Two Little Girls in Blue (29 page)

She glanced back at Kathy. The girl's eyes were closed, and her head was on her chest, but Angie could see that she was breathing in gasps through her mouth, and that her cheeks were flushed. I've got to find another motel and check in, she thought. Then I'll call Clint and tell him to get up here. Since I left that stuff in the Soundview, that nosey manager will probably think we're coming back. At least he'll think that until we don't show up by late tonight.

Forty minutes later, shortly after she passed the sign for Chatham, she spotted the kind of motel she was looking for. It had a flashing
VACANCY
sign and was next to a diner. “The Shell and Dune,” she said, reading the name aloud. “It'll do.” She turned the van off the road and pulled into a parking spot near the office door, but not where Kathy could be seen from inside the office.

The sallow-faced clerk at the desk was on the phone with his girlfriend and barely glanced up as he handed her a registration form. Again, on the chance that the Hyannis cop might send out an all-points bulletin, she decided not to use Linda Hagen's name. But if he asks for an ID, I have to show him something, she thought, reluctantly pulling out her own driver's license. She made up a license plate number and scrawled it on the slip. She was sure the clerk, deep in his conversation, wouldn't bother to check it. He took the cash for an overnight stay and tossed her a key. Feeling somewhat more secure now, Angie got back in the van, drove
around to the back of the motel, and went into the room.

“Better than the last place,” she said aloud as she hid the suitcase under the bed. She went back outside for Kathy, who did not wake up as she was taken from the car seat. Boy, that fever is getting worse, Angie thought. At least she doesn't fight the baby aspirin. She probably thinks it's candy. I'll wake her up and make her take some now.

But first I'd better call Clint.

He answered on the first ring. “Where the hell are you?” he barked. “Why didn't you call back sooner? I've been sweating here, wondering if you were in jail.”

“The manager of the motel I was in was too nosy. I got out of there fast.”

“Where are you?”

“I'm on Cape Cod.”

“What?”

“It seemed like a good place to hide. And I know my way around here.

“Clint, the kid is really sick, and that cop I was telling you about, the one who made me buy the car seat, has the license number of the van. He smells something fishy. I know he does. I was afraid I'd be stopped at the bridge if I tried to leave the Cape. I'm in a different motel. It's on Route 28, in a town called Chatham. You told me you came up here when you were a kid. You probably know where it is.”

“I know where it is. Look, you stay there. I'll fly up to Boston and rent a car. It's three thirty now. I should make it there by nine or nine thirty.”

“Did you get rid of the crib?”

“I took it apart and put it in the garage. I don't have the van to move it, remember? I'm not worried about the crib now. You know what you've pulled on me, don't you? I couldn't leave because this is the only phone where you could reach me. I don't have more than eighty bucks and my credit card. Now you've attracted the cops up there, and that sales clerk where you bought the kids clothes—and used my credit card—smelled a rat and was nosing around here.”

“Why would she come to the house?” Angie's voice was loud and fearful.

“She claimed she wanted to replace two of the shirts, but as far as I'm concerned, she came here to snoop around. That's why I've got to get out of here. And why you have to stay put until I get up there. Got it?”

I'm sitting here packed, waiting all this time, scared I'm gonna find out some cop has grabbed you and the kid, not to mention the suitcase full of money, Clint thought. She screwed this up good. I can't
wait
to get my hands on her.

“Yeah. Clint, I'm sorry I shot Lucas. I mean I just thought it would be nice to have a kid and the whole million to ourselves. I know he was your friend.”

Clint did not tell her that he was afraid the FBI would start looking for him once they learned that years ago he and Lucas had shared a cell in Attica. As Clint Downes, he was safe. But if they ever checked his fingerprints, they would learn right away that Clint Downes didn't exist.

“Forget about Lucas. What's the name of the motel?”

“The Shell and Dune. Isn't that corny? I love you, Clint-man.”

“Okay, okay. How's the kid?”

“She's really,
really
sick. She's got a big fever.”

“Give her some aspirin.”

“Clint, I don't want to be stuck with her anymore. I can't stand her.”

“You've got your answer. We'll leave her in the van when we sink it somewhere. In case you haven't noticed, there's a lot of water around there.”

“Okay. Okay. Clint, I don't know what I'd do without you. Honest to God. You're smart, Clint. Lucas thought he was smarter than you, but he wasn't. I can't wait for you to get here.”

“I know. You and me. The two of us. That's the way it's gotta be.” Clint hung up the phone. “And if you believe that, you're even dumber than I thought,” he said aloud.

“I
still don't believe that Kelly is actually in touch with her sister,” Tony Realto had said bluntly before he and Captain Gunther left the family home at three o'clock. “But I do believe that she may be able to tell us something about the people she was with or where she was kept, something that will help us. That is why, awake or asleep, someone should be catching every word she says and should follow up with questions if she comes out with anything that may relate to the kidnapping.”

“Do you at least accept that Kathy may be alive?” Margaret had pressed.

“Mrs. Frawley, from this point in the investigation we are going to proceed, not on the
likelihood,
but on the
premise
that Kathy is alive. However, I don't want this to be known. Our one advantage is that whoever has her believes that we think she is dead.”

After they were gone, Kelly began to fall asleep in the living room next to the dolls. Steve slipped a pillow under her head and covered her, then he and Margaret sat cross-legged beside her.

“Sometimes she and Kathy talk in their sleep,” Dr. Harris explained to Walter Carlson.

Harris and Carlson were still at the table in the dining room. “Dr. Harris,” Carlson said slowly, “I am a skeptic, but that doesn't mean that Kelly's behavior hasn't shaken all of us. I asked you this before, but now I'm asking it in a different way. I know you have begun to believe that the twins are in contact with each other, but isn't it possible that everything Kelly has been saying and acting out is simply her own recollection of what happened to them during the days she was away?”

“Kelly had a bruise on her arm when she was taken to the hospital after she was found,” Sylvia Harris said flatly. “When I saw it, I said that it was the result of a vicious pinch and that from my experience that sort of punishment is inflicted by a woman. Yesterday afternoon, Kelly began to scream. Steve thought she had hit her arm against the table in the hall. Margaret recognized that she was reacting to Kathy's pain. That was when Margaret rushed to see the sales clerk. Mr. Carlson, Kelly has another nasty bruise, a new one that I would swear is the result of a pinch Kathy received yesterday. Take it or leave it.”

Through his Swedish ancestors and his FBI training, Walter Carlson had learned to keep his emotions from showing. “If you are right . . .” he began, speaking slowly.

“I
am
right, Mr. Carlson.”

“. . . then Kathy may be with an abusive woman.”

“I'm glad you recognize that. But equally serious, she is
very
ill. Think of what Kelly was doing with
Kathy's doll. She is treating the doll as if she has a fever. That's why Kelly was putting a wet cloth on her forehead. Margaret does that sometimes if one of the twins is running a temperature.”

“One of the twins? You mean they don't both get sick at the same time?”

“They are two individual human beings. Having said that, I must tell you that Kelly coughed frequently last night, but she absolutely does not have a cold. There was no need whatsoever for her to cough, unless she was identifying with Kathy. I am desperately afraid that Kathy is seriously ill.”

“Dr. Sylvia . . .”

They looked up as Margaret came back into the dining room.

“Did Kelly say anything?” Sylvia Harris asked anxiously.

“No, but I want you to sit next to her with Steve. Agent Carlson—I mean, Walter—will you drive me back to the shop where I bought the girls' birthday dresses? I've been thinking and thinking. I was half-crazy when I went over there yesterday because I knew someone had hurt Kathy, but I
have
to talk to that clerk who waited on me. I still think she felt something was wrong about the woman who bought clothes for twins almost at the same time I was there. That clerk was off yesterday, but today, if she's not there and you're with me, I know they can't refuse to give us her phone number and address.”

Carlson stood up. He recognized the expression on Margaret Frawley's face. It was that of a zealot, convinced of her mission.

“Let's go,” he said. “I don't care where that clerk is. We'll find her and talk to her face-to-face.”

T
he Pied Piper had been calling Clint every half hour. Fifteen minutes after Angie phoned, he tried him again. “Have you heard from her again?” he asked.

“She's on Cape Cod,” Clint said. “I'm going to fly up to Boston and rent a car to drive there.”

“Where is she?”

“Hiding in a motel in Chatham. She already had a run-in with a cop.”

“What motel?”

“It's called the Shell and Dune.”

“What are you going to do when you get there?”

“Just what you think. Listen, the cab driver is blowing the horn. He can't get past the gate.”

“Then this is it for us. Good luck, Clint.” The Pied Piper broke the connection, waited, then dialed the number of a private plane service. “I need a plane to leave in one hour from Teterboro, to land at the airport nearest to Chatham on Cape Cod,” he ordered.

S
ixty-four-year-old Elsie Stone didn't get a chance to look at a newspaper all day. Her job at McDonald's, near the Cape Cod Mall, didn't allow for leisure reading, and this Saturday she had rushed to her daughter's house in Yarmouth to pick up her six-year-old granddaughter. As Elsie liked to put it, she and Debby were “thicker than thieves,” and she willingly babysat at any time.

Elsie had followed the Frawley kidnapping with rapt attention. The thought of someone kidnapping Debby, then killing her, was just too horrible for her to allow to cross her mind. At least the Frawleys got
one
back, she thought, but oh, dear God, how awful for them.