Steve Hamilton - Misery Bay

“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?”

“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.”