me? I hope it’s not geography.”
I put the poster down.
“Wayne,” I said, “didn’t you say you have to go meet Rebecca?”
“Well, yeah, but-”
“Go ahead. You don’t want to keep her waiting.”
“It’s really okay, she’s going to be-”
“Just get out of here,” I said to him. “Tell her hello for me.”
He stood there for one more awkward moment, then he grabbed his coat and left. Bradley had picked up on the sudden change of mood. He stood there looking at me and for once in his life he wasn’t babbling away.
“Sit down,” I said.
“What’s going on?”
“Just sit down.”
He did as he was told. I took my own chair back. I looked at him across the table and waited a few seconds.
“Mr. McKnight, tell me what’s going on.”
“You know, you complimented me on remembering your name, but you picked up my name right away.”
“You came out here to ask all those questions about Charlie,” he said. “Of course I remember you.”
“But I had a lot more names to remember. That’s what you’re saying.”
“You must have talked to a dozen people that night. So, yeah.”
“I think Bradley’s a fine name. Maybe that’s why I remembered it.”
“Um, okay. Thanks?” He was looking more rattled by the second.
“Good, strong name. Bradley. It’s distinctive. Don’t you agree?”
“Um, yes.”
“Just tell me one thing,” I leaned in for the kill. “Is Bradley your real name?”
“Yes.” He said it without blinking, and he looked genuinely surprised at the question.
“Where’d you get that poster?” Time to switch gears.
“A poster shop. I know it’s kinda dumb.”
“Not the girl and the car. The other one.”
“What, the movie poster?”
“Yes, the movie poster.”
“RJ left it here.”
“RJ?”
“Our other roommate. You met him. He left it here so I figured I could just take it. Is that a big problem? If you don’t think I should have taken it, why don’t you just-”
“Bradley,” I said. “Shut up a second. Where’s RJ?”
“I told you, he left.”
“When?”
“Like a few weeks ago. Three weeks? Four weeks?”
“Okay, wait, stop.” I had ten questions in my mind and I had to take a moment to put them in order. “Where did he go?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t say where he was going.”
“He just left? Without saying a word?”
“Yeah, pretty much. It was kinda weird.”
“Okay,” I said. “Okay. RJ. Yeah, I remember him now. Tall guy, dark hair?”
“Yeah…”
“And those initials. RJ…”
I stopped dead. I didn’t even have to ask him, but he told me anyway.
“Robert James,” he said. “Everybody called him RJ.”
“His last name?”
“Bergman.”
“Son of a bitch.” I slapped the table loud enough to make him jump.
“What’s the matter?”
“I was right here. Right in this apartment. I talked to him. I asked him questions.”
“You’re starting to scare me here. What’s going on?”
“This is very important,” I said. “You have to help me figure out where RJ is right now.”
“I told you, he left. He just didn’t come back one day.”
“Come back from where?”
“Well, he was always leaving for a few days at a time. He said he was going to the cottage for a while.”
“The cottage?”
“Well, that’s just it. He said he was watching a house for a professor of his who retired and moved down south, but he’d never say where the cottage was. I asked him about it once and he said he didn’t want all of us going up there and trying to have a big party or something. He was kind of a strange guy sometimes-have I said that yet?”
“I believe you, but get back to that cottage. Do you think he could be up there right now?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. It’s just weird because I haven’t seen him around at all since what, the beginning of the month? Like right after you came out here. But how do you just ditch all your classes like that?”
“I got news for you,” I said. “RJ left school last year.”
“That’s impossible. He lived here. He was going to school. He went to class every day.”
“Did you have him in any of your classes?”
“No. I’m electrical engineering. He was video production or something like that.”
“So you never actually saw him attending an actual class.”
“No-but wait, that’s just weird, then. What kind of person would pretend to be in college and not go to any classes?”
“Let me ask you something else,” I said. “How come RJ doesn’t have this place listed as his official address?”
“Well, technically, we’re only supposed to have three people in this apartment,” he said, looking a little sheepish. “When RJ moved in, he offered to double up with me in my room, even though it only had the one desk.”
“And you guys agreed to that?”
“He was paying the same amount of money, even though he didn’t have a desk or much room for anything really. So it made everybody’s rent lower. I know we probably shouldn’t have done it.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “How did RJ and Charlie meet, anyway? Were you here then?”
“No, but it sounds like they went way back, to like freshman year. Funny, though, they never seemed to have that much in common. I’m not sure how they ever decided to live together.”
Maybe one of them just had way too much motivation, I thought.
“One last thing,” I said. “RJ’s got a cousin named Sean Wiley. He lives down in Bad Axe. You ever see him up here?”
“No, but I think I’ve heard RJ talking to him on the phone.”
“How often did that happen?”
“I don’t know. Once every couple of months, maybe? I’d answer the phone sometimes when he called. He always seemed like a nice guy.”
“Yeah, he is,” I said. “There’s a good chance he’s with RJ right now. So is there any way we can figure out where that cottage is? You said he was looking after it for a retired professor. Do you know which one?”
“No, sorry.”
“We’d have to go through his records and find out all the classes he took. Then we’d have to get hold of those professors…” I was working it through in my mind, talking it out, trying to find an angle.
“I think it’s on a lake,” he said. “Does that help?”
