Two Little Girls in Blue (42 page)

“She didn't do anything wrong,” Carlson said bluntly. “He's a bad apple, pure and simple.”

Then, with a final sip of coffee, he said, “If there's anything good that came out of all this, it's that we know that Norman Bond killed his ex-wife, Theresa. Her wedding ring given her by her second husband was on a chain around his neck. She was wearing it the night she disappeared. At least now her second husband can get on with his life. For seventeen years he's held on to the hope that she's still alive.”

Carlson could not stop glancing at the twins. “They're as alike as two peas in a pod,” he said.

“Aren't they?” Margaret said in agreement. “Just last week we took Kathy to the hairdresser and got rid of that terrible dye job and then I had them cut Kelly's hair so that now they both have the same pixie cut. It's sweet on them, isn't it?”

She sighed. “I get up at least three times a night and
check on them, just to be sure they're still here. We have a state-of-the-art alarm system, and at night it's set on ‘instant,' so if a door or window is opened, the noise it makes would wake up the dead. But even with that protection, I still can't bear to have them out of my sight.”

“That will ease,” Carlson assured her. “Maybe not for a while, but it will get better in time. How are the girls doing?”

“Kathy still has nightmares. In her sleep she says, ‘No more Mona. No more Mona.' Then, the other day when we were out shopping, she saw a thin woman with messy long brown hair who, I guess, reminded her of Angie. Kathy started shrieking and threw her arms around my legs. It just about broke my heart. But Dr. Sylvia has recommended a wonderful child psychiatrist, Dr. Judith Knowles. We'll be taking the twins to her every week. It will take time, but she assured us they'll be fine eventually.”

“Is Stanford going to plea bargain?” Steve asked.

“He hasn't got much to bargain with. He plotted the kidnapping because he was panicking. He was afraid his wife had found out about his philandering and was going to divorce him. If she had, he wouldn't have a penny. He was in on some of the company's financial problems last year and was still afraid of being caught. He had to have a backup fund, and, Steve, when he met you at the office and you were showing pictures of the twins, he hatched his scheme.

“Lucas Wohl and he had a strange relationship,” Carlson continued. “Lucas was his trusted driver when
he had his little affairs. Then one day during his second marriage, Stanford came home unexpectedly and found Lucas jimmying the safe in which his wife kept her jewels. He told him to go ahead with the robbery, but he had to cut him in on the proceeds. After that, he sometimes would tip Lucas off on houses to rob. Stanford always has lived on the edge. What I like about the way this played out is that he might have gotten away with all of it if he had trusted Lucas not to tell Clint who he was. He was high on our list of suspects and he'd been under surveillance, but we didn't really have anything on him. That's what's going to haunt Stanford for the rest of his life when he wakes up every morning in a prison cell.”

“What about Clint Downes?” Margaret asked. “Has he confessed?”

“He's a kidnapper and murderer. He's still trying to say Angie's death was an accident, but lots of luck with that one. The federal courts will deal with him. I'm sure he's had his last beer at the Danbury Pub. He'll never get out of prison again.”

The twins had finished the tea party and scampered into the dining room. A moment later, a smiling Kathy was on Margaret's lap and a giggling Kelly was being lifted up by Steve.

Walter Carlson felt a lump in his throat. If only it was always like this, he thought. If only we could bring all the kids home. If only we could rid the world of all the predators. But this time at least, we got a happy ending.

The twins were wearing blue-flowered pajamas. Two little girls in blue, he thought. Two little girls in blue . . .

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I HEARD THAT SONG BEFORE

MARY HIGGINS CLARK

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I Heard That Song Before. . . .

My father was the landscaper for the Carrington Estate. With fifty acres, it was one of the last remaining private properties of that size in Englewood, New Jersey, an upscale town three miles west of Manhattan via the George Washington Bridge.

One Saturday afternoon in August, twenty-two years ago, when I was six years old, my father decided that though it was his day off, he had to go there to check on the newly installed outside lighting. The Carringtons were having a formal dinner party that evening for two hundred people. Already in trouble with his employers because of his drinking problem, Daddy knew that if the lights placed throughout the formal gardens did not function properly, it might mean the end of his job.

Because we lived alone, he had no choice except to take me with him. He settled me on a bench in the garden nearest the terrace with strict instructions to stay right there until he came back. Then he added, “I may be a little while, so if you have to use the bathroom, go through the screen door around the corner. You'll see the staff powder room just inside it.”

That sort of permission was exactly what I needed. I
had heard my father describe the inside of the great stone mansion to my grandmother, and my imagination had gone wild visualizing it. It had been built in Wales in the seventeenth century and even had a hidden chapel where a priest could both live and celebrate Mass during the era of Oliver Cromwell's bloody attempt to erase all traces of Catholicism from Great Britain. In 1848, the first Peter Carrington had the mansion taken down and rebuilt stone by stone in Englewood.

I knew from my father's description that the chapel had a heavy wooden door and was located at the very end of the second floor.

I had to see it.

I waited five minutes after he disappeared into the gardens and then raced through the door he had pointed out. The back staircase was to my immediate right, and I made my silent way upstairs. If I did encounter anyone, I planned to say that I was looking for a bathroom, which I persuaded myself was partially true.

On the second floor, with rising anxiety I tiptoed down one carpeted hallway after another as I encountered a maze of unexpected turns. But then I saw it: the heavy wooden door my father had described, so out of place in the rest of the thoroughly modernized house.

Emboldened by my luck in having encountered no one in my adventure, I ran the last few steps and rushed to open the door. It squeaked as I tugged at it,
but it opened just enough for me to squeeze through.

Being in the chapel was like going back in time. It was much smaller than I'd expected. I had pictured it as similar to the Lady Chapel in St. Patrick's Cathedral, where my grandmother always stopped to light a candle for my mother, on the rare occasions when we shopped in New York. She never failed to tell me how beautiful my mother had looked the day she and my father were married there.

The walls and floor of this chapel were built of stone, and the air I was breathing felt damp and cold.

A nicked and peeling statue of the Virgin Mary was the room's only religious artifact, and a battery-lit votive candle in front of it provided the only shadowy lighting. Two rows of wooden pews faced the small wooden table that must have served as an altar.

As I was taking it all in, I heard the door begin to squeak and I knew someone was pushing it open. I did the only thing I could do—I ran between the pews and dropped to the ground, then, ostrichlike, buried my face in my hands.

From the voices I could tell that a man and a woman had entered the chapel. Their whispers, harsh and angry, echoed against the stone. They were arguing about money, a subject I knew well. My grandmother was always sniping at my father, telling him that if he kept up the drinking, there wouldn't be a roof over his head or mine.

The woman was demanding money, and the man was saying that he had given her enough. Then she said,
“This will be the last time, I swear,” and he said, “I heard that song before.”

I know my memory of that moment is solid. From the time I could understand that, unlike my friends in kindergarten, I did not have a mother, I had begged my grandmother to tell me about her, every single thing she could remember.

Among the memories my grandmother shared was one of my mother starring in the high school play and singing a solo. The last line was “I heard that song before.” There was a moment of silence when those last notes faded away. “Oh, Kathryn, she sang it so beautifully. She had a lovely voice. Everyone clapped so long and shouted,
‘Encore, encore.'
She had to sing it again.” Then my grandmother would hum it for me.

Following the man's remark, I could not hear the rest of what was said except for her whispered, “Don't forget,” as she left the chapel. The man had stayed; I could hear his agitated breathing. Then, very softly, he began to whistle the tune of the song my mother sang in the school play. Looking back, I think he may have been trying to calm himself. After a few bars he broke off and left the chapel.

I waited for what seemed forever, then I left too. I hurried down the stairs and back outside, and, of course, never told my father that I'd been in the house or what I had heard in the chapel. But the memory never faded.

Who those people were, I don't know. Now that it is important to find out, the only thing I can learn for certain
from all the accounts of that evening is that there were a number of overnight guests staying in the mansion and that there were five in household help there as well as the local caterer with his crew. But that knowledge may not be enough to save my husband's life, if indeed it deserves to be saved.

Twenty-two Years Later

I grew up in the shadow of the Lindbergh baby kidnapping.

By that I mean I was born and raised in Englewood, New Jersey. In 1932, the grandson of Englewood's most prominent citizen, Ambassador Dwight Morrow, was kidnapped. Furthermore, the baby's father happened to be the most famous man in the world, Col. Charles Lindbergh, who had flown solo across the Atlantic Ocean in his single-engine plane, the
Spirit of St. Louis.

My grandmother, who was eight years old at that time, remembers the blazing headlines, the crowds of reporters who congregated outside Next Day Hill, the Morrow estate, the arrest and trial of Bruno Hauptmann.

Time passed, memories faded. Today Englewood's most prominent residence is the Carrington mansion, the stone castlelike structure that I had stolen into as a child.

All these thoughts went through my mind as, for the second time in my life, I went inside the gates of the Carrington estate. Twenty-two years, I thought, remembering the inquisitive six-year-old I had been. Maybe it
was the memory of my father being dismissed by the Carringtons only a few weeks later that made me feel suddenly self-conscious and awkward. The bright October morning had evolved into a windy, damp afternoon, and I wished that I had worn a heavier jacket. The one I had chosen now seemed much too light, both in color and fabric.

Instinctively I parked my second-hand car to the side of the imposing driveway, not wanting it to be the object of anyone's scrutiny. One hundred and eight thousand miles on the odometer takes a lot of starch out of a car, even one recently washed and mercifully free of dents.

I had twisted my hair into a bun, but the wind tore at it as I walked up the steps and rang the bell. A man who looked to be in his mid-forties, with a receding hairline and narrow, unsmiling lips, opened the door. He was dressed in a dark suit, and I wasn't sure whether he was a butler or a secretary, but before I could speak, without introducing himself, he said that Mr. Carrington was expecting me and that I should come in.

The wide reception area was illuminated by light filtered through leaded stained-glass windows. The statue of a knight in armor stood next to a medieval tapestry depicting a battle scene. I longed to examine the tapestry, but instead I dutifully followed my escort down a corridor to the library.

“Miss Lansing is here, Peter,” he said. “I'll be in the office.” By that remark I guessed he was an assistant.

When I was little I used to draw pictures of the kind of home I'd love to live in. One of my favorite rooms to
imagine was the one in which I would read away my afternoons. In that room there was always a fireplace and bookshelves. One version included a comfortable couch, and I'd draw myself curled up in the corner, a book in my hand. Please don't think I'm any kind of artist because I'm not. I drew stick figures, and the bookshelves were uneven, the carpet a splotched multicolored copy of one I'd seen in the window of an antique rug store. I could not put the exact image in my mind on paper, but I knew what I wanted. I wanted the kind of room I was standing in now.

Peter Carrington was seated in a wide leather chair, his feet on a hassock. The lamp on the table beside him not only illuminated the book he was reading but spotlighted his profile.

He was wearing reading glasses, which sat on the bridge of his nose and slipped off when he looked up. Retrieving them, he laid them on the table, removed his feet from the hassock and stood.

I had caught occasional glimpses of him in town and seen his picture in the papers, so I had an impression of him, but being in the same room with him was different. There was a quiet authority about Peter Carrington that he retained even as he smiled and extended his hand.

“You write a persuasive letter, Kathryn Lansing.”

“Thank you for letting me stop in, Mr. Carrington.”

His handshake was firm. I knew he was studying me just as I was studying him. He was taller than I had realized, with the narrow body of a runner. His eyes were
more gray than blue. His thin, even-featured face was framed by dark brown hair that was a shade long but which suited him well. He was wearing a dark brown cardigan with a rust thread running through the weave. If I had been asked to guess his job from his appearance alone, I would have said college professor.