Two Little Girls in Blue

  Angie lay next to him, snoring, oblivious to the children’s voices or the sound of the crib rattling. He wondered how much she had had to drink after he went to bed. Angie loved to sit up half the night and watch old movies, a bottle of wine by her side. Charlie Chaplin, Greer Garson, Marilyn Monroe, Clark Gable—she loved them all. “They were actors,” she would tell him, her voice slurred. “Today they all look alike. Blond. Gorgeous. Botox. Face-lifts. Liposuction. But can they act? No.”

  It was only lately, after all these years of being around her that Clint had realized Angie was jealous. She wanted to be beautiful. He’d used it as another way to get her to agree to mind the kids. “We’ll have so much money that if you want to go to a spa or change the color of your hair or have some great plastic surgeon make you more gorgeous, you can do it. All you have to do is take good care of them, maybe for a few days or a week.”

  Now he dug an elbow into her side. “Get up.”

  She burrowed deeper into the pillow.

  He shook her shoulder. “I said, get up,” he snarled.

  Reluctantly she lifted her head and looked over at the crib.

  “Lie down! Get back to sleep, you two!” she snapped.

  Kathy and Kelly saw the anger on her face and began to cry. “Mommy . . . Daddy.”

  “Shut up, I said! Shut up!”

  Whimpering, the twins lay down again, clinging to each other. The soft sound of their muted sobs escaped from the crib.

  “I said shut up!”

  The sobs became hiccups.

  Angie poked Clint. “At nine o’clock, Mona will start to love them. Not one minute sooner.”

  7

  Margaret and Steve sat up all night with Marty Martinson and Agent Carlson. After her fainting spell, Margaret had adamantly refused to go to the hospital. “You said yourself that you need my help,” she insisted.

  Together she and Steve answered Carlson’s questions. Once again they emphatically denied they had any access to any meaningful sum of money, let alone millions of dollars.

  “My father died when I was fifteen,” Margaret told Carlson. “My mother lives in Florida with her sister. She’s a secretary in a doctor’s office. I have college and law school loans I’ll be paying off for another ten years.”

  “My father is a retired New York City fire captain,” Steve said. “He and my mother live in a condo in North Carolina. They bought it before prices went crazy.”

  When they were questioned about other relatives, Steve admitted that he was on bad terms with his half brother, Richie. “He’s thirty-six, five years older than I am. My mother was a young widow when she met my father. Richie always had a kind of wild streak in him. We were never close. Then, to cap it off, he met Margaret before I did.”

  “We didn’t date,” Margaret said quickly. “We happened to be at the same wedding and danced a few times. He did leave a message for me, but I didn’t return the call. It was a coincidence that I met Steve in law school about a month later.”

  “Where is Richie now?” Carlson asked Steve.

  “He’s a baggage handler at Newark Airport. He’s been divorced twice. He dropped out of school, and resents me for finishing college and getting a law degree.” He hesitated. “I might as well tell you. He had a juvenile record and spent five years in prison for his part in a money-laundering scam. But he’d never do anything like this.”

  “Maybe not, but we’ll check him out,” Carlson said. “Now let’s go over anyone else who might have a grudge against you or who might have come in contact with the twins and decided to kidnap them. Have you had any workmen in the house since you moved in?”

  “No. My dad could fix anything and he was a good teacher,” Steve explained, his tone hollow with fatigue. “I’ve been spending nights and weekends doing basic repairs. I’m probably Home Depot’s best customer.”

  “What about the moving company you used?” Carlson asked next.

  “They’re off-duty cops,” Steve answered, and for an instant almost smiled. “They’ve all got kids. They even showed me their pictures. A couple of them are about the age of our twins.”

  “What about the people you work with?”

  “I’ve been with my company only three months. C.F.G.&Y. is an investment firm specializing in pension funds.”

  Carlson seized on the fact that until the twins were born, Margaret had worked as a public defender in Manhattan. “Mrs. Frawley, is it possible that one of the people you defended might hold a grudge against you?”

  “I don’t think so.” Then she hesitated. “There was one guy who ended up with a life sentence. I begged him to accept a plea bargain but he refused, and when he was found guilty, the judge threw the book at him. His family was screaming obscenities at me when they took him away.”

  It’s odd, she thought as she watched Carlson write down the name of the convicted defendant. Right now, I just feel numb. Nothing else, just numb.

  At seven o’clock, as light began to show through the drawn shades, Carlson stood up. “I urge you two to get some sleep. The clearer your heads are, the more helpful you’ll be to us. I’ll be right here. I promise we’ll let you know the minute the kidnappers make contact with us, and we may be wanting you to make a statement to the media later in the day. You can go up to your own room, but do not go near the girls’ bedroom. The forensic team is still going over it.”

  Steve and Margaret nodded mutely. Their bodies sagged with fatigue as they got up and walked through the living room headed to the staircase.

  “They’re on the level,” Carlson said flatly to Martinson. “I’d stake my life on it. They don’t have any money. Which makes me wonder if this ransom demand isn’t a hoax. Somebody who just wanted the kids may be trying to throw us off.”

  “I’ve been thinking that,” Martinson agreed. “Isn’t it a fact that most ransom notes would warn the parents not to call the police?”

  “Exactly. I only pray to God that those kids aren’t on a plane to South America right now.”

  8

  On Friday morning, the kidnapping of the Frawley twins was headline news all along the East Coast and by early afternoon had become a national media event. The birthday picture of the beautiful three-year-olds, with their angelic faces and long blond hair and dressed in their blue velvet birthday party dresses, was shown on television news channels and printed in newspapers all over the country.

  A command center was set up in the dining room of 10 Old Woods Road. At five o’clock in the afternoon Steve and Margaret appeared on television in front of their home, begging the captors to take good care of the girls and return them unharmed. “We don’t have money,” Margaret said imploringly. “But our friends have been calling all day. They’re taking up a collection. It’s up to nearly two hundred thousand dollars. Please, you must have mistaken us for people who could raise eight million dollars. We can’t. But please don’t hurt our girls. Give them back. I can promise you we will have two hundred thousand dollars in cash.”

  Steve, his arm around Margaret, said, “Please get in touch with us. We need to know that our girls are alive.”

  Captain Martinson followed them in the interview. “We are posting the phone and fax number of Franklin Bailey, who at one time was mayor of this town. If you are afraid to contact the Frawleys directly, please contact him.”

  But Friday evening, Saturday, and then Sunday all passed without word from the kidnappers.

  On Monday morning, Katie Couric was interrupted on the Today show as she was interviewing a retired FBI agent about the kidnapping. She suddenly paused in the middle of asking a question, pressed her hand against her earphone, listened intently, then said, “This may be a hoax, but it also may be terribly important. Someone claiming to be the kidnapper of the Frawley twins is on the phone. At his request our engineers are putting the call on the air now.”

  A husky, obviously disguised voice, its tone angry, said, “Tell the Frawleys time is running out. We said eight million and we mean
eight million. Listen to the kids.”

  Young voices said in unison, “Mommy, I love you. Daddy, I love you.” Then one of the girls cried, “We want to go home.”

  * * *

  The segment was replayed five minutes later with Steve and Margaret listening. Martinson and Carlson did not need to ask the Frawleys if the call was legitimate. The look on their faces was enough to convince them that at last contact had been made with the kidnappers.

  9

  An increasingly nervous Lucas had stopped in at the caretaker cottage on both Saturday and Sunday evenings. The last thing he wanted was to spend any time around the twins, so he timed his arrival for nine o’clock, when he thought they would be asleep.

  On Saturday evening he tried to feel reassured by Clint’s boast that Angie was great with the kids. “They ate real good. She played games with them. She put them down for naps all afternoon. She really loves them. She always wanted to have kids. But I tell you, it’s almost spooky to watch them. It’s like they’re two parts of the same person.”

  “Did you get them on tape?” Lucas snapped.

  “Oh, sure. We got them both to say, ‘Mommy, I love you. Daddy, I love you.’ They sound real good. Then one of them started yelling, ‘We want to go home,’ and Angie got sore at her. She raised her hand like she was going to hit her, and they both started crying. We got all of that on the tape, too.”

  That’s the first smart thing you’ve done, Lucas thought as he pocketed the tape. By pre-arrangement with the boss, he drove to Clancy’s Pub on Route 7, arriving there at ten thirty. As instructed, he left the limo in the crowded parking lot with the door unlocked, and the tape on the seat and then went in for a beer. When he returned to the limo, the tape was gone.

  That was Saturday night. On Sunday night it had been clear that Angie’s patience was wearing thin. “Damn dryer is broken, and of course we can’t call anyone to fix it. You don’t think ‘Harry’ knows how, do you?” As she spat out the words, she was taking two sets of identical long-sleeved T-shirts and overalls from the washing machine and draping them on wire hangers. “You said it would be a couple of days. How long am I supposed to keep this up? It’s been three days already.”

  “The Pied Piper will tell us when and where to drop the kids off,” Lucas reminded her, biting back the desire to tell her to go to hell.

  “How do we know he won’t just get scared and disappear, and leave us stuck with them?”

  Lucas had not intended to tell Angie and Clint about the Pied Piper’s plan, but he felt it was necessary to appease her. “We know because he’s going to make a ransom demand sometime between eight and nine o’clock tomorrow morning on the Today show.”

  That had shut her up. You got to hand it to the boss, Lucas thought the next morning, as he watched the show and witnessed the dramatic response to the Pied Piper’s phone call. The whole world will be wanting to send money to get those kids back.

  But we’re the ones taking all the risk, he thought hours later, after listening to the commentators on every station jabbering about the kidnapping. We grabbed the kids. We’re hiding them. We’re the ones who will pick up the money when they raise it. I know who the boss is, but there’s nothing to tie him to me. If we get caught, he could say I was nuts if I say he’s behind it.

  Lucas had no jobs scheduled until the next morning, Tuesday, and at two o’clock decided there was no way he could sit in his apartment and stew. The Pied Piper had told him to be sure to watch the CBS evening news, that another contact would be made then.

  He decided he had time to go for a plane ride. He drove to Danbury Airport where he was a member of a flying club. There, he rented one of the single-engine prop planes and went for a spin. His favorite trip was to fly up the Connecticut coast to Rhode Island, then go out over the Atlantic for a while. Flying two thousand feet above the earth gave him a sense of complete control, something he badly needed to experience now.

  It was a cold day with only a slight breeze and some clouds to the west: fine flying weather. But as he tried to relax in the cockpit and enjoy the freedom of being airborne, Lucas could not shake off the persistent worry that was plaguing him.

  He felt certain he had missed something, but figuring out just what—that was the problem. Grabbing the kids had been easy. The babysitter only remembered that whoever had come up behind her smelled of perspiration.

  She got that one right, Lucas thought with a brief grin, as he flew over Newport. Angie should stick Clint’s shirts in that washing machine of hers every time he peels one off.

  The washing machine.

  That was it! Those clothes she was washing. Two sets each of identical shirts and overalls. Where did she get them? The kids had been wearing pajamas when they grabbed them. Had that stupid airhead gone shopping for twin outfits that would fit three-year-olds?

  She had. He was sure of it. And soon some clerk out there would start putting two and two together.

  Icy with rage, Lucas involuntarily yanked back on the yoke, forcing the nose of the plane to rise nearly perpendicular to the earth below. His anger increased when he realized what he had done, and he quickly tried to level off. His action was too late, however, and the plane entered a stall. His heart beating faster, he pushed the nose down, recovered his air speed, and averted the stall. Next thing, that stupid broad will probably take the kids to McDonald’s for a hamburger, he thought frantically.

  10

  There was no way to put a good face on delivering the latest communication from the kidnapper. On Monday evening, Walter Carlson received a phone call and went into the living room where Margaret and Steve Frawley were sitting side by side on the couch. “Fifteen minutes ago, the kidnapper called the network during the CBS Evening News,” he said, grimly. “They’re replaying that segment now. It has the same tape of the twins’ voices they played this morning on Katie Couric, with an addition.”

  It’s like watching people being thrown into a cauldron of boiling oil, he thought, as he saw the agony on their faces at the sound of a childish voice protesting, “We want to go home . . .”

  “Kelly,” Margaret whispered.

  A pause . . .

  Then the wailing of the twins began.

  Margaret buried her face in her hands. “I cannot . . . cannot . . . cannot . . .”

  Then a harsh, obviously disguised voice snarled, “I said eight million. I want it now. This is your last chance.”

  “Margaret,” Walter Carlson interrupted, his tone urgent, “there is a bright spot here. The kidnapper is communicating with us. You have proof that the girls are alive. We are going to find them.”

  “And are you going to come up with an eight-million-dollar ransom?” Steve asked bitterly.

  Carlson did not know whether to raise their hopes yet. Agent Dom Picella, heading a team of agents, had spent the day at C.F.G.&Y., the global investment firm at which Steve was a new employee, interviewing Steve’s co-workers to learn if any of them knew of someone who resented Steve, or who perhaps had wanted the job Steve had been hired to fill. The firm had recently suffered bad publicity because of insider trading accusations, and Picella had learned that a board of directors meeting had been hastily scheduled with conference call links to directors all over the world. The rumor was that the company might offer to put up the ransom money for the Frawley twins.

  “One of the secretaries is a world-class gossip,” Picella told Carlson late that afternoon. “She says the firm has egg on its face for some of the fast stuff it pulled. It just paid a whopping five-hundred-million-dollar fine imposed by the Securities and Exchange Commission and has gotten tons of bad press. Her guess is that paying the eight-million ransom gives C.F.G.&Y. better publicity than if they hired a slew of PR agencies to whitewash their image. The board meeting is scheduled for eight o’clock tonight.”

  Carlson studied the Frawleys, who, in the three days since the twins went missing, seemed to have aged ten years. Both were pale, their eyes heavy with fatigue,
their shoulders slumping. He knew that neither one of them had touched a morsel of food all day. He knew from experience that this was a time when relatives usually rallied around, but he’d overheard Margaret begging her mother to stay in Florida. “Mom, you can do me more good by praying round the clock,” Margaret had said, her voice breaking during the phone call. “We’ll keep you posted, but if you were here crying with me, I don’t think I could handle it.”

  Steve’s mother had recently had knee replacements and could neither travel nor be left alone. Friends had flooded the house with calls but had been asked to get off the line quickly in case the kidnapper called the Frawleys directly.

  Not at all sure that he was doing the right thing, Walter Carlson hesitated, then spoke. “Margaret, Steve, I don’t want to raise your hopes only to have them dashed, but, Steve, the CEO of your company has called an emergency board of directors meeting. From what I understand, there’s a chance that they’ll vote to pay the ransom.”

  Don’t let it go the other way, he prayed, as he saw hope come alive in their faces. “Now I don’t know about you two,” he said, “but I’m hungry. Your next-door neighbor gave a note to one of the cops. She has dinner cooked for you and will send it over anytime you want.”

  “We will eat something,” Steve said firmly. He looked at Carlson. “I know it sounds crazy. I’m a new employee at C.F.G.&Y., but in the back of my mind it did occur to me that maybe, just maybe, they’d offer to put up the money. Eight million dollars is peanuts to them.”

  Oh, my God, Carlson thought. The half brother may not be the only bad egg in this family. Could Steve Frawley be behind all this?

  11

  Kathy and Kelly looked up from the couch. They had been watching Barney tapes, but Mona had switched to the television and listened to the news. They were both scared of Mona. A little while ago Harry had started yelling at her after he got a phone call. He was mad at her for buying the clothes for them.