Chapter 3

Hutch could hear Starsky on the phone from here. He was protesting something very loudly, and Hutch listened more intently, though he could only pick up one half of the conversation. He was in his room, wondering why he still felt ill, and Starsky's voice was carrying up through the floor. He vaguely heard "But why? I thought we were going so well", and figured that Catherine was ending things with his friend. It struck him that ending it over the phone was pretty mean, but maybe the girl had a reason.

Sure enough, a few minutes later, Starsky appeared in Hutch's doorway. "You got a minute Hutch?"

Ignoring himself for the moment, Hutch smiled warmly at his friend. "Sure."

Starsky flung himself on Hutch's bed with a sigh. "She doesn't wanna see me anymore."

Hutch reached over and rubbed his friend's shoulder sympathetically. "Did she say why?"

"Not the proper reason. She just came out with all these excuses, 'it's not you, it's me, and it's personal' type stuff, y'know?"

"I'm sorry pal, I know you liked her a lot. Who understands women, huh?"

"Yeah." Starsky looked up into Hutch's face. "Hey, you okay? You look a bit...odd."

"Thanks a lot!" Hutch replied, trying to laugh it off. Can't let Starsky know what's wrong, he'll take it as an excuse to mock my eating habits again. Starsky loved to rib his friend about the health food he ate, claiming it was full of outrageous things such as butterfly bones and owl beaks, and this would provide his junk-food loving partner with more ammunition, or so Hutch thought. He also didn't want to jeopardize this case they were on; they couldn't afford to waste time. They could do that after the killer was caught. Besides, Starsky had enough to worry about. He loved so easily, that he was more susceptible than other people to being hurt by the objects of his affection, and he was sure to be upset now.

Starsky wasn't so easily convinced. "You'd tell me if something's wrong, huh?"

"Sure. But it isn't. Just worried about the case I guess. And worried about you," Hutch replied, turning the conversation back to Starsky.

"Ah, don't worry about me. I should be used to it by now," Starsky tried to joke, but his tone made Hutch want to cry with sympathy.

"We'll go out after work tonight, huh? You pick the place. We can talk properly," Hutch offered, trying to make his friend feel better.

***

However, when they got into work, neither of them felt better. Another girl had gone missing, this one 14 years old. "Hutch, maybe we couldn't save the other ones, but we have to find this one before they kill her," Starsky informed his partner sadly. She was the youngest victim yet, and her parents were too worried to do anything other than call them every few hours to see if they'd made progress on the case. "We can't let this happen to any more girls."

Hutch nodded in agreement. They worked non-stop all day, not even breaking for lunch, which was unusual for Starsky, but fine by Hutch, whose stomach was still bothering him.

By that evening they still hadn't managed to find anything. Whoever the killer was, they had no history. They had decided to try the locals to the area where the bodies were found, in the hope that any of them had seen anything suspicious. Given that it had been the middle of the night when the other girls died and the latest girl was discovered missing, it was unlikely that people had witnessed anything, but worth a shot.

After asking around at several shops and houses, they found a couple who'd been walking home late at night and had seen a tall, dark man, aged in his mid-30s or 40s, acting suspiciously, but had thought it best not to interfere. At least this gave them a description to go on for their suspect.

They both hoped it would all be resolved soon; the stress of the case was getting to both of them.

***

By the end of the day, neither of them felt like going out any more, but decided to just go home, and as they arrived at the house that night, Hutch told Starsky that he was going straight to bed and not bothering with dinner, claiming to be really tired. He reminded Starsky of the pizza in the freezer, and then left him to it. Starsky was feeling sorry for himself and accepted Hutch's explanation without thinking anything of it. At another time, he might have realised that something was wrong with Hutch, but he was distracted.

However, Starsky wasn't quite feeling so sorry for himself as to not be hungry, and so he did eat the pizza before heading to bed himself.