Misery Bay (35 page)

“You had no reason to look for that,” I said, “but now you’ll probably want to go dig up the full arrest record.”

“I’ll look into it. So you’re on your way back home now, right?”

“That’s one option.”

“Alex—”

“I think Sean’s headed up to Houghton,” I said. “If you can find out where Bobby Bergman lives, you’d better send somebody out there right away. In fact, you know what, I talked to the Houghton County undersheriff when I was up there. You should give him a call and have him go find Bergman before something else happens.”

“Okay, wait. If he’s really at Michigan Tech—”

“That would be a hell of a coincidence, wouldn’t you say?”

“Because one of our victims went to school there.”

“Exactly. Plus there’s a good chance Bergman has the right kind of camera to make that film.”

Another silence.

“Tell me what you’re really saying here, Alex. Are you saying this kid is the one we’re looking for?”

“That’s what we need to find out.”

“If he did all of this … and filmed it … how did the film end up with Wiley?”

“He had the editing equipment, remember? So a little trip down to Grandpa’s house. He knows how to find the place. I’m sure he knows where the key is.”

“Then Wiley finds it and watches it…”

“And boom.”

“Heart attack,” she said. “He wasn’t working on the film at all. He just watched it. One time.”

“Yeah, I watched it one time and I’m surprised I didn’t have a heart attack myself. Oh, and you know what else? You remember the fire?”

“In the film? One of the first few scenes? Yeah, we haven’t been able to figure that one out yet, but—”

“Bobby Bergman’s house burned down four years ago. It killed his father.”

Another silence.

“We’ve been working through a long list of suspects,” she said. “We would have come back to the family eventually. We would have found this connection.”

“I know that. I’m not blaming you.”

“And yet I feel like I’m defending myself whenever I talk to you,” she said. “It’s like you’re always two steps ahead of me.”

“Blind luck,” I said. “Never mind. How’s Maven’s daughter?”

“No word yet.”

“I’ll have my cell phone here. Call me back as soon as you can.”

“Alex, you’re not going to Houghton, okay? Just go back home.”

“I can’t do that,” I said. “Not now. Call me back. Please.”

I hung up the phone and kept driving.

*   *   *

I stopped just north of Bay City to fill the tank and grab some food. It was about three o’clock in the afternoon now, on a cold but clear day. A great day for driving all over the state. I was three and a half hours from home. Or seven hours from Houghton.

It all goes back to that first death, I thought as I got back in the truck. It
has
to, right? Charlie Razniewski Jr. hanging from that tree in the middle of the night … it was the first death, and if you think about it, it was the one death that probably took a lot more planning than all of the others. With a clean getaway we still haven’t figured out.

Yes, it was definitely the biggest and boldest death of them all. What better place to do that than a carefully chosen spot just down the road from where you live?

I checked my cell phone. I was still in the Lower Peninsula, so I still had good reception. Just call me, I thought. Tell me you sent somebody over there and picked up Bergman. He’s behind bars as we speak. And Sean Wiley is safely on his way back home.

Call me and tell me that right now.

The phone stayed silent. I kept driving.

*   *   *

I was getting close to the Mackinac Bridge when my phone finally rang. It was just before six o’clock.

“What do you have?” I said.

“Where are you?”

“Just below the bridge. How’s Maven’s daughter now?”

“They’re cautiously optimistic right now.”

“Good,” I said, letting out a breath. “That’s good to hear.”

“We’re on our way up right now,” she said. “We’re about three hours behind you. So I think you should just stop and let us catch up to you.”

“Did you find Bobby Bergman?”

“Not really, no.”

“What do you mean, ‘not really’?”

“Well, you were right about the Michigan Tech connection. He was definitely going to school there.”

“He
was
going to school there?”

“He dropped out at the end of last year.”

“Where is he now?”

“Unknown, Alex. I’ve got nothing on him at all since the end of the last school year.”

“It’s April now, so that’s like a full year ago. Where the hell could he be?”

“He’s not at Tech anymore. That’s all I can tell you.”

“Damn,” I said. “So how do we find him?”

“Well, he did grow up in Houghton. He may still be in town, but we don’t have an address for him. It’s like he just disappeared off the face of the earth.”

I let out another breath, feeling dead tired now. After so many miles today, and now I had no idea where I was going.

“Alex, are you still there?”

“I’m here.”

“We confirmed what you said about the father. He died in that fire, four years ago.”

“A house fire that was captured on film.”

“Apparently so. It gets better. I went back and took a closer look at the daily logs. That day Wiley attacked his son-in-law, you know what else Steele and Haggerty did, besides making that arrest?”

“Tell me.”

“They drove Bobby Bergman and his mother back home to Houghton, right after their shift ended.”

“What? Why, were they in the car with Wiley?”

“No, that would have shown up in the arrest record. Apparently, the two of them ended up at the St. Ignace station somehow, and those two officers drove them home.”

“That makes no sense.”

“No, it doesn’t. If you look at Darryl’s sheet here, by the way, it’s mostly minor stuff—possession, simple assault, general misdemeanors. But there were a few domestics, too. If Wiley came all the way out from California, he must have been trying to help them get away, right? Why would they end up going back home?”

“We’ll just have to ask Bergman when we find him,” I said. “But you really don’t have an address? Is that what you’re telling me?”

“No, we don’t.”

“Do you have any prior addresses?”

I heard muffled voices on the other end of the line.

“Janet, are you there? Is that Fleury?”

“We’re on our way out there,” she said. “Please just let us handle this, okay?”

“Just give me his last known address, then. I’m closer than you are.”

“I can’t do that, Alex.”

I let a few seconds pass. I drove and I listened to the distant hum of static on the line.

“Hey,” I said, “how come you didn’t correct me this time?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I called you Janet and you let it slide.”

“Alex, I’m serious. You need to stop right now.”

“I’ll see you in Houghton,” I said. “Drive carefully.” I ended the call.

My signal was starting to fade as I crossed the bridge. Before it disappeared completely, I went to my saved numbers and looked up Leon’s cell phone. It rang twice and then he picked up.

“Leon,” I said. “Are you at work?”

“No, I’m home. I actually have a night off for once.”

“I’m sorry to bother you, but I just need you to look up an address for me if you can.”

“Sure thing, just tell me what I’m looking for.”

“The name is Bobby Bergman and the address is Houghton. The problem is, this address might be a little old. He hasn’t lived there since last year.”

I heard the clicking of keys, and then in the background I heard Eleanor’s voice, asking Leon who was on the phone. I wasn’t sure what the exact trouble threshold would be in that household, if just talking to me on the phone would get things going again.

“Eleanor says hello,” Leon said, still working away at his keyboard. “She also says you need to stop by and have dinner some time.”

“So she can kill me, right? Look, I don’t want to get you in hot water again. I wouldn’t be calling if this wasn’t important.”

“It’s okay. It’s just a phone call, and besides, we came to an agreement. She knows I can’t help myself, so whenever you drag me into this stuff, it’s all your fault, not mine. I’m just a helpless pawn in your wicked game.”

“I really owe you, Leon. Yet again.”

“Not a problem. As a matter of fact, I’m seeing three different addresses here.”

“Three? What are you talking about?”

“I’m going back in time, Alex. On the Internet. I can go back about ten years and see everywhere he lived.”

“You can really do that?”

“You really need to get a computer. Can we set you up with one, please?”

“Then I’d have no excuse to call you,” I said. “But seriously, can you tell me those addresses? And while you’re at it, maybe help me find where they are?”

I pulled over for a minute and wrote everything down. When he was done, I thanked him, told him to kiss Eleanor for me, then thanked him again. I don’t know how much of it he heard, because that’s about when the signal cut out for good. I put the phone down and got back on the road, taking that first exit past the bridge, to that thin lonely U.S. Highway 2 that runs along the shores of Lake Michigan, straight west into the setting sun, toward Houghton.

*   *   *

It felt strange to be back in Copper Country, where everything had begun. Winter wasn’t gone for good quite yet, but now it seemed to be fighting a losing battle. Where the snow had melted away there was dead ground and what deciduous trees there were looked like they’d never carry leaves again. I knew it would all come and it would come quickly, but tonight as my headlights swept across the empty road, the springtime felt like a fairy tale.

It was just after ten o’clock at night when I finally hit Houghton. There were lights now, and people driving around in their cars, but that empty feeling of foreboding I had brought with me didn’t go away. Maybe I was just too tired now, but I’d spent so many hours on the road and I knew there was a good chance I’d find something horrible here, just as Sean’s girlfriend had predicted.

As I went down the main street in Houghton, past the college buildings and the fraternities and everything else, I saw a lot more kids outside than I would have expected. They were walking up and down the sidewalks, some of them carrying beer bottles and most of them underdressed for the weather. I guess if you go to school in Houghton, an April night with the temperature just above freezing must feel like Bermuda.

I found the first address Leon had given me on the east side of town, not far from the college. This was the most recent address, I thought. This is where the trail will be warmest. I parked the truck on the street and sat there for a moment, still feeling the road and hearing the hum of the engine after so many hours of driving.

It was an old house, subdivided into several small apartments. I rang the doorbell. A young woman answered and told me that nobody named Bobby Bergman lived there anymore. It was all women now, as a matter of fact, and no, she had no idea where Bergman may have moved to. They pick up these rentals on a yearly basis, after all, and whoever lived there in previous years was nothing more than a foreign name to them. I thanked her and left.

The next address was right on campus. It was one of the main dormitories. I knew that would be even more of a dead end than the apartment.

The last address was over on the west side of town, away from the college. I wasn’t sure what I’d be able to find out there, but what the hell. So I drove all the way through town, past the bridge, and made my way through the side streets until I found Waterworks Drive. I started tracking the house numbers. They were going up, so I was heading in the right direction. An even number, I thought, so definitely on this side of the street. Getting closer now. One more house.

Boom, here it is.

Nothing.

There was no house there at all, just an empty lot with a low mound of dirt where the house should have been. I rechecked the addresses on either side of the lot. This was it.

I parked the truck, got out, and then stood there looking at the empty lot.

This is the neighborhood, I thought, looking up and down the street. That first scene in the film, it was taken right here. Meaning that this empty lot was—

I sensed a movement to my right. I looked over at the house next door, saw a woman’s face peering out at me from between the front window curtains.

Somebody’s definitely awake next door, I thought, and she likes to know what’s going on in her neighborhood. Maybe she likes to talk about it, too.