to call Richman in the morning to see if by chance they’d found anything.

  Tim also said they had determined that Bleeth had died sometime around midnight on Thursday, the night of the meeting.

  Why did I have a sense of guilt—that I was somehow responsible? That’s what my gut told me, and if I was willing to believe it on other things, how could I deny it in this? But how? My mind kept going back to that damned nightmare: ‘Hi, sweetie…I’m Charlene.’ Charlene was Charles Whitaker’s drag name. Yeah?…so what did that have to do with anything?

  Was Brian Oaks the psychologist Whitaker went to see? If so, why did he only go once?

  *

  Wednesday? Another ‘total loss’ day not worth mentioning. I did, however, call Mark Richman first thing in the morning and found out that a tiny amount of skin tissue and blood had been found on the corner of Oak’s desk closest to the blood spot. What had happened to leave it there was completely unknown.

  I got my airline tickets for St. Louis in the mail, and talked with Glen O’Banyon, who had some last minute instructions. He said the trial that necessitated my trip had been moved back two weeks, thereby taking some of the urgency out of it, but since I had the tickets, I might as well go now and get it over with.

  I left work a little early since it was Jonathan’s class night, and this would be the first time he’d be taking the car by himself. I knew he was looking forward to it, so I made it a point to stop and pick up a box of chocolate-covered donuts to celebrate the occasion. I also had stopped at a key shop at lunch and had an extra key made for him. When I gave it to him, you’d think I’d given him the key to the city.

  I asked during dinner if he’d talked to Nowell.

  “Just for a second. I told him I was going to miss going to the meetings, but that you were going out of town for a couple days so we couldn’t have gone tomorrow even if they were still having them.”

  Jonathan logic.

  He left ten minutes earlier than he had to…“in case there might be a lot of traffic” (there never was, but I understood), and I watched from the window—having to move a couple branches of the now nearly fully-leafed ficus out of the way in order to get a clear view—as he drove past the front of the building and disappeared.

  I was watching TV when, at a little before 10:00, the door opened and Jonathan came in. I knew immediately something was wrong when, instead of just pushing the door closed behind him, he turned toward the door and closed it, as though trying to avoid looking at me.

  “Hi, babe,” I said, not getting out of my chair. He slowly turned toward me and I could tell from his expression that something was wrong. I switched off the TV and went over to him for our traditional hug.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I…I wrecked the car! I’m so sorry, Dick! I didn’t mean to! I stopped on the way home to get a Coke and I had it in my lap between my legs and somehow it spilled and I looked down and tried to pick it up and the next thing I knew I was in the intersection and a car was coming and I jerked the steering wheel and bounced over the curb and hit a mailbox, and…”

  I hugged him again. “It’s all right, Tiger, it’s all right. Where’s the car now?”

  “It’s in the garage downstairs.”

  I broke the hug and moved back, holding him at arm’s length.

  “So it’s driveable.”

  “Yeah, but I wrecked it! The whole left front fender’s caved in and the headlight shines way off to one side and the bumper’s loose, and…”

  I breathed a huge sigh of relief.

  “Come on.” I took him by the hand and headed for the door. “Let’s go downstairs and you can show me.”

  When bedtime came, Jonathan waited until I was in bed, then came in and lay with his back to me, about as far away as he could get without falling off. I reached over and pulled him over to me, and he tried to turn away again.

  “Okay, what’s going on now?” I turned him back toward me again.

  “I wrecked your car! You probably hate me!”

  “Bullshit,” I said, and proceeded to show him how I really felt.

  *

  Since my plane left at 4:00 on Thursday, I decided not to go to the office at all. I sent Jonathan off to work with the promise that I would call him as soon as I got to my hotel. I packed my suitcase and called my insurance agent about the car. He wasn’t too sure if it would be covered since Jonathan wasn’t listed on my policy and even if he was, there was the collision deductible and…you know, the usual “We’re Here For You Unless You Need Us” insurance agent routine. I decided to just stop at a couple garages to get estimates on repairing the fender on my own. It would cost an arm and a leg, I knew, but…Jonathan had insisted that he would pay for it, but I wasn’t about to have him do that: he felt bad enough about it already.

  I got back to the apartment around one o’clock and was unlocking the door when I heard the phone ring. I hurried in to answer it.

  “Dick, it’s Mark Richman. I tried you at work, but took a chance you might be home. Meet me at the boat ramp at Riverside Park. Now.” And he hung up.

  Riverside Park? The boat ramp? That’s just a block away from…

&n
bsp; Ohhhh, shit!

  *

  Four squad cars, a couple grey, unmarked four-door sedans, an ambulance, and numerous other cars were clumped to either side of the boat ramp, where a large wrecker was backed to the water’s edge, its cable stretched tight into the water, like a fishing line reeling in a very big fish. A uniformed officer tried to keep me from approaching the ramp, but I saw Richman standing with a group of men and managed to call to him. I pointed the officer’s attention to him, and at a nod from Richman, he let me pass.

  As I reached the group, the rear end of a car broke the surface of the water. I didn’t have to ask whose car it was.

  Chapter 13

  Brian Oaks was in the front seat, behind the steering wheel, his seat-belt fastened securely. I wanted very much to throw up, but didn’t dare in front of Richman and the others.

  “Some kids fishing right over there…” Detective Carpenter said to me a few minutes later, pointing a short distance from the ramp, “…saw some clothes popping up to the surface. A patrol car was passing by, and the kids flagged it down.”

  Oaks’ body was removed from the vehicle after a police photographer had shot what seemed like ten rolls of film, and kept on shooting as Oaks was laid on a stretcher. A paramedic checked the body and then stood up to talk with Richman, Couch (who had not looked at me since I arrived), and Carpenter. I moved closer to hear the paramedic say: “…until the coroner takes a look, but I can’t find a mark on him other than that small cut on his forehead. Looks like he just drove into the river.”

  As they were loading Oaks’ body into the ambulance, Richman drew me aside. “I don’t normally come out on things like this,” he said—which of course I already knew, since he was in Department Administration, not Homicide, “but when I heard they’d found a car in the river so close to Oaks’ place I put two and two together. I called you because…well, because you’ve done the bulk of the work on this case, and I figured we owed you.”

  “I appreciate that, Lieutenant.” I nearly used his first name, but we’d established an unwritten rule that while he was on duty, I only used his title. “So you think Oaks committed suicide?”