The Bloodwater Mysteries: Doppelganger (7 page)

“I’m not a tax collector, Mr. Doblemun.”

“That’s what the last one said.” He advanced a few more drunken steps. “Set my dog on him, that one.”

Dog?
Roni looked around frantically. There was no way she could outrun a dog.

She said, “Mr. Doblemun, if you ever want to see your son Bryce again, you’d better behave yourself.”

pop

“What do you know about Bry?” Lance Doblemun said, squinting at Roni.

“So you never found him?”

“If I knew where he was, you think I’d be living in this dump?” He shook his head as if he wanted the thought to go away. “He’s been gone ten years. I gave up on him.”

“If you gave up, then why do you have his picture posted on the missing-children website?”

Doblemun snorted. “First I heard about that! Probably my busybody witch of a mother-in-law.” He tipped his head, focusing on her with his good eye. “Why? Do you know something?”

“I’m an investigator,” Roni said, taking out her notebook. “I’m looking into several missing-children cases, and I wanted to check on a few things. How long did he live with you?”

“About three years.”

“Did he have any identifying marks? Scars? Birthmarks?”

“Nah, the kid was perfect.”

“I understand that Bryce might have been taken by your wife.”

“That’s what always happens, the police say. Me and the wife were having problems, you know, not getting along so good. The kid was her idea. She thought getting a Chinese kid would help our relationship. Fat chance.”

“I thought Bryce was Korean,” Roni said.

“Korean, Chinese, same difference.”

Roni made a note. Maybe Irma Kelly was right—Mrs. Doblemun may have had good reason to run off with her child.

Doblemun was getting impatient. “So what do you got to tell me? You know something about Bry?”

“Just a few more questions,” Roni said.

“I don’t think so,” Doblemun said. He moved faster than Roni had thought possible—one quick stride, and his free hand shot out and clamped around her wrist. He pulled her up against him.

“My turn to ask the questions, missy.”

It was driving Brian crazy not being able to hear a word they were saying. He was considering sneaking around through the woods when suddenly Lance Doblemun grabbed Roni and started dragging her toward the mobile home.

Brian didn’t hesitate: He jumped on the Vespa and started it. In seconds he was flying across the clearing, straight at
Roni and her captor. He waited until the last possible second, then hit the brake and skidded to a stop. Roni and the bearded man both stared at him.

Brian didn’t want to get any closer, but he had to give Roni a chance to get away. He decided to try something.

“Hey, Pop,” he yelled.

The man released his grip on Roni’s arm, and she backed quickly away from him.

“Bry…?” said the man.

It sent a shiver up Brian’s spine to hear this derelict of a human being call him
Bry,
which could easily be his own nickname.

Doblemun took a step toward him; Brian twisted the accelerator, the rear wheel spun, and an instant later he was speeding back across the clearing. Lance Doblemun ran after him. Brian kept the bike going just fast enough to stay out of his reach. When he was almost to the trail leading out of the clearing, he made a wide loop and headed back toward the mobile home.

Roni saw what Brian was doing. She ran an intercept course and hopped on the back of the Vespa when he got to her. Doblemun was also trying to run an interception, but Brian spun the bike around and took off at a right angle, again aiming for the exit road. Doblemun tried to change direction, but lost his footing and fell headlong in the grass.

Brian stopped the bike and looked back across the clearing. The man was climbing to his feet, but there was no way he could catch them now.

“Hey!” Brian yelled. “Your squirrel is burning!”

The man shook his fist, then ran back toward the mobile home.

Brian laughed.

Roni said, “Get going! Hurry! He’s got a dog!”

Brian took off down Goatback Lane. Behind them, they heard the howl of what sounded like an enormous hound.

“Faster!” Roni yelled.

Brian twisted the accelerator.

“Slow down!” Roni yelled.

“Make up your mind!” Brian said—then he saw what Roni had just remembered: the fallen log crossing the trail. He just had time to say “uh—” when the world turned upside down.

upended

Hillary’s front tire hit the log hard. The Vespa stopped, but Roni and Brian kept going. Roni landed in a prickly bush a few yards away. Flailing at the branches, she quickly managed to extract herself.

“Brian?” she called out.

“Over here.” Brian was clawing his way out of a hazelnut bush. “Are you all right?”

“I think so.”

A loud howl caused them both to scramble to their feet. The giant hound was getting closer. Roni ran to the Vespa and lifted it upright. Amazingly, the engine was still running.

“Is it okay?” Brian asked.

“I think so. Get on!”

Just as Brian was throwing his leg over the seat, the dog appeared around the bend of the driveway and let out an excited bellow.

Brian started to laugh. The big noise was coming from a small, floppy-eared basset hound. The dog skidded to a stop a few yards away from them and commenced a series of barks, howls, bellows, and snorts.

“Good dog!” said Brian.

The hound wagged his short tail.

“He won’t hurt us,” Brian said.

“Yeah, but—” They heard the roar of a truck engine coming down the driveway.

“Go! Go!” Brian yelled, wrapping his arms around Roni’s waist.

Roni twisted the accelerator and they took off down the driveway. The hound howled and was joined by a disturbing squeal from Hillary’s front wheel.

Brian looked back as Lance Doblemun’s battered pickup truck appeared about a hundred feet back, gaining on them. The hound jumped out of the way of the truck with an indignant yelp.

“Faster!” Brian shouted in Roni’s ear.

“Shut
up
!” she yelled back.

Brian didn’t think they could count on Lance Doblemun stopping when he caught up, but he had only a second to worry about it before the truck hit the log. The front end bounced into the air and came down with a loud metallic crunch. The truck skidded to a stop, its front end askew. The last thing Brian saw as they rounded a bend in the driveway was Lance Doblemun’s face, contorted with anger and frustration.

Roni refused to stop until they were back on Highway 35, heading out of Pepin. Once she was sure they weren’t being followed, she pulled into a wayside rest and parked.

“Where’s your helmet?” Roni asked.

Brian’s hand flew to the top of his head. “I think I lost it at Doblemun’s place.” He grinned. “Want to go back and get it?”

“No way.” Roni shuddered.

They sat on the low stone wall that circled the parking lot. A hundred feet below them, on the other side of the railroad tracks, was Lake Pepin, a twenty-mile-long wide spot in the Mississippi. Several small boats—some with sails, others powered by engines—traveled up and down the busy waterway. Some of them might be heading for the Gulf of Mexico. It all looked so peaceful—Roni found it hard to believe that only minutes before they had nearly been run over by a drunk in a pickup truck.

She said, “That was brilliant when you called him Pop.”

“I just wanted him to let go of you.”

“So do you think he was?”

“Was what?”

“Your pop.”

“Not in a million years. There wasn’t a single molecule of pop-ness in him.”

“Not even one molecule?”

“I never saw the guy before in my life.”

darwin, again

Hillary’s front wheel had not mended itself during their short rest stop. Every time Roni tried to speed up past twenty miles per hour, the noise would go from a mildly distressing
squee-squee-squee
to an outright alarming
skreeeeeeeonk
!

Brian, at his irritating best, shouted his theories into her right ear.

“I bet it’s a bent axle!”

“Shut
up
!”

“Or it could be the bearings. If the bearings get too hot, the wheel could fall off.”

“Shut UP!”

“Maybe the tire is rubbing on something. You should—”

That was when Roni snapped her helmeted head back and bonked him on the nose. Brian let out a yelp. She was immediately sorry she’d done it, and said so.

“After I save your life and everything, you bonk me,” Brian said.

“Just don’t talk about my wheel falling off while we’re rolling,” Roni said. “It’s bad luck.”

“I think you broke my nose.”

“You’ve survived two encounters with homicidal bushes this week—what’s a little helmet bonk?”

“I should bonk
you.
”

“Not while I’m driving.”

“Fine. I owe you one bonk.”

When they finally limped into Bloodwater, Roni drove straight to Darwin’s garage. He was not happy to see them again.

“You kids got to learn to treat your machines better,” he said, shaking his head as he examined the front wheel. “Just ’cause you got a brand-new tire up front don’t mean you can go banging into stuff. It’s disrespectful. Now you’ve gone and bent the axle.”

“Told you,” said Brian.

“You told me it was about six
different
things,” Roni said.

“Lucky you didn’t kill yourselves doing whatever it was you done,” Darwin said.

“Can you fix it?” Roni asked.

“I can fix anything. Don’t know when I’ll have time, though. Got a letter from the mayor’s office yesterday telling me to clean up my backyard.”

“You mean your
junk
yard,” Roni said.

“Apparently, some citizen called and complained.”

“It wasn’t me,” Roni said.

“You know how long it took me last time to straighten up
my valuable auto parts inventory? Not to mention cutting those weeds back. I’ll be back there for days!”

“So when can you fix my bike?”

Darwin frowned, shaking his head. “You might want to find yourself alternative transport for the next couple-few weeks.”

the foundling

Brian was tired of all the guessing games. He planned to question his parents at dinner. He wouldn’t stop until he got the whole truth out of them, once and for all.

But like many of his best-laid schemes, nothing went quite the way he planned.

First his mom called and said she would be late.

“How late?” he asked.

“Oh, I don’t know. You two go ahead and eat without me.”

“We’ll wait for you,” he said. If she knew they were waiting, she might get home sooner. “We’re making a surprise dinner.”

“Oh…how nice!”

The strain in his mother’s voice reminded Brian of the last surprise dinner he and his dad had prepared.

“No Catfish Banana Surprise this time,” he promised.

“Thank you. And please, no flammable desserts,” his mother added before hanging up.

Now all he had to do was come up with an edible, fire-safe surprise that contained neither catfish nor bananas.
Brian flipped through some of his mom’s cookbooks until he found a picture of something that looked tasty. He brought the book to his dad, who was in his office peering at the windowsill through a powerful magnifying glass.

“What are you looking at?” Brian asked.

Mr. Bain jumped, almost dropping the magnifying glass. “Oh, hello, son,” he said with a sheepish smile. “I was looking at the dust gathered on the sill. Fascinating stuff, dust.”

Brian plunked the open cookbook down on the dusty sill. “For dinner,” he said. “I told Mom we were making her a surprise.”

Mr. Bain frowned. “You know how your mother feels about surprises.”

“She likes them if they taste good.”

“Yes, but…chocolate soufflé? For dinner?”

“Why not?”

“Isn’t timing rather critical in making a soufflé? We never know when your mother will arrive home.”

“True. Maybe we should create a new hotdish.” Every once in a while he and his dad would try a new combination of food products to make a new hotdish. The clam-and-spinach hotdish had turned out okay, but the pumpkin-pecan hotdish had been nearly as inedible as the Catfish Banana Surprise.

Mr. Bain checked out the cupboards while Brian looked in the refrigerator. One of the rules of their collaborations was that they couldn’t go to the store. They had to use what was on hand.

Brian came out with jar of olives and some pepperoni; his dad held up some rigatoni and a can of tomatoes.

His father boiled the rigatoni noodles while Brian sliced the olives and pepperoni. Then they mixed it all together with the canned tomatoes, added a little garlic and oregano, topped it with a cup of cheese, and put it in the oven on low.

Two hours later, Mrs. Bain showed up. She looked closely at Brian’s face and said, “Do I detect some fresh scratches on my precious child?”

“The bushes are out to get me,” Brian said. He did not mention that the latest bush had been in Pepin, Wisconsin.

“Hmm,” his mother said with a frown.

They hauled the hotdish out of the oven. Brian served up a big mound of it on each of their plates. It looked okay.

They all took a bite.

“Mmm,” his mother said while chewing.

“Not bad. Maybe another gram or two of salt,” his father said.

“It tastes like pizza,” Brian said. “Pizza hotdish.”

“I think this one goes in the repertoire,” his mom said.

In that short lull after they had all finished eating, but before they jumped up to clear the table, Brian asked his question. “Okay, so when and how did you adopt me?”

“Brian…,” his mother started.

“I’m serious,” Brian said. “What’s the big secret? I mean, it’s my life.”

“He’s right, dear,” said Mr. Bain.

Mrs. Bain sighed and seemed to sink into her chair.

Mr. Bain said, “Brian, as you have already deduced, we were not the first couple to adopt you. You came to America and were adopted by a couple named Owen and Janice Samuels. The Samuelses were part of a group of Minnesotans who arranged to adopt homeless children from Korea. You were about five months old when they brought you here.”