Last Seen

by Rick Mofina

  One agent marveled at a wall papered with posters from horror movies. One of the posters featured a year-old promotion for The Chambers of Dread! America’s Biggest Traveling World of Horrors! Lining another wall, floor-to-ceiling, was a bookcase filled with horror books, classics to contemporaries, Edgar Allan Poe to Stephen King.

  Another agent found a scrapbook bulging with clippings of Chicago crime stories, some of them stories with Cal Hudson’s byline.

  Several empty medication containers were scattered on the desk and night table. An agent read the name of the doctor listed on Ula Pulaski’s prescription to a police dispatcher.

  Police had reached the doctor and the call was connected to the requesting agent at the scene. It took a few moments as the agent absorbed the doctor’s explanation.

  Ula Pulaski was her outpatient from Great Lakes Memorial Psychiatric Institute.

  “She’d suffered a head injury when she and her father were walking near their home and were both struck by a dump truck that had blown a tire. The tragedy also resulted in her father’s incapacitation,” the doctor told the agent who was standing in Ula Pulaski’s bedroom.

  “Ula used to write paperback crime and horror novels and had always followed real cases closely. From time to time, mostly when Ula’s off her medication, she calls people she learns about from the news, gets confused and says inappropriate things. I assure you, she’s no threat to anyone.”

  At that point, another FBI agent held his phone out to the agent on the call with the doctor. The screen showed that Chicago PD databases revealed that Ula Pulaski had a history of making disturbing calls to real victims of high-profile crimes, all during her time as an inpatient at the institute.

  The agent nodded, then thanked the doctor, telling her that there would be a follow-up for the investigation.

  Then he called Tibor Malko.

  33

  River Ridge, Illinois

  In a corner of the second-floor command post at River Ridge police headquarters, FBI Agent Malko ended the call, set his phone down and stared at his laptop screen.

  The hope that they’d find Gage in Archer Heights was gone.

  There was nothing connecting him to the Pulaskis’ house and nothing in the garage but a 1999 Chevy Cavalier on blocks, tires, spare parts and dusty crates of junk. The chain and lock were different from those purchased by Cal Hudson at Emerson Plaza, according to the receipt from the plaza hardware store. Moreover, Pulaski’s doctor confirmed that Ula Pulaski had been at the institute for an appointment at the time the Hudsons had reported Gage missing. On the shoe, Ula Pulaski had had a fifty-fifty chance of guessing correctly, and she had.

  The Archer Heights call was a dead end.

  After he’d informed Cal and Faith, Malko’s stomach tensed.

  With each passing second, the chances of finding the boy alive melted. Malko stared at Gage Hudson’s face on his screen. How did he vanish? Did he wander off unseen and was then abducted? Maybe he was lured by other kids, kids slightly older. Or did something happen inside the attraction, amid the chaotic darkness?

  Malko could not stop considering the two people who were with Gage just before he’d disappeared.

  Cal and Faith Hudson.

  Everything about them seemed wrong. There was no way he could rule out parental involvement. Not yet. But if they were involved they would’ve had to have had help.

  He really didn’t have any solid evidence.

  Not yet.

  There was the lock and chain, which they couldn’t find. There was the connection to the strip mall, Gage’s shoe and the Dumpster—the mother sobbing in the car, an indication of marital stress. Taken together they were troubling factors but at this point only circumstantial. They could have absolutely no link to the parents. But they were so disturbing and so coincidental Malko would be a fool not to pursue these aspects, no matter where they led, because something about the Hudsons didn’t feel right.

  Malko removed his glasses and rubbed his tired eyes, remembering his words about the dangers of tunnel vision. He needed to keep an open mind on all theories. All possibilities had to be weighed and pursued.

  And that’s what the joint forces operation was doing.

  Glancing at the status boards at the far end of the room, Malko saw that they still had a long way to go. He looked at the tips—one hundred and thirteen so far, some so vague they were useless, others with potential for a break.

  He scrolled through them. There was the woman who’d claimed her neighbor had kidnapped Gage. She said she saw the man, “a certifiable creep, digging a grave in his backyard.” Turned out he was gardening and the neighbors were feuding over property lines. Then there was a man who’d reported that he’d overheard a fat man with tattoos in a bar bragging that he “knew exactly what happened to that Hudson boy.” But the caller was too drunk to remember anything about the man, or the name or location of the bar. Then he said that maybe he’d dreamed about the incident.

  Then there was a grandmother who’d reported seeing a distraught boy matching Gage’s description crying in the back seat of a car driven by a “very stressed-looking” man and woman at a Calumet City gas station. Investigators used security camera footage and credit card records to track the vehicle to Hammond. They confirmed that the boy in the car was not Gage. He was half his age and had been suffering from an ear infection. His parents were both nurses who’d been working double shifts. The call was another false alarm.

  And there was no ransom demand. No one claiming responsibility.

  Malko glanced at the time, thinking how the outstanding work on other aspects of the case was mounting and everything was a priority.

  FBI agents and River Ridge detectives were continuing their questioning of the employees on duty at the Chambers of Dread, other workers with Ultra-Fun Amusement Corp and employees of the River Ridge Fairgrounds. Most of the people they’d interviewed had alibis, but some were flagged for additional questioning and polygraphs.

  Like Sid Griner and Alma McCain, who were working at the Chambers of Dread. They were due to arrive for another interview.

  Malko clicked to more files and reread the notes made by Price and Lang when the detectives had interviewed the couple. McCain was on duty in the control room where she operated the attraction’s bank of infrared security cameras and monitored the emergency exits. An alarm would sound if an exit was used. Then there was Griner, the man she lived with. Griner worked the chutes, helping people as they slid out the main exit. He was also listed as a technician who helped assemble and tear down the Chambers, so he had expertise with the attraction.

  Malko considered the notes he’d made in the margins.

  Something about McCain and Griner ate at him. He couldn’t put his finger on it but he didn’t trust the responses they’d given Price and Lang. It could’ve been related to the fact that McCain and Griner each had troubling histories.

  Then there was the disturbing element of what we found in their van.

  Malko’s phone buzzed with a message telling him that McCain and Griner had arrived. Right on time.

  He gathered his files and started for the interview rooms.

  McCain and Griner were in key positions when Gage Hudson disappeared from the Chambers.

  They have to know more than they’ve told us.

  34

  The tapping of Malko’s pen on the table as he read Griner’s file was the only sound in the interview room, interrupted only by the swish of Griner drinking from the bottled water Agent Sue Marsh, who’d been working on the carnival workers’ interviews, had given to him.

  A solid minute had passed since Malko and Marsh had entered the room and identified themselves and Malko had taken up Griner’s file.

  Now, without looking up from the file, Malko said, “Sidney Clydell Griner, age thirty-five, born in Lufkin, Texas. When you
were five years old your drug addict mother was murdered by an outlaw biker. You bounced around foster homes, were in and out of school. Then you were in and out of the military and in and out of jail until you found your calling with Ultra-Fun Amusement Corp.”

  Malko closed the folder, took stock of Griner—his muscular tatted arms, the lines and pocks in his unshaven face, his long hair pulled into a ponytail, his ball cap on the table—then looked him in the eye.

  “Been a hard life for you, hasn’t it, Sidney?”

  “You play the hand you’re dealt.” He shrugged. “Sir, I prefer to be called Sid.”

  “Ultra-Fun lists you as a technician. You help the mechanics assemble and tear down the Chambers, maintain it and fix problems. You must know the attraction like the prison art on your skin, huh, Sid?”

  “It’s my job to know it, sir.”

  “Given your expertise with the Chambers, do you have any thoughts or theories as to what happened to Gage Hudson? How he disappeared?”

  “Maybe he wandered off,” Griner said. “It’s been known to happen.”

  “Maybe he wandered off?” Malko nodded. “That means he wandered right by you while you were helping guests at the chutes.”

  “There are six chutes. I can’t watch them all. Makes the odds that people get by me pretty good and I’m not responsible for someone’s kid.”

  “Ultra-Fun operations policy says you’re responsible for the safety of all patrons. Do you think Gage Hudson, who patronized your attraction, is safe now, Sid?”

  Griner gave it a moment’s thought. “That didn’t come out right. I’m sorry, sir.”

  “Fine. Now tell me, how could he disappear? Was he taken out one of the emergency doors?”

  “Maybe, but it would’ve tripped the alarm.”

  “Some of the other people on duty at the Chambers, and the few customers we’ve talked to, insist that no emergency door alarm sounded in the time frame of Gage Hudson’s disappearance. The alarms were never tripped, according to...” Malko paused, turned to Marsh, who was taking notes on her tablet, which rested on several more folders. She slid Malko one of them. “Alma McCain, who worked the control console for the Chambers.”

  Griner shrugged.

  “And the cameras were malfunctioning at that time,” Malko said.

  “The electrical system was acting up since Milwaukee,” Griner said.

  Malko nodded. “We checked weather records and Wisconsin and Cook County permit records and maintenance logs. There was an electrical storm and a lightning strike. But that was almost two weeks ago. You can understand how we’re concerned about this?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “The fact that the alarms and cameras malfunctioned at the time Gage Hudson disappeared is troubling. Doesn’t that seem troubling to you?”

  “I suppose it does.”

  “You suppose, do you? Well, it sure as hell should because you better believe it raises a flag for us.”

  Griner said nothing.

  “According to records, the structure of the actual attraction is over ten years old. It just gets reconfigured and renamed for marketing reasons from time to time to make it sound like a whole new attraction.”

  “That’s my understanding.”

  “Tell me, Sid, is there any conceivable way Gage Hudson could’ve exited the Chambers without going through the chutes? Maybe a trapdoor, a hidden escape?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know? But you’re an expert at assembling and tearing the thing apart. You just told us that it’s your job to know.”

  “Look, I told you, the kid must’ve got by me and wandered off.”

  “All right.” Malko tapped his pen and went to his notes. “Do you know what we found in your van, Sid?”

  “No, no one told me.”

  Marsh slid her tablet to show Griner photos of the hidden storage compartment behind the wall of the closet.

  “What we found in there, according to the inventory list, is five hundred dollars in cash and eight grams of marijuana. Under this state’s new pot law, that’s a civil offense punishable with a fine of up to two hundred dollars and maybe jail time. Now, you’re no longer on parole, so the violation is not automatic, but it could pose a problem.”

  Malko looked at Griner.

  “Quite frankly,” he continued. “I don’t care too much about the pot right now. Here’s what I think. I think it’s almost like you and your girlfriend, Alma, wanted us to find your stash. And that whatever else was in there is gone, and that concerns me greatly. Want to know why?”

  Griner said nothing.

  “I’ll tell you why,” Malko said. “We measured that secret compartment and the dimensions are big enough to conceal a child of Gage Hudson’s size.”

  Griner just stared at him.

  “The dogs might not have detected anything but now we’re going to have the FBI’s evidence team comb through that space.”

  Griner blinked several times and reached for his water—a sign, Malko knew, that Griner’s throat was dry, a symptom of nervous tension.

  “They’re going to be looking for any DNA or trace of anything connected to Gage Hudson. They’re good.”

  A tense moment passed as Malko glared hard at Griner.

  “Are you involved in Gage Hudson’s disappearance, Sid?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Do you have knowledge of who may be responsible for Gage Hudson’s disappearance?”

  “No, sir, I do not.”

  “Prior to his disappearance, have you ever communicated with Gage Hudson?”

  “No, sir.”

  “With any member of his family?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Anyone with a connection to his family?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Do you know an individual by the name of Beth Gibson?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Do you know of any individuals who might wish to harm the Hudson family? Exact retribution or revenge?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Have you had any reason to be near or at Emerson Plaza on Emerson Avenue?”

  “No, sir.”

  Malko shuffled the pages of Griner’s file.

  “You’ve got quite a list of accomplishments over the years, Sid—assault, burglary, domestic violence, threats. In Kentucky, you were convicted of assaulting a woman you were living with, struck her with a toaster. In New York, you pleaded guilty to malicious destruction of property after you broke into a woman’s home, stole cash, her computer, her TV, then destroyed her car. But before that you threatened to kill the woman and steal her six-year-old daughter.”

  Malko looked Griner in the eye.

  “Pretty nasty work, not something to be proud of, is it?”

  “I was messed up and I took treatment inside.”

  “All right.” Malko leaned forward. “Now, I want you to think hard before you answer, Sid. Are you aware in your circles, say your old inmate circles, or anything on the fair circuit, of any talk or rumors as to who may be behind Gage Hudson’s disappearance?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Again, do you have any connection to the Hudson family?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Did someone approach you to assist them in any way with what resulted in Gage Hudson’s disappearance?”

  “No, sir.”

  “I think you’ve been bullshitting us, Sid. If you’re involved in any way in Gage Hudson’s disappearance, or have any information about it, you better tell me now, because if the FBI finds out later that you’ve misled us, we’ll bring the hammer of justice down on you without mercy.”

  “I’m not involved and I have no information, sir.”

  “You know, Sid, you’re likely the last person to have seen Gage Hudson before he vanished
.”

  Griner said nothing.

  “All right, you say you’re not involved.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You’ve got nothing to hide?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Would you agree to submit to a polygraph examination?”

  Griner swallowed.

  “Yes, sir, I’ll do anything to help find that little boy.”

  35

  “Is there something you’re not telling us, Alma?”

  Alma McCain could no longer make eye contact with the two FBI agents questioning her.

  She didn’t like police stations. Her life had only been made worse whenever she had entered one.

  Now, sitting in Interview Room 403 and looking at the white stone walls, Alma was unsure if she was shivering from the air conditioner—or fear.

  Hold it together, she told herself. Like Sid said, we got nothing to do with it. Really? Nothing at all? She glanced up at the ceiling corner and the camera they said was recording the interview. It’s like an all-knowing eye, watching me. How much do they know about me, about my life? She blinked back tears. But what happened to that little boy? His poor mom and dad. Stop. Hold it together. We’re so close to our dream. So close. Don’t we deserve a better life? It’s been more than an hour now and these two agents are pushing me so hard with their questions.

  Marsh, the woman, was a sharp dresser and had nice nails. She was stern-faced but seemed to show Alma a degree of warmth, unlike the man, Malko. He gave her a bad feeling. His black eyes boring into her just like the big python in the reptile tent.

  “Can you answer the question, Alma?” Malko repeated.

  She needed to think. She knew that they’d already talked to Sid, but because they’d kept them apart she had no idea what they’d asked him.

  Or what he’d told them.

  “Alma?” he repeated.

  She sat a little straighter and looked at him.

  “Yes. I mean, no, I’ve told you everything.”

  Malko held her in his gaze long enough to convey his doubt.