Fear of Frying

“Yes, she is. Go on in.'

“I wonder if you'd mind staying,' he said quietly. 'My only female deputy is out sick.'

“All right,' Jane said, opening the door wider. She was bursting with questions, but this obviously wasn't the time to ask anything.

The sheriff stepped inside the cabin looking very grim. The young officer came in as well, closing the door and taking a notebook and pencil out of his pocket.

“Mrs. Claypool? I'm afraid I have bad news for you,' Sheriff Taylor said.

Marge stood as if frozen in place.

“We've just found your husband's body.”

“Wh—' Marge began, then clamped her mouth shut.

Which husband, you were going to say, Jane thought. She and Shelley exchanged a quick glance.

“It must have been in the stream and the high water brought it down to the lake,' the sheriff said. 'You won't have to identify it. Your brother-in-law already has.”

Marge was still standing, statuelike, in the middle of the room. Her only movement was to twist a button on her coat. She had gone so white she looked like she might faint any second. Shelley gently took her arm, led her to a chair, and forced her to sit down.

“I'm afraid I'll have to ask you some questions,' the sheriff said.

Marge kept twisting the button.

“You see, the body was naked—”

Marge drew in a sharp breath.

“It had a severe wound to the head. The left temple. And. . well, he's been dead for quite some time.' He turned to Jane. 'It's the one you ladies found. At least, the wounds match what you described.' There was the faintest hint of apology in his voice.

The sheriff's assistant was still standing quite still and unobtrusive by the doorway, already taking notes.

Marge had pulled the button on her coat loose and sat staring at it in her hand as if it were important.

The sheriff pulled another chair over and sat down in front of her. 'I'm afraid there are a great many questions I'm going to have to ask you.”

Eighteen

Marge's story came out in fits and starts, out of order and with long intervals of sobbing. A few minutes into it, John and Eileen Claypool arrived, distraught. John said, 'Marge, you don't have to talk to these people. I forbid you to. You need a lawyer. Don't say a word.”

Marge, her temper flaring for once, said, 'I don't need a lawyer, John. I haven't done anything wrong. I'm sick of Claypool men telling me what I can and can't do. Oh, please, please go away!”

John practically had to be thrown out of the cabin. Eileen left in tears.

Sam Claypool knew he had a twin brother, Marge said, between sobs. The boys had been in foster homes together until they were adopted by different families at the age of four. Sam didn't know where his brother was and didn't care. His early childhood had been so nightmarish that he wanted no reminder of it. . ever. He'd never even confided in John about having a twin and had only mentioned it to her once, on their honeymoon.

She had tried once or twice to get him to talk about it, perhaps even try to find his twin, but Sam was adamantly, almost violently, opposed to discussing it and accused her of betraying his confidence by even bringing up the subject. He obviously regretted having shared the information with her and was determined that she, like he, should block it out of her mind.

“Did you make any effort to locate him, your husband's twin?' Sheriff Taylor asked.

“Good Lord, no! Sam might have found out and would have been furious!' Marge said. 'Sam had a — a bad temper. And it was his business, not mine. He made that very clear.'

“So this person, this twin — what is his name? — found Sam,' Sheriff Taylor said.

“Yes. His name is Henry McCoy. Yes, he wanted to find Sam. He'd had a hard life and some psychological problems that he thought might be solved by getting in touch with Sam. Reestablishing a family relationship,' she said, as if it were a direct quote.

Henry had told her (just yesterday), she said, that he had spent three years just locating Sam. And then he'd had second thoughts. What if Sam didn't want to see him? What if Sam didn't even remember that he had a brother? They'd only been four years old when they were separated. An outright rejection might be far worse than the insecurity of having been separated in the first place.

So instead of approaching Sam directly, Henry McCoy tried to learn all about him first. He had, in fact, stalked his twin — not for any bad reasons, Marge insisted. Just to get to know him in a secondhand way so that he wouldn't make some dreadful gaffe when they did meet.

Henry took an apartment in Chicago and got a sales job with a farm implement company that allowed him freedom of movement, and started 'studying' Sam, learning all about him so he could decide when and how to approach him in person.

He learned about Sam's car dealership-something he knew about since he, too, had been interested in car sales and had worked for several dealerships, but hadn't been an owner. He researched local papers for any mention of the Claypools and learned that Sam had been in a civic choir for some years. Henry, too, had a good voice and was interested in music. He started thinking they might get along well, with these common