Two Little Girls in Blue (22 page)

She's much more than a woman scorned, Angus Sommers thought as he observed the look of sadness that rushed into Amy Lindcroft's eyes.

“Then he married Tina Olsen,” Scaturro prompted sympathetically.

“Yes. It lasted six years, until Tina found he was cheating with someone else and got rid of him. Needless to say, her father fired him as well. You must understand—Gregg is simply incapable of being faithful to any woman.”

“What are you telling us, Ms. Lindcroft?” Angus Sommers asked.

“About six and a half years ago, after Gregg remarried, Tina phoned and apologized to me. She said she didn't expect me to accept the apology, but she had to extend it anyway. She said it wasn't only his womanizing that got to her; her father had learned that he'd been milking the company with phony expenses. Mr. Olsen covered the expenses himself to avoid a scandal. Tina said if it was any satisfaction to either one of us, Gregg may have bitten off more than he could chew with his new bride, Millicent Alwin Parker Huff. She's one tough lady, and Tina heard that she made him sign a
prenup that says if the marriage doesn't last seven years, he gets zip, nothing, not a dollar.”

Amy Lindcroft's smile had no mirth in it. “Tina called again yesterday, after she saw Gregg's interview with the press. She said he's trying desperately to impress Millicent. The prenup expires in a few weeks, and Millicent has been spending a lot of time in Europe, away from him. The last husband she booted out didn't know what was coming until he tried to get into their Fifth Avenue apartment and the doorman told him he wasn't allowed in the building.”

“You're telling us that if Gregg is afraid that may happen to him, he might be behind the kidnapping because he'll need money? Isn't that a stretch, Ms. Lindcroft?”

“It might be if it weren't for one more fact.”

Trained as he was to be impassive, the one more fact that Amy Lindcroft passed on with a certain amount of gleeful malice nonetheless elicited a startled expression from both FBI agents.

M
argaret sat on the edge of the bed in the twins' bedroom, the blue velvet dresses she had bought for their birthday draped across her lap. She tried to push aside the memory of a week ago, when she'd dressed the twins for their party. Steve had come home from work early, because after the party they were going to the company dinner. The twins had been so excited that Steve finally had to hold Kelly on his lap while Margaret fastened the buttons on Kathy's dress.

They were giggling and talking twin talk, she remembered, and she was convinced they could read each other's minds.
That's
why I know that Kathy really is alive: She has told Kelly that she wants to come home.

The image of Kathy being scared and tied to a bed made Margaret want to scream with rage and fear. Where can I look for her? she anguished. Where can I begin? What is it about the dresses? There's something about the dresses I need to remember. What is it? She ran her hands over the soft velvet fabric, remembering how, even though the price had been reduced, they still cost more than she wanted to pay. I kept looking through the racks, she thought, and I kept coming back to them. The salesgirl told me how much they'd cost at
Bergdorf's. Then she said that it was funny I was there because she'd just finished waiting on another woman shopping for twins.

Margaret gasped.
That's
what I've been trying to remember! It's where I bought them. It's the clerk. She told me that she'd just sold clothes for three-year-old twins to a woman who didn't seem to know anything about what size to buy for them.

Margaret stood up and let the dresses slide to the floor. I'll know the clerk when I see her, she thought. It's probably just a crazy coincidence that someone else was buying clothes for three-year-old twins in that same store a few nights before the girls were kidnapped, but, on the other hand, if the kidnapping was being planned, it would be obvious that the twins would be in pajamas when they took them, and that they would need a change of clothes. I have to talk to that clerk.

When Margaret went downstairs, Steve was just returning with Kelly from the nursery school. “All her friends were so happy to see our little girl,” he said, his voice heavy with false cheer. “Isn't that right, sweetheart?”

Without answering, Kelly dropped his hand and began to take off her jacket. Then she started to whisper under her breath.

Margaret looked at Steve. “She's talking to Kathy.”

“She's
trying
to talk to Kathy,” he corrected.

Margaret reached out her hand. “Steve, give me the keys to the car.”

“Margaret . . . ”

“Steve, I know what I'm doing. You stay with Kelly. Don't leave her for a minute. And make note of whatever she may be saying,
please.”

“Where are you going?”

“Not far. Just to the store on Route 7 where I bought their party dresses. I have to talk to the clerk who waited on me.”

“Why don't you call her?”

Margaret forced herself to draw a long, quiet breath. “Steve, just give me the keys. I'm all right. I won't be long.”

“There's still a media van at the end of the street. They'll follow you.”

“They won't get a chance. I'll be gone before they realize it's me. Steve, give me the keys.”

In a sudden gesture, Kelly spun around and threw her arms around Steve's leg. “I'm sorry!” she wailed. “I'm sorry!” Steve grabbed her up and rocked her in his arms.

“Kelly, it's okay. It's okay.”

She was clutching her arm. Margaret pushed up the sleeve of the polo shirt and watched as the arm began to turn red in the same spot over the faint black and blue mark they had noticed when she returned home.

Margaret felt her mouth go dry. “That woman just pinched Kathy,” she whispered. “I know she did. Oh, God, Steve, don't you get it? Give me the keys!”

He reluctantly pulled the car keys from his pocket, and she yanked them out of his hand and ran for the
door. Fifteen minutes later, she was entering Abby's Discount on Route 7.

There were about a dozen people in the store, all of them women. Margaret walked up and down the aisles, looking for the clerk who had waited on her, but she did not see her anywhere. Finally, desperate for answers, she approached the cashier, who directed her to the manager.

“Oh, you mean Lila Jackson,” the manager said when Margaret described the sales clerk. “It's her day off, and I know she took her mother into New York for dinner and a show. Any one of our other clerks will be happy to help you in any of . . . ”

“Does Lila have a cell phone?” Margaret interrupted.

“Yes, but I really can't give that to you.” The manager, a woman of about sixty, with frosted blond hair, suddenly became more formal and less cordial. “If you have a complaint, you can speak directly to me. I'm Joan Howell, and I'm in charge here.”

“It's not a complaint. It's just that Lila Jackson was also waiting on another woman who bought outfits for twins and didn't know their size when I was here last week. I want to ask her about that woman.”

Howell shook her head. “I can't give you Lila's cell phone,” she said positively. “She'll be in at ten o'clock tomorrow morning. You can come back then.” With a dismissive smile, she turned her back on Margaret.

Margaret caught Howell by the arm as she tried to walk away. “You don't understand,” she pleaded, her
voice rising. “My little girl is missing. She's alive. I've got to find her. I've got to get to her before it's too late.”

She had drawn the attention of the other shoppers in the area. Don't make a scene, she warned herself. They'll think you're crazy. “I'm sorry,” she stammered as she released Howell's sleeve. “What time is Lila coming in tomorrow?”

“Ten o'clock.” Joan Howell's expression was sympathetic. “You're Mrs. Frawley, aren't you? Lila told me that you bought the birthday dresses for your twins here. I'm so sorry about Kathy. And I'm sorry I didn't recognize you. I'll give you Lila's cell phone number, but the odds are that she won't have taken it with her to the theatre, or at least she'll have turned it off. Please, come into the office.”

Margaret could hear the whisperings of the shoppers who had heard her outburst. “That's Margaret Frawley. She's the one whose twins . . . ”

In a rush of grief that staggered her with its violence, Margaret turned and rushed outside. In the car, she turned on the ignition key and floored the gas pedal. Not knowing where she was going, she began to drive. Later, she remembered being on I-95 North and going as far as Providence, Rhode Island. There, at the first sign for Cape Cod, she stopped for gas, and only then realized how far she had gone. She turned onto I-95 South, and drove until she saw the sign for Route 7, then followed it, sensing that she needed to find Danbury Airport. Reaching it finally, she parked near the entrance.

He carried her body in a box, she thought. That was her casket. He took her on the plane and flew over the ocean, then he opened the door or the window and dropped the body of my beautiful little girl into the ocean. It would have been a long fall. Did the box break? Did Kathy tumble out of it into the water? The water is so cold now.

Don't think about that, she admonished herself. Think about how much she loved diving into the waves.

I have to get Steve to rent a boat. If we go out on the ocean, and I drop some flowers, maybe then it will feel as though I can really say goodbye to her. Maybe . . . ”

A light suddenly shone in the driver's window, and Margaret looked up.

“Mrs. Frawley.” The state trooper's voice was gentle.

“Yes.”

“We'd like to help you get home, ma'am. Your husband is terribly worried about you.”

“I just ran an errand.”

“Ma'am, it's eleven o'clock at night. You left the store at four o'clock.”

“Did I? I guess that's because I stopped hoping.”

“Yes, ma'am. Now let me drive you home.”

L
ate Friday afternoon, Agents Angus Sommers and Ruthanne Scaturro went directly from Amy Lindcroft's home to the Park Avenue office of C.F.G.&Y. and requested an immediate meeting with Gregg Stanford. After a full half-hour wait, they were finally admitted to his office, which obviously had been furnished to reflect his own rather grand taste.

Instead of a typical desk, he had an antique writing table. Sommers, something of a furniture buff himself, recognized it as being early eighteenth century and probably worth a small fortune. Instead of book shelves, an eighteenth-century
bureau-cabinet
on the left wall reflected the late-afternoon sunlight that was filtering through a window that overlooked Park Avenue. In lieu of the usual executive desk chair, Sommers had opted for a richly upholstered antique armchair. In contrast, the seats in front of his desk were side chairs upholstered in a rather plain fabric, a clear indication to Sommers that visitors were not considered to be on the same social level as Gregg Stanford himself. A portrait of a beautiful woman in an evening gown dominated the wall to the right of the desk. Sommers was sure that the haughty, unsmiling
subject of the portrait had to be Stanford's current wife, Millicent.

I wonder if he's gotten to the point where he orders his staff not to look him directly in the eye, Sommers thought. What a phony. And this office—did he rig it up like this on his own, or was the wife in on it? She's on a couple of museum boards, so she probably knows her stuff.

When the two agents had interviewed Norman Bond, he made the gesture of rising slightly from his chair when they entered his office. Stanford did not extend that courtesy to them. He remained seated, his hands clasped in front of him, until the agents sat down without being invited.

“Have you made any progress in your search for the Pied Piper?” he asked abruptly.