Crush Load

By TLR

When I arrived at the burned-out bookstore, two detectives, Conner and Fitzgerald, plus a couple of SWATS and bomb technicians (who'd gone in first) were already inside because they were helping me look for Hutch. An ambulance had been summoned, so it was waiting in the dusty lot, the medics ordered to stay at the vehicle until it was determined safe to go any closer to the building.

Captain Dobey was on the scene at his car communicating with somebody over the radio and ready to call in reinforcements if necessary. He didn't know exactly what to expect but was ready for anything. The kidnappers could have returned and could be heavily armed for all we knew.

We were all responding to a call from a couple of little kids who'd been sneaking a cigarette in the basement of the old building and found Hutch in there.

Pure chance. We'd been looking for him for three and a half weeks with no leads.

A few bystanders who'd seen the ambulance, SWAT vehicle, bomb truck and unmarked cop cars were standing around to see what was going on.

I jumped out of the Torino to run toward the back door of the bookstore because the front door was boarded up, but Dobey grabbed my arm.

"They're bringing him out," he said as he tried to hold his mike with one hand and me with his other.

I pulled away from him and started to run, getting halfway across the dirt lot when the back door opened.

Conner and Fitzgerald were walking him out between them, each holding an arm, SWAT and the bomb guys in front as if to shield him a little.

My run slowed to a walk, and then to a staring standstill at his dropped head and the way he was quivering and shrunken into himself like a beaten dog, on his feet only because he was being held up. He went right past me without his deadened eyes even looking at me or saying anything.

"Hutch?"

I finally got my legs to work as I turned around to follow them across the lot.

"Fitz?"

Fitzgerald just gave me this self-conscious look like he knew something terrible had happened to my partner.

I reached for Hutch between their barrier of bodies just before they got him to the ambulance, but Conner pulled me aside.

"He's out of it, Dave. He needs a hospital."

Dobey passed a grim look of sympathy in Hutch's direction as he joined me and Conner.

I tried pulling away from Conner too, but with Dobey there to grab my other arm, it was impossible.

"We found him in a closet," Conner told us. "Chains wrapped around him. Blindfold. Gag. We tried to get him to talk, but he didn't say anything. Won't talk, can't talk, we don't know. He's just not responsive."

"He'll talk to me," I said as I tried again to pull away.

Dobey nodded at Conner, and they released me so that I could jump inside the ambulance before it took off.

XXXXXX+

The medics worked on him on the way to the hospital while I tried to talk to him.

Dobey, Conner, and Fitzgerald were left behind to work the scene.

Hutch had been a missing officer, but now he was back with me, safe and alive. That was the important thing. But why had his captors not killed him? Were they planning a follow-up? Had they left him for dead?

He had the answers we needed as to the who and why of the kidnapping. But could he talk? Could he even help out with his own case?

"Hutch," I said as I picked up one of his hands. Grimy, bruised, and lifeless. I wanted to murder the people who did this to him.

"Talk to me. Say something."

My fingers went to his forehead to move some of his dirty, sweaty hair away.

"Hey," I said quietly as I struggled with the tears and emotions that'd been locked up inside.

So many times over the past weeks they'd threatened to spill out, but I kept it in check because I had to keep my head to continue the search.

He was back, but it wasn't over.

He didn't look at me. He acted like he didn't even know who I was.

"Gonna be okay," I told him, saying the words I wanted him to hear, but not sure at the moment if I really believed them. I'd never seen him like this before. He always had a way of being strong, even in the worst of circumstances. His condition brought back memories of finding him in the alley after the Forest kidnapping a year earlier, looking so different, seeing what it had done to his body, his behavior.

If the medics hadn't been around, I think I'd have leaned over the stretcher and cried.

He looked lost, alone, and unreachable.

XXXXXXXXXX

"How long is he gonna be like that?" I asked the doctors outside the emergency room door.

"It's difficult to say," Dr. Jones said. "We're going to examine him, treat him, do any tests that may be necessary, He needs time. Hopefully he'll come around."

Hopefully?

He had to come around. He had to recover. There was no way he could continue in the silent state he was in, and I didn't know if I could continue in the state I was in either. I had no idea how to help him, what to say, what he was even thinking.

By the evening, he was sedated, clean, connected to an IV, and asleep, and Dr. Jones came to talk to me again as I sat by Hutch's bed.

Captain Dobey was present too, and so were Conner and Fitz. They wanted as many details as they could for the investigation. Sometimes medical information can lead you in the right direction when you don't have anything else to go on, and right then we didn't because Hutch was unable to tell us anything. Conner said there was nothing at the crime scene they could use. My thought was that they didn't look hard enough, there is always something you can use, and that I would have to go to that bookstore basement myself and have a look.

"No sexual assault," Dr. Jones said. "No brain injury, no internal injuries, no broken bones, no drugs or toxins. We have contusions and abrasions, some dehydration and weight loss. Which is minor compared to the probable sensory deprivation, isolation, torture, and obvious mental distress from weeks of confinement."

Each word burned a brand into my brain. Dobey kept glaring at the doctor. He didn't want to hear it any more than I did, but we had to know.

Mental distress?

The term was too nice.

"A psychiatrist attempted to speak to him," Dr. Jones said. "Dr. Deutsch. Without success. He'll try again when he's stronger. Ken could come around on his own, once he realizes he's in a safe environment, with people who care about him. But I recommend some type of counseling."

It was late when they left the room. Hutch slept through it all.

I didn't sleep for hours. I had my eyes on him, hoping there was a chance he would wake up and say something, ask for me.

But he slept through the night without a peep, and I did too, after a few hours of observation.

A guard was posted in the hall.

XXXXXX+

The next morning Hutch looked stronger, rested, and more alert. He was actually looking around and seeing things and people, even me, but he wouldn't say anything. He was quiet and looked a little scared. The kind of scared only I could pick up on. Something just behind his eyes, just beneath his skin.

Conner, Fitzgerald, and Dobey came back to probe for details, but even with the four of us gently prodding and using every trick in the book to put him at ease and get him to open up, he still wouldn't talk.

Dr. Deutsch tried again, and so did Dr. Jones, but the more people that came in and out, the more clammed up he became. He didn't resist the nurses who helped him, he didn't try to get out of bed, he was this sort of compliant being who was okay with anything that happened and looked out the window like he was going to lay there in a hospital bed for the rest of his life.

When lunchtime rolled around, I tried to get him to eat his turkey sandwich, but he didn't

say yes or no, so I ate it myself, and then, hoping to get a rise from him, or a joke, or something, ate his butterscotch pudding, then his peanut butter and crackers, then his milk, then his raspberries. It worked; a little. His eyes came away from the window and kept watching me, and then a little smile came to his face.

"Hey," I said as I smoothed his clean, soft hair down. "That's the Hutch I know. Gonna talk to me?"

He looked at me for a long time, then moved his head no.

"Fine. Gonna tell me who took you?"

He moved his head no again.

"Will they come back?"

He closed his eyes and turned onto his side. Not away from me, I was thankful to see. But toward me.

I was getting somewhere. Little steps. I wanted to push him, but not so far that he wouldn't communicate with me again.

"Tired," he whispered weakly as his fingers moved on the sheet. A little toward me.

Hesitant. But needing me. Almost afraid to.

I took his hand, squeezed it, and he squeezed back.

There was a light knock at the door, and Huggy came in.

He would have been present during the briefing with Dobey and the cops, but Conner and Fitz really didn't like him, so he decided to stash himself away in the waiting room for a while, not wanting to put a kink in the investigation or antagonize the ones who were trying to find Hutch's kidnappers.

"Welcome home, my friend," Huggy said as he came to the bed, but not too close. His hands moved as if he wanted to slip his arms around Hutch's neck, but then went back to his hips as if he thought it best not to for now. "We were beginning to think we'd never see boy wonderful again."

Hutch went back into his shell again. He didn't tell Huggy to leave, but he shut him out just the same, by closing his eyes, drawing the sheet up close to his chest, and becoming silent again.

XXXXXXXX

When evening came, Dobey, Conner, and Fitz came back to take another crack at questioning him, but he wasn't going for it. He just stayed on his side and stared out the window.

After a string of questions, Hutch finally slid his eyes to them and said, "Can you just leave me alone?"

They looked shocked, since it was the first thing he had said anything to them, but decided they couldn't get anywhere until he wanted to say more, so they left him alone.

When Dr. Deutsch came around for another visit, Hutch said politely, "I don't need to talk to anyone, thank you," so the doc left his card on the food tray and left.

XXXXXXXX+

Hutch grew stronger over the next few days, and he did begin to respond to the nurses, but not in the remarkable way I'd hoped for. He didn't offer conversation; he only answered their questions yes or no, and when it came to choices, he was very uncertain, even about the smallest thing, like did he prefer vanilla or chocolate pudding; did he want to put clothes on or stay in the hospital gown; did he want to go outside for lunch with me or eat in the cafeteria. Sometimes he said it didn't matter. Sometimes he asked me to decide, and that's when I knew that something was very wrong with him.

XXXXXXXX

Jones and Deutsch said he could be discharged in a couple of days, but that he wasn't ready for work yet, physically or mentally, and recommended that someone stay with him while he recovered.

"My place or yours?" I asked him.

"I don't care."

"Which would help you feel safer?"

"It doesn't matter."

"Would you please pick one so I'll know where we're sleeping tonight?"

"Do you mind if we go to yours?"

"No, that's fine."

XXXXXXXX

Uniforms were to take shifts monitoring my place.

When I got Hutch home, he just stood in the middle of my living room floor like a kid at a new school.

"What do you want to do?" I asked him.

"I don't know," he said rubbing his arm with his hand. "What do you want to do?"

Sometimes my love comes out as anger. I don't mean it that way, it just happens. I have infinite patience when it comes to Hutch, especially if he is hurt or upset, but not when it comes to at-large psychos who altered him into someone I barely knew and could try to come back and hurt him, kill him, or God knows what else.

"What do I want to do?" I asked as I dropped a bag of his clothes onto my coffee table. I went over to him and took his arms in a grip that he couldn't get out of.

"I want to go arrest those sickos who did this to you, but you won't tell me who, you won't tell me why, and you won't talk to anybody that wants to help you."

He had the strangest look of fear and confusion on his face as he backed up with me still holding his arms.

"It wasn't that bad," he said with quiet reason, like I should know that. Like I should understand.

My heart froze in my chest. I wanted to say something, but the words froze too as he kept talking in his quiet, rational way.

"They didn't drug me like Forest did. They brought me water. They let me live."

I wanted him to yell at me, push me, pull away, cry, pace, run; anything but just stand there in obedience and let me restrain him.

He had more fight when he was broken from withdrawal.

"They didn't drug you like Forest did. They brought you water. They let you live. What more could you ask for? How thoughtful of them."

"You weren't there. You don't know how it was."

"Then how was it?"

He looked down and backed up another step, and then another, until his back hit the wall, where he stood for a second, and then as if suddenly exhausted, or overwhelmed, started sliding down the wall.

I pulled him back up and pulled him to me, but he was as plastic and detached as a mannequin.

"Come on," I whispered to him as I took him over to the sofa and sat him down. "I want you to be comfortable. Do you need somethin'? Huh? You'd tell me if you could remember, right? If you could recognize them, you'd tell me, wouldn't you?"

He spent the rest of the day sitting on the sofa, while I motored around the house cooking some vegetable stew and cleaning the place even though it didn't need cleaning. I put some music on and tried to talk to him. Called Huggy, Dobey, and Conner and Fitzgerald, with an update, and for an update. Set some magazines and books on the coffee table for him to look at. But he just sat quietly while I moved about. I did that to give him some space, to see if he'd initiate any conversations, but it didn't seem to help.

When night came, I made sure the door was locked and that the uniformed officer was outside.

"I'm gettin' some sleep," I told him as I put a pillow and some blankets on the sofa next to him. "See you in the morning."

"Thanks, Starsk," he said with slowly batting eyelashes as he became drowsy too. "I appreciate your help."

That's the Hutch I knew. But I didn't know how much of a help I was to him right then.

I turned the lights out and carried my gun to the bedroom, lying in bed and listening for sounds, both inside the house and outside, but none were made, and soon I drifted off to sleep.

It was around midnight that I woke up to take a leak, and after I finished, saw that Hutch was asleep in his sitting position.

Maybe he was too afraid to lie down. Or maybe he had to sleep sitting up in the closet. Or maybe he didn't think he had the choice to lie down at all. Or sleep at all.

"Hey," I said as I touched his shoulder, and when I did, he startled badly and jerked away from me to cling to the pillow and blankets, burying the side of his face in and clutching it in fright.

I came around to the front of the sofa and knelt down, stroking his hair.

"Hey," I repeated as gently as I could. "It's just me. It's okay."

I could see tears in his eyes as he looked at me.

"Hutch, are you afraid?"

He didn't answer me. He was very still as his eyelids grew heavy with sleep again.

"Go to back to sleep," I said quietly. "It'll be all right."

When I saw that he was asleep, I was relieved, and went back to bed to get some rest too, wondering how in the world I was going to keep a grip on my patience and understanding. I tried to remind myself that he couldn't help his state of mind. That those morons had done this to him. And that if he truly had a choice, he would help himself.

I didn't know how he was supposed to get his will back. His courage back. His heart.

It scared me to think that he could be scarred for life.

XXXXXXXX

I don't know how long I stared at the ceiling. Maybe hours. But just as my dark thoughts were melting into a puddle of twilight sleep, I heard a thumping noise from somewhere in the house that brought me out of bed and to my feet.

"Hutch?" I asked walking through the house, gun in my hand. "You all right?"

I turned a small lamp on, and saw that he wasn't on the sofa or anywhere in the living room.

"Hutch?"

I checked the kitchen, but didn't see him there.

Then when I heard a noise again, realized it was coming from the bathroom.

"Hutch?"

The door was halfway open but the light was out, so I slowly opened the door and turned the light on, looking around.

"Hutch?"

The shower door was closed, and I gripped my gun, unsure of who or what, but prepared for anything. Maybe somebody with a gun to his head; a knife to his throat.

But it was Hutch. Alone in the dry shower. On his knees and slumped sideways against the wall, panting, lost in a dream. He had stripped down to his boxers, maybe planning to

take a shower, but hadn't followed through. The bruises on his back were brutally clear, shorts damp with sweat, mumbling, murmuring, scared.

He rolled his head no on the wall. His arms were stiff at his sides, pressed close to his body, as if he couldn't move them. The way I'd seen them when he was brought out of the bookstore.

Long red abrasions formed patterns of circles around his body.

Chains.

For the hundredth time I had to fight back rage for the treatment they'd given him.

"I'm sorry," he whispered over and over to the wall, his cheek pressed against it. "I'm sorry."

"Buddy," I said as I reached for his shoulder and squeezed. "It's three in the morning. You're dreamin'. Wake up and look around. Look at me."

"What do you want?" he whispered. "What do you want me to do?"

I took his head and turned it toward me.

His eyes were open, but there was a faraway light in them, still lost in his dream, still in captivity.

"Hutch, talk to me. What's goin' on?"

"Thank you," he said as he looked at me. "Thank you."

I took his wrist and forcibly pulled his arm up in front of his face so he could see it.

"You're not chained in the closet anymore. Take a look around."

He looked around as if he were coming to, staring at his own hand.

"Come on," I said pulling him to his feet. "Come out of there."

The nightmare had left him as weak as a kitten. I helped him from the shower stall and to the bedroom, pushing him down onto the bed and covering him up, thinking that a change of location might help him relax.

"Thirsty," he whispered, and this time when he looked at me, he looked like he was fully awake and aware.

"I'll bring you some water."

I walked to the kitchen, got a glass of water, tossed in a couple of ice cubes, then carried it back to him.

He drank a couple of drinks.

"Thank you," he said again.

"Want anything else?"

He moved his head no.

"Want to tell me about your dream?"

"It's just…no. I'm okay. Just a dream. I thought…I was still there. I guess."

"Yeah."

I sat with him for a while, until he seemed to settle.

"Think you can sleep?" I asked him.

"I…I'll try. I didn't mean…to wake you."

"It's okay. I'll be in the living room. Let me know if you need me. Just call for me, okay?"

He nodded, then turned on his side to go to sleep.

"You're a good friend," he murmured as he unwound.

"You are too."

I sat on the edge of the bed until his breathing slowed and deepened, then went to the sofa, and this time we both stayed asleep until morning.

XXXXXXXX+

When I woke up the next morning, I wasn't exactly rested, even though I'd slept. I hadn't allowed myself to go deep enough for a real rest because I'd kept my senses halfway on alert for Hutch the remainder of the night. It was hard to relax when he was in such a condition. Sometimes it felt like I could feel what he was going through, though I guess that really couldn't be possible.

"Hey, Hutch!" I called when I rolled off the sofa and stretched. "You want me to make some breakfast, or do you want to go somewhere? Maybe Huggy's?"

Maybe he needed to get out, see the world a little.

Or maybe he didn't. Maybe it would make him retreat more.

I didn't really know the right thing or the wrong thing to do, so I had to play it by ear.

"You hear me?" I asked as I walked toward the bedroom.

I heard the shower come on, and knocked on the bathroom door.

"Morning!"

"Morning, Starsk!"

He had decided to take a shower. On his own. It was a start.

I went to the kitchen to start the coffeemaker, and when I passed by the table, looked down and saw that Hutch had written something in my spiral notebook, the one I kept for jotting case notes, phone numbers, grocery lists, doodles, all kinds of stuff.

Dear Robert,

I understand that you were trying to send a message and bring some attention to our broken system. And

My skin crawled with fear. For Hutch. For his mind. His soul.

And what?

What else was he going to say?

How could he think that way after what he'd been through?

I wanted to grab his shoulders, shake him, make him talk to me and answer questions, but I knew that wouldn't work in this situation. It would drive him farther away. I wanted to hug him, hold him, tell him there was nothing to be afraid of and that he was fine, but I knew he wouldn't believe me because it wasn't true. I didn't even believe it myself.

He came from the shower looking okay, and gave me a smile that had no warmth.

Robert and company had succeeded in stealing his spirit.

He saw that he had left the notebook open, and closed it.

"Did you say something about going out for breakfast?" he asked me as he pulled a dark brown T-shirt over his head to wear with his tan corduroys.

I tried to play it cool.

"Oh, yeah. Soon as I grab a shower too."

As cool as you could be while your best friend is slipping through your fingers.

XXXXXX+

I stepped over the yellow crime scene tape and into the charred, smoke-stained basement of the bookstore and looked around. Part of the room looked functional. The part that had a half-bath.

But all of it was bare, without a stick of furniture, a scrap of paper, piece of lint, strand of hair, or even a cigarette butt.

I saw where Conner, Fitz, and the investigation team had dusted for fingerprints.

They were right about no evidence. Someone had been diligent. Someone like a very experienced criminal or a very experienced cop.

Then my attention went to the only closet in the room, which drew me and repelled me at the same time. Each slow step toward it was a slow step away from it in my head.

I don't know what I expected when I opened the closet door. The place had been combed clean before the cops ever got there. Maybe I hoped to find something that would give me answers, something that would help my partner.

But the closet was bare too. Dark, smoke-stained like the outside. Nothing unusual about it. Nothing I could use.

The closet looked as empty as Hutch did to me, and the only thing it told me was what I already knew. That in this closet he had lived with terror and inhuman humans. I felt his fear and isolation in the close walls, the swept floor, the dark corners.

Suddenly it began to dawn on me what had happened; what was happening to him now.

The immaculate place. Not one clue.

It never occurred to me before because I never thought it could happen to Hutch, and I

hadn't encountered it personally before.

I went to the door, stepped over the crime scene tape again, then walked across the lot to the Torino where Hutch was still sitting in the passenger seat with the window down.

I went to his side of the car and crouched down.

"Hutch. If I'm ever gonna get them, you have to help me."

He sat with his head down, fingers rubbing his forehead.

"I can't."

I opened the door and took his arm to lead him out of the car, but he sat still.

"I told them how to clean the crime scene, Starsk."

My flash of insight was right.

Every tissue in my body and every cell in my brain wanted to rage for what it meant, but I had to bottle it.

"I know."

"They were…beginners. They didn't know what to do. Vigilante cops. It made sense. I could see what they were doing. I understood. I thought…"

"You thought they were gonna kill you, so you had to go along to stay alive."

"No. It was me. They didn't make me."

I held to his forearm, pulled it down so I could see him, tried to press love and understanding into his flesh.

"Yes. They made you. Every time they brought you water. Or loosened the chains. Or took you to the restroom. Or gave you a bite to eat. Or said you could live."

He looked at me with misery in his eyes.

"They wanted a list of criminals who had gotten off the hook, and I gave them some names."

"It was a survival tactic, Hutch. You wouldn't have done that if they hadn't…" The tears and emotion I had stuffed down in order to help him now rose to the surface. "…had you in that closet like an animal. I saw your note to Robert. Did you want me to find it? I know why you wrote it. Because you know they're still out there and could come back. You're still surviving. You're still scared. They controlled your life and death then. It's

not real sympathy you feel. You know what Stockholm Syndrome is. You explained it to me."

He moved his head no.

"I don't think I can turn them in."

"Hutch, you remember what it was like on heroin. You did things you didn't want to do. Said things you didn't really mean. You told them where Jeanie was, you begged for more needles. That wasn't your fault. This is like that. In time you'll understand."

"No. I'm guilty."

My heart broke. This wasn't Hutch talking. This was torture talking.

But at least the shell was broken and the truth was emerging, along with Hutch.

It would take a while for him to realize what I meant, but he would eventually recover.

XXXXXXXX

It was a flurry of activity.

Lawyers.

Internal Affairs.

Psychiatrists.

FBI.

Hutch's "confession".

His detailed report on Robert and the other kidnappers.

There were times when the lawyers would remind him that he had not kidnapped anyone and that anything that he had done while in captivity, he had done in self-defense.

There were times when the investigators treated him like an accomplice, and those were the times I stepped in and said, "Don't forget who the victim is."

There were times when the psychiatrists had to give him the definitions of torture and compassion.

There were times when I had to show him the difference between love and terror.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Identifying the kidnappers was pretty tough going. "Robert" probably wasn't even the guy's real name. Hutch had never been without the blindfold while he was in the closet, so he never saw his captors, he only heard them.

The only thing we could do was continue to investigate, and whenever there was the suspicious death of a rapist, child killer, or serial murderer, we got one step closer.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Hutch's recovery was slow but sure. He grew stronger, but still felt some guilt about cooperating with his abductors, even though they'd threatened to kill him if he didn't.

They'd kidnapped him because, basically, he was a cop, and they were looking for some inside information and allegiance. It could have been me, or Conner, or Fitz, or Glassman, or Dobey.

I would like to think that I'd have resisted, that I wouldn't have sympathized or gone along with them, but like Hutch said, I wasn't there. If it'd been me in Forest's hands instead of Hutch, the heroin would have forced me to talk too. Maybe it was because of Forest that Hutch was susceptible. A person never knows what they will or won't do until they're in a situation. You do what you have to do to survive. I bet I told Hutch that a hundred times. Cops are humans too. People can forget that.

I don't know how he survived as well as he did, because there were things he put in his report that he never told me about out loud. How one had made him stand for days at a time without rest until he collapsed, and then Robert would come in and help or force him to lie down. How his head would be dunked in a bucket of water until Robert came in to stop them. How one of them kept him bent over on his knees to decapitate him until Robert stepped in to prevent it. How they would bring one of their lowlife victims in and kill them just outside the closet, where Hutch could hear the screaming, the taunting, the rationale, and was told that the same thing would happen to his loved ones if he tried to escape.

XXXXXXXXXX

Then one day the news came that Robert and his friends had made the mistake of thinking they'd left a gangland boss by the name of Big Matt dead. But Big Matt survived and was given immunity in exchange for information on Robert and his band of concerned citizens.

Only, Robert and his guys didn't make it to trial. One of Big Matt's henchmen had them wasted while they were locked up.

I don't want to come off like Robert, but Big Matt did us all a really big favor in a

roundabout way. Especially Hutch. Because when he heard Robert and his boys were dead, he started to look, sound, and act like the old Hutch. A little guilt still remained, and sometimes he was a little too quiet and a little too pensive and standoffish, but it wasn't long before he was himself again.

The End