Free The Bottle Ghosts by Dorien Grey

wanted more, but didn’t want to break the flow of his conversation.
    “By Wednesday I was frantic. I’d called his work first thing Wednesday morning and found out he’d been there Monday and seemed fine, but he hadn’t shown up Tuesday. I called everyone we knew, everyone I could think of. I called the hospitals, I called the morgue, I called the police. They told me to wait until the next day…Thursday, the third day he’d been gone…to come in to file a missing person report. Then on Thursday night, on a whim, I went down to Qualicare just to see if he might be waiting for me there, for the meeting. I waited outside watching for him until I knew the meeting had started, then went in and talked to the receptionist to see if he’d seen or heard from Benicio. He hadn’t. I asked him to tell Brian Oaks—he’s the therapist who leads the group—what had happened, and then I left.”
    “I’m curious as to why you didn’t go in to the meeting as long as you were there.”
    He gave a semi-shrug. “One of the unwritten rules. It’s a couples group, and if only one half of a couple shows up it defeats the whole purpose. Sort of like the sound of one hand clapping. But I thought…”
    He looked at me almost pleadingly and shook his head again. “And nothing since. Nothing. Seven weeks of nothing! I must have called the police ten times to see if they had found anything at all, and always get the same ‘we’re working on it’ spiel. I’ve gone to all the bars, even though Benicio never was all that much of a bar drinker. Nothing. And like I told you last night, if I could have afforded to hire a private investigator, I would have. But…”
    He lowered his head and stared at a spot somewhere between his knees and my desk, like a cat intently watching something only it can see.
    “Well, I promise that if I find out anything at all that might be of help to you, I’ll let you know. No charge.”
    He looked up and gave me a weak smile. “I appreciate that. It’s just so damned frustrating, not to know where he is, why he went away, why he hasn’t called…”
    “You were going to tell me the names of the other members of the group,” I suggested, sensing his slide into depression and hoping to distract him.
    “Right.” He straightened up slightly. “Brian—that’s Brian Oaks, the group leader, prefers we don’t know too much about each other outside of the group setting. There’s some sort of confidentiality thing we had to agree to when we joined. We never use last names. But there was…let’s see…two guys—Greg and Fred, I think their names were, dropped out right after we joined; Carl and Jay, Sam and Pete—they left about three months later; Keith and Victor, Andy and John, and Paul and Frank, and just before Benicio vanished…John and Jerry.”
    Something clicked. “You mentioned a Fred…and a Sam?”
    “Yeah, Fred and Greg, Sam and Pete. As I said, they dropped out.”
    “Fred DeCarlo? Sam Roedel?” I heard myself asking, remembering Gresham having mentioned those names as two of the missing.
    Kemper shrugged. “No idea. Like I said, I never knew last names. I remember Fred talking about being Italian, though. Said he’d started drinking Chianti when he was nine.”
    My mind had kicked into overdrive, and I had to really force myself to stay focused on Kemper and what he was saying, and on the moment.
    “And what about the therapist—Brian Oaks? Do you know anything about him?”
    Kemper moved his head very slowly back and forth as he thought, his lips semi-pursed.
    “Nnnno, not really. He’s a really nice guy, apparently from a family of alcoholics, though I don’t think he is/was an alcoholic himself. He’s got a private practice, I know, but again, whether any members of the group might be seeing him outside the group I wouldn’t know. He doesn’t talk much about himself, of course.”
    I was aware that it was about time to wrap things up, but suddenly remembering