Ten minutes had passed between Mickey's confession and Hutch's anger and grief. Starsky felt helpless to remedy the situation. Mickey had gotten up and seemed to stare out the window.

Ken gulped, coughed, wiped his nose and pulled away from his partner. He took a deep breath as he went to his sister and turned her around. "If that is so, Mickey, then is not you to blame but me. You have pretty much followed my example in most everything, and I was the one who joined the police force first. So – I am to blame, and not you!" His voice raised an octave.

"What? What?" Mickey's eyes flashed as she pushed him back from her. "You think I did everything just because you did? I like baseball, I still do! No, I couldn't pitch, but I can and still play shortstop. Just like you, I studied hard and graduated early, and went and graduated from college early, but because I wanted to. You always had more musical ability, but I loved music, so I did what I could. And I wanted to be a police officer – I was highly recruited because I was a female, not because I was a Hutchinson! You followed your dreams and I followed mine! There is no way YOU are to blame!"

"I never said you just followed me like a sheep," Ken started.

"You implied that! You left Duluth; I stayed. I didn't follow you to Bay City because I didn't want anyone thinking I couldn't do anything on my own. You were the smart one. You got away from all the dirty politics, dirty cops, and even dirty family members that I have to deal with! I haven't had anyone to trust since my last partner was killed. And maybe he was killed to shake me up, get me to flee, or get my big brother to come running to my rescue!"

"Mickey!"

"No, no, don't try to manage me! Even I can hit the wall, hit the limit of what I can endure. You go back to Bay City and stay there. You have a partner to watch after you."

"Mickey, what are you saying . . ."

"I'm saying I can't go through this again, Kenny! I can not worry about you dying! Not this time! The last time almost killed me! And Ingrid is not here to help me this time!" Mickey was almost screaming.

Ken put his hands to his ears, stared at his sister and then bolted for the door.

"Hutch," Starsky tried to catch him, but Mickey said, "Let him go. He'll go running to calm down." She sagged down in an armchair.

Starsky turned on Mickey. "I feel like I am in the twilight zone here! What is going on between you and Ken?"

The Past

Mickey was beside herself, pacing back and forth in the living room as Ingrid watched her, perturbed. "I have talked to Mother and Father; I have talked to Judith and Joshua. I am telling you it is much, much worse. He doesn't eat. He exercises constantly. He is thinner than I have ever seen him. And he insists he does not need help!"

"I believe you. But you do tend to overact when Kenneth is concerned. Now, I am going to invite you and Kenneth over and you get him to swim. Pretend you need help with one of your strokes, that you are trying out for the swim team. We'll have several meals and we'll keep an eye on him. I will also consult with a psychiatrist."

"Oh, Ingrid . . ."

"If it is the only to save him, if this thing is as bad as you, say, we may need to get him to a clinic." Ingrid patted her granddaughter on the head. "Don't worry so much, my dear. There is always a solution."

After one week, Ingrid wasn't so sure. Ken tended to push food around on his plate, claim he was full and just dieting a little to keep from ever being pudgy again. He was wearing two or three shirts to look bulkier than he was. And when Mickey coaxed him into the pool with his swimming trucks, there was no denying his arms, legs and body were way too thin. Ingrid gasped when she saw him.

Mickey had not been exaggerating. Ingrid's doctors told her it was a mental problem. Ken needed to be hospitalized and forcibly fed. Ken had begged not to be sent to a clinic, but Ingrid, albeit with tears, remained firm. The doctors had convinced Ingrid it was life or death, and his parents had been unable to admit something was wrong, despite Mickey's pleading.

"They hospitalized him and put a feeding tube down his stomach." Mickey told Starsky in the present. "It only worked with putting on few pounds."

"Mickey," Starsky interrupted, remembering the plane ride and Hutch's distressed words. "Did he say something like he wasn't dying?"

Her shocked face told him the truth. "Yes, and he denied anything was wrong. The doctors didn't understand then, but it was as like something was off in his brain and he only saw himself as pudgy no matter what." Mickey's eyes flashed. "I told Carlton if Kenny died, I would kill him."

Starsky was open-mouthed at the news. "So nothing worked?"

She shook her blond hair back and forth. "Nothing. We at our wit's end, begging, pleading with Kenny, trying to show him in the mirror what we saw that he didn't . . ."

"How did you get him to stop?" Starsky asked, fear in him churning as if the past were happening now.

She sighed and sat down. "The only way we could think of. Ingrid was opposed, but if Kenny had died, I didn't care what happened to me. I stopped eating and began exercising too much."

"What?"

"Don't you understand? If he couldn't see himself as he was, he could see me. It had to be quick and drastic and I used laxatives to make it quicker and since I was slender to begin with, it started showing on me quicker. He could deny what he saw when he looked at himself but not when he looked at me. Ingrid told him I was in danger of dying - the doctors explained that I would die – and Ingrid convinced him if he would get help and started eating again, I would, too."

Starsky was stunned. Anorexia was not known in the early years of their life and was more associated with girls. "You could have died," he finally said, understanding the love between brother and sister.

"Maybe. If he hadn't pulled out of it and lived – Ken said you wondered why he turned down a pitching offer with the Chicago White Sox. He didn't turn it down, but he grew too weak to be able to play. It took a long time to overcome the disorder and for him to get his health back. Time in therapy, time in clinics."

"Did you have to go?"

"I never had anorexia. Mine was calculated. I always took vitamins. When Kenny was recovering, I "recovered". I did see therapists and went to clinics, but more to mirror his treatment. He doesn't know that part. Or that my decision was a calculated move. I would appreciate it if you would not tell him. I only mention it, because a relapse is always possible, and you had said he is not eating or sleeping."

"He is fairly obsessive about exercising, running, boxing, baseball, but I know you have to keep in shape to be an officer. I never thought of the exercise in any other way." Starsky had the feeling he should have known and felt like kicking himself.

"You have to be an actor, right? To work undercover?"

"Yes, but . . . "

"I'm asking a lot from you, but don't hound him, don't watch him like a hawk or he will notice, and that will make it worse. I'm telling you the story because a time may come, I'm not able to watch over him."

"You're not going to die, Mickey." Starsky said firmly.

"That's what he said back then, Dave."

Starsky stopped cold. "He and I are here to watch over you."

"And while I appreciate that, you are in my territory. And I have said, it may not be me someone is after. I've become too paranoid, too unable see threats from reality. I'm going to need help . . ." Mickey trailed off, staring out the window. "Ken is coming back. Tomorrow I will need your help badly. I'm going to make sure Kenny is out of it, too. Act II will begin. It's called the Reading of the Hutchinson Will."

Starsky felt like he was reading an Agatha Christie murder mystery. He used lot her stories. Now he hated them