by William Mark
Chapter 23
As he came into town, it was just after noon. The skies were a dull gray, windy, and wet with intermittent rain softening the ground and casting a somber feel for an early fall day. Curt didn’t bother making any stops, visiting any friends, seeing Tracy, or even asking for back-up. He headed straight for Hooks’ place. He’d kept his badge for just this purpose. It was the spare key he needed to get into places he couldn’t otherwise.
He pulled down the cul-de-sac of duplexes where Hooks’ house was located and reconnoitered the area. The duplex sat near the end and backed up to a small patch of woods which was the southern boundary of a nearby neighborhood he used to patrol. Curt found a spot to watch the duplex from behind another parked car. He fought every urge to go storming through the door and beat Hooks to death, but he held back for the small possibility that Josh was held elsewhere. Killing Hooks would then destroy the only link he had to finding his son.
The silver Toyota was not there. Curt spent an hour stirring anxiously in the driver’s seat of the Crown Vic. It was too quiet. He had grown accustomed to the unnecessary chatter in his ear from Louis or the amusing ruses that Beth and Melinda put on for the requirements of the operation.
After no activity in the cul-de-sac, Curt slipped out of the Crown Vic and walked down the sidewalk to the end near Hooks’ apartment. The yard was manicured with small, trimmed, modest foliage that required minimal upkeep. The duplex was painted tan with brown trim, and a small one car garage sat in front. The oil stains on the driveway told Curt that the car was normally parked outside of the garage. The front door was closed, and after looking around for any onlookers, Curt disappeared to the back of the duplex in search of a concealed place to enter. As he crept by the side of the duplex, he passed by a window. It looked into the kitchenette area, but he couldn’t see anything through the tiny slits of the blinds. He continued to the back. His blood was pumping furiously through his veins, and his breathing was fast and forced. He stepped up on the small concrete patio that led to French doors and looked inside. He saw a living area that was sparsely decorated with just a couch, a television set, one book shelf, and a computer desk in the corner. He noticed on the floor there were wires to a gaming console strewn out. There were two controllers. He followed the wires away from the TV and noticed a large, bean bag chair. Curt sidestepped to get a clearer picture of the object to the side of it. His eyes widened in anger as he saw a smaller, bean bag chair, meant for a child, beside it. He was going in.
The lock to the French doors was simple. He pulled out his pick set to open the lock, but Curt couldn’t control his breathing as he stood at the back door. The thought of his son being on the other side of the hollow, cored door and thin panes of glass was overwhelming. He had waited so long for this moment, yet he had trouble focusing on the task at hand. He exhaled and looked down at his hands. They were shaking uncontrollably, and the pick set was trembling wildly. Picking a lock, even the simplest of ones, required finesse, and his nerves were too shot to continue.
“Fuck it!” he said out loud. He stuffed the pick set in his trench coat pocket, took a step back, and kicked the French doors open, splintering the wood frame into pieces. Instinctually, he whipped back the side of his trench coat and withdrew the Glock from his hip and stared inside for any unexpected resistance. After hearing and seeing nothing, he moved inside, stepping through the busted door frame into the living room area. He looked and listened. There was nothing beyond his own heartbeat thumping in his chest.
The apartment was plain and ordinary, and like thousands of other ones, nothing stood out immediately. He moved around the small room and down the short hallway that led to a bedroom. He stormed through the closed door and found an empty bedroom. It too was sparsely decorated but tidy and orderly. He sifted through the closet, searched under the bed, and looked in the bathroom. Nothing. No signs of Josh.
He moved on to the second bedroom of the apartment, and his heart nearly stopped at what he found inside. Strewn on the bed and the floor was clothing appropriate for a young boy. None looked familiar, but Curt was sure the kidnapper would have found more clothes. While searching the room, he inhaled deeply through his nose, hoping to catch the familiar scent of his son, trying to find anything to validate the Crime Stoppers’ tip—but nothing. He ripped open the closet doors to search inside but only found a few toys and a couple of suitcases. Josh was not here.
The garage! He remembered. Curt nearly walked through the walls to get to the garage and kicked open the door leading to it without checking to see if it was unlocked. The door slammed against the near wall and stood open, revealing a cluttered, filled garage. It was filled with boxes stacked on top of boxes, old furniture turned upside down on top of other pieces of furniture, and a small designated area for the washing machine and dryer. It was jam packed, nearly touching the ceiling with only a tight space to navigate around.
“Josh? Josh?” Curt cried out. No answer. Only silence.
He stepped into the garage and started to check the boxes. Some were labeled kitchen, some labeled office. He read: utensils, sheets, books, plates, clothes, baby clothes. Curt squeezed his narrow frame in the tiny pathway, knocking on the boxes, shaking some and moving them around to gauge if they were full or a façade of some kind. He made his way around back where he had started, without finding any sign of his son. Panic gripped him with a vise-like strength, squeezing his last shred of hope.
“Goddammit, Josh!!!” Tears began to fall from his eyes. He took another look at the massive collection and saw that the boxes formed some kind of wall around the center. He wrenched his neck up and lifted his body up on his tiptoes to get a better look at the middle, but he couldn’t see what was behind the mountainous walls. There was only one way to find out.
Curt grabbed the top box on the nearest stack and pulled it down, sending the box and its contents crashing down and scattering on the floor. He knocked more over and climbed up them, ignoring the fragile nature of the contents. He clambered over the stack and pulled at the next box and the next until he pulled himself to the middle of the pile. A large dining room table sat at the epicenter of the cardboard mountain. Curt found himself kneeling on the top. A tiny cavern under the table was perfect for someone to hide, so he sat down and kicked with all his strength at the stacks moving them away from the table top. The faint garage light was blocked by the tall stacks and couldn’t penetrate underneath the table into the small cubby. Curt quickly flipped over to his stomach and dove under the table into the blackness.
“Josh?”
Nothing. He reached for his flashlight as he strained his eyes looking into the void. He clicked the flashlight to life and shone the beam into the black. Nothing. Nothing was there. He wondered if he was somehow looking into his own soul.
Curt tore down the entire cardboard mountain in a frantic attempt to find answers but only came up with more questions. After exhausting himself from the fruitless search, he walked back into the second bedroom where he found the boy’s clothes. He sank down the side of the bed, crying for his lost son as the last piece of hope faded to nothing. But before the darkness engulfed him completely, he would wait for Hooks to return home in the event Josh was with him.
He pulled out the St. Anthony’s charm from under his shirt and began to rub the small medallion as he sat alone. As he stood up, his attention was pulled to the night stand on the other side of the bed. It was a picture of a pretty, brown-haired woman with a small boy standing in front of her. The picture was something he failed to register during his initial search. He moved around the bed to get a better look at the picture just as the vibration of his cell phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled out the phone as he reached the picture.
“Hello?” Curt answered without looking at the caller ID. He picked up the picture and studied it closely. The boy resembled Josh, but it wasn’t him.
“Curt, it’s Louis. I take it you are at Hooks’ place?”
“Yeah. He�
�s not here!” Curt’s voice cracked as he stifled the anguish.
“Well, okay. So you went through the place then?”
“Yeah. What Louis? Spit it out.”
“It can’t be Hooks.”
“What do you mean, can’t be?”
“Hooks was living in South Florida at the time of Josh’s disappearance. I was able to look at his probation records and his qualifying offense happened down there. He served a prison sentence and didn’t move to Tallahassee until six months ago after a judge allowed him to move. He was living in a halfway house in Ft. Lauderdale when Josh went missing.”
“But, but…the boy’s clothes in the room? The close characters of the tag…it has to be it.”
Rachel Goodwin was listening in on the phone call as it was on speaker phone. Louis looked at Rachel for guidance. Both could hear the desperation in Curt’s voice. Rachel could see that he was blinded by the loss of his son and failed to see any other alternative. She wanted him to find his son as much as he did, but she had to remain objective in this mission—for his sake. She had learned that from Curt and hated that she needed to point it out when he was feeling so vulnerable.
“Curt, we looked into Hooks a little more. Turns out his younger sister and her son have been staying with him for the past month. She just divorced the boy’s father, and they moved up to Tallahassee to stay with him temporarily. Apparently, she is an avid Facebook poster and gave all the juicy details online. The clothes are for her son, not Josh. It must have been her son that the tipster saw, not Josh. I’m sorry.”
Curt had missed the signs. His judgment was so clouded by the rage built up inside, that he ignored all the obvious signs that this did not fit. The tag did not match, the car did not match, and now the lead was dead.
Hook had a past that suggested he was capable of kidnapping. That and the presence of the young boy’s clothes were what screamed out the loudest to Curt. However, it turned out there was a simple explanation. He just didn’t want to see it. Plus, the boxes in the garage belonged to the sister, and he had just destroyed her life’s possessions for nothing.
He felt foolish and guilty for breaking into the residence based on pure speculation from Hooks’ past indiscretions and by being blinded with the slightest possibility that his son could be there.
The muffled sound of a car door shutting came from just beyond the front window of the living room. Panic struck Curt hard and fast as he hung up on Rachel. He peeked out of the living room to see what made the distinct noise. The shadow of Justin Hooks walking up to the front porch froze Curt in his tracks. He was trapped inside. He reached for his gun but thought better of it knowing this time, he was the intruder. He glanced at the back door and realized he would be seen if he made a run for it since Hooks’ keys were already engaging the deadbolt at the front door.
“Shit!” he whispered.
As the front door slowly swung open, Curt stealthily slid behind the door and the near wall concealing himself in the makeshift nook just as Hooks stepped in. At first, he was unaware of the uninvited guest and the damage done inside his home, but a quick gust of an autumn wind carrying the dampness of the all-day rain blew in from the back door. Curt’s rampage immediately caught his attention. He glared at the back door seeing it splintered out of the frame and the glass shards scattered on the ground. He stepped in cautiously as his mind was trying to figure out what had happened.
“What the hell?” he asked as he reached back and lightly pulled at the front door without taking his eyes off the back. Curt held perfectly still while standing directly behind Hooks. He stepped further into the apartment and looked down the hallway to see if the intruder was still inside. The front door met the door frame, but luckily it didn’t fully engage the lock and shut completely. He willed Hooks to move farther down the hallway and out of sight. Hooks fished out his cell phone and called 911 to report the break in. He carefully inched down the hallway, and when he was just at the corner, Curt pulled the door back open slowly and slipped outside unnoticed. He ran to the Crown Vic down the street where he had parked it and scanned the area for any witnesses.
He waited a moment as Hooks ran back outside looking around. He must have noticed that Curt had left the front door open during his escape and realized the perpetrator had doubled back. He sat hunched low in the driver’s seat of the Crown Vic and waited. Leaving right now would bring too much attention. After a few minutes, a marked patrol car rushed by Curt, who was hiding in the seat entirely. The cop got out and met Hooks in the front yard and then followed him around to the back of the apartment. Curt took the opportunity and quickly left the area, hoping he hadn’t left anything behind.
Chapter 24
After the near miss at Hooks’ apartment, Curt had nowhere else to go. Tallahassee had been the place he called home for the better part of thirty years, and yet, all it did now was remind him of the tremendous loss of his son. The lead was a dead end, and the exhaustion of the road trip from the Midwest caught up to him and weighed heavily on his shoulders. He wandered around his hometown looking at all the expansion and the changes made in the two years he had been gone. New restaurants and businesses had taken root, and the old familiar places had been torn down. The small skyline of the downtown area, accented by the twenty-two-story capitol building, stood the same as he remembered. He noticed the town had grown into a full-fledged city.
Curt roamed around and was somehow drawn to the north side of town. Like an old habit, the Crown Vic made the series of lefts and rights as a matter of routine, just as he did when he left work. His neighborhood looked the same as when he left.
He pulled up along the street in front of his house and parked, looking down the slight hill at the red brick-faced, one-story house with black trim. He noticed the yard was slightly unkempt, a responsibility that was his until he left. He remembered the fall season slowed the growth of the grass but littered the yard with a large blanket of fallen leaves. He noticed the gutters were stuffed full of those fallen leaves and needed to be cleaned, a chore he hated. He turned off the engine of the Crown Vic and stared at the house he used to call home. He compared the warm memories of home to the on-the-go lifestyle he had adopted and realized he missed the stability, but he had no choice in the decision to leave. It was either stay and accept Josh’s disappearance or leave and do something about it. It was a tough decision but one he made without hesitation, even at a high cost.
After a while, lost in thought, Curt got out of the car and walked down the driveway. He walked to the side door by the garage and checked the knob. It was locked. He assumed the front and back door would be too. He searched his key chain for the key and noticed it felt odd not using a door pick or subterfuge to gain entry. He’d been gone too long, he thought. He found the key, fed the knob, and opened the door. The garage was very much as he had left it. There were some yard tools stored in the corner, car washing and household tools stored on a shelving system. He noticed a tent on the low shelf and remembered the time he and Josh spent the night in the backyard. Curt didn’t sleep at all and ended up taking Josh back inside half-way through the night.
He continued further in and noticed his car was covered with a tarp that held a thick layer of dust. He wondered why she hadn’t sold it by now and used the money for necessary bills. Obviously, her car was gone. He checked his watch. It read just after 3 pm, and he figured she was still at work. Curt noticed, stowed in the corner was Josh’s bike. It too, was covered with dust. The sight of it being unused brought Curt down deeper in depression at his homecoming.
Curt walked into the laundry room from the garage, and memories of Josh running up to him as he returned home from work came flooding back. He imagined, as he now walked in, that Josh would be sitting there watching television, sitting at the table doing homework, or in his room playing video games. He wished more than anything that was the reality, but pushed the thoughts away, knowing the actuality was too harsh.
The house was silent and st
ill. The collage of family portraits had been taken down from the walls and replaced with some themed wall art that matched the rest of the accents in the living room. It was still a home; it just did not feel like his home. Of course he didn’t have much say in it anymore. Curt stood in the stillness of the house, wondering if it would ever welcome him back, and if Josh would ever see the inside again. He ignored the closed door to his and Tracy’s bedroom, feeling like he would be invading her privacy if he went inside. He turned and walked down the hallway to see Josh’s room.
A crooked sign with a young boy’s handwriting that read “Josh’s Room” still hung in place. Josh had made it during an art project at school, and Curt hung it that evening. He remembered the pride beaming on Josh’s face as he brought it home.
Curt stopped at the closed door. He closed his eyes and bowed his head, preparing himself for the emotional tidal wave that was sure to envelop him. He felt compelled to go in, not because it would be therapeutic but because he needed to renew his sense of connectivity. He’d been staring at a small, wallet-sized photograph for the past two years. He needed to see Josh’s room, smell his room, feel his energy, and remember him as a loving son, but there was not even a sliver of a chance that Josh was still in his room. It was more a delusion than a reality.
The doorknob squeaked and the door creaked as Curt opened it. Although it was overcast outside, the light from the mid-afternoon seeped in through the open blinds. There was no delusion…Josh was still gone. The room was as still as the rest of the house and looked as it did the day he went missing. The bed was perfectly made, all the toys and clothes were put away, and all the drawers were shut. The baseball themed room was tidy and cute, and a poster of his favorite baseball player, Buster Posey, hung over his bed. Above his desk was a picture handed down from his father that depicted a memorable moment in his own childhood, the play that sent Sid Bream of the Atlanta Braves sliding across home plate to win the deciding Game 6 in the 1992 National League Championship Series against the Pittsburgh Pirates. A priceless heirloom that carried more worth in sentiments than actual cash value. A small bookcase sat in the corner near the window; the top shelf was lined with his favorite kid detective series, knick-knacks, and other keepsakes from his short life. Curt’s eyes welled up, knowing the potential for life the room held and the devastating loss that the absence of that life caused. The emotions flooded as expected, and the failure was more devastating than anything. He was so tired. He was tired of the chase, he was tired of not knowing, and he was tired of the bitter feeling of helplessness. No matter how hard he tried, like the lead in Josh’s disappearance that fizzled out earlier, it wasn’t meant to be.