Shelley was staring off into space. "I saw a television show about this."
“About lima beans or throwing up?”
Shelley rolled her eyes. "No, about twins. Wait, let me think for a minute. I think it was on one of those science and documentary stations. Some scientists or social workers had located a bunch of identical twins who had been raised apart from each other, without even knowing they had a twin. When they really dug into their very separate lives, they discovered that all of them were remarkably similar. They had the same sort of jobs—"
“I remember that, too! There was lots of stuff they had in common. They liked the same kind of music and colors and had even given their kids the same names."
“I wonder if Sam Two sings," Shelley said.
“I wouldn't be surprised," Jane said. "But, Shelley, if we're right about this, how in the world would we prove it? How could we ever get anyone else, particularly a backwoods sheriff, to believe it?"
“Marge would have to confirm it."
“If she's in on it, a coconspirator, there's no way she'd confirm it," Jane said. "And if, like you prefer to believe, she wasn't in on it and she just wants or needs to believe that this is the same man, it comes to the same thing. She's in love with this person, whoever he is. She's not going to help us put him — and maybe herself — in jail for murder."
“What about fingerprints?" Shelley asked. "Do identical twins have the same fingerprints?"
“I have no idea, but even if they don't, there's the problem of getting them," Jane said irritably. "Sam One's are surely all over his house, and we could grab a drinking glass or something that Sam Two has touched. But we can't get in their house. We don't know how to take fingerprints, and the sheriff has no cause to believe us and probably would need the fingerprint equivalent of a search warrant."
“So what do we do?" Shelley asked.
“I don't know. But at least we have a theory now.
A line of thought to pursue. We shouldn't be sitting here by ourselves, speculating. We should be hanging out with Marge and seeing what we can find out."
“Right. But we only have until tomorrow. We're supposed to have an extended meeting tonight—"
“Liz's orders?" Jane asked.
“Who else? And then we're all leaving tomorrow."
“Then we better hotfoot it to the lodge and find out where they are."
“Probably in their cabin. In bed," Shelley said. "And if you think I'm—"
“If they're not around, we'll chat with Eileen and John. They know Sam well, too. Wait one minute, will you, while I check my E-mail.”
Jane booted up the laptop and found Mel's response to her earlier note to him about the dead body that reappeared alive. It was a one-word reply. "Twins."
“Rats!" Jane said. "He wasn't even here and he figured it out before I did!”
The rain had let up again and there were even patchy bursts of sunlight from time to time. But as they approached the lodge, it appeared that there was a problem. A line of departing cars was stopped in the drive. The sheriff's deputy was directing those with drivers to back up and park.
Edna Titus was standing on the porch, watching and looking worried.
“What's going on?" Jane asked as she and Shelley joined her.
"The bridge has gone out," Edna said. "The creek came up and washed it away, I think."
“Bridge?" Shelley asked. "Oh, the one we crossed just after turning off the main road. Isn't there another road out?"
“There's an old logging road," Edna said. "But it takes a pretty sturdy four-wheel-drive even in dry weather."
“You mean—" Jane had started to say, we're stuck here, but that didn't seem polite. "You mean you're stuck with all these people staying here?"
“No, most of them are locals. The sheriff's put in a call for people around the lake with boats to come fetch them and take them home. They'll have to come back for their cars later.”
Shelley cleared her throat. "Uh. . I don't think any of the people with boats are going to take us back to Chicago."
“Well, no, I guess not," Edna said, clearly preoccupied with her own concerns. "But there's a daily bus to Chicago.”
Shelley pulled Jane aside. "I don't like this.”
“I don't like buses, period," Jane said.
“That's not what I meant. Jane, it's just occurred to me that we're miles from anywhere, stranded with one or more people who are murderers."
“You're right," Jane said quietly. "There is a great deal not to like about this.”
Sixteen
"I'm willing to reconsider the bus idea," Jane said, heading for the front desk in the lobby. There was, in fact, one remaining brochure about the bus schedule, and she learned that it belched out of the nearest town at two o'clock every afternoon. Today's means of escape had long gone.
“Jane, I want to get out of here, too, but think about it," Shelley said. "We'd have to haul most of our stuff in and out of a boat, beg a stranger to take us to the bus station, and find our way home from downtown Chicago at the other end of the trip. Then we'd still have to drive back up here in your lousy station wagon to pick up my van when the bridge is fixed, and drive back home separately. Not a good option."
“Better than staying here, though," Jane said. "Not if we stick together. From now on, we're attached at the hip."
“Swell," Jane said.
“I want to take a look at this logging trail," Shelley said. "Maybe the van could make it through.”
"Right," Jane said sarcastically. "Or maybe, since a van is really a big empty box on wheels, it would slide down an embankment into the lake."
“Still, I want to take a look at it.”
Eileen Claypool came into the lodge, looking around. When she spotted Jane and Shelley, she came over to them. "You haven't seen John, have you?”
Jane shook her head. "Nope. Is he missing?"
“Not exactly, I just wanted to tell him about this bridge going out. I don't like being stranded here. Benson has his staff out trying to hunt down all the local people to get them across the lake before it starts getting dark.”
Jane was glancing around the dining room. "It's odd. None of our group seems to be here except for the three of us. Wonder where they all are."
“Marge is in her cabin," Eileen said. "I just stopped by there."
“And Sam?" Jane asked, barely managing to repress the urge to call him Sam Two.
“She didn't know. I thought maybe Sam and John had both come down here."
“Let's have a cup of coffee and see if they turn up," Shelley suggested.
“How's Sam doing?" Jane asked when they were seated at one of the dining room tables. By craning her neck, she could see a bunch of people heading for the boat dock. Not one of them looked the least bit happy to be going home by water.
“Fine, I guess," Eileen replied. "Marge said he feels okay physically, not even a headache, and is recovering nicely from the amnesia."
“I can't imagine why he didn't go home or to a hospital," Shelley said. "I certainly would have."
“That's because you don't have their parents," Eileen said, stirring two spoons of sugar into her coffee. "This is the first time in years we've all managed to get away from them. Believe me, it's like being sprung from prison. John and Sam both have to face going back and trying to get that dreadful house fixed up enough to sell it and get them into a nursing home. This is the only break they get before that project, which is going to be hideous."
“The parents don't want to go, I take it," Shelley said.
“God, no! That awful house is literally falling down around them, and they have it on the market for half again as much as it's worth. They think they're going to come live with either Sam and Marge or us. They're wrong! The house is disgusting. The carpeting is thirty-five years old and worn clear down to the backing in spots. The roof leaks buckets every time there's a mist. The plumbing is unthinkable. They're. . frugal, let us say. . about flushing unne
cessarily and wasting water.”
Jane and Shelley shuddered.
“Sam's tried to get cleaning people in," Eileen went on, "just to make it sanitary before they start their very own cholera outbreak, but the parents are obsessed with people spying on them and won't let the cleaners in the house. The parents think Marge and I should be full-time maids, nurses, and watchdogs. Fat chance."
“Where is this house? Close to you?"
“Oh, no. It's in a little town north of us called Spring Oak. So every time we're summoned to take care of some imaginary crisis, it's at least an hour round trip."
“How awful for all of you," Shelley said. "I guess I wouldn't have given up a precious second of my only vacation either."
“In spite of it all, Sam certainly seems to have benefited from this trip," Jane said.
Shelley cast her a warning look, which Jane ignored.
“Oh, he has," Eileen said. "It's made him a new man." She said this without the slightest hint of irony. "Who knows — if he'd gotten away more often these last few years, he might have been a much happier, nicer person."
“And Marge seems more content, too," Jane said.
“Content?" Eileen laughed. "Maybe not the word I'd have used. Hot to trot, I'd have said. When I stopped by there a minute ago, she was in her bathrobe. In the middle of the day! This is not the Marge I know. I think it's sort of cute. A middle-aged woman going all googly-eyed over her own husband."
“What do you suppose made the difference?" Jane asked.
Shelley nudged her under the table with her foot. It wasn't quite a kick.
Eileen shrugged. "No idea. Just wish it would happen to me.”
There was a sudden commotion at the door. Liz was using her professional-educator voice, with which she managed, without actually shouting, tc penetrate the farthest reaches of the lodge.
“Where is the sheriff! Where is Benson Titus? I want to make an official complaint.”
A deputy approached her. He tried to take her arm, but she shook him off. But he kept talking quietly while he led her into the dining room. As they got closer, the deputy could be heard saying, "Just sit down and relax for a moment while I find them.”
Liz flung herself down on the bench next to Eileen. "I'm so furious!"
“What on earth's happened?" Jane asked.
Liz drew a long, deep breath. "Bob Rycraft and I went out to look over some of the grounds while the rain had stopped. I wanted to check out that area back behind the Conference Center. He would not listen to me about following the path to the right, so we went left and got lost. Male chauvinist pig that he is, he insisted I stay where I was while he tried another path. He never came back, naturally."
“Bob Rycraft is missing, too?" Eileen asked.
“What do you mean, 'too'?" Liz asked, but without waiting for an answer, she steamed ahead. "So I stood there for a minute, thinking the sun would come out again and I could get my bearings, and all of a sudden one of those dreadful costumed idiots came crashing through, knocked me down, and ran on. Just pushed past me like I was a bush! I fell backward and thought I'd broken my wrist.”
She held out her right hand, shoving her sleeve up. Her wrist was swollen.
“You should get it X-rayed," Eileen said.
“No, I can move it. It's fine. But that's not all. I tried to follow this person and give her a piece of my mind—”
"It was a woman?" Shelley asked.
“I didn't know it then, but yes, I think so. I went stumbling through the brush and found her sitting on a stump, crying. Crying! It was that tall, gangly one with the stringy red hair."
“What was she crying about?" Jane asked.
“She claimed somebody had knocked her down, put a blindfold and gag on her, and taken her stupid costume. Stupidest excuse for an apology I've ever heard."
“You're sure it wasn't true?" Shelley asked.
“Oh, of course it wasn't," Liz snapped. "She'd gotten rid of the costume, of course. Probably threw it in the undergrowth when she heard me following her."
“And was there a blindfold?" Shelley persisted.
This took a little wind out of Liz's sails. "There was a long scarf that I guess could have been wound around somebody's face, but who would believe a story like that? I told her, you just come back to the lodge and try telling the sheriff this ridiculous story, and then I'll decide if I want to press assault charges against her. Stupid woman!"
“So she might have been telling the truth," Shelley said.
Liz gave her a first-class glare. "I'll tell you this right now. I'm voting against this harebrained scheme of sending our schoolchildren up here. This place is horrible. Just horrible."
“I agree," Shelley said.
“So do I," Jane and Eileen said in unison.
Liz was taken aback at last. "You do? All of you?”
They nodded.
“Then let's get out of here now," Liz said.
“Well, there's a bit of a problem with that," Shelley said. She tried to make it sound like she regretted giving Liz bad news, although Jane suspected Shelley was reveling in being the bearer of bad tidings. "The bridge has gone out. Didn't you see all the cars in front?"
“Surely there's another way out?" Liz exclaimed.
“There's a logging road that's probably flooded," Jane said. "Or you could wait in what probably is a very long line for a neighbor with a boat to take you across where you'd have to get a ride to town, then take tomorrow's bus to Chicago.”
Liz muttered something that sounded suspiciously like "Oh, shit!" but wasn't quite distinguishable. Then she stood and beckoned imperiously to Bob Rycraft, who had come into the lodge looking discouraged and disheveled. His jeans were soaking wet halfway up his thighs. There was a swipe of mud across his forehead.
He hurried over to them. "Thank God you're here, Ms. Flowers! I found the way out, after I fell in the creek, and you were gone. I came back here to try to find a search party to go looking for you." His lips were a bit bluish and his teeth were chattering.
Liz was suddenly maternal. "Go to your cabin and put on dry clothes. You're going to catch your death. But let me ask you one question first. Do you still favor bringing the kids up here?”
Bob looked down, shuffled his feet. His sneakers squished. "Well. . no, not like I did before all this. If adults can't even find their way around. .”
"That's all I needed to know. By the way, how did you fall in the creek? It's on the opposite side of the lodge from where we were.”
Bob's fair face flushed. "I got lost. I have no idea how I got there. I was following a path and had to dodge under a fallen branch and the next thing I knew, I slid into the creek and a black thing was wrapped around me. It was one of those black cloaks the protestors were wearing. Scared me out of my wits!”
All three women were staring at him intently. "Did it still have the mask attached?" Liz asked.
“Yeah, it was that falcon-looking one. It was stuck on a bush and the cloak was dragging in the water."
“And this took place on the other side of the lodge? Near the road where the cabins are?"
“Right," Bob replied, obviously perplexed.
“Then I've made a real fool of myself," Liz said.
Bob and Shelley both looked downright cheered by this unusual admission. Eileen looked at Liz as if she couldn't believe her ears.
Liz explained briefly to Bob about her encounter in the woods with the person in the falcon mask, although she left out the part about telling off the stringy-haired woman. "But it was only a few minutes between the person who ran me down and the woman I found. There's no way she could have gotten to where you found the costume and back in the interval. I guess I was wrong. Her crazy story must have been true. Go change into dry clothes, Bob."
“I'm going to go look for John," Eileen said when Bob had squelched off to his cabin.
Liz got a cup of coffee and rejoined them. "Why would someone actually blindfold and gag one of those dem
onstrators just to get one of those stupid costumes?”
Jane and Shelley were silent. It was what they were both wondering, too, but they were unwilling to chat with Liz about their speculation.
Seventeen
Liz suddenly remembered that she had threat to file a complaint with the sheriff, which she now wanted desperately to withdraw, and rushed off to find the deputy she'd been ordering around.
Fear of Frying jj-9 Page 12
