Ken Douglas - Dead Ringer

He got out of the car, went to the hood, raised it. Not the best cover in the world, but believable for a few minutes. He looked at the battery, the oil covered engine. Sadie didn’t take good care of her car. It was something he was going to have to teach her. You never knew when you’d have to depend on your vehicle. If you weren’t there for it, it might not be there for you.

“What’cha doin’, mister?” It was a kid’s voice.

Horace grinned, like he was somebody’s uncle or something, pulled his head out from under the hood, turned toward a little girl and said, “Who wants to know?”

“I do.” The girl had bright red hair, green eyes and a face full of freckles.

“And who are you?” On one hand it was good the kid was talking to him, that way he didn’t have to pretend to be working on the car. But it was bad on the other hand, because he didn’t want her around when the Twin came out of that house.

“I’m not supposed to talk to strangers.”

“Hey, you started it. My name’s Horace, what’s yours?” Stupid, he told her his real name. He was getting to be as dumb as Virge.

“Yeah, I guess. My name’s Virginia Wheetly. I live over there.” She pointed to a two story house next to the one the Twin had gone into.

“Ah, next door to-” he paused, “I forget her name.”

“Mrs. Murrant, but she likes me to call her Debra. She just moved in till she sells the house. She’s my friend.”

“Really,” Horace said. That explained the for sale sign.

“Yeah, My mom and dad work, so I got a sitter.”

“Debra’s your sitter?” Horace said.

“No, silly. Carole is, but when her boyfriend comes over I go over to Debra’s, because they think I’m in the way.”

“How can you be in the way if it’s your house?” Horace said, still smiling.

“Exactly. That’s why I’m glad Debra moved next door. She doesn’t think I’m in the way. Margo likes me, too.”

“Did she change her hair?” Horace said.

“Yeah, but I still recognized her. I don’t think her mom did at first, but I did.”

“You’re pretty sharp.” Horace turned back under the hood, pretended to fiddle with one of the battery cables. “Fixed.” He closed the hood. “See ya.”

He couldn’t get in the car quick enough. No way could he do anything here. Not now, not after giving the little brat his real name.

Maggie took a sip of the hot tea, then set her cup on the coffee table. She watched as Debra did the same.

“My daughter,” Debra said, “my real daughter, died of SIDS, sudden infant death syndrome. She was a brand new baby, only two days old. I was pregnant when Gil went away. I wrote him about Margo right after she was born, but I couldn’t write him when she died. I should have, but I was only eighteen.

“I had a job working for your mother at this place called the Last Chance Motel in San Diego, she was the manager.

“One day she asked me if I’d mind staying in her place and watching her baby girls for a few days while she flew up to L.A. in a small plane with a couple of Marines. They were going to a Grateful Dead concert.”

“She was just going to leave two brand new babies with you?” Maggie said.

“We were friends, besides, she was a Deadhead. Maybe you had to be alive at that time to understand.”

“I know about Deadheads.”

“Yeah, I guess you would. Jerry Garcia’s gone now, but his fans are still just as crazy about him, more maybe.”

“We’re getting sidetracked,” Maggie said.

“You’re right.” Debra took a sip of her tea, then continued. “The next day I’d just put Margo down in her crib, but you had a runny nose and wouldn’t stop crying. I was pacing back and forth in the living room, patting your back with every step, when the doorbell rang. It was the police.

“They told me the plane had gone down in the ocean somewhere between the coast and Catalina. They couldn’t find the wreckage. They knew your mother was on the plane, because when they contacted the base, they found a friend of the pilot’s. They also knew about the babies.

“Margo asleep in the bedroom had the same name as the baby I’d lost. It seemed like fate, so I lied. I said your mother left you behind because you were sick, but that she took Margo with her.” Debra paused, took another sip of her tea.

“I always wondered why she took one of us on that plane and not the other,” Maggie said. “Sometimes I felt like there was something wrong with me, like she didn’t want me. But she didn’t take either of us. She left us both.”

“She was young.”

“So were you.”

“Yes I was.”

“So, did the police believe you, you know, when you told them she took one of the kids on the plane?”

“Without question. They bundled you up and left. The next day I packed and drove up to Huntington Beach, where I got a job waitressing and rented a small apartment a couple of blocks from the ocean.”

Maggie looked into the woman’s red rimmed eyes. It was wrong what she’d done, but she understood it. She picked up her tea, but put it back on the table without a sip. Silence ruled the room for a full minute, then she said, “Your husband never knew Margo wasn’t his real daughter, did he?”

“No. Gil loved her. He was a wonderful father.” She paused, started back up. “But he was only an okay husband. He was vain. He needed the fastest car in town, the biggest house on the block, the prettiest wife on the planet. He could buy a faster car every year and a bigger house every three or four, but he couldn’t stop his wife from aging, so he did the next best thing. He found the surgeons, arranged for the surgery. Gil Murrant’s wife never looked a day over thirty. And in the end, I suppose even that was too old, because he found himself a twenty-three-year-old honey.”

She took another sip of the tea, a pause for effect. “Her name was Gloria, she fancied herself a designer. But she killed him with a heart attack during sex. Now she gets nothing and I get her house.”

“Her house?” Maggie said.

“Yeah, can you believe this place?” She swept a hand around, attempted a smile. “I didn’t get clear title till last week. I’m gonna show it myself and drop the price ten thousand a week till someone buys it.”

“She lived here, the girlfriend?”

“Never got a chance to move in. I’m only living here because escrow closed on my house in Laguna Beach three weeks ago. As soon as I dumped this place, I was going to get a condo where Margo lived, you know, so I could be close. Now, tell me about you and what brought you here.”

Maggie started from when Virgil grabbed onto her shopping cart in the Safeway and told it all, right up till she knocked on Debra’s front door.

“So, you’re going to take over her life?” Debra said. “For Jasmine and for your baby. Fortunately, she had enough money, so you could do that.”

“It’s not about the money,” Maggie said. “You can have it. We can get along without it. We don’t need it.”

“Don’t be so naive,” Debra said. “It came from her father. It’s yours.”

“What are you saying?”

“In about two hours I’m supposed to meet Gil’s parents at LAX. Their flight comes in at noon and leaves at midnight. They were going to spend the day with Margo and me before flying off to a six week European tour. They’re in their late seventies and still in good health, but Gil’s death almost killed them. I can’t tell them Margo’s gone. I won’t.”

“You’re going to help me?”

“Years ago I made a mistake and it’s haunted me every day of my life. I played God with your lives, yours and Margo’s. In my defense, I was young, grieving and through all those years I loved Margo as if she were really mine. There’s absolutely nothing I wouldn’t have done for her and now there’s absolutely nothing I won’t do for her sister.”