Two Little Girls in Blue

  Where do I go? she wondered. Should I get off the Cape right away? I haven’t called Clint back. He doesn’t even know where I am. In case that cop is suspicious and starts looking for me, he has my license plate number. So does the guy at the motel. I’ve got to tell Clint to come up here in a rental car or something. It isn’t safe for me to be driving this thing any longer.

  But where should I go?

  The weather had continued to clear, and the afternoon sun was bright. The thought that the cop who had made her buy the car seat might pull up in a squad car beside her made Angie want to scream in frustration at the slow-moving traffic. At the base of Main Street the traffic became one-way, and she was forced to turn right. I need to get out of Hyannis, and in case that cop is really suspicious and sends out an alarm, I don’t want to get caught at one of the bridges. I’ll take Route 28, she thought.

  She glanced back at Kathy. The girl’s eyes were closed, and her head was on her chest, but Angie could see that she was breathing in gasps through her mouth, and that her cheeks were flushed. I’ve got to find another motel and check in, she thought. Then I’ll call Clint and tell him to get up here. Since I left that stuff in the Soundview, that nosey manager will probably think we’re coming back. At least he’ll think that until we don’t show up by late tonight.

  Forty minutes later, shortly after she passed the sign for Chatham, she spotted the kind of motel she was looking for. It had a flashing VACANCY sign and was next to a diner. “The Shell and Dune,” she said, reading the name aloud. “It’ll do.” She turned the van off the road and pulled into a parking spot near the office door, but not where Kathy could be seen from inside the office.

  The sallow-faced clerk at the desk was on the phone with his girlfriend and barely glanced up as he handed her a registration form. Again, on the chance that the Hyannis cop might send out an all-points bulletin, she decided not to use Linda Hagen’s name. But if he asks for an ID, I have to show him something, she thought, reluctantly pulling out her own driver’s license. She made up a license plate number and scrawled it on the slip. She was sure the clerk, deep in his conversation, wouldn’t bother to check it. He took the cash for an overnight stay and tossed her a key. Feeling somewhat more secure now, Angie got back in the van, drove around to the back of the motel, and went into the room.

  “Better than the last place,” she said aloud as she hid the suitcase under the bed. She went back outside for Kathy, who did not wake up as she was taken from the car seat. Boy, that fever is getting worse, Angie thought. At least she doesn’t fight the baby aspirin. She probably thinks it’s candy. I’ll wake her up and make her take some now.

  But first I’d better call Clint.

  He answered on the first ring. “Where the hell are you?” he barked. “Why didn’t you call back sooner? I’ve been sweating here, wondering if you were in jail.”

  “The manager of the motel I was in was too nosy. I got out of there fast.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m on Cape Cod.”

  “What?”

  “It seemed like a good place to hide. And I know my way around here.

  “Clint, the kid is really sick, and that cop I was telling you about, the one who made me buy the car seat, has the license number of the van. He smells something fishy. I know he does. I was afraid I’d be stopped at the bridge if I tried to leave the Cape. I’m in a different motel. It’s on Route 28, in a town called Chatham. You told me you came up here when you were a kid. You probably know where it is.”

  “I know where it is. Look, you stay there. I’ll fly up to Boston and rent a car. It’s three thirty now. I should make it there by nine or nine thirty.”

  “Did you get rid of the crib?”

  “I took it apart and put it in the garage. I don’t have the van to move it, remember? I’m not worried about the crib now. You know what you’ve pulled on me, don’t you? I couldn’t leave because this is the only phone where you could reach me. I don’t have more than eighty bucks and my credit card. Now you’ve attracted the cops up there, and that sales clerk where you bought the kids clothes—and used my credit card—smelled a rat and was nosing around here.”

  “Why would she come to the house?” Angie’s voice was loud and fearful.

  “She claimed she wanted to replace two of the shirts, but as far as I’m concerned, she came here to snoop around. That’s why I’ve got to get out of here. And why you have to stay put until I get up there. Got it?”

  I’m sitting here packed, waiting all this time, scared I’m gonna find out some cop has grabbed you and the kid, not to mention the suitcase full of money, Clint thought. She screwed this up good. I can’t wait to get my hands on her.

  “Yeah. Clint, I’m sorry I shot Lucas. I mean I just thought it would be nice to have a kid and the whole million to ourselves. I know he was your friend.”

  Clint did not tell her that he was afraid the FBI would start looking for him once they learned that years ago he and Lucas had shared a cell in Attica. As Clint Downes, he was safe. But if they ever checked his fingerprints, they would learn right away that Clint Downes didn’t exist.

  “Forget about Lucas. What’s the name of the motel?”

  “The Shell and Dune. Isn’t that corny? I love you, Clint-man.”

  “Okay, okay. How’s the kid?”

  “She’s really, really sick. She’s got a big fever.”

  “Give her some aspirin.”

  “Clint, I don’t want to be stuck with her anymore. I can’t stand her.”

  “You’ve got your answer. We’ll leave her in the van when we sink it somewhere. In case you haven’t noticed, there’s a lot of water around there.”

  “Okay. Okay. Clint, I don’t know what I’d do without you. Honest to God. You’re smart, Clint. Lucas thought he was smarter than you, but he wasn’t. I can’t wait for you to get here.”

  “I know. You and me. The two of us. That’s the way it’s gotta be.” Clint hung up the phone. “And if you believe that, you’re even dumber than I thought,” he said aloud.

  66

  “I still don’t believe that Kelly is actually in touch with her sister,” Tony Realto had said bluntly before he and Captain Gunther left the family home at three o’clock. “But I do believe that she may be able to tell us something about the people she was with or where she was kept, something that will help us. That is why, awake or asleep, someone should be catching every word she says and should follow up with questions if she comes out with anything that may relate to the kidnapping.”

  “Do you at least accept that Kathy may be alive?” Margaret had pressed.

  “Mrs. Frawley, from this point in the investigation we are going to proceed, not on the likelihood, but on the premise that Kathy is alive. However, I don’t want this to be known. Our one advantage is that whoever has her believes that we think she is dead.”

  After they were gone, Kelly began to fall asleep in the living room next to the dolls. Steve slipped a pillow under her head and covered her, then he and Margaret sat cross-legged beside her.

  “Sometimes she and Kathy talk in their sleep,” Dr. Harris explained to Walter Carlson.

  Harris and Carlson were still at the table in the dining room. “Dr. Harris,” Carlson said slowly, “I am a skeptic, but that doesn’t mean that Kelly’s behavior hasn’t shaken all of us. I asked you this before, but now I’m asking it in a different way. I know you have begun to believe that the twins are in contact with each other, but isn’t it possible that everything Kelly has been saying and acting out is simply her own recollection of what happened to them during the days she was away?”

  “Kelly had a bruise on her arm when she was taken to the hospital after she was found,” Sylvia Harris said flatly. “When I saw it, I said that it was the result of a vicious pinch and that from my experience that sort of punishment is inflicted by a woman. Yesterday afternoon, Kelly began to scream. Steve thought she had hit her arm against the table in the hall. Ma
rgaret recognized that she was reacting to Kathy’s pain. That was when Margaret rushed to see the sales clerk. Mr. Carlson, Kelly has another nasty bruise, a new one that I would swear is the result of a pinch Kathy received yesterday. Take it or leave it.”

  Through his Swedish ancestors and his FBI training, Walter Carlson had learned to keep his emotions from showing. “If you are right . . .” he began, speaking slowly.

  “I am right, Mr. Carlson.”

  “. . . then Kathy may be with an abusive woman.”

  “I’m glad you recognize that. But equally serious, she is very ill. Think of what Kelly was doing with Kathy’s doll. She is treating the doll as if she has a fever. That’s why Kelly was putting a wet cloth on her forehead. Margaret does that sometimes if one of the twins is running a temperature.”

  “One of the twins? You mean they don’t both get sick at the same time?”

  “They are two individual human beings. Having said that, I must tell you that Kelly coughed frequently last night, but she absolutely does not have a cold. There was no need whatsoever for her to cough, unless she was identifying with Kathy. I am desperately afraid that Kathy is seriously ill.”

  “Dr. Sylvia . . .”

  They looked up as Margaret came back into the dining room.

  “Did Kelly say anything?” Sylvia Harris asked anxiously.

  “No, but I want you to sit next to her with Steve. Agent Carlson—I mean, Walter—will you drive me back to the shop where I bought the girls’ birthday dresses? I’ve been thinking and thinking. I was half-crazy when I went over there yesterday because I knew someone had hurt Kathy, but I have to talk to that clerk who waited on me. I still think she felt something was wrong about the woman who bought clothes for twins almost at the same time I was there. That clerk was off yesterday, but today, if she’s not there and you’re with me, I know they can’t refuse to give us her phone number and address.”

  Carlson stood up. He recognized the expression on Margaret Frawley’s face. It was that of a zealot, convinced of her mission.

  “Let’s go,” he said. “I don’t care where that clerk is. We’ll find her and talk to her face-to-face.”

  67

  The Pied Piper had been calling Clint every half hour. Fifteen minutes after Angie phoned, he tried him again. “Have you heard from her again?” he asked.

  “She’s on Cape Cod,” Clint said. “I’m going to fly up to Boston and rent a car to drive there.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Hiding in a motel in Chatham. She already had a run-in with a cop.”

  “What motel?”

  “It’s called the Shell and Dune.”

  “What are you going to do when you get there?”

  “Just what you think. Listen, the cab driver is blowing the horn. He can’t get past the gate.”

  “Then this is it for us. Good luck, Clint.” The Pied Piper broke the connection, waited, then dialed the number of a private plane service. “I need a plane to leave in one hour from Teterboro, to land at the airport nearest to Chatham on Cape Cod,” he ordered.

  68

  Sixty-four-year-old Elsie Stone didn’t get a chance to look at a newspaper all day. Her job at McDonald’s, near the Cape Cod Mall, didn’t allow for leisure reading, and this Saturday she had rushed to her daughter’s house in Yarmouth to pick up her six-year-old granddaughter. As Elsie liked to put it, she and Debby were “thicker than thieves,” and she willingly babysat at any time.

  Elsie had followed the Frawley kidnapping with rapt attention. The thought of someone kidnapping Debby, then killing her, was just too horrible for her to allow to cross her mind. At least the Frawleys got one back, she thought, but oh, dear God, how awful for them.

  Today she and Debby went back to her house in Hyannis and baked cookies. “How’s your pretend friend doing?” she asked as Debby spooned the batter filled with chocolate morsels onto the baking pan.

  “Oh, Nana, you forgot. I don’t have a pretend friend anymore. I had her when I was little.” Debby shook her head emphatically, causing her light brown hair to bounce on her shoulders.

  “Oh, that’s right.” Elsie’s eyes crinkled when she smiled. “I guess I was thinking of your pretend friend because there was a little boy in my restaurant today. His name was Stevie, and he has a pretend friend named Kathy.”

  “I’m going to make this a really big cookie,” Debby announced.

  So much for her interest in pretend friends, Elsie thought. Funny how that little kid sticks in my mind. The mother was in some kind of hurry. She didn’t let the poor child eat more than a few bites.

  When they put the baking pan in the oven, she said, “All right, Debs, while we’re waiting, Nana’s going to sit down and read the paper for a few minutes. You start coloring the next page in your Barbie doll book.”

  Elsie settled in her La-Z-Boy recliner and opened the newspaper. A follow-up story on the Frawley twins was on the front page. MASSIVE FBI SEARCH FOR KIDNAPPERS was the headline. A picture of the twins in front of their birthday cake brought tears to Elsie’s eyes. She began to read the article. The family was in seclusion. The FBI had confirmed that the suicide note left by the man known as Lucas Wohl had contained his confession to unintentionally killing Kathy. Wohl’s fingerprints identified him as being Jimmy Nelson, a convicted felon who had served six years in Attica for a series of burglaries.

  Shaking her head, Elsie closed the paper. Her eyes strayed back to the front page and the picture of the twins. “Kathy and Kelly on their third birthday” was the caption. What is it . . . ? she wondered, staring at the photograph, trying to figure out why something about it seemed so familiar.

  Just then the oven timer went off. Debby dropped the crayon she was holding and looked up from the coloring book. “Nana, Nana, the cookies are finished,” she called as she ran to the kitchen.

  Elsie let the newspaper slide to the floor and got up to follow her.

  69

  When Captain Jed Gunther left the Frawley home, he drove directly to the Ridgefield police station. More shaken by what he had witnessed than he had allowed the Frawleys or the FBI agents to see, he reminded himself that he did not believe that there was anything to twin talk or twin telepathy. He did believe that Kelly was acting out the memory of her own experience with the kidnappers, but that was all.

  He was also now firmly convinced that Kathy Frawley had been alive when Kelly was left in the car with the body of Lucas Wohl.

  He parked in front of the police station and hurried through the steady rain across the pavement to the front door. Clearing by early afternoon, he thought dismissively of the earlier weather report. Tell me about it.

  The desk sergeant confirmed that Captain Martinson was in his office, then dialed his extension. Gunther took the phone. “Marty, it’s Jed. I just left the Frawleys and I’d like to see you for a couple of minutes.”

  “Sure, Jed. Come on in.”

  Both now thirty-six years old, the two men had been friends since kindergarten. In college they had independently decided to opt for careers in law enforcement. The leadership qualities they possessed had resulted in early and regular promotions, Marty in the Ridgefield Police Department and Jed with the Connecticut State Troopers.

  Over the years they had dealt with many tragedies, including the heartbreaking accidents that claim young victims, but this was the first ransom kidnapping either of them had ever encountered. Since the night the 911 call came in from the Frawley home, their departments had been working closely together, in conjunction with the FBI. The lack of any lead so far that would help to solve the crime was agonizing to both of them.

  Jed shook Martinson’s hand and took the chair nearest his desk. He was the taller of the two by three inches, and his hair was thick and dark, while Martinson’s was already receding and showing premature hints of silver. Still, an observer would have recognized the characteristics they shared. They both exuded intelligence and self-confidence.

  “How
is it going at the Frawleys’?” Martinson asked.

  Jed Gunther gave a brief account of what had transpired earlier, finishing with, “You know how suspect Wohl’s confession is. I absolutely believe now that Kathy was still alive early Thursday morning when we found her sister in the car. When I was in the house today, I took another look around. It’s plain that two people had to have taken part in the actual kidnapping.”

  “I keep going over it, too,” Martinson agreed. “There were no curtains or drapes in the living room, only shades that were partially lowered. They could have looked in the windows and seen the babysitter on the couch, talking on the cell phone. A credit card would have opened that old lock on the kitchen door. The back staircase is next to the door, so they could have counted on getting upstairs quickly. The question is whether or not they made one of the children cry to lure the babysitter upstairs. My guess is that that’s the way it happened.”

  Gunther nodded. “That’s how I see it. They turned off the upstairs hall light and were carrying the chloroform to knock out the girl, and they may have been wearing masks in case she had a chance to see them face-to-face. They never could have risked walking around upstairs looking to see which room the children were in. They must have known their way around, so one of them has to have been in the house before that night.

  “The question is, when was one of the kidnappers in there?” he continued. “The Frawleys bought an ‘as is’ house from the estate after old Mrs. Cunningham died, which is why they got it for the price they did.”

  “But no matter how ‘as is’ it was, it had to pass an inspection before the mortgage went through,” Martinson pointed out.

  “That’s why I’m here,” Gunther told him. “I’ve read the reports, but I wanted to go over them with you. Your guys know this town inside out. Do you think there is any chance that someone was in the house and got the layout of it just before the Frawleys moved in? That’s a long hall upstairs, and the floorboards creak. The doors of the three bedrooms the family isn’t using are always kept closed. The hinges creak. The kidnappers had to have known the twins were in one of the two bedrooms at the very end of the hall.”