by Pete Hautman
“She wasn’t the type of person to just run off like that. I can’t believe she wouldn’t at least have called us to let us know she was all right.”
It did seem odd that Vera Doblemun wouldn’t have called her parents. Had she contacted them since the article was written? Roni read the article again, then typed the names of Vera Doblemun’s parents—Alexander and Marianne Kay—into her computer. A few seconds later she was looking at an address in Hastings, Minnesota.
Hastings was only fifteen miles away, but without Hillary, it might as well have been on Pluto—unless she could talk her mom into letting her use the car.
“How are you feeling, son?” Mr. Bain asked.
Brian, scrunched down in the passenger seat of his dad’s car, did not know how he was feeling.
“Brian?”
“I’m okay, I guess,” Brian said.
“He’s an old dog,” said Mr. Bain. “It wouldn’t be fair to him to take him off the farm. He’s just as attached to Jack and Theresa as he was to you.”
“I know. I didn’t expect him to come with us. I just…It was weird is all. Seeing him again. I mean, for most of my life I thought Sniffer was just a dream.”
“I’m sorry we had to give him away. You were so young, and I was working every day at the college back then, and your mother was working all day, too, and we just didn’t think we could take good care of both you and Sniffer. Also, I’m allergic to dogs.” He sneezed, as if to prove his point.
“I didn’t forget him,” Brian said.
“No, you didn’t.”
They pulled into their driveway. Brian got out of the car and went upstairs to his room. He got out his Korean coin and stared at it. He had the coin, and some fuzzy memories of the Samuelses, and now the renewed memory of his dog. Only Sniffer wasn’t his dog anymore.
He thought about calling Roni to tell her about Sniffer, but decided not to. She would probably make some comment about how the dog being alive proved her whole stupid theory about his parents kidnapping him. Or maybe she would decide that the Hankes were his real parents, and he wasn’t really Korean, but had been altered by a diabolical surgeon who had erased his memory and planned to use him to take over the world.
His mom knocked on his door and stuck her head in.
“Brian?”
“What?”
“You were asking about your adoption papers. I have them here if you’d like to look at them.” She held out a large three-ring notebook.
“Okay.” He took the notebook from his mother and put it on his desk.
“Your father and I are driving up to the Mall of America to shop for a new sofa. Would you like to come?”
“No, thanks.”
“We’ll probably have dinner up there and not be home until late. Will you be okay by yourself?”
“Two words, Mom. Pizza hotdish.”
23
mrs. kay
Roni spent twenty minutes psyching herself up to ask Nick if she could use her car. It wouldn’t be easy—Nick would question her about her destination, and she would have to lie. Then her mom would make her explore every possible alternative form of transportation, then she would lecture her on personal responsibility, and then, in all likelihood, she would say no.
Roni took a deep breath and marched into the living room, where Nick was stretched out on the sofa reading a mystery. Her mom liked to take time to relax after work—before making dinner or, more likely, ordering a pizza.
“Mom, can I use the car for an hour or so?” Roni asked, bracing herself for Nick’s response.
“Sure,” Nick said without looking up from her book.
“Really?” Roni couldn’t believe her luck. Then she got nervous. What was her mother up to? She didn’t usually just let her have the car like that. “What do I have to do?”
“Nothing. Although if you feel like picking up a roasted chicken from the grocery store, that would be nice.”
“So…I can have the car?”
Her mom tipped down her book and gave Roni a look. “Yes, I said.”
“Why are you giving in so easily?”
“You haven’t been in trouble for a while. You’re a good driver. Plus, I like to surprise you from time to time. Keeps you on your toes.” Her mom turned back to the book.
“I won’t be gone long.”
Her mother didn’t say anything.
Sixty seconds later, Roni was in the car and headed for Hastings.
Alexander and Marianne Kay lived in a large, expensive-looking house on the south side of Hastings. A brand-new Mercedes-Benz was parked in their driveway. Roni parked behind the Mercedes and sat in her car for a few minutes, getting her story ready. The front door opened and a woman with steely-gray hair and a bright pink housecoat leaned out and gave her a quizzical look. Roni waved and got out of the car. She gave the woman her best smile and trotted up the flagstone path to the front steps.
“Can I help you?” asked the woman.
“Are you Mrs. Kay?” Roni asked.
“I am. Are you selling cookies?”
Cookies? Roni did her best not to scowl. Since when did she look like a Girl Scout?
“Actually, I wanted to ask you about your daughter and your grandson,” Roni said.
It was as if every muscle in Mrs. Kay’s face went slack. The smile disappeared, and her eyes went dead.
Roni said, “I’m sorry. I guess it must still be hard for you.”
“You have no idea,” said Mrs. Kay, speaking slowly. “I suppose you are here to inquire about the reward.”
“Reward? What reward?” Roni said.
Mrs. Kay regarded Roni suspiciously. “What exactly is it you want?” she asked.
“My name is P. Q. Delicata,” Roni said. “I’m a reporter for the Bloodwater Pump.” Marianne Kay would not know that the Pump was just a high school newspaper.
“You seem quite young to be a reporter,” said Mrs. Kay.
“I’m new.”
“How nice for you,” said Mrs. Kay. “I’m old.”
Roni wasn’t sure if she was supposed to laugh, so she just smiled.
“Do people really call you P. Q.?” Mrs. Kay asked.
“That’s my byline,” Roni said. “Most people just call me Roni. I’m working on a story about unsolved child abductions in Minnesota, and I was wondering if we could talk.”
They stared at each other for a few seconds. Mrs. Kay opened the door wider. “Would you like to come in?”
24
strong boy
Brian stared at the notebook for a long time without opening it. His name, Brian Bain, was printed on the cover of the book in his mother’s neat hand. He knew what he would find: One-week-old baby found outside police station. Sent to America because nobody in Korea wanted him. Adopted by people who died. Dog given away. Adopted by Bruce and Annette Bain. The notebook was about two inches thick. What else could be in there?
Finally, with a sense of dread, he opened it and began to read.
The first few pages were typewritten forms from the Eastern Child Welfare Society. He figured that was the name of the orphanage where the cops took him after he was dumped. To his surprise, they had given him a name at the orphanage: Sang-Ki. They had even typed the meaning of the name in English: Vigorous Benevolence. Reading further, he discovered that as a baby he’d had a good appetite, excellent bowel movements, and strong lungs. He supposed that meant he ate, pooped, and cried a lot. There were three pages about his health—probably so that whoever adopted him would be reassured that he wasn’t going to get sick and die.
There were two pictures of him being held by a Korean woman—probably one of the workers at the orphanage—then several complicated forms from the Children’s Home Society of Minnesota. That must be the adoption agency. Owen and Janice Samuels’s signatures were at the bottom of the last page.
The next page was an article cut from the Minneapolis paper. The headline read, “Orphans Flight Brings New Families Together.” The a
rticle was about a flight on which eleven Korean orphans traveled from Seoul to Minneapolis to meet their adoptive families for the first time. One photo was of a man cradling an Asian infant as a woman looked on. The man was identified as Owen Samuels. The woman was his wife.
They looked like nice people. Brian imagined the sound of the man laughing, and suddenly he saw both of them, sharp and clear in his memory. Blinking back tears, he turned the page.
There were several pages of photos of Brian’s first three and a half years: Brian at a birthday party, Brian playing with Sniffer, Brian dressed up as Batman, and so on. Then came a yellowed newspaper article about the deaths of the Samuelses. Their car had hit an icy bridge over the Bloodwater River, spun out of control, and crashed through the rail into the water. Brian knew that bridge. He had walked across it. He had canoed beneath it.
The rest of the book documented his life after his current parents had adopted him. He paged through it slowly. The last item was a clipping from last week’s Bloodwater Clarion—the photo of him holding the SS-XLR8.
Brian closed the notebook. He flopped onto his bed and tried to not think. But that was impossible. His parents were driving up to Bloomington, to the Mall of America. They could get run over by a semi or go flying off a bridge. Then where would he go? He knew it was stupid to think that way, but he couldn’t help it.
The telephone rang, saving him from his thoughts. He rolled off the bed and answered the phone at his desk.
“Hello?”
“Greetings, Watson.” It was Roni. “I’m calling from the road.”
“Hey.”
“I know you have lost every last ounce of curiosity, but I thought you might like to know the identity of the mysterious woman who has been watching you.”
“The orange-haired lady?” Brian said.
“No. The one in the green car who was spying on you at the marina.”
“I didn’t see anybody spying on me.”
“That’s why it’s called spying, Einstein.”
Brian remembered the woman who had spoken to him just before he’d had his encounter with Mrs. Atkinson’s rhododendron bush. “Was she Asian?”
“Yes!”
“Was she driving a green Hyundai?”
“Yes! You’ve seen her before?”
“Just once. What makes you think she was spying on me?”
“’Cause I saw her doing it.”
“Okay, so who is she?”
“Her name is Kyung-Soon Kim. She lives in St. Paul.”
“I’ve never heard of her.”
“Isn’t Kim a Korean name?”
“Yeah, but so what?”
“I don’t know, but I do know why you’ve got all these people looking for you.”
“Why?”
“You’re worth a hundred thousand dollars.”
“Is that all?”
“Seriously. I met with Vera Doblemun’s mother. They’re offering a one-hundred-thousand-dollar reward for the safe return of their daughter and their grandson, Bryce Doblemun.”
“So actually I’m only worth fifty thousand,” Brian said. “And only if I’m Bryce, which I’m not.”
“I think the Asian woman, and the one with orange hair, and maybe some other people saw your picture in the paper and thought you were Bryce, so now they want to turn you in for the reward.”
“Wow. That actually makes sense.”
“It might explain why Lance Doblemun wanted to get his hands on you, too.”
“So he could turn in his own adopted son to collect a reward from his in-laws?”
“He was eating squirrels,” Roni pointed out. “And a hundred thousand is a lot of money. In fact, I was thinking, how would anybody ever know you weren’t really Bryce?”
“Wait a second—you want to turn me in for the reward?”
“I’d split it with you.”
Brian was speechless.
Roni laughed. “Kidding!”
Brian said, “You know what, though? There might be a way we could collect that reward, if…”
“How?”
“I might have a lead on the real Bryce Doblemun. Can you come over here for dinner?”
“I’m supposed to pick up dinner for my mom.”
“I’m making my new specialty. Pizza hotdish.”
“Pizza hotdish? Sounds disgusting.”
“It is. Are you in?”
“I’m in.”
25
pizza soup
Roni handed her mom the roast chicken. “Mission accomplished.”
“Great, I’m starved,” said Nick. She started digging around in the refrigerator. “I think we’ve got some salad greens in here someplace.”
Roni said, “Nick, what would you do if you all of a sudden had a hundred thousand dollars?”
“Pay off the house. Put some money away for your college education. Fly to Barbados.”
“I like the Barbados part.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t take you.” Nick smiled, rubbed Roni’s head, and said, “Just kidding. I’d even buy you a new bathing suit.”
“Could I get a thong?” Roni asked.
Nick laughed and began to set the table.
Roni said, “Just set it for one, Mom. I’m having dinner over at the Bains.”
“Really?” Nick gave her daughter an irritated, slightly offended look. “No eating roast chicken together? No girl talk about what we’re going to do with money we don’t have?”
“I’m sorry, Mom,” said Roni. She really did feel bad about it. “Brian invited me over for dinner and I couldn’t say no.”
Nick was standing with her arms crossed, giving her the gimlet eye.
“Roni, you know I trust you.”
“You do?”
“I would ask you where you went with my car for almost two hours, but I’m afraid that if I did, you might feel like you had to lie to me.”
Roni didn’t say anything. It was true. To deny it would make the unspoken lie even worse.
Nick’s shoulders sagged. “I was afraid of that.”
For his second attempt at pizza hotdish, Brian decided to triple the amount of pepperoni and cheese, his two favorite pizza toppings. To balance it out, he added an extra can of chopped tomatoes. He thought it would be nice to have a crust, so before pouring the gloppy mixture of rigatoni, cheese, pepperoni, and tomatoes into the casserole, he lined the sides with crackers. Unfortunately, the crackers became dislodged and floated to the top.
Oh, well. He stuck the pan in the oven and set the timer. It would probably be edible.
Roni showed up just as Brian was pulling the hotdish from the oven.
“Smells like pizza,” she said.
Brian looked at the soupy, bubbling concoction. It looked weird—like tomato-and-cheese soup with soggy crackers floating on top.
“I think we better let it cool down,” he said. “Maybe it’ll solidify.”
“Fine. While it’s cooling, tell me what you learned about your doppelganger.”
“Okay, but first I have to tell you something else. I found Sniffer!”
“Who’s Sniffer?”
“My dog. I told you I remembered having a dog? Well, I did, and he’s still alive, living on a farm up by Prescott. My dad took me to see him.”
“Cool! Are they going to give him back to you?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. Sniffer likes living on the farm.” Brian got some plates out of the cupboard and put them on the table. “Tell me about this reward.”
Roni told him how she’d found Vera Doblemun’s parents’ names from a newspaper article, and about getting their address off the Internet, and persuading her mom to let her use the car, and telling Mrs. Kay she was a reporter, and—
“What do you want to drink?” Brian asked, interrupting her.
“Red wine?”
Brian poured her a glass of cranberry juice and held it up to the light. “Close enough?”
“Perfect. Anyway, ten years ago, Mr. and Mrs. Kay offered a reward for finding their daughter and grandson, but all they got was a bunch of false leads. The reward is still good, though, even though they’ve pretty much given up hope.”
“It seems weird that you didn’t hear about this reward before,” Brian said. “You’d think they’d have it posted on the Internet.”
“I asked her about that. I guess there was a lot of publicity the first couple of years after Vera and Bryce disappeared, but now it’s just on that missing-kids site, and they don’t post rewards there. Anyway, I said, ‘I interviewed Bryce’s father a few days ago. I wonder why he didn’t mention the reward.’
“Mrs. Kay got really upset then. She couldn’t believe I’d talked to Lance Doblemun. ‘That man is evil,’ she told me. She doesn’t believe her daughter abducted Bryce. She and her husband think something awful happened to both of them, and that Lance Doblemun had something to do with it.”
Brian said, “I could believe it. He looked capable of anything.”
Roni sat down at the table and propped her chin on her hands. “Your turn. What did you find out about Bryce Doblemun?”
“I went to my Korean Culture class this morning,” Brian said. “I know how to say squid in Korean now…”
“Please don’t,” Roni said.
“…and I met a girl who says she knows a kid who looks exactly like me.”
26
louella
Brian grinned as he set the casserole on the table.
“Ta-da,” he said. “Pizza hotdish.”
“I’m not eating a bite until you tell me more about this doppelganger,” Roni said.
“All in good time, Holmes.” Brian scooped servings of hotdish onto their plates. It was a little loose. “Maybe we should have used bowls,” he said.
“It does look a bit like, um, pizza soup. What are those soggy white squares on top?”
“That’s the crust.”
“Hmm.”
They sat down, but neither of them made a move to eat.
“I’m waiting,” Roni said.
“It might be nothing,” Brian said. “But a girl in my Korean class thought she knew me. She said I was a dead ringer for this kid she met at the Korean Cultural Center in St. Paul.”
