Two Little Girls in Blue (6 page)

I
n the Park Avenue boardroom of C.F.G.&Y., Robinson Alan Geisler, the chairman and chief executive officer, waited impatiently while the out-of-town directors confirmed their presence at the meeting. His job already in jeopardy as a result of the fallout from the fine imposed by the SEC, Geisler knew that the position he was going to take in the agonizing Frawley situation might be a fatal mistake. Twenty years with the company but only eleven months in the top job, he knew he was still considered tainted by his close association with the former CEO.

The question was simple. If C.F.G.&Y. offered to pay the eight-million-dollar ransom, would the result be a superb public relations gesture, or would it be, as he knew some of the directors believed, an invitation for other kidnappers to have a field day?

Gregg Stanford, the chief financial officer, took the latter position. “It's a tragedy, but if we pay to get the Frawley kids back, what do we do when another employee's wife or child is taken? We're a global company, and a dozen of the places where we have offices are already potential hot spots for this kind of thing.”

Geisler knew that at least a third of the fifteen directors
shared that same viewpoint. On the other hand, he told himself, how would it look for a company that had just paid a five-hundred-million-dollar fine to refuse to pay a fraction of that amount to save the lives of two little girls? It was the question he planned to throw on the table. And if I'm wrong and we pay the money and next week another employee's child is kidnapped, I'll be the one who gets burned at the stake, he thought grimly.

At age fifty-six, Rob Geisler had finally achieved the job he wanted. A small, thin man, he had to overcome the inevitable prejudice the business world held for people of short stature. He had made it to the top because he was acknowledged to be a financial genius and had shown he knew how to consolidate and control power. But on the way up he had made countless enemies, and at least three of them were sitting at the table with him now.

The final off-site director reported in, and all eyes turned to Geisler. “We all know why we're here,” he said brusquely, “and I'm very much aware of the feeling some of you hold that we're caving in to kidnappers if we offer to pay the ransom that has been demanded.”

“That's
exactly
the way some of us feel, Rob,” Gregg Stanford said quietly. “This company has already had enough bad publicity. Cooperating with criminals shouldn't even be a consideration.”

Geisler looked disdainfully at his colleague, not bothering to hide his intense dislike for the man. In appearance, Stanford was the television version of a corporate executive. He was forty-six years old, six feet four
inches in height, uncommonly handsome with sun-streaked sandy hair, and had perfect teeth that gleamed in his ready smile. Stanford was always impeccably dressed, his manner unfailingly charming even when he was stabbing a friend in the back. He had married his way into the corporate world—his third and current wife was an heiress whose family owned 10 percent of the shares of the company.

Geisler knew that Stanford coveted his job, and that if he prevailed today in his “no ransom” position, Geisler would be the one the media would turn on when the company publicly declined to offer the bribe money.

He nodded to the secretary who was taking minutes of the meeting, and she got up and turned on the television. “I want all of you to watch this,” Geisler snapped. “Then put yourself in the position of the Frawleys.”

At his order, the media department had put together a videotape covering the sequence of events of the kidnapping: the exterior of the Frawley house, the desperate pleas of the parents on television, the call to Katie Couric, and the later call to CBS. The tape ended with a small voice saying, “We want to go home,” then the terrified crying of the twins followed by the ominous demands of the kidnappers.

“Most of you at this table are parents,” he said. “We can at least try to save those children. We may not succeed. We may recover the money, or we may not. But I don't see how any one of you could sit here and refuse to vote to pay the ransom.”

He watched as heads turned to get Gregg Stanford's reaction. “You lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas. I say we should never cooperate with criminals,” Stanford said, as he looked down at the conference table and twirled a pen in his hands.

Norman Bond was the next director to offer an opinion. “I was responsible for hiring Steve Frawley, and I made a very good choice. It isn't relevant to this discussion, but he's going to go places with us. I vote for offering to put up the ransom money, and I urge that it be a unanimous vote from this board. And I'd like to remind Gregg that years ago J. Paul Getty refused to pay ransom for one of his grandchildren, but changed his mind when his grandson's ear was sent to him in the mail. These children are in jeopardy, and the faster we move to save them, the better the chances that the kidnappers won't panic and harm them.”

This support came from an unexpected source. Geisler and Bond often went head to head at board meetings. Bond had hired Frawley when three others in the company had been panting for the job. For the right man, it was a shortcut to upper management. Geisler had cautioned Bond against going outside the company, but Bond had been adamant about wanting Frawley. “He's got an MBA and a law degree,” he had said. “He's smart and he's solid.”

Geisler had half-expected Bond, in his late forties, divorced with no children, to vote against paying the ransom, thinking that if he hadn't hired Frawley, the company wouldn't be in this position.

“Thank you, Norman,” he said. “And for anyone else who still wants to discuss the advisability of this company responding to the desperate need of one of its employees, I suggest we watch the tape one more time and then take a vote.”

At eight forty-five the vote was fourteen to one to pay the ransom. Geisler turned to Stanford. “I want a unanimous vote,” he said, his tone icy. “Then, as usual, you can feel free to have an anonymous source let the media know that you felt making the payment might jeopardize the children rather than save them. But as long as I sit in this chair and you don't, I want a unanimous vote.”

Gregg Stanford's smile was close to a sneer. He nodded. “The vote will be unanimous,” he said. “And tomorrow morning when you do a photo op for the media in front of that run-down dump that is the Frawley home, I'm sure whoever on the board is available will be in the picture with you.”

“Including you, of course?” Geisler asked sarcastically.

“Excluding me,”
Stanford said, standing. “I shall save my appearance before the media for another day.”

M
argaret managed to swallow a few bites of the roast chicken dinner that Rena Chapman, her next-door neighbor, had sent over. Then, while Steve waited with FBI Agent Carlson to learn the outcome of the C.F.G.&Y. board meeting, she slipped upstairs to the twins' bedroom.

It was the one room they had fully decorated before they moved in. Steve had painted the walls pale blue and tacked down a final-sale remnant of white carpet over the shabby floorboards. Then they had splurged on an antique white four-poster double bed and a matching dresser.

We knew it was silly to buy two single beds, Margaret thought as she sat on the slipper chair that had been in her own bedroom as a child. They would have ended up in the same bed anyhow, and it was one more way to save money.

The FBI agents had taken the sheets, blanket, quilt, and pillowcases to test for DNA evidence. They had dusted the furniture for fingerprints and taken the clothing the twins had worn after the party to be sniffed by the dogs that for the past three days had been led by Connecticut State Police handlers through the nearby
parks. Margaret knew what that kind of search meant: There was always the chance that whoever took the twins had killed them immediately and buried them nearby. But I don't believe that, she told herself.
They are not dead;
I would know it if they were dead.

On Saturday, after the forensic team was finished and she and Steve made their plea to the media, it had been an emotional outlet to come upstairs and clean their room and remake the bed with the other set of Cinderella sheets. They'll be tired and frightened when they come home, Margaret had reasoned. After they come back, I'll lie down with them until they're settled.

She shivered. I can't get warm, she thought, even with a sweater under a running suit, I still can't get warm. This is the way Anne Morrow Lindbergh must have felt when her baby was kidnapped. She wrote about it in a book that I read when I was in high school. It was called
Hour of Gold, Hour of Lead.

Lead. I am leaden. I want my babies back.

Margaret got up and walked across the room to the window seat. She bent down and picked up first one and then the other of the shabby teddy bears that were the twins' favorite stuffed animals, hugging them fiercely against her.

She looked out the window and was surprised to see that it was beginning to rain. It had been sunny all day—cold, but sunny. Kathy had been starting with a cold. Margaret could feel sobs beginning to choke her throat. She forced them back and tried to remind herself of what FBI Agent Carlson had told her.

There are FBI agents searching for the twins—dozens of them. Others are going through the files at the FBI headquarters at Quantico and investigating anyone who has any kind of record for extortion or child abuse. They are questioning sex offenders who live in this area.

Dear God, not that, she thought with a shudder. Don't let anyone molest them.

Captain Martinson is sending policemen to every house in town to ask if anyone saw anybody who might have seemed suspicious in any way. They've even talked to the Realtor who sold us the house to find out who else may have been looking at it and would be familiar with the layout. Captain Martinson and Agent Carlson both say there will be a break. Somebody must have seen something. They're putting the girls' pictures on flyers and sending them out all over the country. Their pictures are on the Internet. They're on the front page of newspapers.

Holding the teddy bears, Margaret walked over to the closet and opened it. She ran her hand over the velvet dresses the twins had worn on their birthday, then stared at them. The twins had been wearing their pajamas when they were kidnapped. Were they still wearing them?

The bedroom door opened. Margaret turned, looked at Steve's face, and knew from the vast relief she saw in his eyes that his company had volunteered to pay the ransom money. “They're making the announcement immediately,” he told her, the words tumbling
from his lips. “Then in the morning, the chairman and some of the directors will come here and go on camera with us. We'll ask for instructions on how to deliver the money, and we'll demand proof that the girls are still alive.”

He hesitated. “Margaret, the FBI wants both of us to take lie detector tests.”

A
t nine fifteen on Monday night, sitting in his apartment over a shabby hardware store near Main Street in Danbury, Lucas was watching television when a news bulletin interrupted the routine programming. C.F.G.&Y. had agreed to pay the ransom for the Frawley twins. An instant later his special cell phone rang. Lucas turned on the recording device he had purchased on his way home from the airport.

“It's beginning to happen,” the hoarse voice whispered.

Deep Throat, Lucas thought sarcastically. The police have sophisticated voice-imaging stuff. Just in case anything goes wrong, I do have something that will help to cut a deal with them. I deliver you.

“I was watching for the announcement,” he said.

“I called Harry an hour ago,” the Pied Piper told him. “I could hear one of the kids crying. Have you checked on them?”

“I saw them last night. I'd say they were okay.”

“Mona is taking good care of them? I don't want any slipups.”