Mona had yelled back, “I suppose they should have been running around in pajamas for three days? Of course I bought some clothes, and some toys, and some Barney tapes, and in case you forgot, I bought the crib from a medical supply company. By the way, I also bought cereal and orange juice and fruit. And now shut up and go out and get some hamburgers for all of us. I’m sick of cooking. Got it?”
Then, just when Harry came back with the hamburgers, they heard the man on television say, “We may be receiving a call from the kidnapper of the Frawley twins.”
“They’re talking about us,” Kathy whispered.
They listened, as over the television they could hear Kelly’s voice, saying, “We want to go home.”
Kathy tried to squeeze back tears. “I do want to go home,” she said. “I want Mommy. I feel sick.”
“I can’t understand a word of what the kid is saying,” Harry complained.
“Sometimes when they talk to each other, I can’t understand it, either,” Angie snapped. “They have twin talk. I read about it.” She dismissed the subject. “Why didn’t the Pied Piper tell them where to leave the money? What’s he waiting for? Why did he just say, ‘You’ll hear from me again’?”
“Bert says it’s his way of wearing them down. He’s going to make another contact tomorrow.”
Clint/Harry was still holding the McDonald’s bag. “Let’s eat these while they’re hot. Come over to the table, kids.”
Kelly jumped up from the couch, but Kathy lay down and curled up into a ball. “I don’t want to eat. I feel sick.”
Angie hurried over to the couch and felt Kathy’s forehead. “This kid is getting a fever.” She looked at Clint. “Finish that hamburger fast and go out and get some baby aspirin. That’s all we need for one of them to get pneumonia.”
She bent over Kathy. “Oh, sweetie, don’t cry. Mona will take good care of you. Mona loves you.” She looked angrily at the table where Kelly had started to eat the hamburger, then kissed Kathy’s cheek. “Mona loves you best, Kathy. You’re nicer than your sister. You’re Mona’s little girl, aren’t you?”
12
In 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.”
13
Margaret 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.”
14
At 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.”
This opening was too much for Lucas to resist. “That dumb broad is taking such good care of them that she’s been buying matching outfits for them.”
This time the voice was not disguised. “Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“Does she plan to have them all dressed up when we dump them? Does she plan to have the cops tracing the clothes, and then some clerk saying, ‘Sure, I remember the woman who bought matching outfits for three-year-olds’?”
Lucas liked the way the Pied Piper was getting agitated. It took some of the gnawing fear off him. Anything could go wrong. He knew that. He needed to share that worry. “I told Harry not to let her out of the house again,” he said.
“In forty-eight hours this will be over, and we’ll be home free,” the Pied Piper said. “Tomorrow I make contact and give instructions about the money. Wednesday you pick up the cash. Wednesday night I tell you where to leave the kids. Make sure they’re wearing exactly what they were wearing when you grabbed them.”
The connection ended.
Lucas pushed the stop button on the recording device. Seven million for you; half a million each for me and Clint, he thought. I don’t think so, Mr. Pied Piper.
15
The time for Robinson Geisler to stand with Margaret and Steve Frawley and address the media was set for ten A.M. on Tuesday morning. None of the other directors elected to be present at the event. As one of them told Geisler, “I voted to pay the ransom, but I’ve got three young kids myself. I don’t want to give anyone any ideas about kidnapping them.”
Unable to sleep most of the night, at six A.M. Margaret got up. She showered for long minutes, raising her face under the streaming water, feeling it hot against her skin, willing it to dispel the icy chill of her body. Then, wrapped in Steve’s heavy robe, she got back into bed. Steve was up and headed out for a run, slipping through backyards to avoid the media. Suddenly exhausted from the sleepless night, Margaret felt her eyes begin to close.
It was nine o’clock when Steve awakened her and set a tray with coffee and toast and juice on the night table. “Mr. Geisler just got here,” he said. “You??
?d better start getting dressed, honey. I’m so glad you got some sleep. When it’s time to go outside, I’ll come up and get you.”
Margaret forced herself to drink the orange juice and nibble at the toast. Then, sipping the coffee, she got out of bed and began to dress. But as she was pulling on black jeans, she stopped. A week ago this evening I went shopping for birthday dresses for the twins at the outlet mall on Route 7, she thought. While I was there I dashed into the sports store and picked up a new running suit, a red one, because the twins loved my old red sweats. Maybe whoever has them is letting them watch television. Maybe in less than half an hour they’ll be seeing us.
“I like red because it’s a happy color,” Kelly had told her, her tone solemn.
I’ll wear red for them today, Margaret decided, as she yanked the new jacket and pants from the hanger. She dressed quickly as her mind began to focus on what Steve had told her. After the broadcast, they were going to take the lie detector tests. How could they even imagine that Steve and I had anything to do with this? she wondered.
After she tied her sneakers, she made the bed, then sat on the edge of it, her hands folded, her head bent. Dear God, let them come home safely. Please. Please.
She did not realize Steve was in the room until he asked, “Are you ready, sweetheart?” He came over to her, took her face in his hands, and kissed her. Then he let his fingers run over her shoulders, entwining them in her hair.
Margaret knew that he had been on the verge of collapse before they learned that the ransom would be paid. She had thought he was asleep during the night, but at some point he had said quietly, “Marg, the only reason the FBI wants us to take a lie detector test is because of that brother of mine. I know what the agents are thinking. Richie leaving Friday to drive to North Carolina to see Mom looks to them as though he was creating an alibi for himself. He hasn’t visited her in a year. Then the minute I told Carlson I had been wondering if the company would volunteer the ransom, I realized I became a suspect. But that’s Carlson’s job. I want him to be suspicious of everyone.”