Chapter Two
Captain Harold Dobey studied the selections in the vending machine. He had been in a meeting with the Police Commissioner since early that morning. Lunch had been served. Cobb salads. His wife would have been pleased, since she had him on another diet, but his stomach growled in protest at the memory of the paltry meal.
Almost defiantly, Dobey pushed the button for a chocolate bar and then a bag of chips. He scooped his prize from the tray and walked down the hall to his office, entering from the hallway door instead of through the squad room.
With a weary sigh, he eased his bulk into the comfort of his chair and surveyed the pile of paperwork littering his desk. He was startled when the door leading to the squad room burst open and Minnie Kaplan, the resident computer expert, burst into his office without knocking.
The normally calm and collected police woman looked both troubled and overwrought. Dobey opened his mouth to ask her what was wrong, but he never got the chance before Minnie cut him off in a rush of words.
"Captain, we just got a fax from a police department about two hundred miles north. They wanted us to check the fingerprints for a mentally disturbed person they found who appears to have been tortured over a long period of time." She paused to catch her breath and then blurted out, "Cap, they came back as a match for Starsky."
Dobey's face glazed over with shock as he fell back in his chair and a sudden burst of adrenaline flooded his body. Detective David Starsky had been one of his best men, along with his partner, Detective Ken Hutchinson. But, they were more than that to the Dobey family; they were close friends and honorary uncles to the two Dobey children.
Five years ago, they had gotten off duty and left police headquarters together. Then, they had simply disappeared. No trace of them had ever been found despite an extensive search and investigation. After months of keeping the case open, it had gone cold. They were both still classified as 'missing persons' but, everyone secretly assumed that they were dead.
"Are you sure?" he growled, his usual gruffness a cover for the hope that fluttered in his chest.
"I checked them myself. Three times," Minnie told him. She pushed her thick, black-rimmed glasses back up on her nose. "He's alive, Cap. Starsky's alive."
The petite police woman could barely contain her excitement. Like everyone else in the department, she had helped in any way she could to find the missing men when they disappeared. She also considered them personal friends. She missed them terribly and mourned for them in privacy of her own home.
"Where exactly did the fax come from?" Dobey asked.
"Cedar Creek PD."
"Call them and get any information they have on the man they found."
"Already done," Minnie said with a pleased smile as she handed Dobey two pages stapled together. She waited patiently as Dobey quickly read through the sparsely written report signed by an Officer Bradley. It gave a summary of how he found the man in the ditch and had to restrain him to get him the medical help he obviously needed. There had been no identification on the man when he was found, so his fingerprints had been sent to every police department within a four hundred mile radius of Cedar Creek.
"Did you get any information from the hospital?" Dobey asked. He was not surprised when Minnie handed him another report, this one a bit thicker. From his years of working with her, Dobey knew that she was competent and detail-oriented, which made her an asset in her chosen profession.
Dobey scowled as he read through the report from the hospital. It wasn't good. The man they found appeared to have been severely abused over a long period of time. Healed ligature marks on his wrists and ankles suggested that he had been restrained at least for part of that time.
There were welts, burns, lacerations, contusions, bruises and evidence of broken bones that had not healed properly. The man was severely dehydrated and near starvation. He was also extremely violent and aggressive, fighting anyone who got close to him. For their safety and his own, the hospital staff had been forced to restrain him and sedate him heavily.
Dobey sighed heavily as he laid the report on his desk. The first step was to make a positive ID on the man in Cedar Creek. He looked at Minnie solemnly. "Find Babcock and Simmons; then sign out a car. We're going on a road trip."
"Yes, sir," Minnie said, barely able to contain her excitement at being included in this particular trip.
As she turned to leave, Dobey added, "And keep this under your hat for now. We don't want the whole department knowing what's going on until we know ourselves."
"Yes, sir."
As Minnie left to carry out his orders, Dobey pulled a hanky out of his pocket and mopped at his face. He opened his desk drawer and took out a bottle of anti-acids. Popping the lid, he shook three tablets into the palm of his hand and put them in his mouth, chewing furiously. If David Starsky was alive, then where was his partner, Ken Hutchinson? Dobey hoped he would be able to finally find out what had happened to them five years ago.
Minnie found Jack Simmons and his partner, Ray Babcock, in the basement cafeteria. They were having a bite to eat before signing off shift and going home. They both glanced up when Minnie joined them. She leaned in to talk to them quietly so nobody else would overhear her.
"You guys need to sign out a car and go with Captain Dobey and me."
"Why? What's up?" Babcock asked in a mildly curious voice. He was used to following orders with very little additional information, but the underlying tension and excitement in Minnie's voice told him this was no ordinary assignment. "Where are we going?"
"Cedar Creekl. It's a town a couple of hundred miles north. A man was found and taken to a hospital there." Minnie's voice dropped to barely a whisper. "His fingerprints are a match for Starsky."
"Starsky?" Simmons exclaimed in a startled voice. He glanced around quickly and then also lowered his voice to a whisper. "Are you sure it's him?"
"The fingerprints are a match. I checked them three times. The Captain wants to make a positive ID."
"Why don't they just ask him who he is?" Babcock asked. Like most of the other men in the elite Zebra unit, he and Simmons aspired to be as good as Starsky and Hutch someday, and they had helped in the original search for the missing detectives. Even officers who had not personally known Starsky and Hutch respected them and their impressive record of successful arrests and convictions.
"Because he's not talking. He's so violent and disoriented that he had to be restrained and sedated."
"What about Hutch? Where's he?" Simmons asked
'He wasn't found with Starsky."
"Damn." Babcock began gathering the trash from their meal. "We'll sign out the car and meet you and Dobey out back in fifteen."
Minnie nodded and stood up. She left the cafeteria and headed for the female officer's locker room to change out of her uniform so she wouldn't draw any unnecessary attention.
Thirty minutes later, Captain Dobey, Minnie, Detective Simmons and Detective Babcock were on their way to Cedar Creek, California with Babcock behind the wheel.
"How could Starsky suddenly just show up like that?" Simmons asked, voicing the question that was on everybody's mind.
"Obviously he's been held somewhere against his will," Dobey growled. "And somehow he got away."
"Or whoever was holding him captive decided to just dump him in the desert," Minnie suggested. "They probably figured he'd die out there, and his body would never be found."
Minnie's scenario also made sense. The desert was often used as a dumping ground for bodies that needed to disappear. If the heat didn't destroy the evidence, rapidly decomposing the body and leaving nothing behind but bones, then the predators like coyotes and buzzards would.
"Either way, he's still alive, and we have to make sure that he stays that way," Dobey said solemnly.
'It would take somebody with a lot of hate to hold somebody prisoner for that long and torture them the way the hospital report makes it sound like Starsky was," Babcock said.
"Those two made their share of enemies over the years," Dobey pointed out unnecessarily. Several of the cases that Starsky and Hutch were famous for involved high-profile crimes with some pretty nasty characters. More than one attempt had made against their lives during the course of their career.
A year before their disappearance, Starsky had been gunned down in the police parking lot in a botched assassination attempt. He had actually died in the ICU and been brought back to life. He had surprised everyone, especially the doctors, by surviving the attack. It had taken almost a year for him to recover enough to return to active duty.
The crime lord responsible for the attack, James Marshall Gunther, a ruthless man with almost unlimited power, was brought down almost single-handedly by Hutch. At the time of their disappearance, Gunther had been investigated as a possible source, but no concrete evidence linking him to the crime had been found.
"It sounds like Starsky isn't going to be much help," Simmons pointed out. "Not if he's as disoriented as that hospital report makes it sound. I hate to say it, but it sounds as if his mind could be gone."
"Don't say that!" Minnie scolded him. "Starsky's stronger than that. He'll be okay. He has to be."
"The biggest question of all is…where's Hutch?" Babcock said as he passed a slow-moving sedan.
"Let's just take one thing at a time," Dobey said. "Right now we need to concentrate on Starsky. We'll start at square one and work this just like it was any other case."
"Except it's not, and we all know it," Simmons said. "And if Starsky is in no condition to help us solve this thing, there are some things we may never know…including where Hutch is or what happened to him."
Simmons reached out and turned on the car radio, tuning it to a country western station. He hoped the music would help settle everyone's nerves and ease the tension in the air.
It was close to 10:00 PM when they pulled into Cedar Creek. It was a small town by California standards with a population of only 35,000. Although they were all anxious to get to the hospital, Dobey insisted that they get rooms at a local motel for the night and get some rest, starting their investigation first thing in the morning. The others reluctantly agreed.
Babcock found a Red Roof Inn, and they waited in the car while Dobey went in and rented three rooms, one for himself, one for Minnie and one for Babcock and Simmons. Since he wasn't sure just how serious Starsky's condition was, he booked the rooms for three days, charging them to the Bay City PD.
He gave the others the keys to their rooms and then retired to his own room for the night. The first thing he did was place a call to his wife, Edith,
"Hello, Baby," he said when she answered the phone. "I just wanted to let you know that we arrived safely and give you the phone number for our motel. I rented our rooms for three days. I'll know more after we go to the hospital tomorrow and talk to the doctors."
"You're bringing David home aren't you?" Edith Dobey asked. She was as fond of the two detectives as her husband.
"As soon as the doctor tells us he's strong enough to be moved." Dobey fumbled with his tie as he talked. The long day caught up with him, and he stifled a yawn. "The number here is 555-4045. I'm in room 15, Babcock and Simmons are in room 17, and Minnie is in room 16."
"What do you want me to say if anyone from the department calls looking for you?'
"Just tell them I got called out of town on personal business for a few days, and that I will get back to them when I can."
"I love you, and I miss you. Take care of yourself."
"I love and miss you too, honey. Kiss the kids for me. And tell Rosie that I'm sorry I have to miss her recital."
"I will. And Rosie understands. She knows that police business comes first."
He could hear the smile in his wife's voice. Dobey's son, seventeen-year-old Cal, was already talking about following in his father's footsteps when he got older. He wanted to be a detective like his two favorite 'uncles'.
"I'm going to turn in. I'll call you tomorrow night."
"Good night, honey. Be safe."
There was a soft click as she hung up the phone. Dobey sighed as he replaced the receiver on the cradle. He was getting too old for this kind of stress. He was eligible for retirement in six months, and he had already decided that he was going to take it. He wanted to enjoy the years he had left with his family instead of being married to the job.
