Misery Bay: An Alex McKnight Novel Page 25

  I tried to catch the next jab. I managed to knock the tip away but I couldn’t grab it. I took a quick look behind me. I had about ten more feet until I’d hit a patch of mud and probably lose my footing.

  Another jab, so close to my mouth I could practically taste the metal. Then another and I knew I’d have to try something soon while I still had the chance.

  I’ve got to time this just right, I thought. Jab, miss, jab, miss. And go.

  Just before he backed me up to the edge of the mud, on that very last jab I leaned one way, then spun back the other. He caught me in the bad shoulder again, making everything go dizzy for a second but it was too late now. I completed my little spin move and lashed out with my left hand, knocking the pole hard with my wrist. I kept moving forward as he tried to recover, but it was too late for him. It was too late and I was too pissed off and my shoulder hurt like hell and I had driven way too far to have this clown jabbing at me with a stick in the first place. I tackled him and drove him backward, across the rough ground until he lost his balance and went tumbling onto his back with me right on top of him. I twisted the stupid tripod out of his hands and brought it down against his neck. After all the waiting and watching and talking and driving myself crazy thinking about who’d be killed next, I admit it felt good to finally be doing something about it, to be pressing that cold metal against his skin.

  “I should strangle you right here,” I said. He had his hands on the tripod in a futile effort to push it away from his neck. I had all the leverage and I could have choked him right out with twenty seconds of even pressure.

  “Get off me,” he said, spraying my face with his spittle. “I swear, I’ll kill you.”

  “How are you gonna do that?”

  “I’ll hunt you down like an animal. I swear.”

  “I don’t think so. You’re only one-quarter crazy, remember?”

  I took the tripod away from his neck and tossed it aside. It landed next to the camera, knocking it over into the dirt.

  “Watch it!” he said. “Do you know how much that thing cost?”

  He started to get up, but I put one hand on his chest. “Do not move,” I said.

  “I’m getting all wet here.”

  He tried to get up again, so I really gave him a good shove this time. He was reaching for something else to swing at me. I grabbed him by the coat and put my face close to his.

  “Your son is gone,” I said.

  “He was close to his grandfather. He’s been taking it hard, so I told him to stay at home for a while.”

  “No, you don’t get it. Your son is gone.”

  “What are you talking about? The agents were at his apartment this morning. He was there.”

  “And then he left. His girlfriend has no idea where he was going.”

  That finally got to him. I let him sit up.

  “Sean is gone?” he said. “I don’t get it. Where would he go?”

  “That’s what we need to figure out. He left right after the agents talked to him. Apparently he got a phone call, and Sean promised this person, whoever it was, that he’d meet him somewhere and that he’d bring something for him.”

  “Bring what?”

  “I understand somebody broke into the lake house this morning,” I said. “They tore up the basement.”

  “That’s what the agents said, yeah. I haven’t seen it myself. They won’t let me go near the place.”

  “Whoever it was, he was probably looking for the film. It was his film, not your father’s…”

  “Wait, hold on.” He took out his cell phone and dialed. I knew he was calling his son. He held up his hand to me while it rang and rang. Eventually, he closed it.

  “Tell me who else could have gotten into that basement,” I said. “Not just today, but I’m assuming this goes back a while. Probably the last three months.”

  “That’s what the agents wanted to know,” he said. “We spent the whole morning making up a list.”

  “How big a list are we talking about?”

  “Anybody who’s ever worked for Grindstone knows how to get into that house. Hell, anybody who’s even been there. It’s like the resident party house for anybody in Bad Axe who knew my father.”

  I flashed back to Connie taking me into the house that day, and how he took the key off that hook under the front porch.

  “So how many people did you come up with?” I said.

  “It was like forty, fifty people? Those were just the ones I could think of. The agents said they were going to start working through them today.”

  “While you kept working on your little project here.” I pulled the rope down from the tree and threw it aside.

  “They told me to stay out of the way, so I am. Now where the hell is my son?”

  “You’re probably the only one who can figure this out,” I said, “so keep thinking. Out of all those people on the list, who is he closest to?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t think. My mind is just going around in circles here.”

  I ran back the scene in the apartment, trying to remember everything his girlfriend had said. I had a gut feeling that there was one more question I should have asked her. Meanwhile, Connie was running through every name he could think of.

  “Brian, no. Craig, no way. Zack, no. Wait, Zack? No.”

  “Hold on,” I said. “Whoever this is, he had to have access to a camera, right?”

  “Yeah, I guess.” He went back to the list in his head.

  “Like that Bolex in your son’s apartment. Delaney said he never let anybody touch it. Is that right? Nobody else could have used it?”

  “I don’t think so, no.”

  “So did this person take a camera from the basement?”

  “Maybe,” he said, waving his hand at me like I was a pesky fly. “I’m trying to think here, okay? No, to answer your question. I don’t think so. My father would have noticed that. He would have freaked out, probably, if one of his beloved cameras was gone.”

  “Unless he gave one to somebody.”

  “That didn’t happen very often, believe me. He’d give you a bag of weed or a thousand dollars cash if you needed it. But one of his old cameras?”

  “He gave one to Sean, right? And he gave one to you…”

  “No,” he said. “Will you let me think, for God’s sake? He never gave me a camera.”

  “Wait a minute, Sean told me a Wiley kid gets a camera as soon as he’s old enough to hold one.”

  “My father wasn’t even around when I was a kid, remember? I never got to do any of that stuff with him.”

  “So who else is Sean talking about?” I said. “If it was just him, he wouldn’t say it that way.”

  I thought back on it. Sitting in that sandwich shop, the first time I had met him. Yes, that’s what he said. A Wiley kid gets a camera as soon as he’s old enough to hold one.

  “What about your sister?” I said.

  “Corina? No. No way. I think it’s more of a recent thing. Just the grandsons. Now shut up for one minute, okay?”

  He was still sitting on the ground. I was kneeling next to him. The water on the lake was gently lapping against the shore and I wanted to pick up the tripod and put it back on his neck. Just the grandsons, he says.

  “What other grandsons are you talking about, Connie? Are you telling me Sean has a brother?”

  “No, Corina’s son. Bobby.”

  “Your nephew.”

  “My half-nephew.”

  I closed my eyes for a moment and rubbed my forehead. I counted to three.

  “Your half-nephew,” I said. “Bobby. What’s his last name?”

  “Bergman.”

  “That name is familiar. Where have I seen that name?”

  “Hell if I know.”

  “Hold on,” I said. “The court records in your father’s room. The man he assaulted was named Bergman.”

  “Darryl Bergman, yeah. Bobby’s father.”

  “The loser your sister married…”
<
br />   “That’s why my father beat the hell out of him, yeah. I think he felt bad that Bobby had to go through the same shit he did as a kid.”

  I waited for the quarter to drop. Connie just sat there looking up at me.

  “Your nephew…” I said.

  “Half-nephew.”

  I had to close my eyes again.

  “Wait a minute,” he said, finally getting it. “Are you serious? Bobby Bergman? There’s no way.”

  “Why not?”

  “This kid’s a marshmallow. He’s afraid of his own shadow. He couldn’t kill a mosquito, I swear to God. Now, will you just leave me alone for a minute?”

  “Did you mention him to the agents, by any chance?”

  “Of course not,” he said. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m telling you, there’s no way. That kid’s like a beaten dog.”

  “Maybe there’s more to him than you think,” I said. “When’s the last time you saw him?”

  “I don’t know. Like four years ago? Yeah, right after the fire.”

  It took me a moment to process those last words. It took him the same moment to realize what he had just said. We had both been in that same basement, watching that same film. We had both seen the same scene. The same fire.

  “Oh my God,” he said, his face turning white.

  “What fire, Connie?”

  “The fire that killed his father. Bobby was eighteen then. Sean was seventeen. He came down to stay with us for a couple of days. Hardly said a word the whole time.”

  “Came down from where?”

  “From up north. He lived in Houghton then. I think he was getting ready to go to that college, the one in Houghton.”

  “Michigan Tech.”

  “Yeah,” Connie said. “That’s the one. Michigan Tech.”

  “Is he still up there?”

  “I don’t know. I guess. Probably.”

  “Does Sean still talk to him?”

  “Maybe. Once in a while. He always felt bad for him, I know that.”

  “Unlike you, who couldn’t give a damn about him. Your half-nephew.”

  “Screw you anyway,” he said, “but wait, are we really both thinking—”

  “Yeah,” I said. “We’re both thinking we just figured out who your son went to see.”

  “Hold on.” He rolled over to get up. I could see his pants were soaked.

  “We don’t have any more time to waste,” I said. “Do you have an address for this kid?”

  “Why would he go see Bobby? That’s insane! We have to find him!”

  “Connie, do you have an address or not?”

  “No! He wasn’t even in college yet. I have no idea.”

  “A phone number? Anything?”

  “No!”

  “Okay, then I’ll just start heading up there. I’ll call the agents on the way.”

  “I’m coming with you.”

  “The hell you are,” I said. “You’ve got a movie to finish, remember? Sorry to mess up your new ending, by the way. It looks like your father might not have been a murderer after all.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  When I got back on the road, I picked up my cell phone and called Agent Long. All those times I’d been tempted to call her, this sure as hell wasn’t the conversation I had in mind.

  “Listen carefully,” I said. “Did an agent talk to Sean Wiley this morning?”

  “Alex, what’s going on?”

  “Just tell me. Did an agent talk to Sean Wiley?”

  “That’s the grandson. Yes.”

  “Did he say anything about his cousin?”

  There was a moment of silence on the line.

  “Alex, what cousin?” she said.

  “God damn it.”

  “What are you talking about? What cousin?”

  “Clyde C. Wiley has another grandson,” I said. “From his daughter Corina. His name is Bobby Bergman, and apparently he’s going to school at Michigan Tech.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m on the road, just outside of Bad Axe. Did you hear what I said?”

  “Yes. So let me get this information before I kill you. Bobby Bergman. Michigan Tech. How did you find this out?”

  “Connie told me.”

  “Connie? What are you doing talking to him? I swear to God, Alex…”

  “Just listen. Bobby’s father’s name was Darryl Bergman. When Wiley was arrested ten years ago? It all started with an attack on Darryl.”

  “I remember that part, yes. But I don’t remember anything about a son…”

  “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?”