by Rick Mofina
“Who?”
“The old couple who live near us. Police asked us if we saw anyone put anything in their yard.”
“Did they say what?”
“No.”
“Did they tell you if they found something?”
“No, but I think they did, Cal. I saw guys in the Zoliskis’ backyard with shirts that said FBI Evidence Response Team.”
Cal’s stomach twisted as his mind raced. They’ve definitely found something, and by Ripkowski’s demeanor toward them, it had to be related to Gage and it had to be bad.
“Cal?” Rory asked. “You still there?”
“Thanks, Rory.”
Cal hung up and headed into the rear alley.
Faith joined him. “Where’re you going? We’re supposed to stay here.”
He started trotting, forcing her to keep up.
“What did Rory say they found?” she asked. “Is it Gage? Did they find Gage?”
The Hudsons rushed toward the patrol car and sealed yard, passing K-9 units. Officers called for them to halt. Upon recognizing them, TV news crews redirected their cameras just as officers began waving at the couple.
“People, please return to your property!” uniformed officers ordered.
Cal pointed at the press. “If they can be here, I can be here!”
As if cued, two reporters approached him. “Mr. Hudson, what’s your reaction to this search so close to your house?” one of them asked.
“I have nothing to say. I don’t know anything.”
Cal then moved to where the tape met the fence bordering the Zoliskis’ backyard. Peering over it he saw Malko.
“Agent Malko,” Cal called to him. “Please talk to me. Tell me what you’ve found.”
Malko, taking in the press, shot him an icy stare, waved off the officers and headed to the tape to meet Cal and Faith, his suspicions and hostility toward them still simmering.
“Agent Malko, please tell us what’s happening,” Faith pleaded.
Through the space between the Zoliskis’ house and their neighbors, Cal glimpsed the FBI’s ERT truck. He then strained to see if there was a vehicle present from the Cook County Medical Examiner.
“What did you find?” Cal repeated.
Malko scratched the stubble of his bald head and then looked at the Hudsons for a long, cold moment.
“I’m sorry, I can’t discuss anything,” he said. “Please return to your property. If we need to advise you, we’ll do so at the appropriate time.”
“What?” Cal’s jaw dropped.
Malko then turned, leaving the couple stunned.
It took about two seconds for Faith to explode.
“You come back here this instant! You come back here, Agent Malko, and you tell me if my son is dead!”
60
Malko returned to Adria and John Zoliski’s backyard with the Hudsons’ pleas echoing behind him as officers escorted them back to their house.
He rejoined Sue Marsh and Bill Caffrey, the supervisory agent for the FBI’s Evidence Response Team. They resumed studying the crisp, clear photos on Caffrey’s tablet of what Adria Zoliski had discovered in her garden.
Adria told them how she’d gone out to work in her garden and noticed something in her tomato plants. At first she’d thought it was something animals had dragged in, or someone had tossed in the yard. She got her rake and plucked out what appeared to be a rag. When she dropped it on the grass to examine it, she saw that it was an article of clothing.
A T-shirt.
But small, like for a child.
Aware of the news reports on the missing neighborhood boy and details of his clothing, she called the police.
Now, in the photos, Malko and the others saw that it was a blue Cubs T-shirt, wet and soiled, but with what was clearly a mustard stain on the front.
“Are you confident that the T-shirt is Gage Hudson’s?” Marsh asked.
“Well—” Caffrey swiped through the photos “—it matches his in style, color, size. And there’s that mustard stain.” Caffrey then juxtaposed the shirt with the photo Faith Hudson had given police of Gage wearing his blue Cubs T-shirt. “See how the stains align?”
None of the agents spoke as the helicopter circled above the neighborhood. After it passed, Malko said, “And you detected small bloodstains on the shirt?”
“Right, initial tests indicate the blood is type A. Gage Hudson has type A, so yes, I’m very confident the shirt is the one he was wearing when he went missing.”
“I have no doubt that this is Gage Hudson’s shirt,” Malko said.
“What about the blood?” Marsh said.
“Yeah, it’s troubling for sure, could mean a lot of things. We need to do more analysis,” Caffrey said. “If there’s nothing more, I should catch up with my people. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”
“That’s it for now,” Malko said. “Thanks, Bill.”
Malko and Marsh stayed at the scene a few minutes longer discussing the case while awaiting callbacks and updates. The helicopter, which was conducting aerial photography of the area, in addition to searching, circled again as they both looked in the direction of the Hudsons’ home.
“How do you think the shirt got here?” Marsh asked.
Malko shook his head.
“This is so close to them, Tibor, half a block away. And with those bloodstains, it’s not looking good.”
“Nope,” he said. “Above all else, no one outside the investigation will be told about the T-shirt. We’ll hold that back. It’s key fact evidence—we can’t let any details leak out.”
Malko and Marsh had already interviewed and run background checks on the Zoliskis, who’d also volunteered to let the FBI search their home and property. They were both ruled out as possible suspects.
“What I don’t get,” Marsh said, “is how the shirt was missed in the initial search and canvass of this neighborhood.”
“I don’t think it was missed. I think it ended up here very recently.”
“Really? So how do you think it got here?”
“Stray dogs could’ve dragged it the couple of miles from the Dumpster where we found Gage’s shoe. We’ll see if our canine units turn up anything more here. But animals are one possibility.”
“Right. Adria Zoliski spotted strays in her yard.”
“But she also told us emphatically that she works in this garden every day,” Malko said. “So timing and proximity are factors.”
“Assuming it was not animals, who would put it here?”
“We can’t rule out anything or anyone,” Malko said. “For me, this keeps the focus on the parents and Tate.”
“What about the molestation incident involving Abel Wixom?”
“He remains a suspect. It pisses me off that River Ridge messed up with him.” Malko checked his phone for updates. “Still nothing new on him from NCIC. We need that data.”
“What about Sid Griner and Alma McCain?” Marsh consulted her phone. “Their polygraph results came in this morning and they show that they were both untruthful.”
“We’re not ruling them out, either. Whoever is behind Gage Hudson’s disappearance did not act alone.”
“But you like the parents as the lead actors?”
“The Hudsons have marital stress and motivation to take their son as an act against the other. I know it sounds extreme but it happens. Either one of them could be associated with Wixom, Griner and McCain. Tate can’t be ruled out. We have to look at the potential physical evidence that has emerged—the shoe in the Dumpster, the lock and chain, the ball cap and now the bloodstained T-shirt.”
“But why would Cal, Faith or anyone place Gage’s T-shirt in this yard? It makes little sense.”
“It could be someone is trying to misdirect us.” Malko shook his head. “I don’t know,
Sue. I admit there are a lot of loose ends.”
Each of the agents’ phones pinged with messages they then read.
Tate’s ex-wife and daughter had been located on vacation in Paris and had cooperated with French police and the FBI’s legal attaché at the embassy. They all worked with the FBI lab in the US and French forensic experts to confirm that hair found in the ball cap was consistent with Tate’s daughter’s hair.
“Look at the daughter’s statement,” Marsh said. “Tate bought her the ball cap when she was visiting last year. She said her relationship with him is not a good one, that she resents him. She didn’t want the ball cap and stuffed it in a box marked Goodwill without his knowledge. So the ball cap doesn’t belong to Hudson.”
Malko’s poker face conveyed no reaction.
“Why the hell didn’t Tate tell us that he bought a cap for his daughter?” Marsh said.
“He probably never knew that she’d rejected the gift. She says he bought it for her over a year ago.”
There was a supplemental message on Tate he was reading. It was from Larson Ward, the polygraphist. Tate’s polygraph results: truthful.
“Cripes, Tibor, so do we rule out Tate?”
Malko dragged a hand across his face as he stared at the home of Cal and Faith Hudson in the distance.
“I don’t think so. He was not forthcoming at the outset and he’s skilled law enforcement. Everybody’s been lying to us, Sue. We’re facing a huge web of deceit, and if there’s any time left on that boy’s life, it’s getting shorter by the minute.”
They stood there for a long moment waiting for the helicopter to circle again. When it did, Malko’s phone rang and he answered. “Malko.”
“Agent Malko, Norm Howell, detective with the LAPD.”
“Yes.”
“NCIC has informed me that you’ve been making inquiries on Abel Renard Wixom.”
“That’s correct.”
“This guy’s central to a major investigation we’re running. We need to talk.”
Malko glanced around.
“Okay. Let us get back to a desk. We’ll call you back in thirty minutes.”
61
Stinging from Malko’s disdain, Cal stood in his backyard battling his anger, his thoughts swirling as investigators continued searching the neighborhood, working their way toward his property.
Watching it all, he felt his life was being torn apart.
Was his son alive? What did that couple, the Zoliskis, find? Was someone trying to set them up—set Cal up?
He glanced at Faith, sitting on the steps of their rear deck, wiping her eyes with a tissue.
Was she involved?
At this point he felt nothing but contempt for her. He didn’t know what was real anymore. He looked toward the Zoliski yard at Malko on his phone. Look at him—he thinks Faith took Gage, he thinks I took Gage. Where’s he rushing off to now?
Cal dragged both hands over his face.
How could he find out what they discovered in that yard?
Cal called his newsroom—maybe they’d picked up something on the emergency scanners. At this point he no longer cared if the FBI was listening in. He wanted to know what they’d found and that’s the first thing he asked Stu Kroll when he reached him.
“We know by the radio chatter there’s a lot of activity there,” Kroll told him. “But whatever they found, they’re being extremely careful not to discuss it on the air. Do you have any idea? Do you want to talk to us?”
“No, I’ve got to go. Thanks, Stu.”
As he hung up, he heard Faith speak from behind him. “Cal, what did they find?”
He turned to her. “You should know. Aren’t you and Tate behind it?”
“Please, don’t. Just don’t. You’re as cruel as Malko. For all we know they could’ve found Gage dead a few—” she pointed toward the Zoliskis’ home “—just a few doors...oh God...a few doors from his home.” She began sobbing.
Cal didn’t move to comfort her; instead, he turned away to resume watching the police work.
“It can’t be Gage’s body,” he offered. “I saw nothing there from the medical examiner’s office.” Then, to be callous, he added, “If it was a corpse, or a body part, they’d be there.”
Faith sobbed harder but he ignored her pain to contend with his own. He’d been so consumed with the investigation that he’d barely thought of what was happening to his son right now.
Forgive me, son. Please forgive me.
Exhaustion and anguish suddenly swept over Cal, bringing a torrent of images.
Was someone hurting Gage, abusing and torturing him? Where was he? Why did they find only one shoe? And in that Dumpster, like it was just so much garbage. What did they find down the street? And those people in the Chambers, people who trafficked in fear. Did they work with Tate? What did they know? What did they do?
Maybe I should shake the truth out of Faith; go beat the truth out of Tate. No, I need to focus. What about the FBI probing my news stories looking for a connection? Yes, I’ve crossed the line once or twice—but no one needs to know because there’s no way Gage’s disappearance could be connected. I mean, how could it be?
As if waking from a nightmare Cal found himself in the house, in Gage’s room with his heart racing. Seeing some missed traces of fingerprint powder on the door, the walls, then confronting the deathly stillness, catapulted him back to what he did for a living. To the times when he’d intruded on the grief of the families who’d lost loved ones to shootings, fires, drownings, car wrecks, suicides, every sort of tragedy.
He recalled how he’d ask them to tell him about their loss and they would. How they’d search through computers, phones, wallets, purses, albums, shoeboxes, for a “nice” photo, pulling them off fridge doors, corkboards and walls. Then they’d show him the rooms of the departed and their belongings: a cherished stuffed toy, or a piece of jewelry, a sweater or a trivial-looking cherished souvenir.
The last things they touched.
And now, standing in Gage’s room, touching his fingers to his posters of the Cubs, the Bears, Bulls and Blackhawks, seeing the blackish traces of graphite on his ball glove, his book of world records, his Lego stadium and skyscraper...the last things he touched.
Cal felt the karmic wheel had turned.
Heartbroken, all he wanted now was to lie down in Gage’s bed and wrap himself in his sheets, but the front doorbell rang and someone pounded on the door.
He answered it to find Rory Clark on his doorstep. Beyond him, a few newspeople and a River Ridge police car were on the street in front of the house, watching. He opened the door to let Rory in, closing it behind him.
Inside, Rory held up his phone. “There’s a woman calling for you on my phone.”
Cal’s stomach clenched—not again. “Who is it?”
“She wouldn’t give her name. Just insisted that I find you and put you on the line. She says she used the internet to track down your neighbors because it’s safer to talk to you on a phone police aren’t monitoring.”
“How would she know what phones police are monitoring?”
“I don’t know. It’s definitely odd.” Rory passed the phone to him.
“This is Cal Hudson. Who’s calling?” he asked, more for Rory’s benefit than his own, since he already had a sense of who was on the line.
“It’s me again.”
Cal was dismayed to recognize the voice—Beth Gibson. Or, at least, that’s what she’d called herself last time.
“Don’t say my name, Cal. We need to talk without anyone hearing us.”
“One minute.” He covered the speaker with his hand. “Rory, I have to take this privately. I’ll return it soon as I’m done.”
“Hold on. What’s going on? Why is this stranger calling my phone and asking for a private call? Don’t you think we sh
ould at least notify the police?”
“No, I’ll just talk to her and take care of it. She’s an old police source.”
“Cal—” Rory put his hand on his shoulder “—you know we support you one hundred percent...but the news reports make it look like investigators suspect you and Faith are hiding something.”
“Rory, you have to trust me. This is okay and you did the right thing coming to me like this.”
Rory was silent. Cal could see he was wrestling with his unease.
“Please,” Cal said. “Just trust me.”
A moment passed before Rory relented. “All right.”
“Thanks. Help yourself to coffee in the kitchen,” Cal said, then went to the laundry room and shut the door.
“You still there?” he said.
“I’m here. Are you alone now?”
“Yes.”
“Is anyone recording?”
“No.” Cal squeezed the phone, struggling with rage seething beneath the surface. “Is my son dead?”
His question was answered with silence.
“Tell me!”
“I don’t know.”
“You must know! They’re looking near our home. It’s on the news!”
“That’s why I called. I saw it on the news.”
“Do you know what they found?”
More silence.
“Stop the bullshit,” Cal said. “You of all people should know what’s going on out there.”
“I believe they found an article of your son’s clothing.”
He steadied himself on the dryer, then struggled with his composure.
“Are you involved?”
“Cal, I swear to you, I’ve got nothing to do with this.”
Unsure what to believe, he didn’t respond.
“I called because they’re clearly deeper into the investigation now, and it’s critical that you never reveal what we did.”
“But what if there’s a connection to Gage?”
“Nothing has surfaced to point that way.”
“Not yet.”
“There is no connection.”
“You better hope there’s not because if there is—”
“Cal, my heart goes out to you. I know this is horrible.”