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.
I went up her walkway and knocked on her front door. After a few seconds, I heard the deadbolt sliding and then the door opened up just a crack, with the little security chain rattling on its latch, making sure the door wouldn’t open any farther. The same woman I had seen in the window was now looking at me. She was in her late sixties maybe, and she was wearing a pink robe and pink slippers. I could see a cat rubbing itself against the backs of her legs.
“I’m sorry to bother you, ma’am. Can I just ask you a couple of questions?”
“Who are you?”
“I’m a private investigator, ma’am.” At that moment, I wished I had one of those stupid cards Leon had made for us, once upon a time. “Can I come inside for a moment?”
“I’d rather talk to you from here, if you don’t mind.”
“Fair enough.” I wasn’t about to point out to her that her little chain wouldn’t have stopped any able-bodied person, if that person really wanted to come inside her house. “Can you tell me, did the house next door burn down?”
“It sure did.”
“About four years ago, right?”
“Yep. Burned right to the ground. They had to come out with a bulldozer and clean it all out. Then they filled the foundation with dirt. It was two weeks of unholy racket, I’ll tell you that much.”
“The family who lived there,” I said. “Those were the Bergmans, right?”
“The Bergmans, yes. The father’s the one who died in the fire.”
“Did you know them well?”
“I lived next door to that family for a long time, mister, but I think Darryl Bergman might have said three words to me the whole time. That man was as mean as a snake. I never meant to pry, but I couldn’t help noticing what was going on over there. Police cars coming by, his wife with the bruises on her face, young Bobby always looking like he was afraid of his own shadow.”
“There was a man named Clyde C. Wiley,” I said. “An actor. He came out here one time, about ten years ago…”
“I sure remember that day, yes. He came over and beat up on Darryl, then the wife and kid went tearing 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.”