I’m tame.
Why in the world would any man have to say that?
Shock. Cavan put it down to shock. “Easy,” he said. “It’s okay. I’m a police officer. My name is Cavan Carmichael. Help is on its way. Nobody’s going to hurt you anymore.”
The man moaned. It was a strange, frightened sound. Cavan shook off the idea it sounded like a horse’s whinny. Maybe the poor man had heard these reassuring words before and it had led…to this.
He radioed to Ben, who was out front.
“Dammit. I lost him,” Ben reported. “I got an APB out.”
“Wait until you see what I found in here.” Cavan still couldn’t believe it. “I’m calling an ambulance.”
Ben said something but his voice melted into static. The windowless shed was stifling. Cavan nudged the door open with his shoulder and radioed dispatch for an ambulance. He took a couple of deep breaths as he described to operator two-eleven the shocking condition of the chained man.
“He’s naked…he’s taken a hell of a beating. I see blood pooled around his ass. How long’s that ambulance gonna be?”
When Ben arrived, Cavan asked him to keep his flashlight trained on the corner so he could get a better look at the victim.
“Don’t be afraid, sir,” Cavan told the man, who cowered under the harsh glare. “I’m sorry your eyes hurt, but I’m here to help you.” He reached the man, who smelled awful. Cavan wondered how long he’d been in here and when he’d last bathed. His dark hair hung in thick rivers around his face. Stubble covered half his face.
“Easy, easy,” Cavan said again. He knelt in front of him, not thinking about anything except helping this poor, wretched soul. He laid his radio, cell phone and flashlight on the ground.
“Have you been shot or stabbed?” he asked, keeping his voice gentle.
“He cut me.”
“What’s your name?” Cavan asked, his fingers moving to the man’s arm. His skin felt cold despite the stifling heat in the room.
“Unit one-twenty-four, what’s the status of our victim?” the radio dispatcher asked.
“He’s cold,” Cavan said. “Probably shock.”
Cavan looked at the heavy iron chains on the man’s limbs. Blood oozed freely from his right ankle, the restraints much tighter on that leg for some reason.
“These are positively medieval,” Cavan said, without thinking.
The man began to shake.
“We got a blanket in the car?” Cavan asked Ben, glancing over his shoulder before picking up his own flashlight again.
But Ben didn’t move. He, too, came closer and Cavan sensed him kneeling beside him as they stared at the intricate, interlocking system on the chains and locks that truly did look like ancient torture devices.
“What the fuck are these?” Ben sounded horrified.
“I can’t unlock these.” Cavan was beyond frustrated. “I’ve never seen anything like them. Ben, we need help.”
“Ambulance is here,” Ben said. “I hear the sirens.”
He rushed from the shed. Cavan put his hands back on the man’s body. “Hang in there, buddy. What’s your name?”
This time the man answered and, for the first time, Cavan detected an accent, only he couldn’t place it.
“Ludo.”
“Ludo what?”
“Just Ludo.” The man leaned his head against the wall as if these few short words had utterly drained him.
“Where did he cut you, Ludo?” The man didn’t respond. And then the ambulance crew came running.
Everything happened so fast. A passing squad of DEA officers had heard the call on the radio and dropped by to help. They brought bolt cutters. Poor Ludo moaned in agony as they worked on him. Cavan stayed with him, reassuring him. Ludo’s head dropped on his shoulder at one point. He went so still, Cavan thought he had died.
The unshackled man let out a scream as four men lifted him onto a gurney. The stench of his blood and, Cavan realized, feces, was overwhelming. Cavan followed the gurney outside, took a few deep breaths, donned gloves after the fact and bagged the ancient-looking restraints as evidence.
He had no idea until his field sergeant arrived that he had recorded everything…but in those first few moments when Sergeant Veo took possession of his cell phone and viewed the footage, Cavan could only think that “Just Ludo” was lucky.
When Cavan came out of the shed, bagged evidence in hand, the ambulance crew worked to fix an oxygen mask over Ludo’s face before moving on again. Cavan was astonished at the array of people in the backyard. All kinds of police units, including a K9 unit, were combing Masterson’s property looking for evidence…or he wondered, were they looking for more victims?
Over their heads, news choppers whirred. Cavan’s field sergeant was trying to say something but the choppers drowned him out. He looked up in the sky and shook his head. He gestured to Cavan, who followed him to the house where Masterson’s dogs were being carried out by members of the Westside emergency ASPCA unit.
“Only four dogs?” one of the officers asked above the racket.
“That’s what he said,” Cavan shouted back.
Inside the house, now swarming with cops, Veo started asking questions. Some of the officers congratulated Cavan, who was now aware of Ben standing right beside him.
“Tell me how you came to find the shack,” Veo said.
Cavan told him everything, including noticing the smell and presence of sawdust on Masterson.
“That was a good find,” Veo said. “I don’t need to tell you the state of California has taken a public beating over Jaycee Dugard’s eighteen year captivity right in plain sight and neighbors had called to report children in that backyard for a long time. I want to thank you both for taking your time,” he glanced at Cavan, “and acting on instinct.”
He held up Cavan’s cell phone. “What you recorded here, my friend, is gold. Pure gold.” He tapped into the phone and kept talking.
“Publicly, I will praise your heroic efforts, privately I want to slap you for going in there without your weapon drawn.” Veo managed a small, tight smile. “I’m only thinking of your safety. However, with LAPD’s recent record for being trigger-happy, your footage will help restore our reputation. I just emailed the video to myself.” He handed the cell phone back to Cavan. “Well done, both of you.”
“Any word on Masterson?” Cavan asked.
“We found him at the 7-Eleven on the corner of PCH and Sunset.”
“Great,” Ben said. “He’s a real weirdo.”
Veo moved off in the direction of one of the other officers calling for him.
“Guess we’re dismissed.” Ben shrugged.
“Yeah. Think Ludo will be okay?”
“They say his blood pressure is dangerously low. He’s lost a lot of blood. They’re amazed he’s still alive.”
Ugh.
Outside the house, news crews vied to speak to them, but both Cavan and Ben avoided them. Cavan wanted to go home. He wanted to go to the hospital. Actually, he wanted to throw up at the thought of one man’s inhumanity to another. Ben nudged him, pointing to a Chevy Tahoe.
“Wonder what the hell the bomb squad’s doing here.”
Cavan had no idea. His hands felt sticky and he realized he had Ludo’s blood on him.
Ben drove them back to the station. Cavan kept seeing and smelling the poor man from the shed.
“You’re covered in his shit,” Ben said, which probably explained things.
Back at the station, as soon as they walked in, the night crew burst into applause. Cavan was mortified.
“I did what any of you would have done,” he kept insisting. He checked the chains and locks from the crime scene into evidence and endured the good-natured but embarrassing kudos from the guys behind the steel-mesh grille.
“Don’t forget to bag up your uniform and bring it to us. You’ve probably got tons of trace evidence on it,” the duty officer told him.
“We’ll organize a replacemen
t uniform tomorrow,” the watch commander said as he walked Cavan to the locker room. “What you did was act out of compassion. I know a few guys who woulda gone in, guns blazing. Thanks to you, people love us again. Somebody even brought in Yum Yum Donuts!”
Cavan took a long shower, well, four minutes. The station’s showers cut off on the dot. He bagged up his soiled uniform, changed into jeans and a shirt and checked his uniform into evidence. He returned to the lobby to find everybody clustered around a television set. Cavan couldn’t believe it. Only two people had possession of the footage he’d shot upon entering the shed. He knew he hadn’t sent it to anyone, which meant that his field sergeant had leaked it to the mainstream media.
The footage was dark and made Cavan think of The Blair Witch Project, but it was chilling to watch. The man’s abject misery and terror were palpable. Then came his immortal words, “Don’t worry. I’m tame.”
A gasp went up among the crew. Officer Felicity Jones, an unhappily single mother of one and next in line for promotion to the detective division, put a hand to her mouth, tears in her eyes.
“Oh, that poor man.”
Everybody watched as Cavan moved slowly, reassuring the man as he knelt in front of him. Only flashes of footage could be seen but the entire conversation could be heard at this point. Cavan remembered that he’d put the phone on the ground.
“Ludo,” the victim was saying.
Cavan couldn’t watch anymore. He couldn’t believe this harrowing encounter was on the evening news.
“Where’s Ben?” he asked Felicity.
It seemed difficult for her to tear her gaze from the TV.
“Left already.” She cupped her hand around her mouth. “I think he’s a little jealous of all the attention you’re getting.”
“Jealous? He was there, too!”
“Shh,” she whispered. “Listen, you’d better type up your report.”
“Now?”
She nodded.
It was the last thing he felt like doing but he did it, perched in his uncomfortable chair at his tiny desk in the maze of partitions that made up the uniform officers’ quarters. He emailed his report to Veo and both the day and night watch commanders, per the instructions in his two-inch thick West LA Police manual. As he came back into the lobby, his co-workers were still clustered around the TV.
They were all much more interested in Cavan the Hero on TV than Cavan the Real and Tired. He said goodnight and walked out of the station. Cameras flashed and people rushed him. Across the usually quiet Butler Street, residents waved.
The watch commander and a few others stepped outside and Cavan gladly left them to enjoy the spotlight. He retreated back into the building. The only one man enough to accompany him to his vehicle via the rear exit was Felicity Jones. She walked him to where the cops all parked—a lined lot right next to the precinct’s impound yard. It sometimes caused problems with irate drivers who showed up to bail out towed vehicles. Some had been known to curse any cop who happened to be in the parking lot.
“How’s your mom?” she asked as he thanked her for walking him to his old red Ford pickup.
“She’s fine, thanks.”
“Found her a place yet?”
He shook his head. Cavan and his sister, Dina, had both spent a lot of time since he’d come to California trying to find their mother suitable accommodation in an assisted living facility. They’d found a few worthy choices but his mother hated everything. Even when the places met her nebulous criteria, she found some reason to decline them. There were her many, random phobias…and her, er…unusual collections. Both of these needed great consideration in her final choice.
“How’s Ky?” he asked. Felicity’s three-year-old son had just been diagnosed as being autistic and now had a “shadow” accompanying him to preschool classes. The state-mandated therapist attended all of Ky’s school activities with him, monitoring his behavior and progress. Felicity appreciated the help but told anyone who’d listen that she stressed over the daily reports.
“We’ll talk tomorrow,” she said, putting a gentle hand on his arm.. “You’re wiped out. Get in. I’ll wave off the cavalry.”
He didn’t hesitate. He jumped into his truck as a herd of media people rounded the corner and began yelling out to him.
“Stop right there!”
He almost stopped himself.
Felicity’s experience as a mother came in handy sometimes. Even the drunks in the holding tank had been known to obey her first command.
He drove home toward his mother’s house, a nice, Spanish-style house farther east of the precinct in an area known as the Wilshire Corridor. He couldn’t face her right now. Not since he’d forgotten to stop and buy her some bananas.
Cavan put a quick call through to her. She must have been on the other line because went right to voice mail. He said he’d be home within the hour and detoured up La Cienega Boulevard to Cedars-Sinai Hospital. He found street parking, checked the street signs and was pleased to see he didn’t have to worry about dumping cash in the meter. In LA, the meters remained active until ten p.m. It was almost eleven-thirty.
He walked to the hospital’s entrance on Third Street. He flashed his badge at the admissions nurse who said, “Wait a minute…you’re the officer who found Shack Guy.”
He winced. Shack guy.
The nurse picked up her desk phone. “He’s just come out of surgery. I’m sure the doctor would like a word.”
Cavan thanked her and moved off to the side. His rescue was being shown over and over again it seemed. Damn his field sergeant leaking this to the media. The waiting room was filled with people who looked to be in varying degrees of agony, but he knew from experience only people gushing blood would receive immediate attention.
A pleasant looking Indian man in a white lab coat approached him.
“Officer Carmichael, I’m Dr. Samada. Come with me, please.”
The doctor led him past a row of curtained-off beds into a small cubicle.
“Did he say anything to you beyond his name being Ludo and that he was cut by his…assailant?” the doctor asked the moment he closed the door.
“No,” Cavan said. “Nothing. Is he not responding to you?”
“He’s very, very sick. He has a perforated colon. I am really surprised he is still alive because he’s been ill, I’d say, for at least a couple of weeks.”
Cavan swallowed. “Has he been in captivity all that time?”
“We don’t know. We haven’t been able to get much out of him.”
“How did he get a perforated colon?”
“There are a number of ways for this to happen, but my patient was raped so savagely by his attacker that his colon was torn.”
“Oh, my God!”
The doctor looked dismayed. “He also has some unusual injuries…cuts, all over his back and buttocks. I’ve never seen anything quite like them. I actually took photos and forwarded them to the FBI for analysis, along with his fingerprints since there is nothing the local police could find on AFIS. I would say, judging by the bruises and level of infection that he has endured, that he has been systematically raped and tortured for at least several days.”
“Is he going to make it?”
“Oh, yes. He has a strong will to survive. He’ll be in here for a while, but he’s in the right place, thanks to you.”
The doctor showed him a photo of Ludo’s back. It was one of the most disturbing images he’d ever seen.
“What are those black things?” Cavan asked.
“Infected cuts. His captor used some kind of rusty tool on the veins in one of his legs, too. I have a feeling it was to cause maximum pain.” The doctor shook his head. “This is one of the cruelest assaults I’ve ever come across.” He pointed to one of the cuts. “He also seems unusually hirsute. Some of the cuts already have hairs growing out of them.”
“Really?”
“That’s another thing. He has a really unusual blood type, but he is responding well t
o the transfusions we’ve given him. I’m worried about the long-term effects he may have from the perforation to his colon, but we’re giving him intravenous antibiotics and we’re keeping a close eye on him.”
“I’m really pleased to hear this.” Cavan thought for a moment.
“You’ll hear this from the patient himself, since I know he wants to speak to you, but his captor fed him nothing but dog food. He’s in severe gastro-intestinal distress, but with the surgery, this should improve.”
“He…he said he wants to see me?”
“Yes. Cavan, right?” On Cavan’s nod, he said, “That was about the only other thing he said. He wants to thank you. He said you were very kind to him.”
“I was hoping to visit him. Is he awake? Can I see him?”
“Sure. Come back tomorrow. He’s still coming out of sedation now.”
Cavan nodded. He wanted to stay but the doctor suggested he head home. “Check in with us first thing in the morning.”
Cavan walked out of the hospital and wrestled with his inclination to go home, take a very long, hot shower, and the certainty that his mother would flip out if he didn’t bring home some bananas.
He stopped at the Ralphs grocery store near the hospital, checking his watch. Almost midnight. Ralphs never closed, which was a blessing. He bought two bunches of bananas, making sure each bunch had at least one sticker and headed home.
For the first time since he’d found Ludo in the shack, he felt hungry. He reached into the plastic shopping bag, ripped a banana from the stem, checked it for stickers and peeled it. He ate it in two gulps as he pulled into the driveway of his mom’s quaint Sixth Street house. She’d had many offers to sell from developers, but she always declined. She loved living here. It had been the home she bought with her retirement funds after years of stellar work for LAPD, but her failing health meant she needed a lot more care than either Cavan or Dina could give her.
He unlocked the door, but he couldn’t open it very far. She’d put the chain across it again. She did this all the time.
“Mom?”
“Cavan?” He could hear her slow progress down the hall via her walker. He’d found a special one with wheels after she’d complained about her wheelchair repeatedly.
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