BLOODTEXT
By TLR
Stories—
1. Point Blank-Hutch is under suspicion
2. Los Angeles Times, Top Cop In Trouble-Snippet
3. Battered-A domestic violence case
4. Bloodbath (Missing Scene)
5. Diary of a Sexual Sadist-Hutch is after a serial killer
6. Sleep II-Trouble when S escorts a witness to a Las Vegas trial
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::
POINT BLANK
By TR
Hutch was surrounded by five officers in his apartment-two uniformed and two detectives; the other Captain Dobey.
"Cap, if he's hurt, I need to get to him. We-I need to get whoever did this."
Detective Turner spoke.
"You're crazy if you think we're letting you get that close to him."
"But he'll tell you. He'll tell you it wasn't me. Just ask him."
"I'm afraid he's unable to do that, Ken. He hasn't regained consciousness, and it doesn't look like he'll pull through it."
Hutch went weak in the knees. Dobey caught his arm and righted him. "Easy, Hutch."
Turner watched him with a close eye. "Your friend Huggy Bear tells us you and your partner have had it out over Kira before."
"Yes. I mean-no. I mean, not like that. We resolved that. It wasn't a problem. We dumped her, and she left."
"But she came back last night."
"I know, but it was no big deal. She means nothing. She-"
"You have motive. Jealousy. Kira. And you were a suspect in the murder of your ex-wife, were you not?"
"He was cleared," Dobey said. "You know that."
"Look," Hutch said to Turner. "My partner means a hell of a lot more to me than Kira does."
The detective gave him a long look, then allowed for a hint of a smile. "Interesting."
Hutch stared at him, and his voice whispered out, "Think what you will."
"Either way, she's dead, and he's likely to die tonight."
Hutch found himself shaking his head no, as if the gesture would shut the man up, or make his nightmare go away. Turner's voice kept popping like a cap gun. "We have a blood-stained pistol and handkerchief in the back floorboard of your car."
"Planted. No prints."
"You wiped the prints off. And the handkerchief-"
"Monogrammed. So what? Anybody can grab one of my handkerchiefs from my apartment if they want to frame me."
"We found your prints."
"Of course you did! My prints are all over his house!"
"And no alibi."
"I was asleep!"
"Who can verify that?"
"NO ONE, DAMN IT, I WAS ASLEEP!"
Dobey saw that Hutch was about to lunge. One subtle movement of the captain's broad shoulder in his direction stopped Hutch in his tracks.
"I'm afraid, Detective Hutchinson," Turner said as he pulled handcuffs from his back pocket, "that we have enough to place you under arrest."
"Oh, for God's sake," Hutch half-laughed, half-whispered. He looked at Dobey. "Are you serious?"
"For now."
Hutch's eyes lost their spark of anger, dimmed by confusion and disbelief. "Cap . . ?"
Dobey turned half away. "Mullins, keep the damn photographers out of here."
Turner shoved Hutch face-first against the wall. "You have the right to remain silent," he said pulling out his handcuffs.
Hutch glanced over his shoulder. "Cap, this is circumstantial. You know that."
"Anything you say can, and will, be held against you in a court of law."
"Cap-"
"You have the right to an attorney."
Hutch put his forehead against the wall while Turner cuffed him and continued, "If you cannot afford one, one will be appointed to you free of charge."
Hutch's voice was a whisper, his eyes closed. "Get lost."
"Do you understand these rights as I have given them to you?"
Hutch didn't answer. The policemen and crime lab personnel watched as Turner led him handcuffed from his apartment and down the stairs.
Dobey followed them down. "Hutch, I'll be at the hospital with Starsky. If he comes to . . .
says anything at all . . . I'm on your side. I know you didn't do it. I'll do all I can to help you."
Hutch didn't acknowledge his superior as Turner opened the back door to his sedan and pushed him inside. He squinted and lowered his head as the camera bulbs flashed in his eyes, and this was the picture that was under the newspaper headline the next morning: Detective Arrested For Murder of Ex-Lover, Attempted Murder Of Partner.
One of the uniformed officers brought a telephone to the interrogation room where Hutch sat staring at the table.
"One phone call," the officer announced, and waited next to the table.
Hutch reached his cuffed hands forward to lift the receiver, then dialed a number. After the party he was calling picked up, he said, "Intensive Care please."
He waited a few more moments, then said, "I'm calling to check on Detective-"
The uniform took the receiver from him and hung up. "Detective Turner said no phone calls to the hospital."
Captain Dobey met Starsky's doctor in the hall.
"Doctor Rhodes," he said shaking her hand.
She adjusted the glasses to the end of her nose and looked at a chart. "He's regained consciousness, and we think he'll pull through, but-" "Did he say anything?"
"I'm afraid not. He's heavily sedated."
"When can I talk to him?"
"When he's strong enough."
Hutch looked up to see Huggy standing on the other side of the jail cell.
"Did you check on Starsk?" Hutch asked walking toward the bars.
"Not yet. On my way. Dobey said he's conscious, though. Gonna make it. That's what I came to tell you."
Hutch sank back onto the bunk to sit down, hands in his hair, head down to hide the tears.
"Thank you, God."
Captain Dobey was standing with Detective Turner at Starsky's hospital bed when he woke up. Doctor Rhodes was also present.
Starsky looked from Dobey to Turner.
"Where's Hutch?"
"We'll get to that," Turner said. "I have some questions for you."
Starsky tried to sit up, the strain making his face go pale. "He must be hurt, otherwise he'd be here."
"Hutch is all right," Dobey said as he gently but firmly pressed him back onto the pillow. "Relax."
"Everybody says you and your partner are tight," Turner said. "But we're here to get the truth. So if there's something you want to tell us…"
Starsky's sedated eyes glowered. "You think Hutch shot me? Get out of-"
"Then who?"
"Her boyfriend."
"Ken-"
"I said her boyfriend. Roger Burle." He looked at Dobey. "How long have I been here?"
"Since last night."
"I was asleep. Kira shows up, tries to talk to me. I tell her to leave, but before she does, her boyfriend comes in. Some teacher at a vocational school. He has a gun, raises it up to shoot her, so I step in." Another glance to Dobey. "It goes off. I don't know what happens after that."
"Huggy found you."
"Did you get the guy?"
Dobey looked a little sheepish. "Not yet. Burle planted evidence in Hutch's car to make it look-"
Starsky tried to pull his IV out. "HUTCH IS IN JAIL?"
The doctor stopped his hand. Dobey squeezed his shoulder.
Turner looked at Dobey. "I'm on it," he said as he hurried out the door.
"Take it easy," Dobey told Starsky. "He's all right. We'll get this cleared up."
"I just told you-"
"Detective," Doctor Rhodes said, "you were shot in the back. You need to lie still."
No need to tell him twice. He was spent. His groggy eyes, ringed with dark circles, looked imploringly at the captain.
"Get him out, Cap."
"I will. But you rest. That's all I want you to do. Don't worry about anything."
"And tell Kira I want to talk to her, and that I'm not mad at her. Is she in the waiting room?"
Dobey put his hands in his pockets, looked down briefly. "She didn't make it, Dave."
Starsky looked at him for a long time, letting everything process, then his eyes closed with tears.
"Huggy's on his way," Dobey said as he exited. "I'll come by later."
Hutch was pacing his jail cell when Captain Dobey approached with Detective Turner and a uniformed officer who had a set of keys.
"Get out of here," the captain said as the jail cell was unlocked.
Hutch shoved Turner to the side when he stepped out, glaring at him as he passed.
"Roger Burle," Dobey said. "Kira's boyfriend. They're booking him right now. You know him?"
Hutch walked on past. "I'm going to the hospital."
He walked down the hall and through the booking room, where he saw two uniformed officers bringing in a man in handcuffs. The man had blood on his shoes and the cuffs of his shirt.
Hutch walked toward him.
"Are you the coward that shot my partner in the back?"
The man lunged toward Hutch, and Hutch punched him in the face, sending him to the
floor.
Officers rushed Hutch to control him, but he was finished, and kept walking out the door.
Starsky was gazing at the ceiling while Huggy sat in a chair next to his bed, but not comfortably. The lanky man's knee kept jiggling nervously up and down.
"It'll be cool," Huggy said. "Hutch didn't do it."
Starsky said nothing.
Huggy stood up to pace some of his energy away.
"Kira, man. Hard to believe she's gone."
Starsky's expression didn't change.
The door opened and Hutch came in, the room changing somehow. Starsky reached for him, Hutch reached back with a hug around the neck, and Huggy knew it was the beginning of a long journey of healing.
End
Los Angeles Times
In Brief/Los Angeles County
Top Cop In Trouble
By William Evers
While Detective Ken Hutchinson was busy putting away drug addicts, he never dreamed he would become one himself. The decorated police officer was abducted and addicted to heroin three years ago. The unwanted injections were supplied by mobster Ben Forest to elicit the location of a woman the
officer was protecting. Forest's return to prison on unrelated drug and weapons charges, according to Forest himself, prompted him to come forward with the information. "I'm going down again, he's going down with me. He was strung out, his partner covered it up, and so did their captain." Detective Hutchinson could not be reached for comment, and a spokesman for the police department said that there would be a full investigation into the matter.
BATTERED
By TR
A woman's scream-"Frank, no!"
-breaking glass-
-busting furniture-
-thumping walls-
A youngster's voice: "No, Daddy!"
Next-door-neighbors' lights coming on-"What the-Millie! Call the damn police! It's the Robertsons again!"
-"Frank, no!"
Drunken bellows.
Horrid name-calling, accusations.
"Frank, please! No more! Keep away!"
"Mommy!"
"Come back here, witch!"
"Daddy, no!"
"Please help me! Somebody!"
A slap.
kick. A moan.
Running pajama feet. "Mommy! Daddy!" "Runt!"
"Daddy, please stop! You're hurting her!"
Sirens.
Wailing.
On the way. Almost here.
"Frank, stay away! Please!"
Galloping up the stairs. Three sets of feet. "Woman!"
"Ow! You're hurting me! Stop!"
"Make me!"
"Please!"
"I'll kill you!" "Frank, stop!"
Cop lights in the windows.
House washed in revolving red. Banging at the front door.
"Robertson! Police!"
"Frank, please! No!"
"I told you! For good, woman! For good! No more whoring!"
Slap.
Kick.
Sobs.
Garbled cries.
"I'm not, Frank. I'm not. You have to believe me. I love you. Please. I love you. Stay back."
Stampeding up the stairs. Pounding shoes.
"Robertson!"
"Daddy!"
"Stop, Frank! Stop. Please. Stop. Stop. Stop-"
Gunshot blast.
Silence.
Silence.
Sobbing.
Panting.
Tears.
Starsky and Hutch entered the dark bedroom with their guns drawn.
Female sobbing.
A woman. A child.
Starsky turned the light on, casting the room in bright, true colors.
The walls and ceiling were sprayed in red. High-velocity impact spatter.
Brain. Bone.
They'd seen it before, but never at the hands of a child, who sat huddled beneath her mommy's sheltering wing, the big man-pistol still in her lap.
Her father lay dead on the floor, blood soaking the carpet from where his head had been attached to his shoulders.
More weeping.
Mother and child held each other in a Madonna embrace.
Her whisper: "Oh my God. Oh my God." She rocked her little one in a comforting motion, a hypnotic gaze in her eyes, hypnotic words on her lips.
"Oh my God. Oh my God."
Hutch blinked as if stunned, his breath short and faint as he approached the huddling sculpture of flesh. Mother and child. Innocence lost. Innocence never known.
"Let me have it," he whispered to the girl, crouching to be at eye-level with them, looking from her hair-obscured face to the gun in her lap.
When she didn't move, his hand reached out toward it, taking it delicately by the handle, and tossed it onto a braided rug in the hall.
Her small hand remained loose in her lap. He looked up at his partner-silent communication. They'd done the routine so many times before, usually the same, but always alert for variations, deviations, surprises.
Starsky nodded, and went to find a phone to call the crime lab and coroner's team.
More sirens.
Ambulance, though one was not needed urgently now.
The figurines were still weeping quietly. Shedding tears like drops of blood.
Hutch's voice was soft.
"Ma'am?"
No reply.
He moved a little closer in his crouch, hand still out, almost imploring. He wanted to help them, but how could he when they had helped themselves?
"Mrs. Robertson? What's your daughter's name?"
No response for long seconds.
"Penny," the girl finally whispered meekly.
He licked his dry lips. "How old are you, Penny?"
Her mother still coddled her ragdoll daughter.
"Seven," came the sweet little voice.
"Why don't we uh . . . " Another foot closer, his hand on the mother's shoulder. He had to move them. The crime lab and coroner's team would have to do their work. A police photographer was now on scene, snapping pictures. Blood spatter was on the girl's face like red paint. Gunpowder residue would be found on both of her small hands. It had taken both to hold and aim the heavy gun up at her father's head. "Why don't we go downstairs where we can talk?"
The house was buzzing with police activity, upstairs and downstairs.
Police photographers, crime lab techs, reporters, uniformed officers, members from the coroner's office.
It wasn't as hectic downstairs.
Hutch questioned Penny at the kitchen table while Starsky questioned Mrs. Robertson in the living room, and when they were finished and had their statements, mother and daughter reunited in that same clingy hug in the living room rocking chair.
Hutch motioned for a blonde policewoman to join them in the kitchen doorway.
"Little late, aren't you?" the female rookie asked them as she joined them. "How many times have the neighbors called us about them?"
"Look," Starsky said moving into her face. "She never wanted to press charges. We never saw any marks. They always patched things up before we could even get here. We told her she could leave. We gave her a way out."
"What real options did they have? Mother had no job. No friends. No money. Just the way he wanted. She said he forced her to have sexual relations all the time. Do you believe a husband can rape his wife, Detective? How many times did that little girl get caught in the crossfire? How many times did she get between them? Thanks to us she
murdered her own father tonight."
"I don't know you," Starsky said looking at the badge on her uniform bearing her name, "Officer Hundley. And you don't know me. But we're on the same side here."
"Aren't we?" Hutch finished.
The policewoman looked from one face to the other, then turned away, facing the empty kitchen.
The movement of her weeping shoulders and sniffing into her fist made Hutch slip an arm around her and move her farther into the kitchen away from superior officers and curious eyes.
"No," he said softly. "Thanks to HIM she murdered tonight. We did what we could within the framework of the law. What happened in this house . . . is tragic. But we can't force women to leave if they don't want to. She knew how dangerous he was. So did Penny. She more than anyone. We all want to think that we can prevent things like this, Officer, but you're going to discover that we don't always win. And neither do they."
The policewoman dried her eyes on the cuff of her uniform and straightened some wrinkles in the material. "I guess you think I'm too emotional for the job, Detective?"
"No," he said as he found a slight smile for her. "Just about right."
He left her standing alone to gain more composure, and joined his partner in the living room.
"Officer," the mother whispered up to Hutch from where she said rocking her daughter, "what will happen to Penny? She won't have to leave me, will she? She was only trying to stop him. She was only trying to protect me. She loved her daddy. She loved us both."
The little girl now had her thumb in her mouth. Hutch moved her hair away from her eyes. "Given her age . . . we'll talk to the District Attorney. She may have to go away for a while, for some help, but you'll have a lot of contact with her. She needs you."
"I didn't mean to do it, Mommy," the girl whispered around her thumb. "I just didn't want him to hurt you anymore."
Mrs. Robertson stroked the girl's hair. "Sshh. I know, baby. I know. It'll be all right. It'll be okay."
The detectives looked at each other and stepped away, leaving the mother to repeat her chant-like phrases over and over.
Officer Hundley re-entered the living room with squared shoulders and dry eyes again.
"Come on, Mrs. Robertson," she said as she patted both mother and daughter on the shoulder, "let's get you both somewhere else for the night. Shower. Food. Sleep. Things will look a little better in the morning."
Starsky and Hutch passed Captain Dobey on their way outside.
"Everything under control here?" he asked as he watched them go down the porch steps.
"Oh yeah," Hutch said as he kicked a Raggedy Ann doll across the small yard. "Just fine."
They moved on toward the revolving red lights of the Torino.
End
BLOODBATH Missing Scene
By TR
"I'm hurryin', I'm hurryin'," Starsky mumbled to himself as he stood at the urinal relieving himself. "Oh boy." He looked at his watch. They'd be calling him to the stand anytime now. "Musta been those four cups of coffee."
When he was finished, he buttoned, zipped, and buckled, then moved to the sink and washed his hands.
"Who the-"
He saw them in the mirror, but too late. If they'd been wearing the robes, his reaction may have been quicker. But as it was, they pounced before his hand could go under his jacket. One grabbed a handful of his hair and smashed his head into the wall, and two scooped his limp body up before he hit the floor and carried him toward the door.
The lookout nodded that the coast was clear. A fourth opened a jar of blood and smeared Starsky's name on the mirror.
The hallway was clear. Perfectly timed. As planned. Their spiritual guide was clearly in control, even when he wasn't present. Some were on the courthouse steps showing support for the influential cult leader Simon Marcus.
Starsky groaned as they carried him down the steps and out the back door to the waiting van.
"Silence," one of them said as he opened the van door. "Simon has spoken."
As if the cultist's words had the power to subdue, Starsky lapsed into groggy incoherence.
End
DIARY OF A SEXUAL SADIST
By TR
-MARCH 3-
"Waiting for Hutch."
That's what he told me, sitting alone at a table near the rear exit of my favorite dance club, Big Time.
But he was lying. He was undercover as a male prostitute, just waiting to be propositioned by the big bad wolf who'd been abducting and murdering young men in the area.
I'm the big bad wolf, only he didn't know it, and wouldn't suspect it since I'm a cop too.
I knew who Hutch was. His partner. And I didn't care. All I knew was that I wanted to take this cute, sexy guy home with me and keep him forever.
Nobody named Hutch was going to stand in my way.
That he was straight didn't matter to me. I could still do what I wanted to do. The straight ones made it more exciting. They're the least suspecting. The least turned on. The most outraged and confused. And that's what gets me off. Not the sex, but the kill.
"Buy you a drink?" I asked him.
He smiled politely. Letting a fellow cop down tactfully. "Sorry. On duty."
Bet he wasn't.
Sorry, I mean.
"No problem," I said, and retreated to my nearby table to nurse my drink. A trampy blonde sat next to me, but I was lost on Starsky.
Starsk.
That's what Hutch called him.
Starsky winked at one of the dancers on stage and she danced the rest of the number for him, playing to him, teasing with her mouth and hips. He enjoyed it.
He looked at his watch. Hutch was late.
I'd seen Starsk before at the station. Mostly with Hutch. To see him apart from Hutch, I had to watch him at home, with binoculars. Telescopes. Followed him. Took pictures. Kept notes. Knew his schedule. Favorite foods. Routines.
Homework.
He fueled my fantasies, and my fantasies needed to come to life, which made them- not so much fantasy anymore-but flesh-and-blood reality.
There have been others, but they are never enough. Each one makes my fantasy stronger. I repeat the fantasy over and over, until it becomes real.
I kept my eyes on him, the tramp beside me dissolving-her voice, her laugh, her body- into nothing.
"Get lost," I finally told her in a voice that seemed as detached as if it were coming from a radio.
She left, a string of profanity trailing behind her like confetti.
He got up to go to the john, giving me the opportunity to slip the powder into his drink and swirl it around with my finger until it dissolved.
He'd never know what hit him.
I took my seat again.
Hutch was real late.
Starsky came back, nodded at the dancer on stage again, then picked up his drink and drank.
Stay away, Hutch. If you come now, you'll blow it.
I watched him from the corner of my eye. With each passing moment he got drowsier, his eyes closed more, his body became lax in the booth. I let the tranquilizer work until he was sliding under the table, then I helped him out of the booth, and with a "He's had a little too much to drink" smile, walked him out the back door and over to my black and white, which was a station wagon.
He was out of it. Didn't know up from down as I lowered the tailgate and sat him down. His hand pawed at me and he tried to raise his head. But my tranq had him under. He wouldn't remember his own name, let alone my face.
I took his face and raised it.
"Finally," I whispered, and kissed him.
He didn't react to what I did. He had no idea. I laughed and pushed him onto his back.
Tying him was not necessary, because he was already out.
If Hutch had been punctual, I would venture to say that none of this would have happened. At least, not this night.
-MARCH 4-
The profile:
As a child:
Setting fires. Bedwetting. Severely abused. Torturing animals. Fascination with the police, sex, and death.
As an adult:
Unable to sustain a relationship.
Unable to become aroused or ejaculate without fantasies of sexual torture and death.
Unfulfilled.
A need for complete control.
No empathy.
No remorse.
Killing equals ejaculation.
I'm a cop. I know the profile. I am the profile. A shrink might say I got into police work to purge myself, cure myself, stop myself. Hoping that somehow this badge would stop me, or turn me good, or take away my bad core.
But it didn't. It only made me more educated and sophisticated. Made it easier to do it and get away with it.
Young men trust me. I drug them. I put them in my car. I take them home. I do whatever I want to with them.
-MARCH 5-
I am trying to perfect my technique, my victim: How much tranq does it take to knock someone out? How long will they stay unconscious? How much does it take to make them drowsy but not unconscious, just enough to take away their fight?
How many minutes of smothering before a person passes out? How many minutes of strangulation?
Total domination. A sex toy. Someone who will be at my disposal anytime I want. Someone who won't protest or run. Most victims will try to run or fight. The passive kind I want has to be created with drugs and captivity. If he is completely dependent on me for every breath he takes-if I can break him, and then reform him, and have the power of life and death over each heartbeat and breath-he is mine.
He was too drugged to call for help.
It took thirteen trial-and-error victims to know how much tranq to give them without killing them. To make them like a slave. To keep them in one long suspended state of semi-consciousness. Enough so that they couldn't talk back or raise their voice. Not so much that they blacked out. A struggle was always nice, no matter how weak.
It didn't come easy. Sometimes, no matter how drugged they are, some of them still find a spark of fight. Like Starsky did. He tried to bolt the second I pulled him out of the station wagon to take him upstairs, even when the tranq hadn't completely worn off.
So to take extra precaution against it happening again, I tranqed him again and carried him down to the basement, where I took all his clothes off and dropped them into a pile, tied his wrists to a high bar in the rafters, high enough so that his feet couldn't touch the floor, and I left him.
No bed, no blanket, no sunshine. I dribbled water from a syringe into his mouth, and he was glad to have it.
Too drugged to raise his voice, too drugged to struggle.
During one of his coherent moments, his voice weak and dry like a crumbling autumn leaf, he whispered, "Why? What do you want?"
The question incensed me so. Couldn't he see he belonged to me now?
I choked him to shut him up.
Not to death. Not even to unconsciousness. Just enough to make him struggle for air. And then I did him.
He didn't ask the question again.
Cut off all his hair with scissors, leaving it smooth and close to his head. I don't like long hair. I like my guys to have short hair. I put a tuft of leftover hair in an envelope and left it on Hutchinson's desk.
Then his necklace with the circles.
Then a red sock.
-MARCH 15-
I saw the case notes Hutchinson left on his desk:
Perp: Sexual sadist. Picks victims up in bars or on the street. Drugs them with animal tranquilizer, takes them away. Enjoys torture. Tortured as child. Strong. Smart. Fantasizes
about killing, then makes reality fit fantasy. Has easy access to drugs. Is someone no one would suspect. Moves about freely, unsuspected, in the community. Trustworthy. Proud of killings. Arrogant. Thinks he won't get caught. Discards bodies as arrogant trophies. Views male hookers as trash, not to be valued or missed by society. Strangles and revives, strangles and revives, to have power over life and death. Rich fantasy life. Has fantasized these routines since childhood or adolescence.
Victims: Dark hair, dark complexion, trim build. Drugged. Sodomized. Strangled to brink of death, then revived. Tortured. Bodies left in dumpsters like trash. Viewed as disposable, non-human.
The suffering is the turn-on. The killing is the sex act itself. Orgasm. Gratification.
Fantasy fulfilled.
Questions: Who has access to animal tranquilizer? Who can drug a strong young male? What does our killer do for a living? Where does he do his torturing? Why is he so trustworthy?
Starsk, where are you?
"You look beat," I say when Hutch comes from Dobey's office and takes his seat in the squad room.
"Yeah," he says glumly as he takes the cup of coffee I offer.
I nod toward the notes on the desk. "What do you think of that guy?"
"Sick. Not a real man."
That makes me mad.
"Oh yeah? Why you say that?"
He gives me a good long look. The two weeks Starsk has been gone shows on his pale face and dull eyes.
"Takes a weak man to drug an unsuspecting victim, tie him down, and then have his way."
"Weak? I figure he's pretty damn strong if you ask me. As in 'don't mess with him'. He's outsmarting them all. Victims. Cops. You won't catch him."
Hutch slid his chair back and stood up. He doesn't stay in one place too long since I got Starsk. Especially at their desk.
"I'll catch him," he said, and picked up his notes and left.
-MARCH 17-
Starsk must be getting immune to the tranquilizer. When I came downstairs to see him today, his eyes were actually open and his wrists were bloody where he'd tried all day, uselessly, to pull free of the ropes.
"Did you say anything?" I asked him as I lifted his head off his chest. When he didn't answer, I shook his head hard. "DID YOU YELL OUT?!"
His eyes couldn't stay still. They kept rolling back. And with whatever spark of energy he'd found today, he tried kicking me away, but no account punk, he didn't know that he wasn't strong enough. I fixed another shot for him. It needed to be stronger, to make sure he couldn't yell out or make any noise.
"No way," he says with his head down. When I inject him in his bare thigh, he stiffens and squeals, and I have to choke him again to shut him up, which only made him struggle more, but just for a little while. I wrapped my arms around his middle and held him close to me until his shuddering subsided. His skin was hot, like feverish. He hadn't had any food, and only enough water to keep him alive.
"I got you," I whisper into his hot belly. "You're mine now. Won't let you go."
I hear him whimper. I wish he would shut up. My mouth goes to his lower places and I take all of him into my mouth at once, swallowing him whole, until he cries out and tries to buck away from me. But I hold him still and he can't move. He just cries. I've reduced him to what I want, and that is, my fantasy. To what he thought he would never be, to a place where he could never see himself. I own him. And he knows it, because he says, "Please, Lewis. Let me go."
Did I grab Starsk because I dig him, or because he's a cop and will catch me sooner or later?
Maybe it's both.
-MARCH 19-
Hutchinson is watching me without watching me, you know what I mean? I know that cop look, because I'm a cop.
Cop's eyes. Always looking into you, for pieces, for angles, possibilities, reasons, answers, truth.
Threads.
-MARCH 20-
Hutchinson finally comes to me with questions. Innocence on the surface. Stealth underneath.
-"Hey, Lewis. Word is you were at Big Time the night they grabbed Starsk. Do you remember anything at all? Who he was with? Who he was talking to? A girl? A guy? Did you see him leave with anyone?"
I had to give him something. He was holding the trump card, which is that he knew I'd walked an "intoxicated" Starsky out the rear exit.
"He was totaled," I shrugged. "Put him in a cab and that's the last I saw of him."
"Remember which cab? The driver? Where'd you tell the cabbie to take him?"
Damn. Pit bull. Once he has his jaws locked into you . . .
"Home," I answered. "I gave the cabbie Starsky's address. That's all I can tell you, Hutch. My God, you know me better than that. If I knew anything else, I'd be telling you. Who do you think's putting the word on the street to help find a fellow officer?"
His hand kneaded the back of his neck. Tension. It eked from his pores. And so did his love. It was a sweet and salty high knowing I had his love hanging at home in my basement and he would never find him. He would keep looking till he became an old man. The idea made me feel kingly.
-MARCH 21-
Not just questions anymore.
Statements.
Just shy of accusations.
"I checked the cab companies. None of them made a trip to Starsky's address."
"So he got out somewhere else."
"I showed them his picture. None of them remembered seeing him."
"Hey, I can't help it if they don't keep good records or have bad memories."
He suspected more, but he wouldn't say. He knew if he did, I'd go straight home and slit Starsky's throat and let him bleed to death. And he didn't have enough for a search warrant, didn't have enough to make me a suspect, or link me to anything.
-MARCH 22-
His voice is a wisp of a breath today. Running out of energy. Time. Life. Even in his most incoherent moments, he will say his partner's name as if Hutch can really hear him and do something about it.
I take him down from the rafter and carry him to the bed I have nearby. He is nude and drugged, too weak to resist or even know he's unbound. I place him on the bed on his back, and he doesn't move. His eyes are distant and half-closed. I lie down beside him and slip my arm under his neck, pulling him against me. His skin is warm silk against mine. He doesn't know where he is or who he is or what's going on. I give him another injection, and I myself take a cyanide capsule because I know Hutchinson will be here with something tomorrow. I don't know what the something will be, but I saw the gleam in his eye tonight. He's more than close. He's got me.
-Hutch's notes-
A crime lab was on the way, and so was an ambulance and a coroner's team. I'd seen enough of these twisted freaks to spot the pattern. Once we were onto them, they offed themselves to avoid any consequences, and to beat us, the cops. They had to win. To them, death was the ultimate one-upmanship.
The ambulance was for Starsk. I knew he was in there, and I refused to believe that he was dead. His body hadn't turned up in a dumpster, so there was a chance he could still be alive.
The search warrant in my hand wasn't necessary, and neither was my gun, but I couldn't convince Cap of that. He insisted we do it by the book, and not rely solely on my instincts.
I pounded harder.
"STARSK!"
It was Starsky's red sock. There'd been some minute gray-blue fibers on it, so I had them analyzed. Turned out they were carpet fibers unique to the carpets used in the black and white units in our area, manufactured by a specific company. Since the rookie Lewis Mitchell drove a black and white, I knew Starsk had been in his car and not a cab the night he disappeared.
It was stretching it. The red sock could have belonged to anybody. Even Mitchell himself.
But Starsk had a drawer-ful just like them, and in my heart I knew whose it was.
Threads.
Once Cap said it was enough for a search warrant, that was it.
I kicked the door in, and walked around the house looking for a basement door. The psycho preferred the privacy of his own home, his dark fantasies required seclusion, downstairs and away from any visitors that might come by where he could torture at his leisure. His victims were more than likely drugged or gagged to prevent the captive from calling out for help while he was out working through the day.
"STARSK!"
I prayed he could hear me. I prayed it wasn't too late.
I saw a basement door next to the laundry room and pushed it open. The smell of death wafted up to me. Going down the stairs, I could see a couple of rugs on the floor, some spots of blood on them, the edge of a bed.
The back of my hand went automatically to my mouth, pressing back a cry of dread. I didn't want to see him dead. I didn't want to see him hurt. Fear pin-wheeled in my stomach.
"Oh God."
My heart shriveled. Starsky was slumped in the corner of the room, between a desk and the wall, nude. His wrists were blue, his neck was bruised purple, and his drug-dazed eyes were smudged blue windows I couldn't see him in anymore. Though he was alive and breathing, he looked catatonic, dead, a combination of both.
The cry I'd been stuffing back came out as I walked over to the corner and crouched down, lifting his head, hoping he recognized me.
"Hey," I said in a watery, uncertain voice. "Starsk?"
"Don't!" the police photographer on my heels warned. "Photos!"
I lunged up from my crouch and shoved the guy back.
"Back off, Mason!"
I knew not to disturb a crime scene, but hell, Lewis was dead, Starsky was alive, and right now tending to my partner was more important.
Mason backed off and decided to take pictures of Lewis instead. In my direction he said, "Hutchinson, you've contaminated the whole-"
"Starsky's not dead!" I yelled as I crouched by him again. "WHERE'S THE DAMN AMBULANCE?!"
Starsky's breathing was faint and slow, and sounded raspy through his swollen throat, but that was enough.
I looked him over but didn't see any knife wounds or bullet wounds. I reached for a folded Army blanket on a trunk next to the desk, and wrapped it around his unresponsive shoulders.
"Starsk?"
"Mitchell," Mason said taking photos of him, "looks like poison or overdose."
I could hear the paramedics coming down the stairs.
"Starsk," I whispered as I leaned over him and stroked his forehead. "I found you, buddy. Everything's going to be all right. Got an ambulance outside for you. Think you can say something to your old buddy, huh?"
The faraway look in his eyes bothered me most. I wasn't sure if he heard me, saw me, anything.
"Squeeze my hand," I said taking his right one as easily as I could.
But he couldn't. He was in a twilight place.
The camera clicked and whirred around me as the photographer got shots of almost everything in the room.
"Hung him from that rafter," another voice said. "See the ropes up there?"
More cops were coming onto the scene.
"Move out of the way, Ken," a medic's voice said behind me. "Let us help."
As the paramedics checked him over and lifted him onto the stretcher.
"He can't respond," I offered lamely. What could I expect after what he'd been through? He'd gone far away and I didn't know if he'd ever return.
Another cop handed me a book he had slipped into a clear evidence bag.
"What's this?" I asked, my mind only half-aware as I followed the paramedics up the basement steps.
"Looks like some kind of journal or diary."
I took it and myself to the hospital.
The doctors insisted that Cap and I wait in the waiting room while they took care of Starsky in the emergency room.
I had the diary in my hands. Though the last thing I wanted to do was read the entries of a monster, I knew I had to in order to get the full picture of what Starsky had endured.
Dobey sat in a chair near me while I read. I think he wanted to be close by in case I needed him.
The entries, of Starsky and the other victims as well, left me nauseous when I was finished. So full of rage and hurt for Starsk I wanted to go down to the morgue and rip Mitchell's corpse to shreds, even though he was dead.
But I couldn't do that, of course. What I did do was go to the window and open it for some deep gulps of fresh air, trying to gather the strength that Starsk and I would both need.
"He's been through hell," Doctor Anderson announced to me and Dobey when he came inside hours later. "Broken wrist, cracked ribs, dehydrated, and . . . " He gave us an uncomfortable look. "Sexual assault. He'll need some professional attention."
"No kidding," I said evenly. "Tell me something else."
"He's in a comfortable bed in recovery. The drugs have worn off. I've sent a
psychotherapist in to talk to him, but nothing seems to be getting through. It's as if he's closed off from the rest of the world. I'm more worried about his emotional condition than his physical one."
"Can I talk to him?"
"I don't think-"
"Look. None of your so-called experts can reach him. If I can't, then nobody can. Just let me try."
Doctor Anderson studied me, then nodded. "Don't tire him. He needs his rest."
I nodded, and walked down the hall to Starsky's room, where he lay as still and compliant as an autistic child.
Terrible.
Lewis Mitchell was dead. Case closed. He'd never rape, torture, or kill anyone again, yet he left his mark on Starsky, and I could only pray that it wouldn't last the rest of his life.
"Hi, buddy," I said as I sat down on the edge of the bed.
When his only response was to stare past my shoulder and out into space, I fixed his pillow and tried not to look at the mass of bruises on his throat.
"He's dead, Starsk," I whispered to him. "Can't hurt you or anybody else anymore."
I didn't know if he was even hearing me. He gave no indication that he had.
"You know," I went on, feeling so useless and inadequate, but knowing I had to try. What words could I say to make him all better? None. What could I say to take it back? Impossible. "I know you don't feel so lucky right now, but . . . " I placed my hand over his good hand, hoping for a squeeze in return. But got nothing. "But I feel like I'm the luckiest man alive. Because he didn't kill you. I got my partner back, and you're still here. And we're going to get through this together, and you're going to find the strength that I know is inside you."
I waited to see if he would reply, but he sat mute in his cocoon of silence.
This wasn't Starsky giving us the silent treatment. This wasn't Starsky not wanting to talk about it. This was a traumatized man who had survived an inhuman butcher. The only survivor of the serial killer we'd been after for so long.
And though it wasn't the response I'd hoped for...not a remark or a look in my
direction...it would take time, and care...I finally got one when he squeezed my hand in return.
"That's it," I said working back my tears. "That's my Starsk."
End
:::::::
Sleep II
By TLR
:::
"It's not like I'm throwing him to the wolves," Captain Dobey explained to the partners as they sat in his office, with a specific look toward Hutch. "This is something I want him to do while you're still on desk duty." Now he looked at Starsky. "I want you to escort a witness to trial in Las Vegas."
Hutch smiled and looked at his dark half. The blond's recovery from the coma was long and arduous, but with time, hard therapy, and help from Starsky, he made it back.
"Think you can handle that without me?"
Starsky smiled and tossed a paper wad at him.
Dobey continued. "Teresa Talbert is the only one who overheard the setup of the Casino Murders. And since it was a Mafia hit, well, I don't need to tell you she's a walking target, and terrified."
Starsky nodded. "I remember readin' about it in the papers a few months ago. She was peepin' through a hole into the men's room in the casino and both saw AND heard the Furillos' plan go down. Ten minutes later five of Dade Richey's men are machine-gunned."
"We're using a small plane. The Furillos will have eyes all over the bigger airports. You'll leave tomorrow. Pilot's name is Chuck Mason."
"She pretty?" Hutch asked.
"Teresa Talbert is a B-movie star," Starsky informed him.
"I repeat . . . is she pretty?"
Starsky ruffled his hair. "I'll put in a good word for you."
Starsky knocked on the door to Teresa Talbert's hotel room. Captain Dobey had arranged to hide her out here until Starsky could pick her up.
"Teresa Talbert?"
The door opened as far as the chain lock would allow, but far enough to reveal half of a pretty face. A timid blue eye twinkled through a lush mane of chocolate-brown hair.
"That's me."
He smiled. "I know you. Fool's Paradise. Vixen High. Lady in Waiting."
Teresa was flattered but tried to hide it. "I haven't acted in over a year now."
"Why is that?"
Teresa half-frowned, half-smiled. "You sure are nosy."
"I get paid to be nosy."
"Is this an interrogation?"
"It can be whatever you want it to be. We're gonna be on an airplane together for a few hours. Thought it'd be nice to get to know a real movie star."
"You mean porno star."
Starsky put a finger to his lips. "Sshh. I told my partner you were a B-movie star."
"Why? Didn't want him to get the wrong idea about me?"
"Nope. Didn't want him to get the wrong idea about me. I've seen all of your movies."
She smiled, beginning to warm to his boyish nature. "I wasn't ashamed of my job. It paid the bills, you know?"
"Hey, don't apologize. Please. I enjoyed every one of 'em."
Teresa unlocked the door and let him into the hotel room.
Upon getting a full view of her, he immediately understood why she no longer acted.
It was her face.
The right side was beautiful. The left was scarred as if from horrible burns.
"I'm sorry," Starsky said giving her a sympathetic but honest gaze.
She picked up her purse and suitcase. "Why? You didn't do anything."
Starsky shrugged. "I guess it's just somethin' nice to say. What happened?"
"Battery acid. Jealous producer boyfriend. He thought I was sleeping around on him and I wasn't."
"Monster. Who is he?"
"Forget him. He split six months ago. Now you see why I haven't acted in over a year. The only part I was offered was a witch. I said F you."
Starsky nodded. "Can't you have plastic surgery?"
"Already did. This is an improvement."
Starsky took her suitcase from her. "You were in Thorny Rose, weren't you?"
She smiled sweetly. "Of course."
"I remember the thing with the rose petals."
"And the thorns?"
"And the wine bottle. And the ribbons."
She smiled her coy on-screen smile. "Oh, the ribbons."
"Want to go out?"
"Sorry. I don't date."
"And I don't give up. Maybe you'll change your mind after you get your testimony behind you."
"I doubt it."
"How about an autograph?"
"That I'll do. On the plane."
He opened the door for her. "Movie stars first."
Teresa and Starsky took a cab to the small airfield where Detective Chuck Mason, a beefy black man with a bright smile, stood waiting next to his personal plane.
The plane, white with two pinstripes, one red, one blue, was bigger and nicer than Starsky expected. It seated twelve besides the pilot.
Starsky tossed a duffel bag into the plane and put his hand out to Chuck. "Good to meet you. I'm Detective Starsky."
"Detective Mason," the pilot said, then looked at Teresa. "Prison Girls, right, sweets?"
"Right."
He ogled her face. "Man, somebody did a number on you, sweets. That why I ain't seen you in a movie this year?"
Somehow Chuck's open staring was more insulting than Starsky's had been.
"Gee," she said wryly. "It may have something to do with it."
"Aerosol can blow up in your face? They'll do that."
"Jealous boyfriend."
Chuck winced.
She gave a small but defensive shrug. "They'll do that."
"Holy cow."
Starsky looked at his watch. "We need to get in the air if we're gonna get her to the trial on time."
Once in the air, Starsky kept his mind off of the landscape far below by making small movie talk with Teresa. But he saw that she was biting her thumbnail and looking out her window without paying much attention.
"Teresa . . . "
Starsky sat in the co-pilot's seat and reached behind him to place a hand over her free one, which was gripping the armrest for dear life.
She didn't pull her hand away. She looked at him, trying to feel as assured as he was trying to make her feel.
"Teresa, it'll be okay. You're brave for testifying against the Furillos. You could've kept your mouth shut, but you didn't."
She was suddenly tearful. "You're the first man who's touched me since . . . " She looked out the window again. "Since my face."
He gently brushed his finger down her scarred cheek. "It doesn't change who you are on the inside."
"No, but it sure changes the outside. And you didn't have to ask me out just to make me feel good. I know you feel sorry for me."
"No way," he said softly. "I don't do sympathy dates."
"I'm not as easy as you think."
"Hey, you're pretty, you're sexy. Interesting. Why wouldn't I ask you out?"
He handed her a handkerchief. "My partner was burned when he saved a baby from a fire.
Maybe that's why I see more than your scar."
Detective Mason grinned with a glance over his shoulder. "Hey, sweets, I'd have asked you out if he hadn't."
Starsky opened the duffel bag at his feet and handed her a bullet-proof vest. "I don't have flowers, so this'll have to do. Put it on sometime before we land."
She took the vest and held it in her lap, tucking her hair behind one ear. "Thanks."
Detective Mason nodded down toward the brushy desert area below. "Hey, sweets, didn't you do a movie in a desert once?"
Starsky grinned. "Cactus Flower. She played a belly dancer. Didn't you, Teresa?"
"You're into porno movies, ain't you?" Chuck grinned to Starsky.
"Well, there are porno movies, and then there are Teresa Talbert movies."
The light conversation was disrupted by a sudden forward lurching of the plane.
"What the-" Chuck's eyes swept the instrument panel. "Oh my God."
Starsky gripped the overhead strap as the plane's jerking continued. "What is it?"
Chuck frantically flipped switches and turned dials. "No idea! But somebody's been messin' with my plane!"
Starsky reached back for Teresa's hand. She squeezed his desperately, her eyes wide and panicky.
And then the noise of the plane's motor just stopped, and they were left to glide through the sudden silence like a big paper airplane.
"Oh God," Teresa sobbed as she plane began to tilt. "Can't you-"
"Furillo," Starsky said quietly.
"No power!" Chuck shouted as he banged on the instrument panel. "We're goin' down! Hang on!"
Starsky squeezed his eyes shut as Chuck tried to keep the nose of the plane up.
Chuck had enough control of the plane to keep it descending at an angle rather than straight down, but it was still a crash landing.
Chuck and Teresa hurtled through the front windshield.
Starsky was the only one buckled into his restraint, so when he was ejected to the right and out the damaged co-pilot door, he was secured by the seatbelt at his pelvis and left to dangle upside down and bleeding two feet off the ground, his legs and feet wedged under the crushed remains of the cockpit, arms lifeless toward the sand below.
Hutch was pouring himself a cup of coffee in the squad room, needing to tackle some of the paperwork on his desk, but finding it hard to focus, unable to determine just why the creeping sense of foreboding was stealing into his heart. His partner was a good cop and could take care of himself, but there were times…Marcus times…Bellamy times…
"Something wrong?" Dobey asked as he came over to pour a cup for himself.
Hutch set his own cup down, untouched.
"I don't know. I just have this bad feeling."
"With you?"
"No, not me . . . "
Dobey didn't have to ask more. He knew it was due to Starsky's solo assignment.
He didn't know if he were conscious or unconscious, lying or standing, breathing or not breathing. Even the mangled bodies of Chuck and Teresa on the ground below him didn't register in his white-static brain.
Hutch sat on the sofa with his date Nyla, his arm around her. A movie was on TV and a bowl of popcorn was on the coffee table in front of them.
"Best part's coming up," she said holding his hand.
But he didn't hear her. His eyes were focused on some other place, some other person.
Starsky thought he wanted to call for help. And maybe he had but just didn't know it. He didn't know how many times he'd drifted in and out of consciousness, how long he'd been here, and could not tell if this was really happening or all in his mind.
It was late at night in the squad room and Hutch sat by himself at their desk, Starsky's chair glaringly empty. He picked up the phone receiver to make some calls, but Captain Dobey came in and took the receiver from him, gently replacing it.
"Hutch, I don't think it's good. Judge Fulton called me himself to tell me they never made it to the trial."
Dobey gave a half-shrug that spoke thousands of words of comfort, worry, grief, loss.
"They'll search the desert," Dobey said quietly. "But in this heatwave, they'll be lucky if they find a scorpion alive."
Hutch grabbed his jacket and ran from the squad room.
Starsky was beginning to sense his body now, beginning to feel that it was one mass of pain, growing sharper and bigger by the moment, beginning to feel the heat beating down on
him and smothering the inside of his lungs, beginning to notice the large black birds that were pecking almost disinterestedly at the bodies of Chuck and Teresa below him, but was too weak and disoriented to care about any of it.
Hutch climbed into the Life Flight helicopter along with the paramedics and urgently tapped the pilot on the shoulder.
"Let's go!"
"Hutch," was the faint word that whispered through Starsky's cracked throat.
(Hutch)
(Hutch, I need )
(I wish)
(Too hot, too hot to think, Can't think, I'd move if I could but I don't know how anymore and I can't see much through the blood in my eyes)
(I think I said your name but I'm not sure)
(Hutch)
(I need you)
If he could just get a drink . . .
It would refresh him and he could think about moving again, think about how he could get down from here, how he could make those nosy black birds go away.
But the shadow of shade falling on him was a good start. It wasn't a drink but it was a good start.
He wasn't sure where it came from or how it got there, and he didn't care. He'd take it.
He forced his blood-caked eyes open and saw him standing there, his body blocking the sun, giving him shade that felt at least twenty degrees cooler.
"Hutch?"
Was it Hutch? Or someone like him?
Blond hair, cool blue eyes, at least on this day, the calm angel smile. Comforting him. Shading him.
Was it an angel?
Angels weren't real, were they?
But if they were, wouldn't they look like Hutch? Wouldn't they love him like Hutch? Maybe not as much as Hutch did, no, but if they tried very, very hard . . .
How could this figure be him?
Hutch, the pilot, and the co-pilot searched the desert below as they flew over it.
"See anything?"
"Not yet."
The pilot spoke over the noise: "How long do we look?"
"Until I say stop."
Starsky was grateful.
First for the shade, and now for the cool breeze that blew across his sunburned face. And
for the hand under the back of his neck that lifted his head to give him a drink of water.
"Hutch?"
He wanted to reach out, touch his partner, thank him, hug him, but he couldn't.
"Right here, Starsk."
"You're not back home?"
Hutch held his gaze and it put his hurting body at ease.
"You needed me."
"Everything okay?"
Hutch's smile was kind.
"You're not okay, Starsky."
A soft sob caught in Starsky's throat. "I know." Hutch stroked his hair. "It'll be all right. I'm right here."
Hutch's voice was so full of care and concern it made him cry.
"I can't move. Hurts all over."
"Sshh. I know. I'll stay with you until they come. I won't leave you."
Hutch continued to hold his head up, gave him another drink of water, and when the large black birds came close and pecked at his strengthless hands, kicked them away.
"Down there!" Hutch shouted over the sound of the chopper. "I see it!"
The pilot looked down and saw what Hutch saw—the demolished leftovers of Chuck Mason's airplane.
Hutch prayed as the helicopter descended,
straining to see, although he really didn't want to see, the remains of the crash.
The paramedics opened the door but Hutch jumped out first, running to the wreckage on legs that seemed to be made of rubber bands.
"No," he choked when he saw the ravaged corpses of Chuck and Teresa. "Starsk."
The birds had done considerable damage to what was left of their bodies.
He would have doubled over to be sick, but the sight of Starsky pushed all impulses aside.
"He's here!" he shouted as he went to Starsky and felt for a pulse in his throat.
The paramedics rushed their supplies over.
"Starsk, we found you. Just hang on."
Starsky moaned softly, his hand groping the air toward Hutch.
"Hutch?"
Hutch caught his hand and clutched it, noting the bloody peck marks on the back of his hand, palm, and wrist, as well as his sun-scorched skin. But worst of all was the mass of bruising on his body. He looked to be a solid bruise.
The paramedics crowded in, and Hutch stepped aside to let them work, hoping against hope.
"Honestly?" one paramedic said. "Besides the head wound, he's bruised badly and has a broken ankle, but I think he'll live. If his injuries and the heat haven't done him in by now, I'd say he's got a pretty good chance."
"Hutch," Starsky murmured as the paramedics tended to him. "Thanks for the water."
Hutch's smile was a little uncertain. "I didn't give you any water, Starsk."
"Yeah you did. You were here."
"Must've been hallucinating, I wasn't here. The desert sun will do that. Just a mirage."
As the paramedics continued to remove Starsky from the wreckage and place him on a stretcher, both partners smiled at the idea that Starsky was comforted by a Hutch mirage during his ordeal.
End