Fear of Frying (17 page)

“How will we get out tomorrow?" Marge asked, reluctantly stepping back and gesturing grudgingly for them to enter the cabin.

“I'm afraid we might not be able to leave tomorrow," Shelley said.

Marge shivered. "I don't like this place. I want to leave. Surely there's some way to get out of here?”

Shelley explained about the logging road. "But it's probably impassable, too. Marge, if you don't like this resort, does that mean you'll be recommending against sending the children here?" she asked, just to keep the conversation going.

“Oh, I hadn't thought about that. Yes, I guess so.”

“Does Sam feel the same way?" Jane asked. Shelley glared at her.

“I don't know. We haven't talked about it really."
No, you've got other things on your minds. Sex and death, for starters,
Jane thought.

“It's a shame," Shelley said. "Benson Titus has gone to so much trouble to impress us, but I don't think anybody favors the plan. Even Bob Rycraft, who was so enthusiastic at first, seems to have changed his mind.”

Marge stared at Shelley as if forcing her mind back to the subject at hand. "I guess so," she said. Silence fell.

Marge glanced at the door as if wishing it would open and some supernatural force would suck her out. Could a woman this timid, who couldn't even figure out how to get away from unwanted guests, be a party to murder? Jane wondered. It didn't seem possible.

Shelley said, "I guess you'll be at the planning meeting next Thursday." When Marge looked at her blankly, Shelley went on. "The park committee. Planning the new gardens around the city hall. .?"

“Oh. Yes. I will. I wonder— Well, I think I'll just run down to the lodge and see if Sam's there. If you don't mind. .”

Trying to chat with her was obviously a lost cause. Marge was putting on her coat, and Jane went to open the door. She found herself facing Sheriff Taylor, his hand raised to knock. "Is Mrs. Claypool here?" he asked, obviously surprised to see Jane. A young, uniformed officer Jane hadn't seen before was standing behind him.

“Yes, she is. Go on in."

“I wonder if you'd mind staying," he said quietly. "My only female deputy is out sick."

“All right," Jane said, opening the door wider. She was bursting with questions, but this obviously wasn't the time to ask anything.

The sheriff stepped inside the cabin looking very grim. The young officer came in as well, closing the door and taking a notebook and pencil out of his pocket.

“Mrs. Claypool? I'm afraid I have bad news for you," Sheriff Taylor said.

Marge stood as if frozen in place.

“We've just found your husband's body.”

“Wh—" Marge began, then clamped her mouth shut.

Which husband, you were going to say,
Jane thought. She and Shelley exchanged a quick glance.

“It must have been in the stream and the high water brought it down to the lake," the sheriff said. "You won't have to identify it. Your brother-in-law already has.”

Marge was still standing, statuelike, in the middle of the room. Her only movement was to twist a button on her coat. She had gone so white she looked like she might faint any second. Shelley gently took her arm, led her to a chair, and forced her to sit down.

“I'm afraid I'll have to ask you some questions," the sheriff said.

Marge kept twisting the button.

“You see, the body was naked—”

Marge drew in a sharp breath.

“It had a severe wound to the head. The left temple. And. . well, he's been dead for quite some time." He turned to Jane. "It's the one you ladies found. At least, the wounds match what you described." There was the faintest hint of apology in his voice.

The sheriff's assistant was still standing quite still and unobtrusive by the doorway, already taking notes.

Marge had pulled the button on her coat loose and sat staring at it in her hand as if it were important.

The sheriff pulled another chair over and sat down in front of her. "I'm afraid there are a great many questions I'm going to have to ask you.”

Marge's story came out in fits and starts, out of order and with long intervals of sobbing. A few minutes into it, John and Eileen Claypool arrived, distraught. John said, "Marge, you don't have to talk to these people. I forbid you to. You need a lawyer. Don't say a word.”

Marge, her temper flaring for once, said, "I don't need a lawyer, John. I haven't done anything wrong. I'm sick of Claypool men telling me what I can and can't do. Oh, please, please go away!”

John practically had to be thrown out of the cabin. Eileen left in tears.

Sam Claypool knew he had a twin brother, Marge said, between sobs. The boys had been in foster homes together until they were adopted by different families at the age of four. Sam didn't know where his brother was and didn't care. His early childhood had been so nightmarish that he wanted no reminder of it. . ever. He'd never even confided in John about having a twin and had only mentioned it to her once, on their honeymoon.

She had tried once or twice to get him to talk about it, perhaps even try to find his twin, but Sam was adamantly, almost violently, opposed to discussing it and accused her of betraying his confidence by even bringing up the subject. He obviously regretted having shared the information with her and was determined that she, like he, should block it out of her mind.

“Did
you
make any effort to locate him, your husband's twin?" Sheriff Taylor asked.

“Good Lord, no! Sam might have found out and would have been furious!" Marge said. "Sam had a — a bad temper. And it was his business, not mine. He made that very clear."

“So this person, this twin — what is his name? — found Sam," Sheriff Taylor said.

“Yes. His name is Henry McCoy. Yes, he wanted to find Sam. He'd had a hard life and some psychological problems that he thought might be solved by getting in touch with Sam. Reestablishing a family relationship," she said, as if it were a direct quote.

Henry had told her (just yesterday), she said, that he had spent three years just locating Sam. And then he'd had second thoughts. What if Sam didn't want to see him? What if Sam didn't even remember that he had a brother? They'd only been four years old when they were separated. An outright rejection might be far worse than the insecurity of having been separated in the first place.

So instead of approaching Sam directly, Henry McCoy tried to learn all about him first. He had, in fact, stalked his twin — not for any bad reasons, Marge insisted. Just to get to know him in a secondhand way so that he wouldn't make some dreadful gaffe when they did meet.

Henry took an apartment in Chicago and got a sales job with a farm implement company that allowed him freedom of movement, and started "studying" Sam, learning all about him so he could decide when and how to approach him in person.

He learned about Sam's car dealership-something he knew about since he, too, had been interested in car sales and had worked for several dealerships, but hadn't been an owner. He researched local papers for any mention of the Claypools and learned that Sam had been in a civic choir for some years. Henry, too, had a good voice and was interested in music. He started thinking they might get along well, with these common interests.

“Then why didn't he arrange to meet your husband?" the sheriff asked.

“Because Sam was. . well, daunting. Very formal, rather cold. Except with customers."

“So Henry approached you, instead?" Taylor asked.

“Oh, no! No, he didn't," Marge exclaimed. "The first time I saw him, really saw him, was here. Looking in the window of the dining room the first night. In all those years I'd wondered about Sam's birth brother, it had never occurred to me, for some reason, that they might be
identical
twins instead of fraternal. And to see Sam sitting at the table in the lodge and the
same
person looking in the window. .”

Jane remembered the moment all too well. If this was true — and she wasn't convinced it was — then Marge hadn't seen a scary stranger in the window.

She'd seen her husband's
doppelganger.
Even though she'd known he had a twin, that must have been a horrible shock.

“You're certain you hadn't seen him before?" Taylor pressed the point.

“No. Really. But I knew there was something odd going on. Or at least I thought so. But I thought maybe I was going crazy. For about the last six months, I kept having the feeling we were being watched," Marge said. "We'd go to a movie or a concert and I'd have the sense that somebody was looking at us. And every time a strange car would park on the street, I'd think it was someone observing our house. It made me terribly nervous and upset. But I had no proof. Just a feeling.”

She thought for a moment. "Maybe I had seen Henry before. One time I saw Sam in the grocery store parking lot. I guess now it must have been Henry. I must ask him about it. When Sam came home that night, I asked him what he was doing there, and he said he wasn't anywhere near the store that day. I was sure it was him and for some reason he was lying to me."

“Did you talk to Sam about it, the feeling of being followed and observed?" Jane asked. She hadn't meant to say anything, but it popped out. Sheriff Taylor gave her a quick, critical glance, but waited for Marge's answer.

“I tried to. Once. It made Sam so angry that I didn't mention it again."

“Why did it make him angry?" Taylor asked. "Because he had the same feeling," Marge said. "Oh, he didn't admit it. But I'm sure that's what itwas. He was hateful about it. Said I needed to take more estrogen, that I was getting the middle-aged crazies. That I ought to see a shrink, except it would be a waste of money. Sam wasn't—" Her voice caught. "Sam wasn't a very loving person. Not affectionate. But he wasn't nasty like that. I was stunned by it. That's how I knew that he'd been upset about being watched before I ever mentioned it. The only other thing it could have been—" She stopped.

“What's the other thing?" Taylor asked.

“It's so stupid. I thought maybe Sam was the one spying on me. Or somebody he'd hired was doing it. Men his age sometimes get tired of their wives. And it crossed my mind that he might be trying to — to `get' something on me he could use to divorce me. Something like an affair that he could use against me. Sam. ." She paused and drew a long breath and sat up very straight as if to brace herself against her own words. "Sam didn't really like me very much, you see. I'm not sure he liked anybody. But I really bored him. I think he only married me because I was pretty when I was a girl. And he wanted a family. Children. When we realized — a long time ago — that I'd never have any babies, he just lost interest.”

Jane could almost hear her heart breaking for Marge. Such a terrible admission.

“He wouldn't let me get a job," Marge said. "He felt it would reflect badly on him. Make people think the car dealership wasn't successful. ." Her voice trailed off.

“When did Henry plan on approaching your husband directly?" the sheriff asked.

“I don't know. You'll have to ask him. Where is he?"

“I don't know yet. I have my people out looking for him now."

“Henry will tell you everything. He meant no harm, he was just nervous about how Sam would act when they met. It was terribly important to him that they get off on the right footing."

“And did they ever meet?" Taylor asked.

“No," Marge said with a shuddering breath. "Not alive. Henry found out about us coming up here to look over the camp. There was a little article in the local paper about this committee, you see. He managed to arrive a day earlier, hide his car, and set up a tent out in the woods somewhere."

“Why?" Jane asked.

Marge shrugged. "I don't know. You'll have to ask him. I guess he was just in the habit of watching Sam, maybe wanting to see what he was like when he was away from work. I don't know. He was in the woods that night—"

“The night your husband was killed? The second night you were here?”

Marge nodded. "Couldn't you feel it? That we were being watched from the woods?" she inquired of Jane, who made noncommittal noises. "Sam stayed back after the rest of us left. He didn't tell me why. Well. . I didn't ask, to tell the truth. I was so uneasy myself that all I wanted to do was get to the cabin. Henry didn't say so, but I think he might have come out of the woods then and introduced himself, except that someone else came back."

“Who?" Jane and the sheriff said at once. This time he made a rude shushing gesture at her.

“I don't know. Henry wouldn't tell me. He said I was better off not knowing until—" She started sobbing again.

“Until what?" Taylor asked when her crying subsided slightly.

“Until he could prove what he'd seen."

“And what did he see?"

“He won't tell me. But he'll tell you. I know he will. He was only trying to protect me. He just told me he saw someone return and — and kill Sam.”