Two Little Girls in Blue (16 page)

Clint got out of the car and scrambled back to the van. His cherubic face dripping with perspiration, he got behind the wheel. The cell phone the Pied Piper had given to Lucas was ringing again. “He must be scared stiff,” Angie chortled. “Okay, let's go home. My baby is waking up again.”

“Mommy, Mommy . . .” Kathy was stirring and reaching out her hand.

“She's trying to touch her twin,” Angie said. “Isn't that cute?” She tried to entwine her own fingers with Kathy's, but Kathy pulled away. “Kelly, I want my
Kelly,” she said, her voice hoarse but distinct. “I don't want Mona. I want Kelly.”

As he turned on the ignition key, Clint looked nervously at Angie. She didn't like rejection, in fact, couldn't tolerate it. He knew she'd be sick of the kid before the week was up. What then? he wondered. She was off the deep end now. He had seen her vicious streak before. He had seen it again tonight. I've got to get out of here, he thought, out of this town, out of Connecticut.

The street was quiet. Trying not to show how panicked he was becoming, he drove with the headlights off until they reached Route 7. It wasn't until they had gone through the service gate of the country club that he was able to draw a deep breath.

“After you drop me off, put the van in the garage,” Angie told him. “Just in case that drunk, Gus, gets a notion to drive by in the morning, it makes it look like you're not here.”

“He never just drops over,” Clint said, knowing it was useless to protest.

“He called last night, didn't he? He's dying to get together with his old buddy.” Angie did not add that even though he had been drunk when he called, Gus might have heard both girls crying.

Kathy was crying again: “Kelly . . . Kelly . . .” Clint stopped at the front door of the cottage and hurried to open it. Kathy in her arms, Angie went inside, walked straight to the bedroom, and dropped the little girl in the crib. “Get over it, baby doll,” she said, as she turned and walked back to the living room.

Clint was still standing at the front door. “I told you to put the van away,” she ordered.

Before Clint could obey, the special phone rang. This time Angie picked it up. “Hello, Mr. Pied Piper,” she said then listened. “We know Lucas hasn't been answering his cell phone. There was an accident on the parkway and it was teeming with cops. There's such a thing as a law against talking on a cell phone when you're driving, you know. Everything went fine. Lucas had a hunch that the feds might decide to talk with him again and he didn't want to be carrying this around. Yeah. Yeah. Everything went real smooth. Tell somebody where to pick up the Two Little Girls in Blue. I hope we never talk to you again. Good luck to you.”

A
t five forty-five on Thursday morning the answering service for St. Mary's Catholic Church in Ridgefield received a phone call. “I'm desperate. I need to talk to a priest,” a husky voice said.

Rita Schless, the telephone operator who took the call, was sure that whoever it was was trying to disguise his voice. Not
that
nonsense again, she thought. Last year some smart-aleck high school senior had phoned and begged to speak to a priest, claiming a terrible emergency was taking place in his home. She had awakened Monsignor Romney at four in the morning, and when he got on the phone, the kid, to the accompaniment of background laughter, had said, “We're dying, Father. We've run out of beer.”

This call was not on the level either, Rita decided. “Are you injured or sick?” she asked crisply.

“Put me through to a priest immediately. This is a matter of life and death.”

“Hold on, sir,” Rita said. I don't believe him for one minute, she thought, but I can't take a chance. Reluctantly she rang seventy-five-year-old Monsignor Romney, who had told her to direct all middle-of-the night calls to him. “I'm an insomniac, Rita,” he had explained. “Try me first.”

“I don't think this guy's on the level,” Rita explained now. “I swear he's trying to disguise his voice.”

“We'll find out soon enough,” the Reverend Monsignor Joseph Romney said wryly, as he sat up and swung his legs over the bed. Unconsciously he rubbed the right knee that always ached when he changed position. As he reached for his glasses, he heard the click of the call being transferred. “Monsignor Romney,” he said. “How can I help you?”

“Monsignor, you heard about the twins who were kidnapped?”

“Yes, of course. The Frawleys are new members of our parish. We've been offering a daily Mass for their safe return.” Rita is right, he acknowledged. Whoever this is, he's trying to disguise his voice.

“Kathy and Kelly are safe. They can be found in a locked car behind the old La Cantina Restaurant on the north side of the Saw Mill River Parkway near Elmsford.”

Joseph Romney felt his heart begin to pound. “Is this a joke?” he demanded.

“It is not a joke, Monsignor Romney. I am the Pied Piper. The ransom has been paid, and I have chosen you to bring a message of joy to the Frawleys. The north side of the Saw Mill, behind the old La Cantina Restaurant near Elmsford. Have you got that straight?”

“Yes. Yes.”

“Then I suggest you hurry to notify the authorities. It is an inclement night. The girls have been there for several hours, and Kathy has a heavy cold.”

A
t dawn, unable any longer to watch the deepening misery on the faces of Margaret and Steve Frawley, Walter Carlson sat at the dining room table beside the phone. When it rang at five minutes of six, he steeled himself for bad news as he grabbed the receiver.

It was Marty Martinson calling from the police station. “Walt, Monsignor Romney of St. Mary's got a call from someone claiming to be the Pied Piper. He told the Monsignor that the twins are in a locked car behind an old restaurant on the Saw Mill River Parkway. We called the state police. They'll be there in less than five minutes.”

Carlson heard the sound of the Frawleys and Dr. Harris as they rushed into the dining room. Obviously they had heard the phone ring. He turned and looked up at them. The look of hope on their faces was almost as upsetting to see as the earlier misery. “Hold on, Marty,” he told Captain Martinson. There was nothing he could offer the parents and Dr. Harris other than the simple truth. “We will know in a few minutes if a call Monsignor Romney received at the rectory is a hoax,” he told them quietly.

“Was it from the Pied Piper?” Margaret gasped.

“Did he say where they are?” Steve demanded.

Carlson did not answer. “Marty,” he said, speaking into the phone, “are the state troopers getting back to you?”

“Yes. I'll call you as soon as I hear from them.”

“If it's for real, our guys need to do the forensics on the car.”

“The troopers know that,” Martinson said. “They're calling your Westchester office.”

Carlson hung up the phone.

“Tell us what's going on,” Steve insisted. “We have a right to know.”

“We will ascertain in a few minutes whether or not the call Monsignor Romney received is real. If it is, the twins have been left, unharmed, in a locked car just off the Saw Mill River Parkway near Elmsford,” Carlson told them. “The state troopers are on the way there now.”

“The Pied Piper kept his word,” Margaret cried. “My babies are coming home. My babies are coming home!” She threw her arms around Steve. “Steve, they're coming home!”

“Margaret, it may be a hoax,” Dr. Harris cautioned, as her exterior calm broke, and she began to clasp and unclasp her hands.

“God wouldn't do that to us,” Margaret said emphatically, as Steve, unable to speak, buried his face in her hair.

When fifteen minutes went by without another call, Carlson was sure something was terribly wrong. If it had
been some nut phoning, we'd have been told by now, he thought. Then, when the doorbell rang, he knew it had to be bad news. Even if the twins were safe, it would have taken at least forty minutes to drive them home from Elmsford.

He was sure that the same thought was in the minds of Steve and Margaret and the doctor as they followed him to the foyer. Carlson opened the door. Monsignor Romney and Marty Martinson were standing on the porch.

The priest went to Margaret and Steve and, in a voice trembling with compassion, said, “God has sent you back one of your little girls. Kelly is safe. Kathy has been taken to Him.”

T
he news that one of the twins was dead triggered an avalanche of national sympathy. The few pictures the media were able to get of Kelly as her distraught parents carried her from the hospital in Elmsford where she had been taken to be examined were distinct enough to show the difference from the way she had appeared in her birthday picture of only a week ago. Her eyes were wide and frightened now, and there seemed to be a bruise on her face. In all the pictures, her one arm was around her mother's neck, while the other was stretched out, the fingers moving as though to grasp another hand.

The state trooper who was first to arrive at La Cantina Restaurant described the scene: “The car was locked. I could see the man slumped over the wheel. There was only one little girl there. She was curled up on the floor of the backseat. The car was cold. She was wearing only pajamas, and she was shivering. Then I saw that she had a gag on. It was so tight, it's a wonder she didn't choke. When I untied it, she started whimpering like a hurt puppy. I took my coat off and wrapped it around her, then carried her back to the squad car to warm her up. Right after that the other troopers and the
FBI arrived, and found the suicide note on the front seat.”

The Frawleys had declined to be interviewed. Their statement was read to the press by Monsignor Romney: “Margaret and Steve wish to express their undying gratitude for all the messages of compassion they have received. At this time they need privacy to comfort Kelly, who misses her twin, and to deal with their own grief in the loss of Kathy.”

Walter Carlson went on camera with a different message. “The man known as Lucas Wohl is dead, but his associate or associates are alive. We will hunt them down, and we will find them. They will be brought to justice.”

At C.F.G.&Y, Robinson Geisler did not get to deliver the triumphant message he had hoped to give. Instead, his voice halting, he expressed his tremendous sorrow at the loss of one of the twins, but said that he believed that the cooperation of his firm in paying the ransom had led to the safe return of the other one.

In a separate interview, board member Gregg Stanford broke ranks with his chairman and chief executive officer. “You may have heard that the vote to pay the ransom was unanimous,” he said. “But it was a decision fiercely fought by a minority faction which I spearheaded. There is a crude but also accurate saying, ‘If you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas.' I firmly believe that if the ransom demand had been rejected out of hand, the kidnappers would have had a tough decision to make. If they harmed the children, they would
only add to their terrible culpability. The death sentence in Connecticut is still on the books. On the other hand, if they released Kathy and Kelly, even if they were eventually caught, they could expect leniency. At C.F.G.&Y., we made a decision that I believe was wrong in every aspect, morally and logically. Now, as a member of the board of directors, I want to assure anyone who might believe that our firm will ever deal with criminals again—listen very carefully:
It is not going to happen.”