Fear of Frying

sitting and they were speaking in hushed tones. “No, that’s too absurd,“ Shelley said.
    “Finding a dead body that’s come back to life is an absurd problem. Only an absurd answer will explain it.“
    “Jane, maybe he’s just ambidextrous. Some people are. I had a teacher once who could grade papers with both hands at the same time.“
    “But there are other things different about them, Shelley. The big one is that he seems to like his wife and she likes him. That surely wasn’t the case the first night. They treated each other like slightly antagonistic strangers. The ‘current’ Sam is less stiff, like you said. The features are the same, but that stance is different. This one sort of swings his arms when he walks. The old one moved more like an automaton.–
    “But something happened to him that gave him that temporary amnesia. Maybe the same thing just jarred him out of his stiffness.”
    Jane didn’t respond. She just looked at Shelley smugly.
    “Furthermore, there are just the two brothers. Sam and John,“ Shelley said.
    “Eileen said Sam was adopted, remember? How the parents had given up having a child, adopted Sam, and then along came John,“ Jane reminded her. “Sam could well have been a twin and they only adopted one of them. Adoptions used to be a lot different in regard to siblings being kept together.“
    “Golly!“ Shelley said. “She did say that. Maybe you’re right. If so, what do we do about it? Tell the sheriff?“
    “I don’t think Sheriff Taylor would believe us for a minute,“ Jane said. “I’m not entirely certain I believe it yet. Let’s don’t do anything right away. Let me get my laptop back from Allison, then we can go back to the cabin and figure this out in a careful, rational manner.“
    “I’ll meet you at the cabin.”
    Allison already had Jane’s laptop neatly tucked back in its carrying case. “Easier even than I expected,“ she said as she handed it to Jane. “A corrupt file. I deleted it and replaced it from my system.”
    Jane gushed her gratitude, but Allison wouldn’t have it. “It was nothing, really.“
    “Oh, on another subject entirely,“ Jane said, “you told me Benson once worked for the Claypools. You don’t happen to know if there were any other siblings besides John and Sam, do you?”
    Allison shrugged. “Not that I ever heard of, but we weren’t social friends. Why do you ask?“
    “Just wondering if there wasn’t a brother or sister to help them out with their parents,“ Jane lied. “It seems a shame they can’t take more family trips together.”
    Allison looked at her oddly, and Jane, not wishing to further compound an already flimsy story, thanked her again and hurried away. The dining room was filling up again with people stopping by for a snack between classes. Jane grabbed a couple suspiciously healthy-looking doughnuts and two apples. The parking lot was emptying as some of the local people headed home early to start dinner or pick up children from school.
    When Jane got back to the cabin, Shelley had coffee made and looked sneeringly at Jane’s food offering. “What on earth are these? Oat bran doughnuts?“
    “They might not be as bad as they look. There wasn’t much choice.“
    “I think some governmental agency ought to make food producers fess up that things labeled bran are really low-grade sawdust.“
    “So what do you think of my theory?“ Jane slipped off her wet boots and poncho and sat down cross-legged on her bed.
    “I think it’s loony,“ Shelley said. “But so far, it’s the only one we’ve been able to imagine that would explain the same man being both dead and alive. But if Sam One, for lack of a better designation, is still dead, where is he?“
    “Anywhere,“ Jane said. “You could hide a six-bedroom mansion with an Olympic-size swimming pool in these woods. Hiding a body would be a snap.“
    “So did Sam Two kill Sam One?“ Shelley asked.
    “I think he must have,“ Jane said thoughtfully. “Sam Two was wearing the same clothes when he was found as Sam One was at the campfire dinner. He must have taken them off the body.”
    Shelley shuddered elaborately. “Yuck. Do you think Marge knows?“
    “That he’s a different person or that he killed her real husband?“
    “Either one. Or—!“
    “She was in on it!“ Jane exclaimed. “Is that possible? Marge? Mild, quiet, scaredy-cat Marge a murderer?“
    “Maybe Marge isn’t what she seems,“ Shelley said. “And