Two Little Girls in Blue

  “Do you think one of them was the Pied Piper?” Gunther asked.

  “I think the Pied Piper was someone else, a third man, the one who was calling the shots and not in on the actual kidnapping, but that’s just a hunch.”

  “I believe there may have been another person involved,” Walter Carlson said. “A woman. After Kelly got back home, she said two names in her sleep, ‘Mona’ and ‘Harry.’ The father was sitting by the bed and heard her. The Frawleys are positive they don’t know anyone by either of those names. So Harry may be the name of the other kidnapper, and Mona might be a woman who was minding them.”

  “Then let’s agree that we may be looking for at least two, and perhaps three people other than Lucas Wohl: the second kidnapper, a man whose name may be Harry, and a woman whose name may be Mona. And if neither one of these three was the Pied Piper, then we’re also looking for a fourth person,” Ryan said.

  The slight nods of the heads of the other men told him that they were in agreement. “Which brings us to the persons of interest,” he went on. “The way I see it, there may be four of them. There’s Steve Frawley’s half brother, Richard Mason, who is jealous of Steve, may have had a thing for Margaret, knew Franklin Bailey, and was lying when he claimed he went to Vegas. Then there’s Bailey himself. Also, Norman Bond, the man at C.F.G.&Y. who hired Steve, who lived in Ridgefield, whose early life parallels Steve’s, who has had several breakdowns, and who referred to his missing ex-wife as ‘his late wife.’ ”

  Ryan’s lips tightened. “Finally we have Gregg Stanford, who vigorously objected to voting to have C.F.G.&Y. pay the ransom, who may be in domestic trouble with his rich wife, and who at one time used Lucas Wohl as his personal driver.

  “By the time we’re finished checking out those four, Mason, Bailey, Bond, and Stanford, we’ll know when they said their first baby word and what it was. I’m sure of that. But that doesn’t mean we’re not off base with all of them. There could be other people involved.”

  “Our guys are taking the position that somebody knew his way around the Frawley house that night,” Gunther said. “We’re going through all the real estate records of the selling broker to see if we can make some kind of connection. Beyond that, I was talking to the New York trooper who got to Kelly first. He made some interesting points. Kelly was wearing the pajamas that we now know she had on the night she was abducted, but they were fairly clean. No three-year-old kid I know could wear the same outfit for five days without it looking as though it had been worn for five months. That means someone either changed her into other clothes, or washed and dried those pajamas at least a couple of times. To me that sounds as though there was a woman involved in this.”

  “I’ve felt that,” Carlson agreed. “Another question is, did Lucas carry Kelly to that parking lot in the stolen car? In that case she may have seen him shoot himself. Where were the other kidnappers? Isn’t it reasonable to suppose that they didn’t know that Lucas was planning to commit suicide and were following him to the parking lot with the idea of leaving Kelly, or perhaps both Kelly and Kathy, in the car and taking Lucas back with them? And remember, when the Pied Piper phoned Monsignor Romney, he said both girls were safe. At that point, he had no reason to lie. It may have been a shock for him to learn that Kathy was dead.

  “Mind you, I think she is dead and that it happened the way Lucas described it. It was an accident. I believe he buried her body at sea. I talked to the mechanic who saw Wohl carrying the heavy box onto his plane, and I talked as well to the catering service driver who saw him get out of the plane an hour later without the box. We all know that professional kidnappers who are looking for a ransom don’t deliberately hurt their victims, particularly children. Here’s the scenario I think is possible: Lucas did accidentally kill Kathy and went off the deep end about it. He worried the others. I think they may have driven to the parking lot with him, and one of them killed him to keep him from getting drunk and talking. We’ve got to talk to Kelly and try to find out what she knows. She hardly said a word in the hospital the other day, and apparently she has been pretty quiet since she came home. But Thursday night, she did say those two names in her sleep, ‘Mona’ and ‘Harry.’ Maybe we can get her to say something else about what happened during the time she was gone. I want to talk to the parents about bringing in a child psychiatrist to question her.”

  “What about Margaret Frawley?” Ryan asked. “Tony, have you spoken to her husband today?”

  “I spoke to him last night, after the cops took Margaret home. He told me she was in shock and that the doctor who is the twins’ pediatrician gave her a strong sedative. She apparently didn’t know where she’d been or even remember that she’d gone to that store where she bought the birthday dresses.”

  “What was her reason for going to the store?”

  “I talked to the manager this morning. Margaret was pretty out of it when she was there yesterday. Wanted to talk to the sales clerk who sold her the dresses, then when the manager was about to give her the clerk’s cell phone number, she broke down and ran out. God only knows what was running through her mind. But her husband told me she was insisting that a new bruise on Kelly’s arm was caused by something that was happening to Kathy, and that Kelly was experiencing Kathy’s pain.”

  “You don’t believe that nonsense, do you, Tony?” Ryan was clearly incredulous.

  “No, of course I don’t. I don’t think for one minute that Kelly is in communication with Kathy, but I do want her to start communicating with us, and the sooner the better.”

  59

  Norman Bond lived on the fortieth floor of an apartment building bordering the East River at Seventy-second Street in Manhattan. His panoramic, three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view had always enriched his solitary personal life. In the morning, he often got up in time to watch the sunrise. At night, he took particular pleasure in observing the brilliance of the lights on the bridges that spanned the river.

  On Saturday morning, after the dreary weather of the past week, the day dawned crisp and clear, but even the bright sunrise did not lift his spirits. For hours he sat on the couch in his living room, methodically reviewing his options.

  There weren’t many, he decided. What’s done is done and can’t be changed. “The moving finger having writ . . . And neither piety nor wit . . . can move it to cancel nor yet replace a word of it,” he recited to himself.

  I haven’t got the quote right, but it went something like that, he decided.

  How could I be so stupid, he asked himself. How could I have slipped and referred to Theresa as “my late wife”?

  The FBI agents had pounced on that. Long ago they had given up questioning him about Theresa’s disappearance. Now it would start all over again. But when someone has been missing for seven years, and has been declared legally dead, isn’t it natural to refer to that person as if she was dead? Theresa has been missing seventeen years.

  Of course it is.

  It was all right to wear the wedding ring he had given Theresa, the one she left for him on the dresser. But was it safe to continue wearing her other ring, the one her second husband gave her? He unfastened the chain from around his neck and held both rings in his hand, studying them intensely. LOVE IS ETERNAL was inscribed in tiny letters on the inside of both bands.

  The one he gave her is all diamonds, Norman thought enviously. I gave her a plain silver ring. It was all I could afford at that time.

  “My late wife,” he said aloud.

  Now, after all this time, the kidnapping of two little girls had brought him to the attention of the FBI again.

  My late wife!

  It would be dangerous to resign from C.F.G.&Y. and move abroad—too abrupt, too contradictory of all the plans he had talked about.

  At noon, he became aware that he was still wearing just his underwear. Theresa used to get so irritated whenever he did that. “People who know anything don’t sit around in their underwear, Norman,” she used to tell him, her tone disdain
ful. “They just don’t. Either put on a robe, or get dressed. One or the other.”

  She had cried and cried when the twins were born prematurely and didn’t survive, but only a week later she had said something about “maybe it was for the best.” Shortly after that, she left him, moved to California, got a divorce, and within the year was remarried. He had overheard some of the employees at C.F.G.&Y. laughing about it. “The guy she picked is from a different bolt of cloth than poor Norman,” he heard one of them say.

  He still winced at the hurt.

  When they were married, he had told Theresa that someday he was going to be the chairman and CEO of C.F.G.&Y.

  Now he knew, of course, that was never going to happen, but somehow it didn’t matter anymore. He didn’t need the grief of the job, and now he didn’t need the money, either. But I can’t stop wearing the rings, he thought as he clasped the chain around his neck again. They’re what give me strength. They remind me that I am not just the insecure, compulsive hard worker that others assume me to be.

  Norman smiled, remembering the terrified look on Theresa’s face that night when she turned around and saw him hiding in the backseat of her car.

  60

  “These shoes are too big,” Angie said, “but I’m not going to worry about it.” She had parked outside McDonald’s, near the mall where she’d bought the shoes, and now was fastening them on Kathy’s feet. “Remember to keep your mouth shut, but if anyone asks your name, say it’s ‘Stevie.’ Got it? Say it for me now.”

  “Stevie,” Kathy whispered.

  “You got it. Now come on.”

  The shoes hurt Kathy in a different way than the others Angie had bought for her. They made it hard to walk because her feet kept sliding and starting to come out of them. But Angie was pulling her along so fast, and besides, she was afraid to tell her that.

  She felt her foot come out of one of the shoes.

  Outside McDonald’s, Angie stopped to buy a newspaper at a vending machine. Then they went inside and got on line. When she got their food, they sat at a table where Angie could see the van. “Never had to worry about minding that old rattletrap before,” she said. “But with all that loot in the suitcase, it would be just my luck to have someone decide to steal it.”

  Kathy didn’t want the egg sandwich and orange juice Angie had bought her. She wasn’t hungry and really just wanted to sleep. But she also didn’t want to make Angie mad, so she tried to eat some of the sandwich.

  “I think from here we go back to the motel, then look up some places to buy a used car,” Angie said. “Trouble is, having piles of fifty- and twenty-dollar bills to pay for it is going to attract attention.”

  Kathy could tell that Angie was getting mad and she watched as she opened the newspaper and said something under her breath that Kathy couldn’t understand. Then she reached over and pulled the hood back over Kathy’s head. “God Almighty, your face is all over this paper,” she said. “Except for the hair, any dope would recognize you. Let’s get out of here.”

  Kathy didn’t want Angie to be mad at her again. She slid off the chair and reached for Angie’s hand.

  “Where’s your other shoe, little boy?” asked a lady who was cleaning the next table.

  “Her other shoe?” Angie asked, then looked down and saw that Kathy was wearing only one shoe. “Oh, hell,” she said, “did you untie that again in the car?”

  “No,” Kathy whispered. “It fell off. It’s too big.”

  “Your other one’s too big, too,” said the lady. “What’s your name, little boy?”

  Kathy tried hard, but she couldn’t remember what Angie had told her to say.

  “Tell me your name,” the lady said.

  “Kathy,” she whispered, but then she could feel Angie squeezing her hand hard, and suddenly she remembered the name Angie had told her to say. “Stevie,” she said. “My name is Stevie.”

  “Oh, I bet you have a pretend friend named Kathy,” the woman said. “My granddaughter has a pretend friend, too.”

  “Yeah,” Angie agreed hurriedly. “Well, we got to be on our way.”

  Kathy glanced back and saw the woman picking up a newspaper on the chair at the table she was cleaning. On it, Kathy could see her photograph, and Kelly’s, too. She couldn’t help it. She began to talk twin talk to Kelly, then felt Angie squeeze her hand very, very hard.

  “Come on,” Angie said, yanking her.

  The other new shoe was still on the sidewalk where it had come off. Angie reached down and grabbed it, then opened the back door of the van. “Get in,” she said angrily, tossing the shoe inside.

  Kathy scrambled to get in, and, not waiting to be told, lay down on the pillow and reached for the blanket. But then she heard a man ask, “Where is the safety seat for your child, ma’am?”

  Kathy looked up and saw that it was a policeman.

  “We’re on our way to buy a new one,” Angie said. “I didn’t lock the van when we stayed at a motel last night, and it was stolen.”

  “Where did you stay?”

  “At the Soundview.”

  “Did you report the theft?”

  “No,” Angie said. “It was an old seat, not worth the effort.”

  “We want to know if there’s theft going on in Hyannis. May I see your driver’s license and registration, please?”

  “Sure. Right here.” Kathy watched as Angie pulled papers out of her wallet.

  “Ms. Hagen, whose van is this?” the policeman asked.

  “My boyfriend’s.”

  “I see. Well, I’m going to give you a break. I want you to walk over to the mall and buy a new car seat. I will not allow you to drive with this child in the car without one.”

  “Thank you, officer. I’ll do that right away. Come on, Stevie.”

  Angie leaned down and picked up Kathy, pressing her face against her jacket. She closed the door of the van and began to walk the block back to the mall.

  “That cop is watching us,” she hissed. “I don’t know whether it was smart to give him Linda Hagen’s driver’s license. He looked at me kind of funny, but on the other hand I’m registered at the motel under Linda’s name. God, this is a mess.”

  As soon as they were inside the mall, she put Kathy down. “Here, let me put that other shoe on. I’ll stuff a handkerchief in it. You’ve got to walk. I can’t carry you all over Cape Cod. Now we’ve got to find a place to buy a car seat.”

  It seemed to Kathy that they walked forever. Then when they did find a store that sold car seats, Angie got mad at the man there. “Listen, open it up for me,” she told him. “I’ll carry it under my arm.”

  “It will set the alarm off,” he told her. “I can open the box, but you’ll have to leave the car seat in it until you’re out of the store.”

  Kathy could tell that Angie was getting very angry, so she didn’t want to tell her that even with the handkerchief in it, the shoe had come off again. Then, on the way back to the car, someone stopped Angie. “Your little boy has lost one of his shoes,” she said.

  Angie grabbed Kathy up. “The stupid clerk sold her the wrong size,” she explained. “I mean him. I’ll buy him another pair.” She walked very quickly away from the lady who talked to them, then stopped, holding Kathy in one arm and dragging the car seat with the other. “Oh, God, that cop is still hanging around. Don’t dare answer if he talks to you.” She got to the car and put Kathy down on the front seat, then tried to attach the car seat in the back. “I’d better have this right,” she said. She lifted Kathy around to sit in it. “Turn your head,” she whispered. “Turn it now. Don’t look at him.”

  Kathy was so scared of Angie that she began to cry.

  “Shut up!” Angie whispered. “Shut up! That cop is watching us.”

  She slammed the back door and got in the driver’s seat. Finally they drove off. On the way back to the motel, she screamed at Kathy. “You said your name! You were doing that twin talk stuff! I told you to shut up! I told you to shut up! You could hav
e made a lot of trouble. Not another word. Do you hear me? The next time you open your mouth, I’ll slap you silly.”

  Kathy squeezed her eyes shut and held her hands over her ears. She could tell that Kelly was trying to talk to her, but she knew she must not talk back to her anymore, or Angie would hurt her.

  When they got back to the room, Angie dropped Kathy on the bed and said, “Don’t move a muscle or say a word. Here, have some more cough medicine. And swallow this aspirin. You feel hot again.”

  Kathy drank the cough medicine and swallowed the aspirin and closed her eyes, trying not to cough. A few minutes later, before she drifted off, she could hear Angie talking on the phone.

  “Clint,” Angie was saying. “It’s me, honey. Listen, I’m kind of scared. People notice the kid when I’m out with her. Her face is all over the newspapers. I think you were right. I should have let her go home with the other one. What should I do about it? I’ve got to get rid of her. How should I do it?”

  Kathy heard the sound of the buzzer, then Angie’s scared voice trying to whisper, “Clint, I have to call you back. There’s someone at the door. Oh, God, suppose it’s that cop.”

  Kathy buried her face in the pillow as the phone snapped shut. Home, she thought as she fell asleep. I want to go home.

  61

  On Saturday morning a wildly restless Gregg Stanford went to his club for a game of squash then returned to the Greenwich estate that was his wife’s main residence. He showered, dressed, and ordered lunch served to him in the study. With its paneled walls, antique tapestries and carpets, Hepplewhite furniture and sweeping views of Long Island Sound, it was his favorite room in the mansion.