The Bloodwater Mysteries: Doppelganger

by Pete Hautman

Billy looked at Brian. “Grounded for all eternity?” he said.

  “It was worth it,” Brian said. He looked at Kyung-Soon. “Do I have a Korean name?” he asked.

  Kyung-Soon smiled. “You are Ki-Nam,” she said. “It means ‘strong boy.’ I named you well.”

  “My American name—Brian—that means ‘strong,’ too,” Brian said.

  “Tell me about this reward,” Billy said.

  Brian and Roni told him about Vera Doblemun’s parents, Alexander and Marianne Kay. “Do you remember them at all?” Brian asked.

  Billy shook his head. “I was really little. I don’t remember anything.” He got up and went to the back door and looked out at Lance Doblemun. “I don’t remember him at all.”

  Lance Doblemun, still securely bound, glared up at them. Darwin was stretched out on the chaise, snoring.

  “I bet you blocked it out,” Roni said. “It must have been awful.”

  “You know, if anybody turns me in for the reward, I might not be able to stay with my mom. She might get in trouble for taking me away. And for not reporting the murder.”

  “I know,” Brian said, “but I think my mom—my adoptive mom—can help.”

  “She’s really a cop?”

  “Yep.”

  Kyung-Soon called to Billy from the kitchen. He went back inside and talked with his mother in Korean for a few minutes, then turned to Brian and said, “Could you guys wait out in the backyard? My mom and I need a few minutes.”

  “Wait—I have one question,” Brian said. “When is our real birthday?”

  Billy laughed, and then told him.

  “Wow,” Brian said. “I’m nine days older than I thought!”

  Louella Doblemun was not thrilled about getting up off the sofa, but with Darwin’s help they were able to move her onto the chaise longue outside.

  Brian and Roni sat on the steps. They could hear movement and occasional bursts of rapid Korean from inside the house.

  “What are they doing in there?” Roni said.

  “I don’t know,” Brian said. “My mom will be here soon, and she’ll know what to do.”

  “Would somebody please tell me what’s going on?” Darwin said.

  Roni took pity on him and explained the situation, with frequent corrections and embellishments from Brian. Mrs. Doblemun lay on the chaise, rolling her eyes, making tch sounds, putting her hands over her ears as Roni described what Kyung-Soon had seen the night she abducted Billy. Lance, meanwhile, stared at each of them in turn with an expression of hatred and despair.

  When Roni had finished her story, they sat in silence. The sounds from inside the house had ceased, and all they heard was the chittering of crickets and the faint rush of distant traffic. After a minute or two, Roni said, “It’s awfully quiet in there.”

  Brian had a thought. He jumped up and opened the back door.

  “Hello?” he called out.

  No answer.

  He raised his voice. “Billy?”

  Nothing. He entered the house and went from room to room. He ran up the stairs and looked into the bedrooms. No Billy. No Kyung-Soon. He ran back downstairs and out the front door.

  Kyung-Soon’s car was gone.

  33

  two families

  Two days later, as Roni was rereading The Hound of the Baskervilles, her favorite Sherlock Holmes story, she heard the slap of the newspaper hitting the front steps. She ran downstairs and searched until she found the paper under the juniper bush. She opened the paper and saw the article immediately, right on the front page.

  PEPIN MAN CONFESSES

  TO DECADE-OLD KILLING

  Pepin, Wisconsin, resident Lawrence Doblemun was arrested by St. Paul Police Friday and charged in the death of his wife, Vera Doblemun. According to police, Mr. Doblemun confessed to the ten-year-old murder.

  Mrs. Doblemun’s body was recovered late Thursday from a grave in the backyard of the Doblemuns’s former home, which burned to the ground shortly after Mrs. Doblemun and the couple’s three-year-old son, Bryce, disappeared.

  The murder was brought to light when Bloodwater teens Brian Bain and Roni Delicata followed up on a lead from a picture of Bryce Doblemun that had been posted online.

  Bryce Doblemun, 13, remains missing, but the investigation revealed that he was alive and well as of last Thursday, when he fled in the company of Kyung-Soon Kim, who is believed to be his birth mother.

  There was more. The article ran all the way down the page. Roni read the whole thing, every word, about ten times, each time pausing to admire the photo of herself at the bottom of the column and the caption beneath it:

  “Article written by P. Q. Delicata, a student at Bloodwater High School. Ms. Delicata plans to be an investigative reporter.”

  The phone rang. Roni ignored it. Part of her punishment for the unauthorized trip to St. Paul was no phone and no computer for one solid week.

  A few seconds later, Nick called to her.

  “Roni! That was Darwin, from the garage.”

  “What did he want?” Roni asked, following her mother’s voice into the kitchen.

  “He wants to know when you and Brian can get started.”

  “Started doing what?”

  “He said you and Brian agreed to help him clean up his back lot.”

  “Oh.” Roni’s shoulders sagged. “Did you tell him I’m grounded?”

  Nick laughed. “I told him you’d be over later this morning.”

  “But I’m grounded.”

  “For this, I can make an exception,” said Nick.

  After six hours of hard labor, Roni and Brian had barely made a dent in the chaos of Darwin Dipstick’s junkyard. As near as Roni could tell, whenever Darwin found himself with a possibly useful piece of automotive technology—a slightly bent wheel rim, for example—he would simply fling it out his back door and let the weeds grow up around it.

  She bent over—for the thousandth time that day—and picked up something that looked like a transparent amber helmet.

  “What’s this?” she asked Brian, who was dragging a rusty fender from one weedy heap to a pile against the south fence.

  “Looks like a light bubble off a tow truck,” Brian said. “Throw it in the miscellaneous pile.” He pointed at one of the larger piles they had created.

  “How much more do you think we have to do?”

  “You’re the one who told Darwin we’d clean up his yard if he drove us up to St. Paul.”

  “I guess I didn’t make such a good deal.” She sat down on a stack of tires and watched Brian work for a few minutes. When he gave her an accusing look, she said, “Hey, you found your mom and brother. I didn’t get squat out of this deal.”

  “You got an article published,” he said, “and the satisfaction of seeing justice done.”

  “Justice schmustice! I’d rather have the hundred thousand dollars. But your stupid brother had to go and disappear on us.”

  “At least the Kays finally know what happened to their daughter. And they were happy to hear that their grandson was alive and well.”

  “Yeah, but there was no reward, because we couldn’t actually give them their grandson!”

  “We couldn’t have turned him in anyway. It wouldn’t have been right.”

  “I know.” Roni sighed.

  “And now that the Kays know that Billy is with his biological mom, they’ve canceled the reward. Louella Doblemun probably won’t try to hunt him down again since Lance is in jail and there’s no money to be had.”

  Roni picked up a rusty bolt and tossed it in the direction of the miscellaneous pile. “I still think she should have been arrested, too.”

  “Problem is, she didn’t actually do anything illegal.”

  “A mere technicality.”

  “At least you’re getting your Vespa fixed,” Brian said.

  “Yeah, but my mom says I can’t use it for a month.”

  “I’m grounded, too. Except for doing this.” He gestured at the junkyard surrounding
them.

  “It’s like prison labor,” Roni said. “We solve a horrendous crime and we’re the ones doing hard labor. It’s not fair.”

  “It never is,” Brian said.

  Brian felt half dead by the time he got home and fell into the chair in front of his computer. He was stinky and sweaty and covered with scratches. He decided to check his e-mail before he took a shower.

  A new message popped up with the subject line “Hey, bro.”

  I hacked your e-mail address off the Bloodwater High website. Better tell your webmaster to crank up the security! You never know who’s gonna come looking for you. :-)

  Sorry we had to bug out on you, but if we’d stayed, Mom would have got in big trouble, and I might have ended up living with the Dobblemonster.

  Can’t say where we are, but it’s someplace safe. I’ll come back sometime to see you, I promise. Maybe we can go visit old Lance in jail. lol.

  Later, bro,

  Billy

  Brian reached out and touched his hand to the screen. One day he would see Billy and Kyung-Soon again.

  He looked at the photos taped to the wall behind his computer. Brian Bain, winning the paper-airplane contest. Bryce Doblemun, the age-progressed image from the missing-kids website. And a photo of Billy Kim sailing down a ramp at some skateboard park, long hair flying, earring glinting in the sun—a photo Brian had found displayed on Kyung-Soon’s night table. He knew that she had left it behind for him.

  In that moment, he felt incredibly lucky. Some kids had only one family. He had two families—even if one of them was on the run.

  He heard the slam of a car door, then the sound of the doorbell. For a moment, he allowed himself to think it might be Kyung-Soon and Billy dropping by for a visit—even though he knew they were far, far away. He heard his dad’s voice and a woman’s voice. Then his dad called out to him.

  “Brian! Could you come down here, son?”

  Brian ran downstairs and out to the front door, where he was greeted by an excited yelp.

  “You have a visitor,” his dad said as a small dog launched himself toward Brian’s chest. Sniffer! Brian caught the dog in his arms. Jack and Theresa Hanke, who were standing at the bottom of the steps, laughed as Sniffer tried to lick the skin off Brian’s face.

  “After you two came to visit, ol’ Sniffer just wasn’t himself,” said Mr. Hanke.

  “He whined all night long,” Mrs. Hanke added. “We were thinking he might be happier living with you, if you want him.”

  “Want him?” Brian said. Then he looked at his dad and his voice dropped. “But you’re allergic.”

  Mr. Bain shrugged and said, “I could take some allergy medicine. You know, respiratory allergies are merely the body’s attempts to deal with environmental irritants found in airborne particles such as—”

  “Dad!” Brian said, stopping the flow of words. “Seriously! I can keep him?”

  “Yes, son, Sniffer can come live with us.”

  PETE HAUTMAN is theauthor of several novels for young adults, including Rash, Invisible, and Godless, forwhich he won the 2004 National Book Award. Several of his books have receivedALA Best Book for Young Adults citations.

  MARY LOGUE has written several adult mysteries. Her first teen novel, Dancing with an Alien, was an ALA Best Book for Young Adults, a Quick Pick for Reluctant Readers, and a New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age.

  Both Pete and Mary live in Golden Valley, Minnesota.

  You can visit them both at

  www.petehautman.com