Garth frowned. “Did Missy Peeple put you up to this?” he asked. “First it was pigs, now people?”
“Oliver Stepaphanolopolis is missing, Garth, and if you know something about it, you’d better speak up.”
“You actually think I’m cloning people?” Garth asked, trying to show a confident smile but looking more like he was about to be sick.
“I don’t know what to think,” Sheriff Parker said. “All I know is that I have a citizen missing, a bunch of weird people walking around, and the doctor I think is mostly responsible for this is now AWOL. Give him up, and your punishment could be less severe.”
“Who up?”
“Don’t pretend you don’t know Dr. Hass.”
“I don’t know Dr. Hass.”
Martin thought he was doing a pretty good job of pretending.
“See? That’s just the sort of thing I’m talking about,” the sheriff sighed.
“You know me!” Garth protested. “Since I was a little kid!”
“True.”
“Then don’t you think I would be the kind of person who would brag about this sort of thing?”
The crowd in the room sort of agreed on that point.
“Unless the money was right,” the sheriff said suddenly, and then everyone was back to agreeing with the sheriff.
“Do I look like I have a lot of money?” Garth said, and the room quickly scanned his tattered khakis, flannel shirt, and stained doctor’s robe. He looked the sheriff in the eyes. “If I had a lot of money, I’d have bought Ainsley the kind of ring she deserved.”
The sheriff sighed and said, “Enough about your dating woes, Garth. I’m going to get to the bottom of this, and if you’re not going to help me, that’s your choice. But if in the end you are involved with this in any way, I suggest you get your business in order, because you’re going to be spending a lot of time in a cellblock the size of a cat carrier.”
Garth licked his lips but didn’t seem to have too much more to say.
The sheriff leaned in, and so did everybody else, just to hear what he was going to say. “Garth, you had better remember one important thing: I’m a tough cookie.”
And then the cat on the table meowed, and everyone screamed like sissies, including the sheriff who had nearly hopped into Deputy Kinard’s arms. A small, satisfied smirk quickly appeared on Garth’s lips. “Amnesia must’ve worn off,” Garth said casually.
The sheriff adjusted his shirt and plopped his hat back on his head. “I’ll be back,” he said, pointing a shaky finger at Garth. “I’ll be back.”
Oliver had never been one for electronics, but sitting in the middle of the seedy motel room, he sort of wished he had one of those fancy phones that takes video, because never in a million years would anybody believe what he was hearing.
All around him were clones.
“So can you believe this?” the one that called himself Douglas said, after explaining the whole kidnapping plot.
The other seven shook their heads. One said, “I wondered what happened to Leroy!”
“That Dr. Hass, he’s sick! Crazy!” Douglas’s finger traced circles in the air beside his ear, and someone let out a long whistle for emphasis. “None of us knew what we were getting ourselves into, but now’s the time to get ourselves out.”
“Wait a minute,” one lady said, standing up. “I spent a lot of money with this guy. And my problem ain’t solved. I ain’t leaving town until I get my money back!”
And the room erupted in rowdiness. Oliver held his breath. He hoped their aggression wasn’t about to turn on him. After all, he’d delivered the truth. He sat there wondering what kind of problem they were talking about. That they didn’t have souls?
Douglas hushed the crowd. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but these past few weeks have been the worst of my life.” Emphatic nods indicated it was true for everyone. “I swear I don’t even know who I am anymore!”
Tears sprang to Oliver’s eyes. What a sad life to find you aren’t who you think you are, and that you’re just a cheap copy of someone else. Oliver had been through hard times in his life but had always known who he was. He guessed it was partly because he had two doting parents who always took him to church. These people, if you could call them that, had nothing of the sort. Probably raised on a cloning farm somewhere in east Indiana, now thrown into the world to try to make a living. But can one really live without an identity? Oliver knew from experience it wasn’t making a living that caused one to have an identity. It was a deep reassurance that came from the inside … a reassurance that there are no accidents and … he sighed … that you are one of a kind.
He glanced up and noticed everyone staring at him. He also noticed that he’d been crying a little louder than he’d thought.
“Oliver, we’re not going to kill you,” Douglas said with exasperation.
“I know,” he said. “I’m not scared.”
“Then why you sheddin’ tears like a rain forest?” one woman said. She had a heavy accent and big glasses. And bad metaphors, thought Oliver.
He looked at all of them. “I just feel for you, that’s all.”
The lady said, “Well, you should. It’s an awful thing that happened to us.”
Oliver nodded. “I’ll say.” He sniffled. “I’d say I’d be praying for your souls, but …” He couldn’t finish his sentence. The poor people didn’t have souls to pray for.
Douglas shrugged when everyone looked at him. “See what I’ve been dealing with all day?”
Oliver said, “You just seem like such kind people, and I know it’s hard having this problem. It’s as big of a problem as anything I’ve ever seen, frankly. But I want you to know, if I weren’t so freaked out by all of this, I’d try to lend a helping hand.”
Douglas, somewhat moved by Oliver’s strange compassion, glanced around the room and then said, “Well, thank you, Oliver. But I don’t think you can help. Many of us have been trying to get help for years, and this was sort of a last resort. Now we’ve been double-crossed, and that has just made things worse.”
“But we’ll get ours!” someone shouted, and the room was rowdy again. Oliver sighed. Well, at least he wasn’t going to die. Now his best hope was to not get cloned.
CHAPTER 34
DR. HASS HAD once seen a movie called Breakdown where a wife was kidnapped by a group of truckers who held her for ransom. The idea behind the movie was to cast suspicion on what kind of odd people might populate rural towns. He’d thought the idea was somewhat corny.
Until now.
As he sat in a small jail cell in the middle of Skary, Indiana, Dr. Hass had thought he’d seen it all. But he hadn’t.
The sheriff, who had once heartily thanked him for curing his depressed cat, now was interrogating him.
It had been odd. The sheriff had asked him if he wanted to confess. And Dr. Hass thought about that. He knew confession was good for the soul. And after all, he’d spent a lifetime going from place to place, living really no kind of life at all, though at times he’d had everything a man needed to make him happy. But he never really was happy. And he learned, in the end, he always lost it all. Despite how much sense that whole cheese analogy made.
So in the middle of a place called Skary, Dr. Hass thought it might just be very appropriate to confess. For years he’d been able to avoid the law. By one fluke or another, he’d worked it out.
But now, things did seem rather dire. He’d been just about ready to confess, nearly opening his mouth to do so, when the sheriff said, “You been cloning people, mister?”
And that was when the movie Breakdown had flashed through his mind, and when he got really worried. He didn’t have an opportunity to say much more, because the sheriff then spouted off a whole bunch of evidence about why they thought he’d been cloning people, and that he was in with some vet named Garth. This amused Dr. Hass, since he’d been a vet for three months.
Anyway, he didn’t really know what to say, especially since
they all seemed to have their minds made up. In a town like this, he decided it wasn’t going to do much good to ask for a lawyer, since he was probably part of the whole weird mix. Besides, he’d been a lawyer once, and he knew what to ask and what not to ask. So instead, he asked to see Reverend Peck. This brought an amused reaction from everyone standing outside his jail cell. And off they went to get Reverend Peck.
So now a lone deputy watched his cell, slumped over in the chair, half asleep. The sheriff’s cat had taken a strange interest in him, soliciting looks and rubbing up against the bars of the cell as if he would like an invitation in. Dr. Hass wasn’t sure why the cat liked him, but he was glad somebody in this town did.
Melb had excused herself from the crowd in her living room, going to the bedroom and shutting the door. Inside her closet, she moved the clothes that covered the metal safe.
“Ohhhh, Oliver,” she moaned. “Is this the reason something has happened to you?”
Through her tears, she stared at the lock she had not succeeded in breaking. Her mind bounced from telling the authorities of the treasure she’d found to the hopes it would help bring Oliver home to making the mistake of confessing about it only to find it was not connected to Oliver’s disappearance. She bawled like a baby at having to make the decision.
Something else muttered at her heart. That Oliver had gotten cold feet. That Oliver had decided not to marry her. That Oliver had run for the hills.
And if that was true, she was going to need every cent that was inside this box.
Melb steeled herself, gathered up all the clothes she now couldn’t wear due to her tremendous weight loss, and plopped them on top of the safe. Then she stood and wiped her tears.
If Oliver wouldn’t have her, she thought with her nose high in the air, perhaps the delightful but annoying Dr. Hass would. After all, something about his magical words had made the impossible possible.
She stared down at her waistline. Oliver or no Oliver, she was going to fit into that wedding dress!
Reverend Peck, escorted by a deputy and Sheriff Parker, arrived at the jail. Reverend Peck did not know what to expect. It seemed to him it was Sheriff Parker and the gang that had lost their minds. But according to them, Dr. Hass was the mad scientist, a “cloning doctor” who was using their town as bait. As they were walking up to the jail, after the deputy was out of earshot, the sheriff added, “And we believe they may have taken Melb.”
“Melb Cornforth?”
“Yes. The person we’ve been calling Melb might be her clone,” the sheriff whispered.
And Reverend Peck thought he was having a midlife crisis.
Once inside, the sheriff instructed Reverend Peck to be at the very least coy. “I’m not expecting you to be a professional interrogator,” he said, “but try to get a confession out of him. You’re a pastor. People like to confess to pastors.”
The reverend glanced at the sheriff. “So you’re expecting something like, ‘I’ve been cloning people for years. You finally caught me’?”
The sheriff smiled. “Something like that.”
A deputy led the reverend back to the holding area. In the fourth cell down, he could see Dr. Hass sitting on his cot with nothing to do but stare at the sheriff’s cat that was pacing outside the bars.
Dr. Hass’s face lit up when he saw him and he stood. The deputy unlocked the door and the reverend entered. So did Thief.
“Thief, not so fast,” the deputy said, swooping the cat up and carrying him outside. “Ten minutes, gentlemen.”
Dr. Hass sat back down on the cot. “Thank you for coming.”
Reverend Peck stood by the door. “This is pretty odd. What are you in for again?”
“Cloning.”
“Cloning.” The reverend shook his head. “So … that’s kind of different.”
“Yeah,” Dr. Hass said with a smile. “Never been accused of that before.” He laughed, but his face was tinged with sadness.
The reverend leaned forward, placing his elbows on his knees and clasping his hands together, giving his full attention to Dr. Hass. “Well, I suppose there is a reason you wanted me to come today, isn’t there?”
Dr. Hass nodded somberly.
“Is there something you want to tell me?”
Dr. Hass nodded again.
“Something hard?”
“Yes.”
Reverend Peck swallowed. He’d seen a lot of things in his years in the pastorate, but if this man confessed to cloning, that might be enough to do him in. “Go ahead,” he said, his heart thumping against his chest.
Dr. Hass looked up at him, looked down at the floor, glanced up at him again, sighed, bit his fingernail, ran his fingers through his hair, winced, chewed his lip, and then looked very distant.
“Take your time,” the reverend said, morbid anticipation about to eat him alive.
After a few more minutes of silence, the reverend couldn’t imagine what this man was about to tell him. So he said, “Dr. Hass, let’s start with something simple.”
“Okay.”
“You know, I must confess something myself.”
“Oh?”
The reverend smiled warmly. “I don’t even know your first name.”
“Oh.” Dr. Hass sighed and stared at the cement again. “Well, that’s not simple either.”
“But it’s a start, right?”
Dr. Hass sighed. “Yes, it’s a start.”
“Okay, well, go ahead. Tell me your first name.”
“It’s Jack.”
“Jack. There you go. Jack!” The reverend said heartily. But then he frowned. “Your … your … um … Your name is … Jack …” The reverend cleared his throat. “Jack Hass?”
Dr. Hass shrugged. “Let’s just say I’ve spent a lifetime living up to my name.”
Ainsley had finally gotten Melb to lie down for a while. In the kitchen, she leaned against the counter, pinching her eyes closed to try to hold in the tears.
So much was happening, and never in her life had she felt more overwhelmed. She was trying to stay strong for Melb, trying not to think of the many implications attached to Oliver’s disappearance. Yet there was nothing else on her mind. Melb was devastated, even hinting of her fears that he had left; her.
Someone knocked at Melb’s front door, so she went to answer it, hoping it was Wolfe. Instead, Alfred stood there grinning.
“Ainsley, my dear, you have been a hard woman to track down!”
“Alfred,” she breathed, trying to muster up a smile. She couldn’t. “What are you doing here?”
“We were supposed to meet this afternoon, remember? Talk about final design?”
Ainsley stared through Alfred. “Oh.
“Hello? Anybody in there?”
She looked at him. “I’m sorry. Something came up.”
“Hmm. Well, looks like you’re free now, so why don’t we—”
Ainsley lost it. Tears streamed down her cheeks. “I’m not free, Alfred! Okay? Something terrible has happened, and I’m trying to help my friend!”
“Oh,” he said. “I’m sorry. What’s wrong?”
“Oliver is missing!” she cried.
“Missing? The Oliver of the Melb and Oliver wedding?”
“Yes,” she said. “That Oliver.”
Alfred practically shoved his way inside the house, closing the door behind him. “Ainsley, this is not good!”
She blinked through her tears.
“We have to have a groom! The whole show is centered around a wedding!”
“Alfred, that is the least of my concerns right now,” she sniffled.
“Well, it’s my first concern,” he said gravely. “I have sunk a lot of money into this, Ainsley, and I am not going to let it just fall apart four days before it’s supposed to take place.”
She went to the kitchen, her trembling hands trying to grab a glass to get a drink of water. “I don’t know what to tell you.”
He sighed. “Keep me posted, please.”
“Fine, I’ll keep you posted.” She felt so incredibly fatigued at that moment the room spun around her, and she quickly slid onto a barstool to steady herself.
He walked to the door, smoothing out his expensive coat and pulling on his leather gloves. “Ainsley, are you up for all of this?”
She managed to look at him. “Up for all of what, Alfred?”
“When you hit it this big, things get really difficult. You hit problems, and you deal with them. I know that sounds hard-core, but it’s the way it works.”
“We’re talking about a human being missing here, Alfred. I’d say that’s more than a problem.” And add to that the fact that she and Wolfe were hardly speaking.
“It’s a problem like any other problem.”
“Does it take a cold heart to get to the top?” She could not help but glare at him.
“Of course not,” he said, his charming smile returning. “Just a brave one.”
And with that, he left. She put her head on the counter and shut her eyes.
Oliver was not privy to the plans the eight were making concerning Dr. Hass, which suited him fine, to tell the truth. The motel room door opened suddenly, and he gasped.
Douglas entered, looking around the room for something, barely acknowledging Oliver. “Okay,” he finally said. “Come with us.” He took Oliver’s elbow, pulled him out of the chair, and guided him firmly out the door. The rest of the clones stood gawking at him.
Oliver was so terribly frightened he wanted to scream. But they screamed, and he thought maybe that was some odd sort of ritual or something, so he thought it better to keep his mouth shut.
“We’re traveling in two cars,” Douglas said, to nobody in particular, and then they split up in two groups. Douglas took Oliver.
In about fifteen minutes, they were in front of Dr. Hass’s house. Oliver wanted to stay in the car, but instead he was pushed out the side and led up the sidewalk. Douglas knocked on the screen door, with everyone behind him. He glanced at Oliver. “You better fess up, Oliver,” he said. “That’s the only way we’re going to get this guy, you understand me?”
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