Boo Who (42 page)

“Hmmm. Huh. Mmmmm.” Dr. Hass leaned over the old woman, holding his breath as he did so. But the mothball smell still penetrated his nostrils, so he tried not to make ugly gagging noises.

“Safely keep and restore you,” she mumbled. By the expression on Wolfe’s face, this was supposed to mean something. What in the world was he supposed to say?

“She’s crazy,” he finally announced. “Certifiable.
Loco y loco.
Howard Hughes’s sister.” The two men stared at him. He tried to act casual. “It happens with old age, you know. What is this lady? About a hundred?”

Wolfe stepped forward, crossing his arms. “How can you tell she’s crazy just by looking at her?”

“Well, do you know what safely keep and restore you’ means?”

Wolfe shook his head.

“Well, then, I would conclude she’s senile.”

Martin said, “Don’t you need to do some more tests? And isn’t there anything we can do to bring her out of it?”

Dr. Hass said, “Well, you can always try a mixture of lemonade and vodka.”

“Excuse me?” Wolfe said, his face stern.

“Look,” Dr. Hass said when nobody laughed at his joke, “the mind is a delicate thing. What did you expect? I was going to come in here and wave a magic wand, making it all better?”

Martin sighed. “I’m sorry, Doctor. We’re putting too much pressure on you.”

“Psychology is as much common sense as it is medicine. I’ve proved that over and over again.”

“Where did you say your degree is from again?” Wolfe asked.

Dr. Hass stared into Wolfe’s engaging eyes and said with a confident smile, “Life, Wolfe. The same place you got yours.”

CHAPTER 33

T
HEY DROPPED
D
R
. H
ASS
back at his home office and headed toward Wolfe’s house. “Don’t you think there is just something off about that guy?”

Martin shrugged. “I guess.”

“I didn’t see any diplomas in his office. Strike you as odd?”

“Well, he did just get to town. Maybe he hasn’t put them up yet.” Martin glanced at Wolfe. “Maybe we were expecting too much out of him at the hospital, like I said.”

“It’s not what he didn’t say, but what he did say,” Wolfe began but then noticed something peculiar. “Martin, look at that!”

Three police cars were parked in front of Melb Cornforth’s house. “Pull over!” Martin said and hastily exited the car. Wolfe followed.

When they got inside, Melb was sitting on her couch, crying, Ainsley’s arms draped around her. “Wolfe!” Ainsley said, jumping up and rushing to him. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

“What’s going on?”

“Oliver’s missing,” Melb said between sobs.

“Missing?”

Ainsley nodded. “He didn’t show up for church. They found his car near Main Street but haven’t found Oliver yet.” She looked at Melb. “They’ll find him, Melb.”

Suddenly Deputy Bledsoe rushed in, looking for the sheriff, who was just stepping out of the bathroom. “Sir, we found Oliver’s stocking cap.”

The sheriff’s eyes lit up with annoyance as he glanced around the room, realizing everyone had just heard that, including Melb, who was
whimpering with the visible effort to control herself. Deputy Bledsoe didn’t seem to notice.

“Behind the junkyard, near a water pump.”

The room grew silent as the sheriff rubbed his brow. “I don’t understand this. We’ve never had a kidnapping in this town,” he muttered.

Suddenly Martin was pulling Wolfe alongside him, up to the sheriff. “Sir, we need to talk. Outside.”

Dr. Hass was not one for taking long walks, but since he didn’t have a car this was his only option. He’d probably walked a mile, careful to track where he was going so he wouldn’t be lost in the backwoods of Indiana forever, when he finally decided to give some thought to his life. Truthfully, it wasn’t something he did much. But being around crazy people tended to make one reflect. He wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was fear of turning out like them.

He was certainly shocked by what he’d found in small-town America. There was a sense of community, albeit an unhealthy one, from what he could see. Back home, people didn’t care about anybody else’s business unless it would somehow help theirs. Here, everybody cared about everyone else’s business, even if it hurt theirs. Strange.

Yet with all the unexpected dysfunction, he couldn’t help notice the tremendous loyalty—the care—that everyone displayed. In the circles he ran with, everyone was too busy searching for themselves to notice anybody else existed. Here, sure, there seemed to be a real lack of self-awareness, but that was nearly transcended by the thoughtfulness. Who in the world cared if the mayor of your town went nuts? In his old life, that would be considered scandal worthy of the front page. Here, he was a protected citizen.

Dr. Hass continued to walk.

It was true that though he’d moved halfway across the United States to explore new cheese, he had been experiencing the strange realization that the part of him he’d wanted to leave behind had indeed followed
him. He’d no sooner driven into the town limits when his other half had joined him.

Sighing, he looked at the beautiful pines. The woods that surrounded this tiny town nearly seemed to envelop it with their beauty. He walked the trail in the woods, bundled in his coat, scarf double-wrapped around his neck, listening to the most enjoyable silence.

But he knew with silence would come thoughts prompted by conscience. For so long he’d surrounded himself with the noisy chaos of big cities—that way he would never have to listen to himself, at least with his heart engaged.

Now, though, it whispered to him, as softly as the sound of snow being blown across the hillside. He closed his eyes and stood still, trying to understand what it was about himself that he never liked. He was always trying to be somebody else, never confident enough to own up to who he’d been born as.

He’d had a loving mother, though she’d had poor judgment on many things, like naming him after his father, who he’d turned out to be exactly like. He’d been a creative child, innovative in such a way that his teachers always liked him. So how did he end up like this?

“Whoo.”

Dr. Hass looked up into the sky. The clouds moved so fast it made him dizzy.

“Whoo. Whoo.”

He smiled a little.

“I have no idea.”

Sheriff Parker’s foot tapped furiously against the cement sidewalk they all stood on. Martin kept glancing at Wolfe, as if to ask him for some help, but Wolfe could do nothing but stare in disbelief.

“Cloning?”
the sheriff whispered harshly, though all the others were still inside.

“I know it sounds crazy,” Martin said. “But I’m telling you, I believe it.”

“Martin,” Wolfe said. “That’s crazy!”

“I know it is,” Martin said. “But you didn’t see the guy Oliver got. He really was something else to look at.” Martin stared hard at the sheriff. “And you know the rumors that have run around this town for years now.”

“They’re rumors, Martin,” the sheriff said.

“Then how do you explain all the crazy people walking around this town? Huh? Screaming at all hours of the night? Suddenly coming into our town, trying to fit in?”

The sheriff stared at his feet. “I’ll admit, I haven’t been too engaged because of Thief’s ordeal and all. I figured if they weren’t breaking the law, they weren’t my concern.”

“Four of them were at church this morning,” Wolfe offered, though he didn’t really know what that meant or how it might help the situation.

“So you’re saying Oliver kidnapped one of these people, he got away, and this Dr. Hass offered Oliver money to kidnap the rest of them.”

“And he assured Oliver he’d ‘take care of them,’ which Oliver understood to mean keep them out of our town … by whatever means possible.” Martin’s eyes shifted back and forth between the sheriff and Wolfe.

“What would a psychologist want with a bunch of clones?”

Wolfe laughed out loud. “Folks, they’re not clones!”

Neither of the men acknowledged him.

“I have a theory that Dr. Hass might be involved in this … with Garth.”

Wolfe laughed … again unnoticed by the two other men.

Martin continued, first glancing back at Melb’s house. “And I’ll tell you something else. I think Melb’s been cloned.”

Wolfe threw up his hands, though he really couldn’t wait for this bizarre explanation.

“Melb?” the sheriff asked.

“I haven’t had the heart to tell Oliver, but I’ve seen her, Sheriff. Out in the woods in the middle of the night!”

The sheriff’s eyes were widening.

“And has anyone but me noticed how much thinner this new’ Melb is? Doesn’t that make sense? If you’re cloned, you’d be thinner?”

Wolfe narrowed his eyes, looking hard at Martin. “And how exactly does that make sense, Martin?”

But Martin didn’t have a chance to answer, because the sheriff said, “Let’s go find us a Dr. Hass.”

With the house surrounded, and guns pulled in a showdown-like setting worthy of Clint Eastwood, everyone was quite disappointed when Dr. Hass was not home.

“Now what?” Kinard sighed, placing his unloaded pistol back in its holster.

Sheriff Parker thought for a moment. “Kinard, you stay here, wait for the doctor. Everyone else, over to Garth’s place.”

Wolfe stood there and watched Martin follow the rest of the deputies. He slapped his hands over his face and shook his head. Surely they didn’t believe this nonsense!

Just as in his book, in the end, everything had an explanation. Wolfe sighed. Well, while the rest of the town chased phantom clones, Wolfe was going to find out what the key around his neck belonged to.