Fear of Frying

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 interests.
    “Then why didn’t he arrange to meet your husband?“ the sheriff asked.
    “Because Sam was... well, daunting. Very formal, rather cold. Except with customers.“
    “So Henry approached you, instead?“ Taylor asked.
    “Oh, no! No, he didn’t,“ Marge exclaimed. “The first time I saw him, really saw him, was here. Looking in the window of the dining room the first night. In all those years I’d wondered about Sam’s birth brother, it had never occurred to me, for some reason, that they might be identical twins instead of fraternal. And to see Sam sitting at the table in the lodge and the same person looking in the window...”
    Jane remembered the moment all too well. If this was true—and she wasn’t convinced it was—then Marge hadn’t seen a scary stranger in the window.
    She’d seen her husband’s doppelganger. Even though she’d known he had a twin, that must have been a horrible shock.
    “You’re certain you hadn’t seen him before?“ Taylor pressed the point.
    “No. Really. But I knew there was something odd going on. Or at least I thought so. But I thought maybe I was going crazy. For about the last six months, I kept having the feeling we were being watched,“ Marge said. “We’d go to a movie or a concert and I’d have the sense that somebody was looking at us. And every time a strange car would park on the street, I’d think it was someone observing our house. It made me terribly nervous and upset. But I had no proof. Just a feeling.”
    She thought for a moment. “Maybe I had seen Henry before. One time I saw Sam in the grocery store parking lot. I guess now it must have been Henry. I must ask him about it. When Sam came home that night, I asked him what he was doing there, and he said he wasn’t anywhere near the store that day. I was sure it was him and for some reason he was lying to me.“
    “Did you talk to Sam about it, the feeling of being followed and observed?“ Jane asked. She hadn’t meant to say anything, but it popped out. Sheriff Taylor gave her a quick, critical glance, but waited for Marge’s answer.
    “I tried to. Once. It made Sam so angry that I didn’t mention it again.“
    “Why did it make him angry?“ Taylor asked. “Because he had the same feeling,“ Marge said. “Oh, he didn’t admit it. But I’m sure that’s what it was. He was hateful about it. Said I needed to take more estrogen, that I was getting the