Rick Mofina - Last Seen

“Thank you,” Faith said.

“Good. We’re going to get some coffee, fuel for the job,” Price said. “Can we get you coffee, juice, water?”

The Hudsons declined.

“We’ll be back in a few minutes.” Price offered a small smile. “And once we’re done the interviews we’ll take you down to processing for your prints and swab for DNA, then get you home.”

Price and Lang left, leaving Cal and Faith alone.

“I didn’t understand the consent we just signed.” Faith blinked back her tears. “I almost feel like we need a lawyer. I can’t think at all.”

“This is all procedure. One way or another they’ll get what they want and we have to cooperate so they can focus on Gage.”

“I’ll do whatever it takes to find him but I’m so afraid, Cal, I can’t think.” Faith cupped her hands to her face.

Cal’s impulse was to put his arm around her but he abandoned the idea. Taking stock of the squad room, he pointed his chin to one of the outlying offices. Two men in sports shirts, wearing shoulder holsters, were questioning an overweight tattooed man.

“Look, that’s the ticket taker. The guy who was in front of the horror house when we went in,” Cal said. “I didn’t like the way he eyed you.”

“You noticed that, did you?”

Cal studied her for a moment.

“Yes, I noticed,” Cal said. “He gave off a bad vibe.”

Faith let a few tense seconds pass before she nodded to another office where two other detectives were talking to a man. “That’s the chain-saw guy. At least they’re talking to the carny people. That’s a good thing.”

As the minutes swept by, Cal and Faith looked at the desks. Their sides were pushed against a wall under a corkboard of notes, calendars, phone lists and personal items. To one side there was a framed degree from Elmhurst College for Rachel Price and a photo of her beaming in formal blues, with two men to her left and two men to her right. Congrats, little sis! The fifth cop in the family! Doug, Spence, Danny and Deke was penned below it.

On the right side, there was a framed degree in Criminal Justice for Leon Wesley Lang from the University of Illinois. There was a snapshot of him with a woman and a little girl, about Gage’s age, by a mountain lake. The girl bore a resemblance to Lang.

Each desk had a computer monitor and keyboard. File folders were fanned over the work area and notebooks were bound with elastic and neatly stacked. On one of the desks were splayed copies of the morning editions of the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Star-News. The headline in the Star-News said Star-News Reporter’s Son Vanishes in River Ridge Fair Horror House. It ran atop photos of Gage in his blue Cubs shirt and Cal and Faith at the press conference.

Faith’s hand flew to her mouth. “Cal,” she said, her voice quavering. “I don’t like this. What’re we really here for?”

“They need to know exactly what happened and we have to help.”

“It’s making me nervous. Will they need to know everything about us?”

Cal looked at her.

“They’re going to ask us whatever they feel they need to ask us, Faith. That could be anything. Are you ready for that?”

She stared back at him. He was unable to read what was behind her eyes but her tone cooled when she finally said, “Are you, Cal?”

For a moment, neither of them breathed.

Suddenly she took his hand, squeezing it with both of hers, as if she’d been cued by Price and Lang’s return.

“All set?” Price smiled briefly, taking note of the handholding. The detectives had returned with ceramic mugs of coffee, their clipboard folders and the Hudsons’ phones. “Thanks for those. Now, Cal, if you’d come with me, and Faith, if you’d go with Leon.”

They led them to the far end of the floor, down a hall with several closed rooms. Price indicated Interview Room 402 on the left side for Cal, while Leon did the same for Interview Room 403 on the opposite side for Faith.

“We don’t want to be interrupted,” Price said, “so we’ll talk in these interview rooms.”

Before they entered, Faith threw her arms around Cal, surprising him with a kiss on his cheek and a tight hug, her body trembling against his.

Again, she searched Cal’s face.

Then she turned and joined Lang.

12

Still feeling Faith’s kiss, Cal stepped into Interview Room 402.

He took a quick look at the small room, barren of furniture but for the hard-back chairs on either side of a table with a wood veneer finish.

As a reporter, Cal had been inside enough police stations, precincts and districts to know how investigators truly regarded these rooms. All of them were like this one, bright and sparse with white cinder-block walls that seemed to be closing in on you.

Interview room? No, these were battlefields where truth waged war against deception.

“Have a seat, Cal.”

The chairs scraped on the vinyl floor and Price took her place across from him, set her mug on the table, then her folder, which she opened. She tapped her pen against the pad while scanning her notes.

She was pumped for this.

Cal swallowed. Most of the saliva in his throat had dried.

Hang on to yourself and keep it together.

Price pulled a small recorder from her jacket, switched it on and set it down between them. “This little one’s for me. I want to take down everything accurately.” She gave him a smile, nodding to the camera pointing at him from the ceiling in the corner of the room. “We record all interviews, a precaution for you and for us. Do you have a problem with that?”

“None.”

“Okay, good,” she said. “We’ve gone over your statements but I want to begin with you telling me everything that occurred yesterday when Gage disappeared, from the time you got up, to the time you went to sleep—or tried to. Include everything you did, everyone you interacted with, whether by phone, email, in person, tell me everything.”

Cal took a slow, deep breath, then for the next twenty minutes he recounted the day—how it was a day off for both him and Faith, how they’d taken Gage to the fair, to the Chambers of Dread, and the nightmare that had happened after that.

“So, Gage wanted to go into the Chambers because his friends Marshall and Colton had dared him?” Price made notes. “Is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me more about Gage. Has he ever wandered off?”

“No.”

“Does he have any learning disabilities?”

“No, he’s a bright child, takes after his mother.”

“Any attention disorders?”

“No.”

“Would you say he’s shy, quiet, bold, talkative, a leader or a follower?”

“He’s quiet, a follower. He’s social—he’s got his friends.”

“Is he mostly happy? Unhappy?”

“Happy. He’s happy.”

“Does he take risks?”

“No, he’s cautious.”

“Would you say he’s a fearful, anxious child, pessimistic?”

“No, he’s positive, easygoing.”

“Any behavioral problems at all?”

“No. And he does well in school.”

“Has he tried drugs that you know of?”

“He’s nine.”

“We both know age doesn’t seem to matter these days.”

“No, he hasn’t touched drugs.”

“How does he interact with strangers?”

“You mean when he meets new people, or creeps?”

“Any way you want to answer.”

“He knows to stay away from strangers, but he’s respectful when he meets new people with us, that sort of thing.”

“Does he have access to the internet?”

“Yes, at school and at home.”

“Has he ever met or communicated with a stranger online?”

“No, there are guards on what he can access at school and at home. These things are monitored.”