Page 28 of Half Baked

“So you stalled the case and lost the file,” Noah said, stepping forward.

Detective Bergan looked up at Noah with alarm, then must have realized the buff man standing across from us didn’t fit the description of askinny man. “Who the hell are you?”

“Detective Noah Langley. I’m here to clean up your mess.” Then he repeated, “Like stalling the case and losing the file.”

He glared in defiance. “I did what I could to protect my family.”

“You could have called the state police.”

Bergan shook his head. “They couldn’t protect us forever.”

“Why’d you call him the skinny man?” Noah asked.

“Because he was skinny,” Bergan snapped. “Seems pretty self-explanatory.”

“The threat can’t have been all that serious if he was skinny,” Noah countered. “You’re not a small man. You could have taken him.”

“He may have been skinny, but he was tall and lanky and had a crazy look in his eyes. He was someone you didn’t want to piss off.” A new wave of panic hit him, and he tried to get out of his chair. “He’s gonna kill me for talking to you.”

“Andrea Baker was killed almost twenty years ago,” Noah said. “He’s probably long since forgotten about you.”

Bergan shook his head again. “A man that cold will never forget.”

“Maybe he’s dead,” Noah said.

“He must have been in his twenties,” Bergan said. “So he ain’t all that old now.”

“Then maybe he’s moved on. Either way, it’s unlikely he’ll ever know you talked to us. Maddie’s here because she’s considering moving her aunt into St. Vincent’s. He’d never make the connection.” Then he added, “Besides, most people think you’re deluded with dementia. I’d dismissed talking to you about the case because I was told you’re never coherent enough to hold a discussion.”

His brow furrowed. “A couple of years ago, I started talking about things I shouldn’t. I have too many secrets from the job, and I didn’t want them to get out. Some of the things I did could piss people off. They might take it out on my family. It was safer this way.”

I bit my tongue to keep from pointing out we already knew that he’d taken multiple bribes over the years.

Noah kept a straight face and didn’t say anything either.

“My wife and I agreed putting me in here was the best move,” Bergan continued. “To protect all of us.”

“What happened to Andrea Baker’s file?” Noah asked.

Detective Bergan shifted his gaze to Noah’s. “I burned it. If you’re smart, you’ll stay away from that case.”

“Well, consider me stubborn because I’m not letting this go. Maddie and Deidre Saunders deserve to know what happened to their mother and sister.”

“If you press this, you’ll get them killed.”

“Over twenty years later?”

“The guy wasn’t working alone. He was working for someone.”

Noah walked over to the sofa and sat beside me. “Andrea was looking into Martin Schroeder’s pedophilia. Was the skinny man part of that?”

“I have no idea. But I’m guessing she got too close to something that he or his boss were involved in, and it made them nervous. Other people were killed soon after, bad people, so I had a right to keep it quiet. The threat was real.”

“Who?” Noah asked.

“You think you’re hot shit.Youfigure it out,” Bergan sneered.

“You didn’t know who this skinny man was?” Noah asked. “He wasn’t on your radar?”

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