The Famous Stanley Kidnapping Case Read online

  “Yeah,” he said. “It might make them—like, repent, or something.”

  “Well, I don’t know about repent, but I’ll bet it’d scare the hell out of them,” Amanda said. “And they just might not be so quick to decide to bump us all off.”

  David nodded. It was beginning to make sense. Actually, it wasn’t too far from what he’d had in mind. Except that he’d been trying to get the kidnappers to think that Blair and all the rest of them were too cute and appealing to be bumped off. Amanda’s idea was to make them think that Blair was too holy.

  “You see why Janie mustn’t know about it, don’t you?” Amanda asked, and after he’d thought about it, David did. Wow, did he ever! Considering what Janie had made out of the King Tut plan, he hated to think what would happen if she started pretending she was taking part in a miracle. They’d wind up with something like Joan of Arc made into a Disney TV special—with Janie as Joan, of course. “But what will we do about her?” he asked.

  “Well, it’s not going to be easy, but I was thinking that if she thinks Blair and you and I really have seen the vision, and she knows she hasn’t, at least she’ll let us be—well—in charge of it, and she won’t be so quick to start adding all sorts of fancy details. If she thinks it’s just some kind of group “let’s pretend,” she’ll just have to pretend bigger and better than anyone else.

  David couldn’t help cringing at the thought. “But she’ll have to do the translating,” he said. “She’ll have to be the one to tell the kidnappers about what’s happened and what we’ve seen. Won’t it ruin it if she tells them that she hasn’t seen it?”

  “I don’t see why. Not everybody can see visions, even real ones, I guess. Besides, I’ll bet she tells them she’s seen it too, just so she won’t feel left out. But if she thinks that we’ve really seen it and she hasn’t, she won’t be so apt to get carried away.”

  “But what about Blair? We’ll have to get him to say he’s seen it.”

  “David,” Amanda said in her familiar “how-can-you-be-so-dumb” tone of voice, “Blair’s already seen it. At least he thinks he has. He dreamed it, and he thought it was real. And if we encourage him to think it was real, he will. He just won’t know the difference.”

  “I don’t think it’s that he doesn’t know the difference,” David said. “He just doesn’t think the difference is important.”

  “Well, whatever. Anyway, do you have any good ideas about how we might get started?”

  They began immediately to work out all the details—who would say they’d seen it first, and what the other one would do, and what they’d get the little kids to do. They’d been planning for quite a while when David became aware of a sizzling noise that seemed to be coming from the kids hideout in the corner. He tiptoed over and peeked behind the boxes, and there were Janie and Esther and Blair squatting down in a tight little circle. Janie was whispering away like crazy. When she saw David looking at them, she said, “Go away. We’re making plans, and you can’t listen.”

  David went away thinking that Janie was only getting even for being left out of Amanda’s plan. He should have known better. He should have known that whatever Janie was doing, it wasn’t ever safe to think of it as “only” anything.

  seventeen

  David wasn’t at all sure he liked Amanda’s plan to have a fake miracle, but on the other hand, the time was getting shorter and shorter until the kidnappers would have to come to a decision about what to do with their captives. And if there was any chance their decision could be influenced in the right direction, it was certainly worth a try.

  The first step was just to tell the little kids that they’d seen the Blue Lady. They’d decided to start out that way partly for practice in pretending—or lying, if you wanted to look at it that way—and partly to get the kids in the right frame of mind for what was going to come next. And the next step would be to actually pretend they were seeing something while the kids were watching.

  Amanda started it. She waited until the kids had all been asleep and then, when they woke up, she told them that while they were asleep she and David had seen something very strange. She made her voice say that what she was about to tell them was very serious and important. Then she waited until she was sure she had their full attention. David couldn’t help admiring her technique. She was acting as if she were trying to think of just the right way to tell them something terribly important and significant, while the kids got more and more curious and impatient.

  “What was it, for heaven’s sake?” Janie said. “What did you see?”

  “Well,” Amanda said finally, “after you and the twins had gone to sleep, David and I were sitting on my cot talking, when all of a sudden I noticed this strange sort of glow over there in the corner of the room.”

  “Strange sort of what?” Esther asked.

  “Glow. Like a light. And right in the middle of the light there was—well, it was like a lady in a long robe. Standing over there on the box by the wall.”

  Blair was listening intently.” With a blue thing?” he asked, making a motion like something over his head and shoulders.

  “Yes,” Amanda said. “She had this long blue veil-like thing over her head, and her robe was white, I think, and her hands . . . ” she paused, looking at Blair.

  “Like this?” Blair asked, holding his hands together as if he were praying. “Her hands were like this?”

  “Yes,” Amanda said, “her hands were like this.” She put her palms together and fixed her face so that it looked very sweet and sad. It was not an expression that David, or anyone else probably, had ever seen on Amanda’s face before. He got so interested in what she was doing, he almost forgot about his own part—until Janie said, “You saw her, too, David?”

  “Huh?” he said. “Me? Uh—yeah. I saw her, too. Just like Amanda said.” And he did the bit with his hands and eyes. The looking down sadly at his folded hands came in handy, because it kept him from having to look directly at anybody—particularly at Blair, because he had a feeling that if he looked right at Blair he would blow it for sure. Blair would know that he was lying.

  When Amanda had finished, no one said anything for quite a long time. Janie went over to the box in the corner and looked all around it. Then she came partway back and stopped and turned very quickly and looked at the box again. Blair was watching Janie, and for a while Esther did too, but then she started wandering off toward the table.

  “Esther,” Amanda said. “Weren’t you listening? Didn’t you hear about David and me seeing the Blue Lady?”

  “Sure,” she said. “I heard you. But I already knew about it. Blair already told me all about her.” She went to the table and started stacking the dirty dishes and brushing at the table with her hands. “It’s very dirty in here,” she said. “Janie, why don’t you tell those kidnappers it’s too dirty in here?” Esther didn’t seem to have premonitions about a lot of things, the way Blair did, but sometimes she seemed to where food was concerned. Just a few minutes later, the door opened and Gino came down the steps carrying the tray.

  According to Amanda and David’s plan, the next step was going to be actually seeing the vision while the kids were watching. Then they were going to suggest to Janie that she should tell the kidnappers about what was happening. But they should have known Janie wouldn’t need that much encouragement. Gino had hardly reached the table when Janie began about the Blue Lady. She even acted it all out for Gino, running across the room and climbing up on the box and posing, to show the way the lady had been standing. It seemed as if she were doing a pretty good job of it, but it would have been more effective if Esther hadn’t kept interrupting.

  “Janie.” Esther kept following her around and tugging at her. “Janie, tell him to bring us a dish cloth and some soapy water.” And a little later while Janie was still posing on the box, she started whining about a broom and dustpan, and this time because Janie was out of reach, she started tugging at the kidnapper’s jacket.

  Witho
ut being able to see his expression, it was hard to tell for sure; but it seemed as if Gino was really impressed by what Janie was telling him. At least, he seemed to be giving her his full attention, except, of course, while Esther was tugging at him. When Janie said that Amanda and David and Blair had all seen the vision, the dark eyes in the masked face turned to stare at each of them, making David feel very uncomfortable. When Janie finally finished telling everything, Gino gathered up the dirty dishes and put them on the tray without saying anything to Janie at all; but when he was halfway up the stairs, he stopped and turned around and asked her something.

  “Sì,” Janie said. “Anch’io.”

  He turned then quickly and looked back at the box by the wall, and David got the impression that he might have stood there looking for quite a while, except that just then Esther started demanding that Janie ask him if he had a vacuum cleaner.

  It was very hard to tell what effect the whole thing had had on the kidnapper. After he had gone, David and Amanda questioned Janie very carefully about what had been said, and it seemed as if she had told it pretty much the way they’d told it to her, without adding too many of her own special touches. Except that when David asked her what Gino had said just before he went out she said, “Oh, he just asked me if I’d seen the Blue Lady, too.”

  “Oh,” David nodded, but then suddenly something dawned on him. “Wait a minute,” he said. “Doesn’t ‘anch’io’ mean ‘me too’?”

  Janie rolled her eyes thoughtfully. “Well,” she said. “Not exactly ‘me too.’ It’s more like—”

  “Janie,” David said sternly. “It does, too. I remember now. So how come you told him you saw the Blue Lady, too?”

  “Well—everybody else has, so I just thought I probably would too, as soon as I got a chance.”

  “You know, I wouldn’t be at all surprised,” Amanda said in her most sarcastic tone of voice.

  Amanda seemed to feel that Janie, with Esther’s help, had pretty much blown the whole miracle thing, but David wasn’t so sure. A little while later, when Gino came back with a bunch of cleaning stuff, a broom and dustpan and a bucket of soapy water for Esther, David thought it was a good sign. Amanda thought it was just the opposite, that it meant he’d been more impressed by Esther’s attack of cleanliness than by Janie’s miracle.

  “I don’t know if there’s any use going on with it,” Amanda said. “He probably didn’t believe any of it for a minute. After all, if we’d just witnessed a miracle, would Esther have been running around talking about vacuum cleaners, for heaven’s sake?”

  “I don’t know,” David said. “He’s been around Esther long enough to know the way she is when she gets an idea into her head. Like the way she was about the scrambled eggs the other day. It seems to me he probably realizes by now that when Esther sets her mind on something, it would take a lot more than a miracle to shake it loose.”

  Amanda sighed. “Well, maybe,” she said. “I guess we might as well do the next part anyway, as long as we’ve gone this far.”

  However, they did decide to wait for an hour or two, since it seemed likely that miracles weren’t apt to happen every few minutes. When Amanda thought that enough time had gone by, she told David to get ready, and then she began. At that particular moment Blair and Janie were watching the ants, and Esther was sweeping up a cloud of dust near the foot of the stairs; but when Amanda said, “Look!” her voice was so dramatic they all stopped what they were doing and stared at her.

  She was standing stiffly with one arm at her side and the other straight out in front of her, pointing at the wall above the box where Blair had seen the Blue Lady. The surprised expression on her face looked stiff too, as if it had been frozen there. The little kids looked at her, and then Janie and Blair ran out from behind the junk pile so they could see what she was pointing at. Then it was time for David to do his part.

  Getting up off his cot he went over beside Amanda and said, “I see her, I see her, too.” It came out sounding so phony that he couldn’t help wincing—like a robot talking or somebody reading out of a first grade primer. But the little kids didn’t seem to notice. They were all staring at the corner. Very slowly and dramatically, Amanda got down on her knees, and as soon as the kids noticed what she had done, they got down on their knees, too. So David knelt, even though it made him feel phonier than ever. The whole thing was making him feel very uncomfortable—without knowing exactly why. He felt relieved when, after what seemed a very long time, Amanda sighed and got to her feet.

  “I didn’t see anything,” Esther said. “How come I didn’t see anything?”

  “Is she gone? Is she gone, Amanda?” Janie asked.

  “Yes,” Amanda said. “She’s gone now, but maybe she’ll come back again. I think maybe she wants to tell us something.”

  “What? What does she want to tell us?” Janie asked, but Amanda didn’t answer. Instead she drifted back to her cot and sat down on it, looking kind of spaced-out and glassy-eyed. David and Janie and Esther followed her. Janie and Esther were still asking all sorts of questions, and it wasn’t until several minutes later that someone noticed what Blair was doing.

  Blair was still kneeling in the center of the cellar staring intently at the corner, and when David spoke to him, he didn’t seem to hear. They all started toward him, and then, without anyone suggesting it, they all stopped.

  David hadn’t really noticed before how the one dim bulb in its metal shade cast a narrow cone of brighter light directly beneath it. But now Blair was kneeling in the exact center of the cone of light, so that there seemed to be a circle of radiance all around him. His head was tilted back, and there was a brightness about his hair and face that stood out in sharp contrast to the dim, dingy room. David caught his breath. Amanda’s elbow poked his ribs, and she started to whisper something, but just then Blair’s strange smile faded and he got quickly to his feet. Running across the room to the box, he looked all around it the way he had done before. Then he walked slowly back past the rest of them without saying anything, or even noticing that they were staring at him, and climbed up on his cot.

  “Wow,” Amanda whispered. “If we could only get him to do that when the kidnappers are here.” Going over to the cot she said, “Blair. Blair, honey.” He rolled over on his back and looked up at her. His eyes were wide open and enormous, but it was somehow as if he still wasn’t seeing—at least not in the same way that other people did. He was looking towards Amanda, but his expression was shut off and private. David had seen Blair look that way before, so he wasn’t at all surprised when he reached up and pulled the pillow down over his face and wouldn’t let Amanda take it away.

  eighteen

  “Why couldn’t they have come a few minutes ago,” Amanda said. Both Gino and Pietro were coming down the stairs, and it couldn’t have been more than a half an hour since they’d staged their miracle—and Blair had knelt in the circle of light.

  “I wonder what they’re here for this time,” David said.

  The two kidnappers looked the same as always—black-masked and leather-jacketed—but they were acting strangely. They came partway down and then sat on the stairs, talking together in low voices. The smallest one, Gino, seemed to be doing most of the talking. When he suddenly gestured towards the box in the corner, David glanced at Amanda and caught her doing the same to him. She raised her eyebrows in a “what-do-you-know?” expression. The kidnappers went on sitting there for such a long time, talking sometimes and sometimes just watching, that the little kids seemed to forget about them and went back to what they were doing. Janie had been building something out of pieces of wood, and Blair was helping Esther clean house by holding the dustpan for her while she swept. It wasn’t until they’d been sitting there for a long time, that Gino called to Janie.

  “Come on, David,” Amanda said. “I want to be in on this,” and she went over and stood next to Janie at the foot of the stairs.

  As soon as Pietro asked Janie the first question, David was
able to guess by the tone of his voice and the few words that he recognized, what his attitude was going to be. It was obvious that he was questioning Janie about the Blue Lady thing, and also that he was making it clear that he didn’t really believe a word of it.

  Janie answered him and went on answering until Amanda poked her. “What did he say? What are you telling him?” she asked.

  “He wants to know if any of us had seen anymore visions, and I told him yes. I said that all of us, except maybe Esther, saw the Blue Lady again just a little while ago.”

  “Tell them about Blair,” Amanda whispered. “Tell them that Blair is the one who saw her first and that he’s the one that sees her better than the rest of us. Tell him about what Blair did when he—when we all saw the vision.”

  Janie talked to the two kidnappers again, and then they talked to each other, and after a while the one called Pietro told Janie to call Blair. So Janie did, and Blair very carefully handed the full dustpan to Esther and came to the stairs, looking very solemn and a little scared.

  Pietro barked a question at him, and Janie translated, “Did you see a vision of the Blessed Mother?”

  Blair looked questioningly over his shoulder at David. His eyes were huge and frightened. David put his arm across Blair’s shoulders. “Tell them, Blair,” he said softly.

  “I—I saw the Blue Lady,” Blair whispered.

  “Dove?” Pietro asked.

  “Where?” Janie said.

  “There,” Blair said, pointing towards the box in the corner. Then he ducked his head bashfully and leaned against David. The kidnappers’ owlish eyes stared at him out of their black wool faces.