Two Little Girls in Blue (21 page)

The lines on Frawley's craggy face deepened. “I certainly did
not
contact Franklin Bailey.” He turned to his wife. “Grace, you didn't call him, did you?”

“But I did,” Grace Frawley said firmly. “They gave his number on the television, and I called to thank him for helping Steve and Margaret. When he didn't answer, and the machine came on, I didn't leave a message.” She looked at Agent Smith, anger replacing the suffering in her eyes. “Mr. Smith, I know that you and your agency are trying to bring to justice whoever kidnapped my granddaughters and caused Kathy's death, but listen to me and listen carefully. I don't care whether or not Richie showed up for work at Newark Airport. I think that you are insinuating there is something going on between him and Franklin Bailey, and that it may have to do with the kidnapping of our grandchildren. That is absolutely ridiculous, so don't waste
your
time or
our
time pursuing that line of investigation.”

She pushed the ottoman back and stood up, grasping the arms of the chair for support. “My granddaughter is dead. I am in so much pain I almost can't bear it. My one son and my daughter-in-law are heartbroken. My other son is weak and foolish and even a thief, but he is not capable of anything so despicable as kidnapping his own nieces. Stop it, Mr. Smith. Tell your agency to stop it. Haven't I had enough? Haven't I had enough?”

In a gesture of utter despair, she threw up her hands, sank back into the chair, then leaned forward until her face touched her knees.

“Get out!” Tom Frawley pointed to the door, spitting out the words. “You couldn't save my granddaughter.
Now at least go out and find her kidnapper. You're barking up the wrong tree if you're trying to tie Richie to this crime, so don't waste your time even thinking that he's involved.”

Smith listened, his face impassive. “Mr. Frawley, if you hear from Richie, will you please tell him that we need to be in touch with him? I'll give you my card.” With a nod to Grace Frawley, he turned and, followed by Agent Rogers, left the condo.

In the car, he put the key in the ignition before he asked, “What do you think of all that?”

Carla knew what he meant. “The phone call to Franklin Bailey—I think the mother may have been trying to cover for him.”

“So do I. Richie didn't get here until early Saturday morning, which meant he could have had time to take part in the kidnapping. He was in the Ridgefield house a couple of months ago, so he knew the layout. He may have been setting up an alibi for himself by visiting his mother. He could have been one of the two men who picked up the ransom money.”

“If he was one of the kidnappers, he would have to have been wearing a mask. Without one, even if the twins barely knew him, they still might have been able to identify him.”

“Suppose one of them did? And suppose for that reason she couldn't be allowed to go home? And suppose Lucas Wohl's death wasn't a suicide?”

Rogers stared at her superior officer. “I didn't know the guys in New York and Connecticut were thinking
that way.”

“The guys in New York and Connecticut are thinking every way they can and following every single angle. They have the case, and a three-year-old child died on their watch. Somebody who calls himself the Pied Piper is still out there, and the blood of that child is on his hands and on the hands of anyone else who had a part in that kidnapping. As the Frawleys just told us, Richie Mason may be nothing more than a con artist, but I just can't help thinking that his mother is covering for him right now.”

A
fter her outburst in church, Kelly lapsed into silence. When they arrived back home, she went upstairs to her bedroom and brought down the two teddy bears clasped in her arms.

Rena Chapman, the kindly neighbor who had cooked dinner for them several times, and who had received one of the calls from the Pied Piper, was waiting for them to get home. “You have simply
got
to eat,” she told them. She had set the round table in the breakfast alcove of the kitchen, and it was there that they settled, Margaret holding Kelly on her lap, Steve and Dr. Harris across from them. Rena placed the platters on the table and refused to stay. “You don't need me around now,” she told them firmly.

Piping-hot scrambled eggs, thin sliced ham on toast points, and strong, hot coffee warmed all of them. While they were having their second cup, Kelly slid off Margaret's lap. “Will you read me my book, Mommy?” she asked.

“I will, sweetheart,” Steve said. “You bring it down to me.”

Margaret waited until Kelly was out of the kitchen before speaking. She knew the reaction she would receive,
but she had to tell them what she felt. “Kathy is alive. She and Kelly are in touch with each other.”

“Margaret, Kelly is still trying to communicate with Kathy, and she's also beginning to tell you about her own experience. She was afraid of that woman, whoever it was who was minding them. She wanted to come home,” Dr. Harris said gently.

“She was talking to Kathy,” Margaret said firmly. “I know she was.”

“Oh, honey,” Steve protested. “Don't break your heart by even holding to a whisper of hope that Kathy is alive.”

Margaret wrapped her fingers around the coffee cup, remembering how she had done exactly the same thing the night the twins had disappeared, trying to warm her hands with it. She realized that now the despair of the last twenty-four hours had been replaced by the desperate need to find Kathy—to find her before it was too late.

Be careful, she told herself. No one's going to believe me. If they think I'm going crazy with grief, they might want to sedate me. That sleeping pill last night knocked me out for hours. I can't let that happen again.
I've got to find her.

Kelly came back with the Dr. Seuss book they had been reading to her before the kidnapping. Steve pushed back his chair and picked her up. “We'll go inside to my big chair in the study, okay?”

“Kathy likes this book, too,” Kelly said.

“Well, we'll pretend that I'm reading to both of you.”
Steve managed to get the words out in a steady voice even as his eyes filled with tears.

“Oh, Daddy, that's silly. Kathy can't hear. She's asleep now, and she's all by herself, and that lady tied her to the bed.”

“You mean the lady tied
you
to the bed, don't you, Kelly?” Steve asked quickly.

“No. Mona made us stay in the big crib, and we couldn't climb out of it. Kathy's in the bed now,” Kelly insisted, then patted Steve's cheek. “Daddy, why are you crying?”

*   *   *

“Margaret, the sooner Kelly gets back to a normal routine, the easier it will be for her to become used to not being with Kathy,” Dr. Harris said later, as she prepared to leave. “I think Steve is right. Taking her to nursery school was the best thing for her.”

“As long as Steve doesn't let her out of his sight,” Margaret said fearfully.

“Absolutely.” Sylvia Harris put her arms around Margaret and gave her a brief hug. “I have to run down to the hospital to check on some of my patients, but I'll be back tonight, that is if you still feel I'm any help to you.”

“Remember when Kathy had pneumonia, and that young nurse was about to give her penicillin. If you hadn't been there, God knows what might have happened,” Margaret said. “You go down and check on your sick kids, and then come back. We need you.”

“We certainly found out the first time Kathy had penicillin that she must never have it again,” Dr. Harris said in agreement. She then added, “Margaret, grieve for her, but don't read hope into what Kelly may continue to say. Believe me, she is reliving her own experience.”

Don't try to convince her! Margaret warned herself. She doesn't believe you. Steve doesn't believe you. I've got to talk to Agent Carlson, she decided. I've got to talk to him right away.

With a final squeeze of Margaret's hand, Sylvia Harris left. Alone in the house for the first time in a week, Margaret closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath, then hurried to the phone and dialed Walter Carlson's number.

He answered on the first ring. “Margaret, what can I do?”

“Kathy is alive,” she told him, then before he could speak, she rushed on, “I know you won't believe me, but she is alive. Kelly is communicating with her. An hour ago, Kathy was asleep and tied to a bed. Kelly told me that.”

“Margaret . . .”

“Don't try to placate me.
Trust
me. You have only the word of a dead man that Kathy is gone. You don't have her body. You know that Lucas got into his plane carrying a big box, and you're assuming that Kathy's body was in it. Stop assuming that and find her. Do you hear me?
Find her!
”

Before he could respond, Margaret slammed
down the phone, then collapsed into a chair and held her head in both hands. There's something I have to remember. I know it has to do with the dresses I bought the twins for their birthday, she thought. I'll go up to their closet and hold the dresses and try to remember.

E
arly Friday afternoon, FBI Agents Angus Sommers and Ruthanne Scaturro rang the bell of 415 Walnut Street in Bronxville, New York, where Amy Lindcroft, Gregg Stanford's first wife, resided. In contrast to the large and elegant homes around her, she lived in a modest, white, Cape Cod house, with dark green shutters that glistened in the sunlight of the suddenly bright afternoon.

The house reminded Angus Sommers of the one in which he had grown up, on the other side of the Hudson River in Closter, New Jersey. A familiar regret passed through his mind: I should have bought the house when Mom and Dad moved to Florida; it's doubled in value over the past ten years.

This property is worth more than the house, was his next thought, as he heard the sound of footsteps approaching on the other side of the door.

It was Sommers's experience that even people with an untroubled conscience can experience a nervous reaction at a visit from the FBI. In this case, however, Amy Lindcroft had phoned and asked to see them, saying she wanted to discuss her former husband. She greeted them with a brief smile as she glanced at their credentials
and then invited them in. A slightly plump woman in her mid-forties, with flashing brown eyes and salt-and-pepper hair that curled around her face, she was wearing a painter's smock over jeans.

The agents followed her into a living room tastefully furnished in Early American décor and dominated by an excellent watercolor painting of the Hudson River Palisades. Sommers walked over to study it. The signature in the corner was Amy Lindcroft.

“This is beautiful,” he said sincerely.

“I make my living as a painter. I'd better be pretty good,” Lindcroft said matter-of-factly. “Now, sit down, please. I won't keep you long, but what I say may be worth hearing.”

In the car, Sommers had told Agent Scaturro to take the lead in the interview. Now she said, “Ms. Lindcroft, am I correct that you have something to tell us that you feel is relevant to the Frawley kidnapping?”

“May
be relevant,” Lindcroft emphasized. “I know this is going to sound like the woman scorned, and maybe it is, but Gregg has hurt so many people, and if what I'm going to tell you hurts him, so be it. I was the college roommate of Tina Olsen, the pharmaceutical heiress, and was always invited to visit the family's various homes. Looking back, I realize that Gregg married me so he could worm his way into Tina's world. He succeeded admirably. Gregg is smart, and he knows how to sell himself. When we were first married, he was working for a small investment firm. He kept ingratiating himself with Mr. Olsen, who finally asked him to join
his staff. He managed to work his way up to becoming Olsen's right-hand man. The next thing I knew, he and Tina announced that they were in love. After ten years of marriage, I finally had become pregnant. The shock of my husband and my best friend cheating on me caused a miscarriage. To stop the hemorrhaging, I had to have a hysterectomy.”