down the street in Darryl’s old truck. That was a hell of a day, I tell you. I’ve never heard such language.”
“You saw it happen?”
“Sure did. I thought they were running away from the scary-looking biker guy, but then it turned out he was the father, just trying to help them get away. The wife and Bobby came right back, though, so I guess it didn’t work. Things got even worse after that, let me tell you.”
“So you were also here when Mrs. Bergman committed suicide?”
“Yes, sir. That was another heck of a day right there. The police came out and I thought they were just gonna talk to Darryl again, but then the ambulance showed up and they wheeled her out on a stretcher with a sheet over her head. I saw some of the blood seeping through the sheet, from where she cut her own wrists.”
“That was about nine years ago, right? About a year after that other incident?”
“Has it been nine years already? I guess it has.”
“You’re being very helpful, ma’am. I appreciate you taking the time to talk to me.”
“I know it’s not a Christian thing to say, but I didn’t mind it all that much when that house burned down with Darryl inside it. I truly didn’t.”
“I understand. I only have one more question for you. Do you have any idea where Bobby Bergman may be right now?”
“Haven’t seen him since the fire,” she said, shaking her head. “Poor kid. Some people shouldn’t have to go through that much misery in their life, you know what I mean? I think that old camera of his was his only friend.”
“An old movie camera?”
“An ancient thing, yes. He was always horsing around with it. He took a movie of me one day. I think I might have given him a funny look about it.”
Of course, I thought. That was you. You were in that one scene, looking over the fence.
“Then I felt bad afterwards,” she said. “I should have been a better neighbor to the boy.”
“No, I’m sure you were just fine. Thanks again for talking to me. You have a good night.”
She said something to her cat as she closed the door. As I left, I heard the deadbolt sliding back into place. After everything that had happened next door, I couldn’t blame her for being a little scared, even if the house itself was nothing more than a memory now.
“Where are you now, Bobby Bergman?” I said, taking one last look at the empty lot. “And wherever you are, is your cousin with you?”
I got back in the truck. As long as I was here in town, there was one more place to go.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
I drove back downtown, past the overflowing bars and up the hill toward Charlie Razniewski’s old apartment building. Everything looked different without the waist-high snowbanks, but I found the building more or less where I remembered it. I parked the truck and took another breath of fresh air as I got out, hoping it would wake me up and help me get through the rest of this night.
I knocked on the door of the apartment. A few seconds later, the door was pulled open. It was Wayne, the kid I remembered as being Charlie’s best friend, even if that friendship had been complicated by the business with Charlie’s girlfriend. I blanked on her name for a moment, then it came to me. Rebecca.
“Mr. McKnight? What are you doing here?”
“Can I come in for a second?”
“Sure, of course.”
He let me in and I had to step around a stack of boxes just to get in the place. The big television was gone now, along with all of the other equipment that had dominated the far wall of the living room. Nevertheless, I could hear the thump of some kind of rock music coming from one of the bedrooms.
“Don’t mind the destruction here,” he said. “You sorta caught us in the middle of packing.”
“What’s going on? Is the school year over already?”
“Yeah, this is the last week of finals.”
“Okay, now I get it. All the parties in town…”
“Yeah, it’s kinda crazy, but I’m sorry, do you want to sit down or anything? I mean, what’s going on? Is everything all right?”
“Sure, I’ll sit down for one minute. I won’t take up much of your time, I promise. I just have a couple more questions for you.”
“Okay…” He looked confused, but he cleared off two chairs and half of the dining room table.
“How’s Rebecca?”
“Oh, she’s good. I’ll be seeing her in a few minutes. At the Downtowner.”
“That was the bar where I talked to everybody,” I said. “All of Charlie’s friends.”
“Yeah, that’s the one.”
“Well, I’ll get right to it, Wayne, so you don’t miss your date. A lot of crazy things have been happening ever since I first came out here. I now have reason to believe that Charlie didn’t really kill himself.”
I watched that one sink in.
“I don’t understand,” he said. “What kind of crazy things are you talking about?”
“There were more deaths, in Sault Ste. Marie, in Marquette, a few other places.”
“I didn’t hear about anything like that. Although, you know, I’ve got so much going on here at school…”
“Charlie’s father was murdered,” I said. “That’s the first thing I should really tell you. It happened just after I came out here.”
The color drained from his face. He tried to say something, but couldn’t make the words come out.
“You didn’t hear anything about that?” I said.
“Nobody told me. I swear to God.”
“You know what, I should have called back out here myself. I apologize. I guess I just assumed you would have heard.”
He shook his head. He was staring down at the table.
“So here’s my question,” I said. “I want to run a name by you…”
“Mr. McKnight, is that you?”
I looked up and saw one of the other roommates walking down the hallway toward us. It was the big kid, with the bad skin. He was carrying a framed poster of a woman in a bikini sitting on the hood of a red Ferrari.
“Bradley,” I said, pulling the name out of nowhere. “You’re Bradley, right?”
“That’s right, you got a good memory. What brings you to town?”
“Just asking Wayne a couple questions here, and actually, if you’ve got a minute…”
“Yeah, hey, I’m sorry about the loud music. Why didn’t you guys tell me you were talking out here?”
He leaned the poster against some boxes and retreated down the hallway.
“Guys talking out there and they don’t even tell me I should turn the music down…” His voice trailed off as he went back into his bedroom. That was the other thing I remembered about him. That kid was a real motormouth.
“He’s actually a great guy,” Wayne said. “You just have to put up with a few things. Like his fine taste in art.”
I smiled at the comment and looked down at the artwork in question. Hot girl in bikini, hot sports car. How can you go wrong?
That’s when I noticed what was behind it. It wasn’t one framed poster he was carrying. It was two framed posters. He had fanned them out when he leaned them against the boxes. I got up and pulled the first poster so I could see the second in its entirety.
A young Clyde C. Wiley, sitting on his bike. It was the movie poster for Road Hogs.
“Okay, I’m all set,” Bradley said as he came back down the hallway. “What kind of questions do you have for
