Thank you all who took the time to comment, review, or email me in private on this story. Your support is invaluable. After this there are just two more chapters to build up the story. Then things will start to unravel.
Strut, thanks for your insight in the US justice system.
Chapter 8
They walked passed the uniforms standing in the hallway by the open door, which clearly was the centre of all the commotion.
Entering the small living space, Hutch took in the surroundings. The room was poorly furnished. The furniture that was there looked worn out with use and age. Almost at once, the blond noticed the woman sitting in a chair in the back of the room, sobbing and shaking. Then his eyes strayed to the body, lying face up on the floor, eyes wide open.
Hutch stopped dead as he saw who it was that had apparently died in the middle of this woman's living room. He recognized him instantly, for this man had once held him tight as another had injected hypo after hypo into him.
It was the man he had kicked in the head when he jumped out of their car to escape. The one man they'd never been able to find again. According to Ben Forest, Hutch had severely injured his face at the time, and the guy had lain low for a while, thereby escaping justice.
The blond forgot where he was, a very old apartment building not to far from Huggy's place. A rushing sound filled his ears as he forgot to breathe.
He snapped out of it when he felt his partners hand on his arm, realizing Starsky had unconsciously reached out for him as soon as he'd assessed the situation. Meanwhile, the brunet was drilling the police officer on the spot.
"It's a clear cut case," the officer answered him. "She shot him, said he was trying to kill her."
Hutch's eyes locked onto the women. He walked over to squat in front of her. "I'm Sergeant Hutchinson, this is Sergeant Starsky."
When she didn't respond, he gently cupped her chin, lifting it with his right hand. She was pretty, if you forgot the sunken eyes, the red rims around them, and the matted copper coloured hair. "Why?" he asked, knowing that right now would be his best chance to get some answers out of her.
She looked up at him as her brown eyes seemed to notice him for the first time. He felt her calming down a bit, placing some trust in him. He let go of her face and waited. She looked over at a bouquet of flowers, decorating a dresser near the wall. The colourful greenery looked totally out of place in this otherwise neglected room. Out of place… but beautiful.
Starsky walked over to the dresser, smelling the small white and yellow flowers.
"Beautiful, aren't they?"
The woman's voice was amazingly deep and warm. She has character, Hutch thought.
She sighed. "My son gave them to me… It made me think things over… Made me want to stop."
"Stop what?" Hutch asked carefully, not wanting to scare her off.
She pulled up the sleeve from her beige blouse, showing them her right arm. "Stop this," she whispered."
Starsky looked at it in anger, releasing a deep breath as her arm clearly showed the pin pricks of needles, the markings of a user.
Hutch couldn't help but grab the woman's arm more tightly than he'd meant to. "He tried to fix you up?" He asked in a voice matching the firmness of his grip, while stiffly pointing his free hand at the body.
Realizing he was hurting her, the blond loosened his grip.
She nodded, still shaking. "He gave it to me for free. Can you imagine that?" She gave him an empty smirk, her eyes didn't laugh. "He only wanted me to agree to keep using his stuff regularly… And I agreed. Of course I agreed! Wouldn't you?"
She looked at Hutch when she said that, startling him, slowly realizing that she was just speaking in general. Forcing himself to calm down, he let go of her arm, and stood up.
"Anyway… I changed my mind, I didn't want it anymore. So he… he tried to force me to take the shot… I didn't want it, and th… then he tried to k… kill me." Her eyes shot over to the knife which was now carefully being sealed in a bag. "So… so I shot him."
Hutch tried to keep the uneasy tremble he was experiencing from showing. Luckily the woman didn't notice. But of course Starsky did.
"Look," his partner started to say as the brunet moved over to her, giving Hutch some breathing space to recover. "Can you tell us anything about his connections? Where he got the dope from, for instance?"
"You believe me?" A glint of hope shone in her eyes as she looked from Starsky to Hutch.
Hutch massaged his neck, and nodded. "Yeah… We believe you."
"Helen," she said. "Name's Helen."
"Helen." Starsky stated, demanding her to look at him. "The dope, d' you have any idea where he got it from?"
She shook her head. "No, he just mentioned it was something new."
Both men looked at each other for a moment, knowing full well that if she had taken the shot, the body lying on the floor would have been hers. She's a bit older than the other victims though, Hutch silently communicated.
Starsky's eyes conveyed his answer. Guess they ran out of kids to play with.
Unaware of how lucky she'd just been she continued. "But… at the time I didn't care what it was."
"And now you do?" Hutch asked, slightly sceptical.
She looked back at him. "I just started using, Sergeant. So part of me could still think straight. My son… When he came in with those flowers?" She smiled again. This time her eyes grew moist. "He could hardly hold on to them. The bouquet's so big and he's so small."
She paused for a moment as she apparently tried to keep her voice from shaking. "It was the most beautiful sight I've ever seen," Helen sighed. "I knew then that I wanted to stop. But the…the man said if I'd just take my shot, I'd forget about the pain I was in. My… my soul would forget everything."
Hutch was too busy watching the distressed woman to notice the slight surprise forming on his partner's face upon hearing those last words. He also missed the uneasy glance Starsky shot at him a second later.
Helen glanced over at the body, which by now had been covered up. "I don't want it anymore…I… It hurts but…," she looked up at them again. "I just don't want my son to have… have a junky for a mother."
Out of the bedroom a curly headed boy was allowed to step into the room. He rushed over to his mother. It was the boy Hutch had met on the street. The blond suddenly understood where the money for the flowers had come from. He closed his eyes, held his hands up at Starsky conveying he would back out for a while, and walked out the door.
Innocently the boy stared after him, asking a frightened question, "Is he mad?"
"No," Starsky answered looking at the two of them. "Just a bit confused, that's all."
A uniform had told him earlier that the woman's son had been present in the house at the time of the murder. Luckily the boy had not seen a thing. The officers had wisely kept him in the bedroom until the body was covered up.
Starsky smiled and winked at the kid who had climbed onto his mother's lap. "Hey, that's a nice bunch of flowers you got for your mother!"
The boy gave him a big smile in return. "Think so?" He positively glowed as for a moment he'd apparently forgotten all about the horrible scene in front of him. "I got the biggest one I could find!"
Starsky looked up at Helen whose face now showed a weak smile. "They're beautiful kid, just beautiful."
Chapter 9
"You got anything?" Hutch asked from behind the steering wheel as Starsky jumped into the passenger's seat.
Starsky replied surly, "Feds kicked me out before I could question her." He stared questioningly at the apartment building. "They were really adamant, weird huh? I'm telling you Hutch, something doesn't feel right," the brunet turned to face him. "Anyway, Feds are in charge of her case now, I'm afraid the statement she gave us, is all we're going to get."
"Great," Hutch put his head back against the head rest and closed his eyes.
"Hey, the body was connected to the Forests, right?"
Without moving the blond answered, "Right." He took a deep breath. "He was the guy that went missing after we busted Ben, remember?
Starsky nodded. "Yeah. So, if Karl was doing this guy's supplying, then Karl's also the one doing the murders."
Hutch opened his eyes, glancing at his partner. "We don't have any proof of that, Starsk." He shook his head. "We're missing something here buddy. If Karl wants us so bad then why doesn't he show himself? Why all the killings, without letting us know he's doing them? And what's with this drug anyway?" He stopped; raising his head as an idea suddenly dawned on him. "It's almost like he's waiting for something. You don't think he's just… testing the drug, don't you?"
Starsky didn't look the least bit surprised when he spoke. "Experiments?"
"Yeah."
The blond suddenly became aware of a slight unease in his partner's demeanour, an unease that was quickly being covered up by a sudden rise in anger colouring Starsky's next words. "Maybe. One thing's for sure though… When we do go in, I want the Feds with me."
Hutch slowly sat up, turning at his partner in disbelieve. "What?"
"If you're right, he's playing with us. If this whole thing is a set up I want to have some decent back up."
"Starsk," Hutch frowned; his partner was not the kind of man to get scared. There were only a few circumstances in which he would, and these were not it. But despite the angry tones, right now that was exactly the way he looked… scared.
"And another thing," Starsky said, pinning him with his midnight blues. "Yes, I think those drugs are meant to do something really nasty, and I don't want you anywhere near them."
Hutch stared at him in dumb shock. His partner looked away. "Starsk, you know I'm not some rookie cop. I'm not stupid. What makes you think I would -," he stopped, as an answer to his own question was formed in his mind. "You know I'm clean, don't you?"
Starsky's eyes snapped back onto his in irritation. "Yes, of course I know that. And you know I know. He sighed. "It's just… something Helen said. That's all. I keep having bad feelings about this case."
Hutch carefully studied his friend, knowing that wasn't the whole truth. "Yeah," he slowly agreed. "I know what you mean. So we'll be more careful this time round."
"Hey, I'm always careful." Starsky said sounding quite offended, but Hutch knew his curly headed partner was just trying to lighten the mood.
Hutch smiled sitting back again. "Well, we could always pay Karl a visit I guess…"
"When we have the evidence, we visit, not sooner," the brunet spoke, all of a sudden dead serious again. He reached for something in his back pocket."
Hutch frowned. Hearing those words coming from his partner's mouth almost seemed as if someone else was doing the talking. Starsky was usually the first to go pound on the perp's front door. Not now though, and he knew no amount of persuasion would change the brunet's mind. When his partner got stubborn, he got stubborn. Hutch closed his eyes knowing full well what his friend was doing. He's doing his mother hen act again, he thought agitated, but decided to let it go for now.
"Starsky, even if the lab confirms the compound in the syringe found at Helen's matches the dope found in those kids, all we got is a very lucky girl and another dead body. What Starsk!" Annoyed he opened his eyes when his partner kept waving something in front of him.
Starsky smiled, triumphantly waving a small, leather bound book in his face.
Hutch looked at it. "Hey, an address book?"
"Yep, took it off your friend Jones right before the suits came in."
Before Hutch could drill his partner about the concept of withholding evidence from the Feds, Starsky had already picked up the transmitter. "Zebra three to Control, I'd like to check on an address… yeah. That's 125 Hillside Avenue. Thanks."
"We're not exactly going by the book this way," Hutch sighed again.
"It is by the book!" Starsky said with a wide grin, holding up the address book.
"Not funny Starsk."
"Oh stop complaining will ya. Can we get out of here? I'm liable to catch a cold just sitting here. This thing is drafting all over the place." This 'thing' meaning the LTD.
Hutch shot him a death glare before starting the engine. His mood dropping as fast as the weather did outside. It had started to rain again. The car sped off as he released his anger on the accelerator. For the second time that day Starsky was thrown backwards in his seat.
The brunet noticed Hutch's temper, and carefully said, "Hey, Blintz?"
Having to watch where he was driving at this speed, Hutch quickly glanced sideways.
Starsky continued seriously, "Perhaps you can save 'em all ..." and with those words he suddenly put up his right hand, showing a very sour looking daisy. Its white pedals and yellow heart drooping sadly as he wiggled it in front of Hutch with the grin again.
Hutch couldn't help himself; he had to laugh at that. His partner had obviously taken it from Helen's flower gift.
"I think it's too late for the flower though, partner."
"Yeah?" Starsky's expression changed into a sad one as he wiggled the pathetic little stem and gave the flower a scrutinized look. "Well… you win some, you loose some," he replied and stuffed the daisy in his partner's shirt pocket.
Hutch shook his head, forever wondering how Starsky always managed to cheer him up again.
Tbc
