Two Little Girls in Blue (31 page)

“Yeah, I did,” Hart told him, a frown on his thin, intense face. “I always give a once-over to the vehicle, you know that. That's why I installed that new light outside. That stringy brunette checked in sometime after midnight. I could see her van plainly, and I didn't even know she had a kid. It must have been asleep in the backseat, but it sure wasn't in a car seat.”

“I was really bugged when Sam Tyron stopped by,” Toomey snapped. “He wanted to know if we've been having any other problems with thefts. I talked to the Hagen woman after he left. She's got a little boy, not more than three or four years old from what I could see. I told her to take him to the hospital. He had one heck of an asthmatic wheeze.”

“Did she do it?”

“I don't know. She claimed she was waiting for her mother to go with them to the hospital.”

“She's booked until tomorrow morning. She paid in cash with a wad of twenties. I figured she might be meeting a boyfriend up here, and she was the one financing it. Has she come back with the kid?” Hart asked.

“I don't think so. Maybe I'll just knock on the door and inquire about him.”

“You really think there's something fishy about her?”

“I don't give a damn about her, Al. I just think she doesn't realize how sick that child is. If she's not there, I'll keep on going. But I will stop at the police station and let them know that we did
not
have a theft here last night.”

“Okay. I'll keep an eye out to see if she shows up.”

With a wave of his hand, David Toomey went outside, turned right and walked to the ground-floor unit with the number A-49 on the side of the door. He could see that there was no light shining behind the drawn shade. He knocked, waited, then after only a brief hesitation, took out his master key, unlocked the door, opened it, turned on the light, and stepped inside.

It was apparent to him that Linda Hagen was planning to return. There was an open suitcase on the floor with women's clothing stuffed inside it. There was a child's jacket on the bed, which made Toomey raise his eyes. It had been there in the same spot earlier that afternoon.
Was it possible that she hadn't put it on the little boy when she took him out? Maybe she had just wrapped him in a blanket. He looked in the closet and found that the extra blanket was missing. He nodded. A good guess.

A quick look into the bathroom showed makeup and toiletries scattered on the sink. She plans to come back, he thought. Maybe they kept the child at the hospital. I hope so. I'll be on my way. As he started to walk back through the bedroom, something on the floor caught his eye. He bent down to examine it. It was a twenty-dollar bill.

The bed's faded orange and brown dust ruffle behind the bill was hiked up. As Toomey knelt down to straighten it, his eyes widened. There were at least a dozen twenty-dollar bills scattered under the bed. Not touching any of them, he got up slowly. That woman is some dingbat, he thought. She must have kept her money in a bag under the bed, and never even realized she was missing some of it.

Shaking his head, he walked to the door, turned out the light, and left. He had been on his feet all day and was looking forward to getting home. I could just phone the station, he thought, then decided to go ahead and take the time to stop there. I want it on record that there was no theft at my motel, and if they want to go after that Hagen woman for lying to an officer, let them do it.

“L
ila left early today,” Joan Howell, the manager of Abby's Discount, explained to Margaret Frawley and Agent Carlson. “She ran out at lunchtime to do some shopping or something. When she came back, her hair was soaking wet. I asked her what was so important to make her rush out, and she said it was a fool's errand. But she left early because she felt chilled and thought maybe she was getting sick.”

Wanting to scream, Margaret pursed her lips together. She had just endured Howell's sympathetic questions about how she felt today, and her expressions of condolences over the loss of Kathy.

Walter Carlson had already presented his credentials. When Howell stopped for breath, he broke in. “Ms. Howell, I need Ms. Jackson's cell phone number, home phone number, and address immediately.”

Howell looked flustered. She glanced around the sales floor. It was busy with Saturday afternoon shoppers. She realized that the nearby ones were watching them with obvious curiosity. “Of course,” she said, “of course. I mean, I hope Lila isn't in any kind of trouble. She's the nicest girl you'd ever want to meet. Smart! Ambitious! I tell her, ‘Lila, don't you dare
open your own shop and run us out of business. Hear me?' ”

A glance at the expressions on the faces of Margaret Frawley and Agent Carlson made her cut off her next anecdote about Lila's promising future. “Just follow me into the office,” she said.

The office, Walter Carlson observed, was just barely big enough to hold a desk, chair, and file cabinets. A gray-haired woman in her sixties, reading glasses perched on the end of her nose, looked up.

“Jean, right away, will you please give Lila's address and telephone numbers to Mrs. Frawley.” Howell said. Her tone indicated that Jean had better be fast about it.

The impulse to tell Mrs. Frawley how happy she was that she had gotten one of her twins back but how heartbroken she was for her about the other one died on Jean Wagner's lips as she observed the steely expression on Margaret's face. “I'll jot it down for you,” she said briskly.

Trying not to snatch it from the woman's hands, Margaret murmured a quick thank you and was gone, with Carlson right behind her.

“What was
that
all about?” Jean Wagner asked Howell.

“That was an FBI agent with Mrs. Frawley. He didn't bother to give any explanation to me. But yesterday when Mrs. Frawley came in, all upset, she said something about Lila selling outfits for twins, and the woman buying them didn't seem to know the size. I don't know why that's so important to them right now.
Between us, I think that poor Margaret Frawley should be put to bed and given something that will let her forget all her sorrow until she can begin to cope with it. That's why we have a bereavement group at our church. When my mother died, it was the most wonderful help to me. Otherwise I don't know how I could have gotten through it.”

Behind Howell, Jean Wagner raised her eyes to heaven. Howell's mother was ninety-six years old, and had been driving Joan crazy before she mercifully had been called to her Maker. But the rest of what Howell had been saying was even more startling to her.

Lila thought there was something wrong about that woman, Jean thought. I got her address from the credit card company for her. I remember it: Mrs. Clint Downes at 100 Orchard Avenue in Danbury.

Howell had opened the door and was on her way out. Wagner started to call after her, then stopped. Lila will tell them who the woman is, she decided. Joan's getting in a bad mood. She won't like it that I broke rules to get Lila that address. I'd better mind my own business.

A
ngie placed Kathy on a pillow on the floor of the bathroom. Then she plugged up the tub and turned on the shower full blast, so that the small room would fill with steam. She had managed to get Kathy to chew and swallow two more orange-flavored baby aspirin.

As each minute passed, she was becoming more and more nervous. “Don't you dare die on me,” she told Kathy. “I mean, that's just what I need, another nosy motel guy banging on the door, and you not breathing. I wish I could get some more of that penicillin into you.”

On the other hand, she was beginning to wonder if maybe Kathy had been allergic to the penicillin she had swallowed. There were red spots showing up on her arms and chest, lots of them. Belatedly, Angie remembered that a guy she had lived with once had been allergic to penicillin. He had broken out in red spots the first time he took it, too.

“Geez, is that what's happening to you?” Angie asked Kathy. “It was a lousy idea to come to Cape Cod. I forgot that if I hit any trouble there are only two bridges I can use to get away, and now they could be watching for me there. Forget old Cape Cod.”

Kathy did not open her eyes. She was finding it hard to breathe. She wanted Mommy. She wanted to be home. In her mind, she could see Kelly. She was sitting on the floor with their dolls. She heard Kelly ask her where she was.

Even though she wasn't allowed to talk to her, she moved her lips and whispered, “Cape Cod.”

*   *   *

Kelly had awakened but did not want to get up from the living room floor. Sylvia Harris brought in a tray with milk and cookies and put it on the play table where the teddy bears were propped in chairs, but Kelly ignored it. Sitting cross-legged on the carpet, Steve had not moved from his position across from her.

He broke the silence. “Dr. Sylvia, do you remember when they were born—Margaret had to have a C-section, and there was a tiny piece of membrane that had to be cut off between Kelly's right thumb and Kathy's left thumb?”

“Yes, I do, Steve. In that real sense of the word, they were not only identical, but conjoined twins.”

“Sylvia, I don't want to let myself believe . . .” He paused. “You know what I mean. But now, even the FBI guys admit it's a possibility that Kathy is alive. My God, if we only knew where she is, where to look for her. Do you think it's possible that Kelly knows?”

Kelly looked up. “I
do
know.”

Sylvia Harris raised her hand as a warning to Steve. “Where is she, Kelly?” she asked quietly, her tone not betraying any emotion.

“Kathy's in old Cape Cod. She just told me.”

“When Margaret was in bed with Kelly this morning, she was talking about driving during her blackout last night and told me that when she saw the sign for Cape Cod, she knew she had to turn around,” Sylvia whispered to Steve. “That's where she heard about Cape Cod.”

Kelly went into a spasm of coughing and gagging. Sylvia grabbed her, threw her across her lap, and hit her sharply between the shoulder blades.

As Kelly began to wail, Dr. Harris turned her around and nestled her head against her neck. “Oh, sweetheart, I'm sorry,” she said soothingly. “I was so afraid you had put something in your mouth and were choking.”

“I want to go home,” Kelly sobbed. “I want Mommy.”

A
gent Carlson rang the bell at Lila Jackson's modest home in Danbury. In the car on the way there, he had tried to reach her by phone, but her landline was busy, and she did not answer her cell phone. “At least we know someone's in the house,” he said, trying to reassure Margaret as he drove the three-mile distance well in excess of the speed limit.

“She has
got
to be home,” Margaret had said in the car. Now, as they heard footsteps approaching the door, she whispered, “Oh, God, please let her be able to tell us something.”

Lila's mother answered the door. Her welcoming smile disappeared as she saw the two strangers on the porch. In a quick movement, she partially closed the door and slipped on the security chain.