Page 3 of Half Baked

“I’m Andrea Baker’s daughter.”

I wasn’t sure why I’d told him. I doubted he’d remember her name, let alone her murder. It was widely known that he had early-onset dementia, which, of course, was why he was in the memory care unit. So I wasn’t prepared for the recognition that washed over his face, quickly replaced by fear. “I haven’t talked. I swear.”

My heart slammed into my rib cage, and I took a deep breath to remain calm before slowly sitting back down. “Haven’t talked about what, Detective Bergan?”

“I never told anyone about the eagle.”

My heart thumped painfully fast. What eagle? No one had ever mentioned an eagle in connection to my mother’s murder.

“That’s good,” I said reassuringly, scared I was going to say the wrong thing. I could only wing it and hope Bergan didn’t shut down. “Your secret is safe with me. I swear.”

“If you know, you’re not safe,” he said, starting to panic. “No one is safe.”

“I’m okay, Detective,” I said, reaching over to pat his hand.

He jerked away, his eyes wild. “They’re gonna come looking for me.”

“Who’s going to come looking for you?”

He struggled to get out of his recliner. “I have to run. They’ll get me.”

“Who will get you?”

“The skinny man,” he said, trying to stand up.

I shook my head. Had his terror been sparked by a memory, or a dementia-induced hallucination? One thing was clear—he was terrified. I stood and reached for his arm to help him up, but he shoved me away.

“Get away from me! You’re cursed now too!”

“Who cursed you, Detective Bergan?” I asked with a shaky voice.

Hearing his official name flipped a switch, sending him from panic to calm.

“The skinny man.”

The skinny man? He sounded like an urban legend, but Bergan was truly terrified.

I held his gaze, which looked slightly less cloudy. “Tell me where the skinny man is, and I’ll end the curse,” I said evenly. “I’ll save you.”

“No one can save us now.”

A young man wearing scrubs showed up in the doorway and said in a soothing tone, “Hey, Howard. What seems to be the problem?”

“That’s Detective Bergan to you,” the older man grumped. He was standing in front of his recliner. I was in front of him, closer than I should have been, but the aide didn’t seem concerned.

“I saw his door open, and he was having trouble with his remote,” I said, feeling the need to explain myself. “I came in to help him.”

“Don’t you worry about it,” he said, coming close enough that I could read his name tag—Alan. “He gets agitated for no reason at all these days. It’s been getting worse since last November.”

It didn’t require any mental gymnastics for me to remember that Martin Schroeder had been killed in early November. I wasn’t ever likely to forget it, because I was the Uber driver who’d driven him to his murder. That’s the kind of thing that makes an impression. He’d been a science teacher at the high school where my mother had taught English. The high school where she’d been murdered. And the two of them hadn’t gotten along.

Had Bergan heard about Schroeder’s death? Noah and I had discovered the former detective had protected scores of people for profit. Come to find out, Schroeder had been one of them. He’d been suspect number one in my mother’s death. My mother had suspected him of molesting female students, and according to her fellow teacher and friend, she’d planned to confront him the night of her murder. But Detective Bergan had buried the connection—and other molestation accusations as well.

Maybe hearing Schroeder’s name in the news had caused Bergan’s paranoia to resurface. Or it could have just been the disease eating his brain away. Aunt Deidre had moments of paranoia; as far as I knew, nothing in particular triggered those. So, yeah, the onset of his paranoia around the time of Schroeder’s death could be coincidental. Still, if I were prone to betting and had the money to do so, I’d bet a hundred bucks that Detective Bergan was worried his sins would come to light.

Which led me back to the question at hand—

Were his fears the babblings of a man with dementia, or the valid concerns of a man who had protected some evil people?

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