The Bottle Ghosts Read online

  I took the opportunity, after ordering a bourbon and Seven for me and a Coke for Jonathan, to show Shea’s photo to the bartender. Again, Shea was recognized, but again apparently hadn’t been in for several months. He couldn’t provide any other pertinent information, either. Shea just came in occasionally, had several Black Russians (no side shots), never said much, and left, alone.

  Ah, well, it was worth the try.

  When I returned to the table, Jonathan was telling the women all about his first night of school, and they appeared to have fallen under his charm. We small-talked for a couple of minutes until Guy appeared at our tables, which were his last stop before he sat down to play.

  I hadn’t seen him since…don’t go there, Hardesty, my mind said, so I didn’t…for a long time. We exchanged greetings and, since he already apparently knew Barb and Mollie, I introduced him to Jonathan. He asked, as always, about Chris, since he remembered him from when Chris and I were a couple, and I told him that Chris and Max were coming for a visit.

  “Bring them in! It would be great to see Chris again. It’ll be like Old Home Week.”

  I looked a little puzzled, and he grinned. “You remember Teddy Wilson? Better known as Tondelaya O’Tool, World’s Best Drag Queen? Moved to New Orleans a while back after Bacchus’ Lair shut down?”

  Of course I remembered T/T—a huge black drag queen with a talent even bigger than he/she was, who never lip-synched and could belt out a song like nobody else.

  “Of course! Is he back in town?”

  Guy nodded. “He’s flying in next Saturday, I hear. That new place on Beech, Steamroller Junction, is having its grand opening next weekend, and Teddy’s one of the headliners for the opening show.”

  “That’s great! We’ll have to try to go while Chris and Max are here.”

  “Do that. And be sure to stop by here, too.” He glanced at his watch. “Well, time for the first set.”

  I stopped him before he had a chance to walk away, taking out Shea’s photo. “Do you by any chance know this guy?” He took the photo and looked at it closely.

  “Yeah. His name’s…” he paused for only a second or so “…Jerry. Never says much. Sits over there at the end of the bar. Always waits until the end of a set to leave. I get the impression he’s a pretty lonely guy.”

  In light of the fact that Shea had a lover, I found that a little strange. But then I realized that being lonely goes a lot deeper than whether or not people are around.

  Guy handed the photo back to me and turned to Jonathan. “Anything you’d like to hear, Jonathan?”

  Jonathan looked mildly embarrassed…I don’t think he’d been exposed to too many Broadway shows in his part of Wisconsin.

  “‘People’?” he asked, hesitantly.

  Guy grinned. “One Babs medley, comin’ right up,” he said as he stepped over to the piano.

  *

  Having really gotten nowhere with the bar rounds as far as any leads to where Jerry Shea might have gone, I thought I’d call in a small voucher from Lieutenant Mark Richman at police headquarters. I was pretty lucky in having worked with Richman on a number of cases and to have developed a nice rapport with him. He’d told me after a recent big case that I could call on him any time, but I hadn’t really felt the need. But it occurred to me that perhaps he might be able to direct me to someone in the Missing Persons’ department—if there were enough missing people to even have a department—who could tell me exactly what they did in following up on a report once it was filed. Maybe I could get some ideas on what to try or what not to bother with.

  I got to the office at the usual time (Jonathan and I had fairly well worked out the morning two people/one bathroom logistics by this time), picked up a paper at the newsstand in the lobby, and made a pot of coffee the minute I got in the door. I went through my usual ritual of reading the paper, doing the crossword puzzle, and drinking my coffee (I’d stocked up on Styrofoam cups to avoid having to wash out a cup every day). When I’d finished, I picked up the phone and dialed the City Building Annex and asked for Lieutenant Richman’s extension.

  “Lieutenant Richman.”

  “Lieutenant, Dick Hardesty.” Okay, now what do I say? “How have you been?” Oh, that was original.

  “Fine, Dick. Busy but fine. What can I do for you?”

  Well, he knows how to get to the point even if you don’t, I thought.

  “Well, I was wondering if you could do me a favor.” I suddenly wished I hadn’t called, and felt as though I were imposing on him. “I’ve got a new case involving a guy who seems to have disappeared. His lover filed a missing person’s report, but I’m embarrassed to say I have no idea how the department handles missing persons cases. I was wondering if you could put me in touch with someone there at the department I might talk to, to see what might be going on with it.”

  “Sure, I can probably do that. Let me ask you first, though: how long has he been missing?”

  “Six days, now.”

  “Well, I should caution you not to expect too much in the line of activity. We get an awful lot of missing persons reports, and while I’d like to say we treat them all the same, there is in fact a sort of unwritten set of priorities in handling them. Kids come first, of course, then spouses—straight spouses, unfair as that may be. Missing unmarried adult males aren’t always given in-depth attention unless there’s strong reason to believe something’s definitely wrong. The good old ‘men can take care of themselves’ philosophy, I’d guess. There are just too many guys who drop out of sight for a while for whatever reason, then show back up again. We issue descriptions and photos of all missing persons to every patrol, and post the information in the squad rooms, but for the most part there’s really not all that much actual legwork involved.

  “Tell you what…why don’t you give me the missing guy’s name and I’ll pass it down to Missing Persons to see if they have anything at all that might help you?”

  “That’s really great of you. I’d really appreciate it. His name is named Jerry Shea—that’s S-H-E-A.”

  “Okay. I’ll pass it down and see if I can find someone down there you can talk to.”

  “Thanks, Lieutenant. I really appreciate it. Later, then.”

  *

  Though I didn’t expect any of the people on the list of friends and acquaintances Bradshaw had given me to be home (and they weren’t), I called them all anyway, leaving messages with those who had machines. I’d try them again later, when I got home.

  I went downstairs to the ground floor diner for lunch. I didn’t do that very much anymore, since Evolla and Eudora, the identical-twin sisters whom I swore had worked there since the torpedoing of the Lusitania, had at long last retired. Strange, really: I had never exchanged a single word with either of them that wasn’t related to a food order, but I really missed not hearing one or the other of them yelling out an order for the soup of the day to the cook: “BAW-EL.” Ah, the end of an era.

  I returned to the office and was just making another pot of coffee when the phone rang.

  “Hardesty Investigations.”

  “Dick, it’s Mark Richman. I came across something interesting on your missing person case.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah, but let me ask you something first.”

  “Sure.”

  “Your guy is a heavy drinker, right?”

  The hook was baited. I bit. “Yeah.” I wondered how he knew that or why he would mention it. I know I hadn’t.

  “Ah…”

  Ah? What the hell does ‘Ah’ mean? I wondered, but waited for him to tell me.

  “Well, the duty officer at the records desk is a rookie, Marty Gresham, fresh out of the Academy, but he’s a pretty sharp kid who is also working on a master’s degree in criminology. When I mentioned Shea’s last name, he said: ‘Oh, yeah, Jerry Shea: Category Twelve.’ I asked him how he happened to remember Shea’s first name, and what he meant by ‘Category Twelve.’ He said that he’d been doing a little resear
ching on missing persons cases, going back several years, looking for common sets of circumstances and situations to see if there were any identifiable patterns in such cases. Shea is the most recent report he’d seen, and he fit the pattern of five other cases over the past five years. His ‘Category Twelve’ cases are single males, twenty-six to forty years old, reported missing by another guy, usually with the same address as the missing person. All five cases had notations on their report that they were either heavy drinkers or acknowledged alcoholics. And they’re all still missing.”

  “Yeah,” I said, not a little impressed that Richman had gone so far out of his way for me, “that is interesting. But five similar cases spread over five years in a town this big…”

  There was a slight pause, then: “You’re right. It’s probably just coincidence, but the really interesting part is that counting Shea as number six, three of the six disappeared within the past six months.”

  Chapter 2

  I took a moment to mull that one over. “And that didn’t ring any sort of bell at police headquarters?”

  “I’m afraid not. As you said, this is a big town, and a lot of people are reported missing every month. The reports come in as individual cases, and they’re treated as such. Most missing adult males show up eventually on their own. One of the problems is that too often nobody bothers to let the police know they’re back. We can waste a lot of effort and man hours looking for good old Pete, only to find out six weeks later that he’d just been out on a toot and decided to go to visit a buddy in Pittsburgh.” He sighed, and I could appreciate what he was saying. “We do the best we can, but it’s just a matter of practicality that we simply don’t have the luxury to really follow up on cases where there is no evidence that the guy did anything but just decide to take off.”

  “Do you suppose it would be possible for me to talk to Officer Gresham sometime? I’d like to hear more about his research project. He might possibly be able to give me some ideas on where to look, or what to look for. The Category Twelve thing and the fact that there have been three missing men in the past six months is interesting, but the last thing I want or need is to fall into my usual trap of getting drawn into cases I haven’t been hired to solve.”

  Richman laughed. “Yeah, you do tend to do that, don’t you? But sure, I’ll give Officer Gresham your phone number and see if he’d mind talking to you. It would be better to do it during his off-duty hours, though.”

  “That’ll be fine, and you can give him my home number, too, if that would be more convenient for him.”

  “Will do. And now, I’d better get back to work. Good luck on finding Shea. And if you do, be sure to let us know, won’t you?”

  “Count on it.”

  *

  The afternoon passed quickly enough, although as usual, looking back on it, I can’t remember exactly where it went. I left work a little early so I could stop by the Paradise—the last bar on the list Bradshaw had given me—to see if anyone there had seen Shea either on or since the night he disappeared. I called home before I left the office to leave a message telling Jonathan I might be a few minutes late getting home.

  Ah, the old ball-and-chain, one of my mind voices said, a little sarcastically. I recognized it immediately as my crotch and told it to shut up. Having a partner to consider before just wandering off wherever and whenever I felt like it was one of those little adjustments that had to be made, but the trade-off of having someone to care what you did and when made it well worth whatever inconvenience or bother it may have been.

  The Paradise was a little neighborhood bar on the #10 bus line, at the edge of an old industrial district of abandoned factories and run-down warehouses. A nice enough little place, but because it was well off the beaten track, I seldom went there. Because of its location, probably, the Paradise had a pretty mixed crowd: some straights, a few lesbians, but mostly gay men. When I walked in the door, though, I was surprised to see I was the only one in the place other than the bartender. Well, it was still pretty early.

  I was also rather surprised to see that the bartender was a former two-or-three time trick—Jack…Mitchell? Marshall? It had been a while, but he was looking as good as ever.

  Oh, I’d say better than ever, my crotch observed, innocently.

  We exchanged greetings and small talk, and I ordered a bourbon and Seven and showed him Shea’s photo.

  “Yeah, I recognize him. Haven’t seen him in…oh, about a month or so, I’d guess. Not exactly what you’d call a ‘regular.’”

  “Always drunk when he came in?”

  Jack nodded. “Always. But he’s a fairly good drunk as drunks go. Never any trouble. Kept to himself. I think he comes in just for the jukebox. We’ve got a lot of Billie Holliday, blues sort of stuff. He’d go through four or five dollars in quarters.”

  We were quiet for a minute until Jack said: “So when are we going to get together again? It’s been a while.”

  I sighed. “Well, I’m in a relationship now.”

  He shrugged. “So? He’d never know if you had a little something on the side.”

  “That’s true. The problem is I’d know, so I prefer monogamy to a guilt trip.”

  God, Hardesty, you’re such a woos! my crotch said, disgustedly.

  Jack shrugged again. “Pity.”

  I agreed, but didn’t say so.

  *

  When I got home, Jonathan greeted me with a hug, a Manhattan, and a bigger-than-usual grin. I could tell he had something to tell me, but he waited until we’d walked over to the couch and I’d sat down. He reached into his wallet and pulled out a card.

  “Look what I got today!” He was obviously very pleased.

  I took it and looked at it: it was a Qualicare Health Systems Card.

  “Now I’ve got insurance! So if I get sick I can go and see a doctor and not have to pay hardly anything. And if I ever need a prescription, it’ll only cost me just a couple dollars. And it only costs me fifteen dollars a week to belong! My boss pays the rest. Isn’t that great? I’ve never had insurance before!”

  I handed the card back to him with a smile. “You’re really doing very well for yourself.”

  He returned the card to his wallet then sat beside me on the couch, reaching out to hold my free hand.

  “I am, aren’t I?” he said proudly. “Sure a lot better than when I first met you.”

  Neither Jonathan nor I ever directly mentioned his hustler days, but we both knew what he meant, and he was definitely right.

  “What’s for dinner?” I asked, taking another sip of my Manhattan. Again, for someone who didn’t drink, Jonathan made a good bartender.

  “Those pork chops we got. When Chris called from New York the other day and we were talking, he asked me if I burned your pork chops the way you liked them. You should have told me. Anyway, I’ll be sure to burn them tonight.” He paused long enough to furrow his brow. “Well, I’ll burn yours anyway. And we’re having mashed potatoes and gravy and corn.”

  I was watching him as he talked, and I thought of Jack and having passed up what would undoubtedly have been a very animated half hour or so, and I realized it was well worth missing. I put my drink down on the coffee table and stood up, pulling Jonathan up with me.

  “How about we go have dessert first?” I asked, leading him toward the bedroom.

  Jonathan’s face broke into an ear-to-ear grin. “Sure!”

  *

  After dinner, which was pleasantly delayed by about an hour, I got out the friends’ list that Bradshaw had given me and began calling them. I managed to reach all but one of those on the list, though of course no one had any really directly useful information, other than to sketch in a little more fully a picture of who Jerry Shea was as a person.

  Originally from the Boston area, from a large and hard-drinking old-school Irish family, Shea had apparently been fighting alcoholism long before he moved here, and had a history of bouts with serious depression. In the vicious circle of alcoholism, the dep
ression would lead to drinking, and the drinking would lead to depression. Some of the guys on the list had known him quite a while before he and Bradshaw had met. They, the friends, had held hopes that Shea’s having a lover would alleviate the depression and subsequently the drinking. It didn’t.

  When he was sober, Shea was, like a great many alcoholics, outgoing, friendly, and cheerful, apparently without a care in the world. He and Bradshaw weren’t having any problems the friends knew about, other than the obvious and monumental one of the drinking. Everyone who knew Shea liked him, until the demons came, and then he would just drop out of their lives for a week or so while he binged and recovered. He never bothered any of his friends while he was drunk.

  All of the friends were naturally concerned about his having disappeared, and expressed a great deal of empathy for Bradshaw, but most assumed that he was just on a very long, rough binge and that he’d be coming home any time now, to start the cycle all over again.

  As I hung up from the last call, I reflected again on how much of a P.I.’s life is spent in running around in circles or in wandering down long, convoluted paths only to come to a dead end of one sort or another. I determined, next time I spoke to Bradshaw, to see if I could expand his list to Shea’s relatives, or out of town friends. I’d also see if Shea had any credit cards that might be traced for any charges made since he disappeared.

  Out of curiosity, I looked up Bradshaw’s home number and dialed it to see if he had in fact taken my advice and gotten an answering machine before he left town. Sure enough, he had, and the message he’d recorded was almost word-for-word what I’d suggested to him.

  Jonathan, who had been sitting cross-legged on the floor reading a textbook assignment for school, totally absorbed, looked up as I got up from the sofa to put the phone back where it belonged.

  “About ready for bed?”

  I grinned. “Didn’t we just do that a little while ago?”

  He returned the grin. “Well, I meant to sleep. But if you want…”

  I walked over to him to take his hands and pull him up from the floor. “Well, why don’t we just go to bed and see what comes up?”