Two Little Girls in Blue (10 page)

“Angie, I think we have smaller boxes downstairs,” Clint volunteered.

“I sealed and tied this box,” Angie shouted. “This is it.”

A minute later, she watched with intense satisfaction as Lucas carried the heavy, bulky box to his car.

L
ila Jackson, a sales clerk at Abby's Quality Discount on Route 7, had become something of a celebrity to her family and friends. She had been the one to sell the twins' blue velvet dresses to Margaret Frawley two days before the kidnapping.

Thirty-four years old, small of stature, and bustling with energy, Lila had recently quit her well-paid secretarial job in Manhattan, moved in with her widowed mother, and taken the job at Abby's. As she explained to her astonished friends, “I realized that I hated sitting at a desk, and the most fun I'd ever had working was when I did part-time at Bloomingdale's. I love clothes. I love selling them. As soon as I can do it, I'm going to open my own place.” To that end, she was taking business courses at the community college.

The day the news of the kidnapping broke, Lila had recognized both Margaret and the dresses the kidnapped twins were wearing in the picture she saw on television.

“She was the nicest person,” Lila breathlessly told a widening group of people who were fascinated by the fact that only a couple of days before the twins were stolen, she had been in contact with their mother. “Mrs.
Frawley is real class, in a quiet, nice way. And she really knows quality. I told her that the same dresses cost four hundred dollars each in Bergdorf's all season, and that at forty-two dollars, they were a steal. She said that was still more than she wanted to spend, and I showed her a lot of other stuff, but she kept coming back to those. Finally she bought them. She kind of laughed when she was paying and said she only hoped she'd get a good picture of her twins in the dresses before something got spilled on them.

“We had a nice chat,” Lila reminisced, dragging out every detail of the encounter. “I told Mrs. Frawley that another lady had just been in, buying matching outfits for twins. They couldn't have been hers, though, because she wasn't sure what size to get. She asked my opinion. She said they were average-sized three-year-olds.”

Lila caught the noon news on Wednesday morning as she was getting ready to leave for work. Shaking her head in sympathy, she stared at the video of Margaret and Steve Frawley racing down the street to a neighbor's home, and then a few minutes later, running to another house farther down the block.

“Although neither the family nor the FBI will confirm it, it is believed that this morning the Pied Piper, as the kidnapper calls himself, has communicated his demands for paying the ransom by calling the Frawleys on their neighbors' phones,” the CBS anchorman was saying.

Lila watched as a close-up of Margaret Frawley
showed her anguished expression and the deep circles under her eyes.

“Robinson Geisler, chairman of C.F.G.&Y., is not available to answer questions as to whether or not a transfer of funds is in process,” the reporter continued, “but if that is the case, it is clear that the next twenty-four hours will be crucial. It is the sixth day since Kathy and Kelly were taken from their bedroom. The kidnapping took place around nine
P.M
. last Thursday night.”

They must have been in their pajamas when they were taken, Lila thought as she reached for her car key. It was a thought that teased her as she drove to work, and stayed with her as she hung up her coat and ran a comb through the mop of red hair that had been tousled in the windy parking lot. She pinned on her
WELCOME TO ABBY'S—I'M LILA
badge, then went to the cubicle where the accounting was handled.

“I just want to check my sales from last Wednesday, Jean,” she explained to the accountant. I don't remember the name of that woman who bought clothing for twins, she thought, but I can tell by the receipt. She bought two sets of matching overalls and polo shirts, underwear, and socks. She didn't buy shoes because she didn't have any idea of size.

In five minutes of thumbing through receipts, she had found what she wanted. The receipt for the clothes had been signed by Mrs. Clint Downes, using a Visa credit card. Should I get Jean to phone Visa now and get her address? Lila wondered. Don't be a fool, she told herself, as she hurried onto the sales floor.

Later, still unable to shake the feeling that she should follow up on her uncomfortable hunch, Lila asked the accountant to try to get the address of the woman who had purchased the identical outfits for three-year-olds.

“Sure, Lila. If they give me any grief about releasing the address, I'll say that the woman may have left a package here.”

“Thanks, Jean.”

At Visa, Mrs. Clint Downes was recorded as living at 100 Orchard Avenue, in Danbury.

Now even more uncertain of what to do, Lila remembered that Jim Gilbert, a retired Danbury cop, was having dinner with her mother that night. She'd ask him about it.

When she arrived home, her mother had held dinner for her, and she and Jim were having a cocktail in the study. Lila poured a glass of wine for herself and sat on the raised hearth, her back to the fire. “Jim,” she said, “I guess Mother told you I sold those blue velvet dresses to Margaret Frawley.”

“I heard.” His deep baritone voice always seemed incongruous to Lila, coming as it did from Jim's narrow frame. His amiable expression hardened as he spoke. “Mark my words. They're not going to get those kids back, alive
or
dead. My guess is they're out of the country by now, and all this talk of ransom was just meant to be a diversion.”

“Jim, I know it's crazy, but just a few minutes before I sold the dresses to Margaret Frawley, I waited on a
woman who was buying matching outfits for three-year-olds, and didn't even seem to know the right size to buy.”

“So?”

Lila took the plunge. “I mean, wouldn't it be extraordinary if that woman was connected to the kidnapping and was buying clothes, anticipating they'd be needed? The Frawley twins were wearing their pajamas when they were taken. Kids that age spill things. They can't be in the same outfit five days.”

“Lila, you're letting your imagination run away with you,” Jim Gilbert said indulgently. “Do you know how many tips like that the Ridgefield cops and the FBI have been getting?”

“The woman's name is Mrs. Clint Downes, and she lives at 100 Orchard Street, right here in Danbury,” Lila persisted. “I just feel like taking a ride over and ringing her bell and making up a story that one of the polo shirts was from an imperfect batch, just to satisfy my own curiosity.”

“Lila, stick to fashion. I know Clint Downes. He's the caretaker who lives in the cottage at the club; 100 Orchard Street is the address of the club. Was the woman skinny with kind of a sloppy ponytail?”

“Yes.”

“That's Clint's girlfriend, Angie. She may be signing herself as Mrs. Downes, but she's
not
Mrs. Downes. She does a fair amount of babysitting. Cross both of them off your list of suspects, Lila. In a million years, neither one of those two is bright enough to pull off a kidnapping like this.”

L
ucas knew that Charley Fox, a new mechanic at the airport, was watching him as he climbed into the plane, holding the bulky box in his arms. He's asking himself why I'm carrying something like this, and then he's going to figure out that I'm going to dump it, Lucas told himself. Then he's going to decide that it must be something I want to get rid of real bad, or maybe that I'm ferrying drugs somewhere. So the next time a cop comes around and asks about anyone who uses the airport and looks suspicious, he'll tell him about me.

Still, it was a good idea to clear the house of anything that could connect the twins to the cottage, he admitted as he plopped the box down on the co-pilot's seat in the cockpit. Tonight, after we drop the kids, I'll help Clint take the crib apart and then we'll lose the parts somewhere. The kids' DNA would be all over the mattress.

As he performed his checkout before taking off, Lucas permitted himself a sour smile. He'd read somewhere that identical twins had the same DNA. So they can only prove we had
one
of them, he thought. Swell!

The wind was still brisk. It wasn't the best day to go flying in a light plane, but the cutting edge of danger
was always soothing to Lucas. Today it would relieve his mushrooming anxiety about what was going to happen tonight. Forget the cash, an insistent voice kept repeating in his head. Tell the Pied Piper to pay us a million out of the wire transfer. Dump the kids where they'll be found. That way there's no chance of being followed and caught.

But the Pied Piper won't go along with that, Lucas thought bitterly as he felt the wheels of the plane begin to lift. Either we collect the cash tonight, or we're stuck with no money and a kidnapping rap if we get caught.

It was a short flight, just long enough to get out over the ocean a few miles, hold the yoke firm with his knees, reduce his speed, struggle to get his hands around the box, position it on his lap, carefully open the door, and give the box a shove. He watched its descent. The ocean was gray and choppy. The box disappeared into the waves, sending a spray of foam cascading through the air. Lucas pulled the door closed and put his hand on the yoke. Now for the real job, he thought.

When he landed at the airport, he did not see Charley Fox, which was fine with him. That way he won't know whether I brought the box back with me or not, he thought.

It was almost four o'clock. The wind was starting to die down, but the clouds overhead were threatening. Would rain be good for them, or would it be a problem? Lucas walked over to the parking lot and got into his car. He sat for a few minutes, trying to decide if it was better with rain or without rain. Only time will tell, he decided.
For now, he should get the limo out of the garage and run it over to the car wash to have it sparkling for Mr. Bailey. In case the feds happened to be at Bailey's house, it would be one way of showing that he was a conscientious limo driver, no more, no less.

Plus it was something to keep him busy. If he just sat in the apartment, he'd go nuts. The decision made, he turned the key.

Two hours later, freshly showered and shaved, neatly dressed in his chauffeur's uniform, Lucas drove his clean and polished limousine into the driveway of Franklin Bailey's home.

“M
argaret, we are as certain as any human beings can be that you had nothing to do with the twins' disappearance,” Agent Carlson said. “Your second lie detector test was inconclusive, even more so than the first one. Your emotional state can be the explanation for that. Contrary to everything you read in novels or see on television, lie detector tests are not always accurate, which is why they're not admissible as evidence in court.”

“What are you telling me?” Margaret asked, her tone almost indifferent. What does it matter? she was thinking. When I took the tests, I could hardly understand the questions. They were just words. An hour ago Steve had insisted that she take a sedative that the doctor had prescribed. It was the first one she had had all day, although she was supposed to take one every four hours. She didn't like the feeling of vagueness that it gave her. She was having trouble focusing on what the FBI agent was saying.