Two Little Girls in Blue (7 page)

This opening was too much for Lucas to resist.
“That dumb broad is taking such good care of them that she's been buying matching outfits for them.”

This time the voice was not disguised. “Where?”

“I don't know.”

“Does she plan to have them all dressed up when we dump them? Does she plan to have the cops tracing the clothes, and then some clerk saying, ‘Sure, I remember the woman who bought matching outfits for three-year-olds'?”

Lucas liked the way the Pied Piper was getting agitated. It took some of the gnawing fear off him. Anything could go wrong. He knew that. He needed to share that worry. “I told Harry not to let her out of the house again,” he said.

“In forty-eight hours this will be over, and we'll be home free,” the Pied Piper said. “Tomorrow I make contact and give instructions about the money. Wednesday you pick up the cash. Wednesday night I tell you where to leave the kids. Make sure they're wearing exactly what they were wearing when you grabbed them.”

The connection ended.

Lucas pushed the stop button on the recording device. Seven million for you; half a million each for me and Clint, he thought. I don't think so, Mr. Pied Piper.

T
he time for Robinson Geisler to stand with Margaret and Steve Frawley and address the media was set for ten
A.M.
on Tuesday morning. None of the other directors elected to be present at the event. As one of them told Geisler, “I voted to pay the ransom, but I've got three young kids myself. I don't want to give anyone any ideas about kidnapping them.”

Unable to sleep most of the night, at six
A.M.
Margaret got up. She showered for long minutes, raising her face under the streaming water, feeling it hot against her skin, willing it to dispel the icy chill of her body. Then, wrapped in Steve's heavy robe, she got back into bed. Steve was up and headed out for a run, slipping through backyards to avoid the media. Suddenly exhausted from the sleepless night, Margaret felt her eyes begin to close.

It was nine o'clock when Steve awakened her and set a tray with coffee and toast and juice on the night table. “Mr. Geisler just got here,” he said. “You'd better start getting dressed, honey. I'm so glad you got some sleep. When it's time to go outside, I'll come up and get you.”

Margaret forced herself to drink the orange juice and nibble at the toast. Then, sipping the coffee, she got out
of bed and began to dress. But as she was pulling on black jeans, she stopped. A week ago this evening I went shopping for birthday dresses for the twins at the outlet mall on Route 7, she thought. While I was there I dashed into the sports store and picked up a new running suit, a red one, because the twins loved my old red sweats. Maybe whoever has them is letting them watch television. Maybe in less than half an hour they'll be seeing us.

“I like red because it's a happy color,” Kelly had told her, her tone solemn.

I'll wear red for them today, Margaret decided, as she yanked the new jacket and pants from the hanger. She dressed quickly as her mind began to focus on what Steve had told her. After the broadcast, they were going to take the lie detector tests. How could they even imagine that Steve and I had anything to do with this? she wondered.

After she tied her sneakers, she made the bed, then sat on the edge of it, her hands folded, her head bent.
Dear God, let them come home safely. Please. Please.

She did not realize Steve was in the room until he asked, “Are you ready, sweetheart?” He came over to her, took her face in his hands, and kissed her. Then he let his fingers run over her shoulders, entwining them in her hair.

Margaret knew that he had been on the verge of collapse before they learned that the ransom would be paid. She had thought he was asleep during the night, but at some point he had said quietly, “Marg, the only reason the FBI wants us to take a lie detector test is because
of that brother of mine. I know what the agents are thinking. Richie leaving Friday to drive to North Carolina to see Mom looks to them as though he was creating an alibi for himself. He hasn't visited her in a year. Then the minute I told Carlson I had been wondering if the company would volunteer the ransom, I realized I became a suspect. But that's Carlson's job. I
want
him to be suspicious of everyone.”

It's Carlson's job to find my children, Margaret thought, as she and Steve walked down the stairs. In the foyer she approached Robinson Geisler. “I am so grateful to you and your company,” she said. Steve opened the door and took her hand as cameras began to flash. Joined by Geisler, they walked to the table and chairs that had been set up for the interview. She was glad to see that Franklin Bailey, who had offered to be the intermediary, was also present. She had met him for the first time in the post office when she was buying stamps. Kelly had darted out the door, and he had grabbed her at the curb before she could run into the busy street.

The overnight rain had stopped. The late March morning hinted of spring. Margaret looked blankly at the gathered media, at the police officers holding back the onlookers, at the row of media trucks parked along the road. She had heard that people who are dying sometimes have a sense of hovering above the scene, of being observers rather than participants of the event that was centered around them. She listened to Robinson Geisler offer to pay the ransom, and to Steve's insistence that they must have proof the girls were still alive,
and to Franklin Bailey as he offered his services as contact person and slowly gave his phone number.

“Mrs. Frawley, now that you know the kidnapper's demands are being met, what is your greatest fear?” someone asked.

A stupid question, Margaret thought before answering. “Of course my greatest fear is that somehow something will go wrong between the payment of the ransom and the return of our children. The longer the delay, the greater the chance something might happen. I believe Kathy was beginning to get a cold. She goes into bronchitis easily. We almost lost her when she was an infant.” She stared into the camera. “Please, I beg of you, if she is sick, get her to a doctor, or at least get some medicine for her. The girls were just wearing pajamas when you took them.”

Her voice trailed off. I didn't know I was going to say that, she thought. Why did I say that? There had been a reason for everything, but she couldn't remember it. It was something about the pajamas.

Mr. Geisler and Steve and Franklin Bailey were answering questions. So many questions. Suppose the girls were watching them. I must talk to them, Margaret thought. Interrupting a reporter, she said abruptly, “I love you, Kelly. I love you, Kathy. Very soon, I promise, we'll find a way to bring you home.”

As the cameras focused on her, Margaret became silent, forcing back the words that had almost escaped her:
There's a connection I've got to make! There's something I've got to remember!

A
t five o'clock that afternoon, Franklin Bailey's neighbor, retired Judge Benedict Sylvan, pounded on his door. When Bailey yanked it open, a breathless Sylvan blurted out, “Franklin, I just received a phone call. I think it's from the kidnapper. He's going to call you back at my house in exactly three minutes. He said he has instructions for you.”

“He has to know my phone is monitored,” Bailey said. “That's why he's calling you.”

The two men rushed across the wide lawns that separated their houses. They had barely reached the open door of the judge's home when the phone in his study rang. The judge raced ahead to grab it. Gasping for breath, he managed to say, “Franklin Bailey is with me,” and handed the phone to Bailey.

The caller identified himself as “The Pied Piper.” His instructions were brief and explicit: by ten
A.M.
tomorrow morning, C.F.G.&Y. was to be prepared to wire seven million dollars to an overseas account. The remaining million dollars in ransom was to be ready for delivery. It must be in used fifty- and twenty-dollar bills, and their serial numbers must be non-sequential. “When the wire transfer goes through,
further instructions will be issued for delivery of the cash.”

Bailey had been scribbling on a pad on the judge's desk. “We must have proof that the girls are alive,” he said, his voice tense and unsteady.

“Hang up now. In one minute you will hear the voices of the Two Little Girls in Blue.”

Franklin Bailey and Judge Sylvan stared at each other as Bailey returned the phone to the cradle. Moments later it rang. When he picked it up, Bailey heard a child's voice saying, “Hello, Mr. Bailey. We saw you on television this morning with Mommy and Daddy.”

A second voice whispered, “Hello, Mr. . . .” But her words were interrupted as she began to cough, a deep racking cough that echoed in Bailey's head as the line went dead.

A
s the Pied Piper was giving instructions to Franklin Bailey, Angie was pushing a cart through the aisles of the CVS drugstore, shopping for anything she thought might keep Kathy from getting any sicker. She'd already tossed baby aspirin, nose drops, rubbing alcohol, and a vaporizer into the cart.

Grandma used to put Vick's in the vaporizer when I was a kid, she thought. I wonder if you're still supposed to do that. Maybe I'd better ask Julio. He's a good pharmacist. When Clint sprained his shoulder, whatever he gave me for him did the trick.

She knew that Lucas would have a fit if he thought she was buying any baby products. But what does he want me to do, let the kid die, she asked herself.

She and Clint had watched the interview on TV this morning when the guy who was head of Steve Frawley's company promised to pay the ransom money. They had kept the kids in the bedroom while the program was on because they didn't want them getting all upset by seeing their mother and father on television.

That turned out to be a mistake, because after the program, the Pied Piper had phoned and insisted they get a recording of the kids talking to that Bailey guy as
though they'd seen the program. But when they tried to get the kids to talk into the cell phone, Kelly, the bratty one, put up a squawk.

“We didn't see him and we didn't see Mommy and Daddy on TV and we want to go home,” she'd insisted. Then Kathy started coughing every time she tried to say, “Hello, Mr. Bailey.”

We finally got Kelly to say what the Pied Piper wanted by promising to take her home, Angie thought. When Clint played it back for him, the Pied Piper said it was okay that Kathy only said a few words. He liked that deep cough of hers. He recorded it on his own phone.

She pushed the cart into the pharmacy section, then felt her mouth go dry. A life-sized picture of the twins was displayed next to the counter. In bold letters, the headline read,
MISSING. REWARD FOR ANY INFORMATION AS TO THEIR WHEREABOUTS.

There was no one waiting, and Julio beckoned to her. “Hi, Angie,” he said, then pointed to the picture. “Pretty awful, that kidnapping. You have to wonder who could do anything like that.”