Chapter 8

Huggy Bear stood leaning on the corner of his bar and surveyed the crowd in the Pits that night. It was Thursday and it was ladies night and it seemed odd to the lanky black bar keeper that after all these years, his two friends weren't in town for the usual trawl of Bay City's talent. In all the years he'd owned and run the Pits, there had been very few Thursdays that Dave Starsky and Ken Hutchinson had missed. Sometimes one or other would be sick and unable to make it, but sure as eggs were eggs they'd be there the following week, and when they weren't there, Huggy missed them keenly.

Reading about Starsky's death in the newspaper had been like a pail of ice water being suddenly thrown over him. The brunet and Huggy had been friends since Starsky had first started to patrol the central city almost 15 years ago, even before Hutch joined him on the scene. Then he'd been a uniformed officer, eager, intelligent and with just enough street cred about him to have him able to straddle the line between establishment and the criminal element. Never one to take rules too seriously if he couldn't see a damned good reason for them, Starsky flaunted them just enough for the shadier characters to Bay City to have a belief that on occasions, the curly haired cop could be trusted with some titbit of information.

The chocolate curled cop was fast, straight as a die, trustworthy and just the right type of man to have at your side in a crisis, and on more than one occasion, Huggy had had to put those credentials to the test. He sorely missed Starsky, but that wasn't the only thing that was troubling the black man's head this evening.

Huggy went over his visit with Hutch in his mind. It was almost a standing joke in the inner circles of Bay City that Starsky and Hutch were joined at the hip. They were twins in every sense of the word, even though they couldn't have looked any different if they'd tried. They were the perfect foil to each other. Blond and dark; olive toned and golden; streetwise and cerebral. But the similarities were even more striking. Both men had a love of life, both men upheld the law with a fierce determination, both had a sense of humour to die for and both would die for the other if the need arose.

That was the problem. That strong, unshakable and intense bond was the issue taxing Huggy's mind now. With Starsky gone in such a needless fashion, Hutch had nothing to cling on to. If the brunet had been gunned down again, as he had been four years ago in the police garage, Hutch would have cloaked himself once again in his "avenging angel" persona and channelled his grief and energy into finding Starsky's killer. But this time, there was no masked gunman, or stocking masked poisoner. This time, Mother Nature had done her job well and there was one less Brooklyn born cop on the streets of Bay City. And this time, Hutch had nothing to pit himself against; nothing to channel his energies into fighting. This time, Hutch seemed to be curling up in readiness to follow his partner into the great unknown.

Huggy had never seen the big blond so hurt, or unfocused. Seeing Hutch yesterday afternoon had been a slap in the face for him. Hutch's eyes were clouded, his hair flat, dull and lifeless, his eyes circled with black and red rimmed. The usually erudite flaxen haired cop could barely string two words together to make a sentence and it was almost as though he'd been drugged with something other than the doctor's tranquilizers. The barkeep's mind went back a thousand years to the two cops upstairs in his rented room, the blond, sweating and hurting man enfolded in the caring embrace of his partner as Hutch pleaded for his medicine. Steadfastly, Starsky had held on, suffering the verbal and sometimes physical abuse stoically and without a word as Hutch battled through the withdrawal from the heroin he'd been forced to take. The blond's eyes had been pained and unfocused then too, locking onto Starsky's deep indigo eyes for comfort and support before closing as another gigantic shudder forced its way through his body.

The more he thought about it, the more convinced Huggy became that there was something more at work here than merely grief and Vallium. Having spent all his formative years vacationing with his aunt in the Caribbean, Huggy had always been comfortable around occult, black magic and voodoo. To the black man, the connection that he'd witnessed between Hutch and Starsky was nothing unusual. Sure, he'd never seen two men so inherently "together" but the idea of being connected on some other level didn't phase him, and the more he thought about it, the more Huggy couldn't help thinking that maybe there was something other worldly going on with his blond friend. He didn't for one minute that Hutch was going to go all "Houdini" and start talking to the other side, but Hutch's insistence that Starsky wasn't dead; the blond's sheer strength of conviction was too much for Huggy to ignore. And by God he'd tried to ignore it, knowing that if he voiced that opinion, he very likely be laughed out of the room.

As the evening wore on, however, the feeling that he really ought to do something for the hurting blond became too much and as he set about closing the Pits down for the night, he resolved that the next morning, he'd have the courage of his convictions and go to see Dobey.

oOoOoOoOoOoOo

'I aint got time for your hocus pocus Huggy. I've seen what ya do, sellin' pet stones, supplyin' garlic pouches to ward off evil spirits. Can't ya just leave the poor guy alone to grieve in peace?' Dobey snapped as Huggy sat across the desk from him, twiddling uncomfortably with the hem of his bright pink shirt.

'Captain, do you think I'd come here to joke about somethin' as serious as my friend's death?'

Dobey's head snapped up. The absence of the pseudo black banter, the colourful language Huggy liked to employ made him pay attention like nothing else could. This time Huggy Bear Brown was deadly serious and that made the captain curious.

'So tell me again. Why are ya concerned?'

Huggy sighed, trying to get his thoughts into order. 'Like I said, I went to see the blond one yesterday. He's really hurting' Cap'n.'

'I know that! And you'd hurt too if your best friend was killed in a fire' Dobey grunted.

'He was one of my best friends' Huggy said quietly. 'And I miss him just as much as anyone, so for once, Captain, don't try treatin' me like somethin that just crawled out of the primordial ooze.'

Dobey looked mollified and dipped his head, his eyes suddenly focused on a terribly interesting doodle on his blotter pad as he fought the tear springing to the corner of his eye. He cleared his throat gruffly. 'M'sorry. Go on.'

'I went to see Hutch yesterday. He's hurtin'…… a lot. But that's not what got me. Yeah, anyone would be upset, angry…..any one of those emotions, and yeah, to some extent they'd be in denial. I was listenin' to him. He could hardly string two words together Cap'n, but he kept tellin' me that Starsky wasn't dead….that he felt him.'

'Hugg…..you know what…'

The barkeep held up his hand, silencing the Captain's doubts. 'Hey, no-one wants to help Blondie more than I do. And no-one would want to hurt him less. I just got to thinkin'. Hutch said he wanted proof that it was Starsky's body, an' maybe, while they still have him at the morgue, we could kinda take his rings, or his necklace or watch an' give them to Hutch. Ya know? Just to…..well, just so that he has somethin' physical he can hang on to. It's not a big deal Cap'n. Just something he can keep that was Starsky's.' Huggy stopped, looking hopefully at the big man across the desk. 'What's the harm huh? An' it might help….'

Dobey sighed deeply. He'd been worried for the blond cop too, knowing just how deeply Hutch's pain would run. The two detectives had spent almost ten years of their lives together, off duty as well as on. During those years, they had some pretty close shaves, but they'd come through, each one providing support to the other when needed. The Captain remembered the fierce determination written on Starsky's handsome face when tracking down Thomas Calendar as Hutch lay dying of the plague in Memorial Hospital. Only the brunet's iron will had kept Hutch going far longer than he should have.

And when James Gunther had sent his heavies to gun down the brunet in the garage of the metro, it was Hutch who remained at his partner's side through the crises, the pneumonias, the infections, the physiotherapies and the drive to get back to full fitness. In both instances, each had driven the other on to achieve miraculous recoveries. Now, with only half the partnership there, Dobey felt that it was only fitting that Hutch's friends should step in and try to fill Starsky's shoes in helping the blond recover from the devastating news. If that help meant retrieving personal effects before the autopsy had been carried out, he'd do everything in his power to make it happen.

Pulling the phone towards him, he checked on his list of telephone numbers and punched the relevant sequence into the phone, waiting while it rang down to the morgue. The phone picked up on the fourth ring and a voice answered.

'Rodriguez? Is that you?' Dobey asked, hoping the easy going Spaniard would be on duty. The city morgue was one of the places Dobey hated visiting, but if he had to, he hoped he'd have a friendly face there. Fortunately, he was in luck.

'Si, what can I do for you Captain Dobey?' the familiar, heavily accented voice replied.

'It's um… the body of one of my officers was brought in three days ago. Waiting for an autopsy. He was a fire victim.' Dobey found it hard to speak about his officer like this – like a piece of meat rather than the fun loving, intense and affable cop that David Starsky had been.

'Ah, you mean Senior Starsky. I'm so sorry. Si, we have him here. I'm looking after him' the Spaniard said with no hint of irony or humour in his voice. Rodriguez took his job seriously, and just because the customers he dealt with were dead, to him that still meant they should be treated with as much respect and dignity as if they were still alive.

'Rodriguez, I need you to do something for me, if you can' Dobey asked.

'But of course, if I can.'

'I wonder if you can check the body for me. You know Starsky's partner, Ken Hutchinson. He's um…..well he isn't taking Starsky's death too well and he um… Well I wonder. Starsky wore two rings on the little finger of his left hand, and a necklace…..some kind of coin. Could you take them off the body? I could um…..well I think that Hutch may feel better if he….'

'I know. Yes, I understand. It's irregular an' maybe you shouldn't until after the autopsy, but…. Give me a minute and I'll go and check.'

There was a sound of the telephone receiver being placed on a table and the footsteps echoing away. Dobey looked at Huggy, who stared back, his face blank.

'He's gone to check' the Captain explained unnecessarily. The situation was uncomfortable for both men as they thought about the blackened, charred remains that had once been their friend. The silence was interminable and it was with relief that Dobey heard the footsteps returning. The phone picked up again and Rodriguez' voice sounded down the line.

'Are you sure about the jewellery? Did he ever take it off?'

'No. The rings belonged to his Father. He never took them off. Why?' Dobey asked, his heart beating a little faster.

'There is no jewellery on the body Senior. Nothing at all. No rings, no necklace, no watch.'

'Could they have been destroyed in the fire?'

There was a quiet snort down the phone. 'Although the fire was devastating Senior, it would never have been hot enough to melt metal until nothing remained.'

Dobey's voice showed shock and his throat went dry. 'So what are you saying Rodriguez?'

'I'm saying that either he removed all his jewellery, or the body we have here is not Senior Starsky.'