by Pete Hautman
She decided not to phone Darwin. Instead, she would drop in on him at his gas station. Sometimes it was best to take people by surprise.
When she got to the station, she spotted Hillary in a back corner of the garage, still with the flat front tire. Darwin was sitting behind the cash register reading Monster Trucks Monthly.
“Hey, kid,” he said, like, Go away and do not interrupt my important reading.
“Hey,” Roni said back, like, I’m here, and I’m staying here until I get what I want.
Darwin sighed, closed his magazine, and ran his grease-blackened fingers through his nonexistent hair, leaving four dark streaks on his bald dome. “Bad news, kid. Your new tire’s not in yet.”
“I thought you were going to fix the old one.”
“That tire of yours has got one too many patches. Had to order you a new one.”
“How long is that going to take?”
“Dunno. A couple days?”
Roni took a deep breath to calm herself. Two more days without Hillary? Unthinkable!
“How about you patch the old one anyway,” she said.
“Not safe,” Darwin said, shaking his head. “That baby blows and you go skidding down the street on your keister, your mama will have my head.”
“Yeah, well, if you don’t fix it, I’ll see that my mom mentions your little junkyard to the mayor again.”
Darwin’s eyes bugged out. The half acre behind the station was a notorious weed-choked field of automotive scrap. Once every year or two, the mayor’s office received a complaint and Darwin was forced to cut the weeds back and organize his rusting treasures in neat rows, a task he despised.
“You wouldn’t,” he said.
“I would,” Roni said.
Darwin’s shoulders sagged.
Roni said, “I’ll just ride it around town, Darwin. When the new tire comes in, I’ll come back and you can replace it.”
Defeated, Darwin unfolded his lanky body and stood up. “Okay, but keep it under twenty-five miles an hour.”
“I promise.” It was all Roni could do to suppress a smile. “Patch her up and I’ll get out of your hair.” The out-of-your-hair part was a little cruel, seeing as how Darwin had only two tufts of hair on his head, one above each ear.
“This is extortion, you know,” said Darwin as they walked back into the service bay.
“Technically, it’s blackmail,” Roni said.
“That don’t make it any better,” he said as he grabbed a wrench. He began to remove Hillary’s front wheel.
“A girl does what she has to,” Roni said.
Darwin snorted. Roni tried not to laugh.
“So I guess that boyfriend of yours is pretty famous now,” Darwin said.
“What boyfriend?”
“That Chinese kid you hang around with? I’ve seen you at the Dairy Queen together.”
“He’s not my boyfriend. What do you mean, famous?”
“Just saw his picture in the paper for that contest.”
“I wouldn’t call that famous,” Roni said.
“Those Chinese are real smart at folding paper,” Darwin said.
“You’re thinking of the Japanese,” Roni said. “They’re known for their origami. That’s paper folding. Anyway, Brian isn’t Chinese. He’s Korean, and he was adopted. He’s as American as you or me.”
“Nope. If he was born outside the country, he can’t be president.”
“Unlike you?”
Darwin laughed. “I could’ve run this country easy. If I’d finished high school.”
Roni tried to imagine Darwin in the White House. Oddly enough, it wasn’t that hard to do.
“Must be weird being a Korean here in Bloodwater,” Darwin said as he cleaned the inside of the tire, getting it ready for the patch.
Roni had never really thought how Brian might feel about that. He was just Brian to her. She hardly ever thought about him being from another country.
Darwin said, “This lady stopped in this morning and showed me the picture of him in the paper. Asked me where he lived. Course, I had no idea.”
“Who was she?”
“Never seen her before.”
“What did she look like?”
“Big.” He pressed the new patch into place. “Big and old and scary, with hair like Bozo the Clown.”
“Who’s Bozo the Clown?” Roni asked.
“Dude with orange hair. Before your time.”
Brian lay on his back and balanced the Korean coin on his nose. He heard his mother’s car pull into the driveway.
He decided to give her some time to relax. He had found that if he tried to talk to his mother too soon after she got home from work, she often snapped at him. Almost as if she were talking to a criminal suspect and not her own darling son.
After a few minutes, he got up and put the coin back in its box. He walked down the stairs and went right to the kitchen cabinets to get out the dinner plates. Then he went into the dining room and set the table. He knew how to get on his mom’s good side. His mother, sitting in the living room sorting through the mail, watched him through the doorway.
“Thank you, Brian.” She walked over and kissed him on the forehead. “What was all that about today? You and Miss Energizer Bunny.”
“Roni, you mean?”
“Who else?”
“We were just wondering how you adopted me. Like, how old was I?”
“Brian…” She put her finger under his chin and made him look her in the eyes. “You are not that boy in the picture. Roni has a vivid imagination.”
“He does kind of look like me.”
“Who looks like you?” asked Brian’s dad, who had just walked into the room.
“Brian and Roni found an age-progressed picture of the Doblemun boy online,” explained Mrs. Bain. “They noticed a resemblance.”
Mr. Bain furrowed his brow. “Doblemun boy?”
“You remember, dear. The Korean boy who disappeared with his mother a few years back. Up in Minneapolis.”
“Oh, yes, I remember now. He did look a bit like Brian.” He smiled at Brian. “Maybe you have a doppelganger.”
“I feel fine,” Brian said.
His father laughed. “A doppelganger is a double, son. Someone who looks exactly like you.” His look became thoughtful, almost dreamy. “It has been postulated that everyone has one.”
Brian thought for a moment.
“That’s kind of creepy,” he said.
“There are more than six billion people in the world. Statistically, just about everybody should have a doppelganger someplace.”
“In any case,” said Mrs. Bain, “you are our one and only son, and we love you.”
“So you didn’t steal me?”
His parents both laughed, and Brian laughed, too, wondering how he could have thought for a moment that he was somebody else. It wasn’t until after dinner, alone in his room, that he realized his mother hadn’t answered his question.
8
ms. perhaps
Nick Delicata examined the image on Roni’s computer.
“It does look like him,” she admitted. “Quite a coincidence.”
“Why does it have to be a coincidence?” Roni asked. She and her mother were sitting on their front porch eating dessert: a tray of Oreo cookies. Roni had promised herself she would eat only three. She was on number six.
“Why would you think it was anything other than a coincidence?” Nick asked.
“Because Bryce Doblemun was never found. Because Brian doesn’t remember when he came to Bloodwater. And he thinks he remembers living with a different family when he was really little. And his mom is being all, like, weird about it.”
“That’s ridiculous, Roni! Why, I remember when the Bains adopted Brian.”
“You do?”
“Certainly. Annie Bain was just starting out as a rookie police officer—I was there when the mayor swore her in. She and her husband adopted Brian a few months later.”
“When was that?”
“You would have been six or seven years old.”
“Which would make Brian three or four! His mom told him he was adopted from Korea when he was a baby! She lied!”
Nick looked startled. “I’m sure you or Brian must have misunderstood. Brian was walking and talking when the Bains adopted him.”
“Or stole him,” Roni said.
Nick laughed. “Roni, that’s absurd. Bruce and Annie Bain are not kidnappers.”
“Mom, don’t you ever read the papers? Every time the cops arrest some guy for some unspeakable crime, the creep’s friends and neighbors all say, ‘I can’t believe it! He seemed like such a nice, quiet man.’ I mean, the Bains could be serial killers and we’d never know it.”
Nick laughed again, but it wasn’t a very good laugh.
“I wonder how we could find out what really happened,” Roni said, taking another cookie.
Nick slid the remaining cookies back into the bag and sealed it. “I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation for everything, Roni. In any case, it’s between Brian and his parents. Don’t stir things up.”
“That’s what Brian said,” Roni muttered.
“You should listen to your friend.”
“You don’t know me very well, do you?” Roni said.
“I’m afraid I do.” Nick stood up. “Give me a hand cleaning up?”
Roni groaned, but picked up the empty milk glasses and followed her mother into the kitchen, where she attacked the dinner dishes with uncharacteristic vigor.
“What’s your hurry?” Nick asked.
“I have to get to the library,” Roni said.
Doblemun was not a common name. There were no Doblemuns in the Bloodwater phone directory. There were no Doblemuns in the Minneapolis directory, either, or any of the other Minnesota directories on the library shelves. Maybe the Doblemun family—what was left of it—had moved. Roni searched the Internet for Doblemun, but got only three hits: the missing-kids site, a plumbing supply store in Nova Scotia, and the football coach at a Utah high school. Roni reread the information on the missing-kids site.
Bryce’s photo is shown age-progressed to 13 years. He may be in the company of his adoptive mother, Vera Kay Doblemun, who disappeared the same day. They may have left the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. The child’s nickname is Bry. Vera Doblemun wears a wig, and may have any hair color. She may use the nickname V.K., or her maiden name, Vera Elizabeth Kay. She has a tattoo of a rose on her left buttock.
Great, Roni thought. Now all I have to do is ask every woman with a wig to show me her butt.
Information. She needed more information, so she went to the information desk. Ms. Paige had helped her out before. Sometimes talking to a librarian is the next best thing to hiring a private detective.
“Ms. Delicata,” said Ms. Paige, looking over the tops of her reading glasses. “Solving another mystery?”
Ms. Paige was in her forties, and her hair was the same peculiar shade of yellow as the frames of her eyeglasses. Was she wearing a wig? Possibly.
Roni asked, “Do you have any tattoos?”
“I do not,” said Ms. Paige. “Do you?”
“Not yet.”
“I would suggest something small. Very small. A semicolon, perhaps. In some out-of-the-way location. Behind your ear, perhaps.”
Ms. Paige had a very dry sense of humor, and she loved to use the word perhaps.
“Perhaps you could help me find someone,” Roni said.
“Perhaps,” said Ms. Paige.
“I’m looking for a man named Doblemun.” She spelled it out. “I don’t know his first name. He used to live in Minneapolis.”
“You’ve tried the phone book?”
Roni nodded.
“You’ve looked online?”
“Yep.”
“Do you have any other information?”
Roni told her about Bryce Doblemun disappearing. “I’m trying to locate his father, or some other relative.”
“Perhaps you could check the newspaper archives? There must have been some news articles about the abduction. You could probably find the father’s first name, at least.”
Roni could have kicked herself. Of course!
“Excuse me!” A woman with a voice like a foghorn had come up behind Roni. “Will you be long, young lady?” The woman was quite large, almost a foot taller than Roni and twice as big around. She had metallic blue eyes and a slash of orange lipstick that matched her hair. Two thin, black, arched eyebrows were painted on her forehead about an inch higher than they should have been.
“I require some information,” the woman said, pointing at the INFORMATION sign above Ms. Paige’s desk.
“I’ll be with you in a moment, ma’am,” said Ms. Paige in a pointedly quiet voice.
The woman made a phhht sound with her lips and crossed her arms over her formidable bosom.
Ms. Paige said to Roni, “You could find the articles if you visited the Star Tribune offices up in Minneapolis, or the Minnesota Historical Society in St. Paul. You might even be able to access the archives online, for a few dollars.”
“But not for free?”
Ms. Paige smiled. “I’m afraid not.”
Behind her, Roni could hear the air whistling in and out of the waiting woman’s nostrils.
“I’m not sure I’m ready to spend money on this,” Roni said. After paying Darwin for fixing Hillary’s flat tire, her cash reserves were getting low.
“There is one other possibility,” said Ms. Paige. “We have some older phone books in the back.” She looked up at the woman waiting behind Roni. “I’ll only be a moment.” She stood up and walked quickly toward the back of the library. Roni turned to get another look at the rude woman with the whistling nostrils.
“I’m sure she won’t be long,” Roni said, wondering if this could be the same orange-haired woman who had asked Darwin Dipstick about Brian.
“Hmph,” said the woman. “I, for one, do not have time to stand here waiting!” With that, she turned and marched out of the library.
9
suds science
Brian’s parents wouldn’t outright lie to him. At least he didn’t think they would.
The challenge was to ask the right questions. Pin them down so they had to tell him the truth. The question was, what were the right questions?
Maybe this was one of those skateboard situations—think about it too hard, you lose the guts to try. He opened his bedroom door and listened. He could hear their voices, very faint, maybe coming from the basement. What were they doing in the basement?
Maybe they’re talking about me, he thought.
In stocking feet, he walked quietly down the stairs, staying close to the edge to avoid creaks, then slide-walked to the kitchen and stopped at the door to the basement.
“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” he heard his dad say.
Brian crept down the stairs, stopping halfway.
“You weren’t here,” his dad said. “I had to make a decision.”
“Not one of your better decisions,” Mrs. Bain said. “Now we’ve got a real mess on our hands.”
His dad said something Brian couldn’t quite hear. He eased himself down a few more steps.
His mother said, “Brian’s not going to be happy about this.”
Just then, the telephone rang. Brian tried to run quickly and quietly up the steps so that they wouldn’t catch him eavesdropping, but his stocking feet slipped and he slid—thump, thump, thump—down the stairs, landing on his butt at the bottom.
His mother was there in an instant, staring down at him.
“Brian! Are you okay? What happened?”
“The phone is ringing,” said Brian.
“Never mind that—are you hurt?”
“I slipped. I’m okay.” He sat up.
“What have I told you about running around in your socks!”
“Mom…aren’t you going to answer the phone?”
“Let the machine get it.�
��
Brian climbed to his feet, then noticed his father standing in the doorway to the laundry room. His pants were wet up to his knees.
“Why are you all wet?” Brian asked.
His dad shrugged. “A little experiment gone awry,” he said.
“I asked your father to run a load of wash, and he thought perhaps tripling—”
“Quadrupling,” Mr. Bain corrected her.
“Quadrupling the amount of detergent might improve our washing machine’s performance.”
Brian looked through the door into the laundry room. It was two feet deep in suds.
“That’s a lot of bubbles,” he said. He noticed a pale gray T-shirt in his father’s hand. It looked familiar—but different. “Is that…?”
His father held up the gray shirt. Printed across the front was a picture of Albert Einstein. Brian couldn’t believe it.
“Not Albert!” he said. “You turned my favorite black T-shirt gray?”
“I’m sorry, son,” Mr. Bain said. “The dyes apparently could not withstand the enhanced detergent action.” He smiled ruefully. “It is, however, very, very clean.”
10
albert e.
Divide and conquer.
Who had said that? Julius Caesar? Moses? The Lost Emperor of Korea?
Whoever it was, they must have known something about being a teenager with two parents. Brian knew better than to try to pin them down as a team. He had to get one of them alone, then ask his questions. But at the moment, they were both fighting the Battle of the Suds.
Brian, the emperor of nothing, sat on the stairs, watching them beat back the invasion of the suds monster.
“Isn’t it ironic,” observed his father, “that one of the hardest things to clean up is soap?”
Brian’s mom, attempting to mop the mass of suds that had gathered beneath the laundry tub, did not reply. This was not the first time she had cleaned up after one of her husband’s failed experiments.
His dad, who for once was not entirely oblivious, said, “Why don’t you relax, dear? I’ll clean this up.”
Mrs. Bain stood up. “Only if you promise not to apply any of your experimental techniques to the process.”
