Archive of Our Own ^beta

Written: 2004

First published in "Of Dreams & Schemes 20" (2005)

            There’s no such thing as a good-looking mug shot. Ken Hutchinson shook his head in mild amusement at the picture stapled to the first page of the file he was flipping through. The guy could have been forty or sixty—life on the streets made it hard to tell—and what he lacked in hair on the top of his head he amply made up for with his bushy white beard. Even in the black-and-white photo, his eyes were piercing and wild with insanity. Hutch grimaced; they let a guy who looked like that back out on the street? But there it was, “Paroled: February 5, 1977.” Which was why he was searching through this pile in the first place.

            “Anything?” came a bored voice from the other side of said pile, and Hutch would have had to straighten to peer over the manila barrier to see the speaker. He didn’t bother, knowing exactly what Starsky’s expression would be, how he’d be sitting with his chin propped on one hand, the other flipping through a file much like the one Hutch held.

            “Just a new theory on crime,” Hutch tossed back over the paper wall. He gave up on the file in his hand—there’s no way Bushy would have had the brains for the heist they were investigating—and tossed it on top of the much smaller pile that was collecting on the right corner of his desk.

            “What’s that?” Starsky asked, sounding only mildly more interested than before. And a little less muffled. No longer talking through his fingers, Hutch figured.

            “Ugly people end up on the wrong side of the law.”

            That at least got Starsky’s attention. Incredulous blue eyes appeared over the manila hill. “We’ve been lookin’ at these files for almost an hour, and that’s all you got? Ugly people?”

            “You got something better?” Hutch asked pleasantly.

            Starsky scowled at him. “Even nothing’s better ’an that.”

            Hutch grinned and shrugged, giving up the argument. It wasn’t worth the words. Still, he felt better as he turned back to the eternal piles, and at the sound of Starsky’s snort, figured his partner did, too. Starsky would probably still be shaking his head, but he’d be smiling in the privacy of his partitioned desk. Hutch stretched, pulling over another file. A glance up at the clock revealed another hour until shift’s end, just enough time to build a good headache from staring at all those files.

            On the other hand, his partner, David Starsky, seemed undeterred by the paperwork blizzard, merely supremely uninterested. Probably resigned to the inevitable. He’d started the morning cheerfully alternating between off-key whistling and a running commentary on the repulsiveness of each suspect he looked at—another point in favor of Hutch’s theory—before slowly descending into the stupor of mindless paperwork. He wouldn’t come alive again until quitting time, Hutch knew from experience, at which point he’d be bouncing off the walls and ready for some action, just when Hutch would be longing to curl up with a book or his guitar. But since when had they ever been alike?

            The next file did nothing to disprove Hutch’s new hypothesis, the mustachioed, gaunt face one only a mother could love. Which probably explained the “Mom” tattoo on the guy’s cheek. His record wasn’t much better, either: misdemeanor theft, purse-snatching, pickpocketing. No armed robbery, not even a B&E—why had R&I even pulled his file? They were looking for someone behind a major jewelry store heist, not shoplifting from a candy store. Rolling his eyes, Hutch tossed the file onto the discard pile and craned his neck to see over the pile to his partner’s desk on the other side. “Hey, after this, you wanna go down to Huggy’s, grab a beer and some early dinner?”

            Starsky didn’t even look up from the file he was paging through. “I thought you didn’t wanna go back there after that rat we saw under a table the last time.”

            Hutch shrugged. “Knowing Huggy, it was just one of his clientele. At least it wasn’t in the kitchen.”

            A smile was creeping out behind Starsky’s fingers. “You’re weird, you know that?” He slapped the file shut, added to his own discard pile, and pulled the next one to him.

            “Hey, I’m not the one who usually orders the ‘Huggy Surprise,’” Hutch retorted, feeling like he was in second grade and thoroughly enjoying it. Starsky seemed to bring out that side of him. What that said about his partner, Hutch could only speculate, but then, Starsky never followed normal rules. It was probably what made the two of them fit so well together.

            Enough that a sixth sense had developed between them, in fact, one that unexpectedly sent a prickle along his neck at that moment. The quality of the silence across the desk had somehow changed, Hutch suddenly realized, and his head bobbed up, frowning at the crown of dark hair that was all he could see of his partner across the desk. It was as still as Starsky was quiet.

            Maybe he’d found something? Hopeful, he asked, “Starsky?”

            No answer. No sound except the pencil snapping in Starsky’s hand with enough force to send one piece skittering off the desk into the corner by the filing cabinet.

            Okay, no question now something was wrong. Hutch stood to see past the barrier of files, then leaned in, alarmed, as he finally caught a glimpse of Starsky’s face.

            It was white. Not just pale, but a bloodless, dead white. His eyes, however, had gone the odd shade of deep ultramarine they became when Starsky was furious. Or very, very upset.

            Fear now formed a solid chunk in Hutch’s stomach—what could play that kind of havoc on an experienced cop? Whatever it was, it couldn’t be good. He dropped his voice, knowing it usually caught his partner’s attention more easily than when he raised it. “Starsk?”

            The crash of a falling chair coincided with Starsky jerking to his feet with something that almost sounded like a whimper. Whether Hutch had broken the spell or something inside Starsky had finally given way, Hutch didn’t know, because his partner didn’t even glance at him before lurching out of the squadroom, crashing into the corner of a desk and one of the filing cabinets in his uncoordinated haste.

            As if drawn by an invisible string pulled taut between them, Hutch immediately followed him. He barely spared his partner’s desk a glance as he went, but there was nothing unusual there he could see, just a file opened to another unfamiliar, unfriendly face.

            Dobey’s door swung open just as Hutch reached the squadroom door, and his boss stuck out his head. “What’s going on out here?” he growled at Hutch.

            “I don’t know, but I’m gonna find out,” Hutch absently answered, shoving the door open, then standing uncertainly in the hallway looking down the way he’d seen Starsky turn. Nothing…except a flustered-looking meter maid, glaring at the shutting restroom door across the hall from her. Ah. Hutch started down the hallway, slower now that he knew the cause for Starsky’s rush, casting the girl a distracted, apologetic shrug as he did.

            It was the right place. The bathroom stalls were to the far left, offering some measure of privacy to someone who was bringing up his lunch, and Hutch had vague, unpleasant recollections of bending over that bowl a time or two when the latest stomach bug or a particularly ugly case got to him, Starsky hovering sympathetically behind him and running interference.

            But the urinals were closer, and apparently that was all Starsky had cared about this time because he was on his knees in front of the nearest one, as his stomach rejected that day’s lunch. It looked like a particularly violent reaction, too, the way Starsky’s whole body arched at each spasm. Hutch winced in empathy as he crossed to the sink and collected a handful of wetted paper towels. This wouldn’t be fun, but if that was all that was wrong, they could deal with it.

            At least the worst finally seemed to be passing. As he crouched down next to Starsky, his partner sagged back with a few parting coughs, panting for breath but a faint blush in his cheeks again. Hutch flushed the mess away, then turned back to Starsky, offering the towels with an understanding smile. “Bad hot dog?”

            Both offers were ignored. In fact, Starsky wasn’t even looking at him, his eyes focused on the clenched fists in his lap. Fists that trembled.

            Hutch’s brow drew together as he looked back up at Starsky’s face and gave him a more critical look. His whole body was trembling, but this was no reaction to a turned stomach. It was emotion, strong enough that it was threatening to tear Starsky to pieces in more ways than one.

Hutch squeezed his nearer shoulder. “What’s going on, Starsk?”

            Starsky shook his head heavily, but it was more in apparent disbelief than denial. “I saw him,” he muttered, the words almost a mush.

            Hutch moved into the few inches still separating them. “Saw who?”

            “He shot him,” was the dull answer, a surprising monotone counterpart to Starsky’s jitters.

            “Who shot who?” Hutch realized he was falling into the lulling tones of questioning a traumatized victim, but at the moment, that was exactly what Starsky was acting like.

            The restroom door opened, and even as Hutch quickly moved to interpose himself between Starsky and the door, Simmons from their department stuck his head in. “Everything okay in here?”

            There was no point pretending with their friends. “No,” Hutch said tersely. “Do me a favor, Craig—keep everybody out for a few minutes, okay?”

            Simmons was looking past him, and Hutch moved a little to the side, putting Starsky more squarely behind him. There was pretending, and then there was protecting. “Sure thing, Hutch,” the detective said, seeming to understand. “Holler if you need something.”

            “Thanks,” Hutch said distractedly, listening to the door shut behind him even as he turned back to Starsky, who had buried his face in his hands in the meanwhile. Only his loud breathing was audible now.

            The feeling that had settled into Hutch’s gut was wearily familiar. Something had just gone seriously wrong in his partner’s world, and he had to figure out what it was before he could help. But even that could wait a minute until Starsky was a little more together. Sitting on the floor in the men’s bathroom wasn’t exactly the place to start unpacking your feelings.

            He just wished he knew what had hit Starsky so hard.

            Hutch stood. “I think we can do better than this, don’t you?” he said kindly. He bent down and hooked his arms under his partner’s, straining to lift until Starsky finally seemed to figure out what he was doing, and clumsily added to the effort. Hutch steered him into one of the stalls, shoved the toilet lid shut with one foot, then plopped Starsky on top of it. He pushed the wad of wet paper towels into Starsky’s hand and directed them up to his face to wipe his mouth. Starsky woodenly did so, and Hutch dumped the used towels before returning to squat next to his partner.

            “Starsky, listen to me. I need you to talk to me, tell me what’s wrong.”

            At least Starsky seemed to be calming, no longer shaking as hard or so shell-shocked in the eyes. But a deep sorrow remained behind in them, along with something that almost looked like...

            Horror.

“It was him,” Starsky finally said hoarsely.

            “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Starsk—him who?”

            “The guy. I just saw him. I never forgot him, Hutch.”

            The tiny relief that Starsky knew who he was and was talking to him was quickly dwarfed by the recognition of how much anguish was in Starsky’s voice. Hutch laid a hand on the man’s thigh, trying to steady him, maybe offer a little comfort for some pain he didn’t know yet. “In the file? The guy in the file?”

            A dumb nod. Okay, one question answered. Hutch shifted a fraction closer.

            “Who did he shoot?”

            The answer came out with a sobbing breath. “Pop.”

            Hutch nearly fell back onto his rear. It was the last answer he’d expected, and it rocked him almost as much as Starsky’s reaction. His dad? The man in the file was Michael Starsky’s killer?

            He’d known Starsky’s father had been murdered in front of his son and they’d never caught the guy, and Hutch had always assumed the killer had just vanished. But it still made sense there was a file on him somewhere; murderers rarely committed the one crime and then seamlessly re-entered law-abiding society.  At least, not the kind of murderer who would gun down an off-duty cop in cold blood. But Hutch had never asked for details and Starsky had never offered, and there it had stayed until five minutes before, when Starsky’s world had screeched to a halt, and Hutch with it.

            His other hand went instinctively to Starsky’s arm, squeezing and rubbing in tacit comfort. Out loud, he just asked gently, “Are you sure?”

            “I saw him, Hutch,” Starsky ground out. The churning blue eyes made real contact with Hutch’s for the first time, his voice still rough but not as distant now.

             “Okay,” Hutch quickly agreed, then hesitated. There was no SOP for this, and he was feeling his way with each step. “Did they have you look at the books in New York?”

            A sharp nod. “He wasn’t in there.”

The thought of an eight-year-old kid looking through the mug books f or his father’s killer was heartbreaking. And then to cross paths with him again twenty years later without warning—what were the chances? No wonder he was still shaking. This was still a kid’s reaction to his father’s murder.

            But the sight of his hunched partner softened Hutch instantly. Rachel Starsky hadn’t been there for her grieving, scared son, sending him across the country instead for her sister to deal with, but Starsky had someone now. Whatever he was dealing with that moment and in the days ahead, Hutch wouldn’t let him bear it alone.

            “Okay, so maybe he only has a record in California, or he hadn’t been arrested yet.” Hutch offered a smile. “This is good news then, buddy. We’ve got him now—we’ve got his name, location, and history right there. He might’ve gotten away with this for twenty-five years, but we can put him away for it now.” Two dozen years late, but it was better than never, and there was no statute of limitations on murder, or on finding justice for a bereaved family.

            Starsky’s face was becoming more animated as he got his balance back, the adult in him regaining control. First flinching, then flushing, he finally weakly answered, “Yeah.” An embarrassed shrug. “Sorry, huh? I just didn’t expect t’see him again.”

            Hutch’s snort was the softest breath of disbelief as he shook his head. “Don’t be an ass, Starsky.” He couldn’t even imagine his father being killed before his eyes, let alone suddenly being faced with the killer years later, even if it was just a photograph in a file. “Listen, we’ll go back, talk to Dobey, then we’ll call NYPD for a copy of their file on your dad. Maybe we can tie up this one for them.” Hutch normally wouldn’t have cared much about closing one of New York’s cold cases; this one was purely for Starsky and his family.

            “Personal involvement,” Starsky reminded him quietly. They weren’t supposed to work on cases in which they had a stake.

            But Hutch just shook his head. “It’s not our case, Starsky, we’re just going to make the arrest. We’ll get this guy.”

            Starsky nodded, then his face folded and he leaned forward and buried it again in his hands. “Oh, God, Hutch…I didn’t ever wanna see him again. I had nightmares about him for years…”

            Hutch grimaced, and he shifted closer to put an arm around his partner’s shoulders and lean his head against Starsky’s. “Maybe this’ll finally put ’em to rest, Starsk,” he said gently.

            There was a long pause, then Starsky’s head bobbed against his in a small nod.

            Hutch waited a few beats. “You ready to go back out there and get started?”

            “Just gimme another minute, huh?”

            Hutch gave him several. And he didn’t let go of Starsky’s arm all the way back to the squadroom, but Starsky didn’t seem to mind.

            Notifying Dobey was the next step. After sidestepping their boss’s requisite offers to put someone else on the case and to help them however he could, Hutch soon had his partner and the file sequestered in an empty interrogation room where they were free to talk in private.

            He sat and read the file while Starsky stared at the picture. John Paul Vittorio. Definitely Italian, very possibly mob, which fit with what Hutch knew of Michael Starsky’s death. The NYPD had believed from the start it was a mob killing of a policeman who had gotten too close to some of their activities. Vittorio was fifty-two, dark hair thinning, wide face stony and cold. The right age and easily the hitman type. His birthplace was listed as New York City, although his record only began close to fifteen years before in California. The NYPD probably had more on his earlier life—records from different states didn’t often come to light unless you asked for them—and that would be one of their first steps.

But for now, Hutch turned to the man’s California record, reading partly over Starsky’s shoulder. Assault, aggravated assault, assault, assault with a deadly weapon. He whistled softly at the list. “About all our friend hasn’t been charged with is murder.”

“Just means he was never caught,” Starsky said stonily.

“Or maybe he got out of the business after New York,” Hutch said. It felt a little like playing devil’s advocate, but they had to look at all the angles if they were going to do this right, and he’d never wanted to tie a case up so perfectly before.

Well, maybe except with Simon Marcus’s band of followers. After they’d kidnapped and brutalized Starsky, putting them away forever was the best consolation Hutch could have gotten next to tearing them apart himself.

Starsky was shaking his head. “You didn’t see his face, Hutch—he liked killing. After he shot Pop, he looked at me an’,” Starsky swallowed, “he smiled. I was just a kid, what did I know about evil? But I knew it when I saw it, Hutch. The guy was evil.”

There was no passion in his voice, just a fatigue that made Hutch wonder what all his friend was working so hard to keep at bay. Hutch, for one. Since the broken admission in the restroom an hour before, Starsky had given no other sign he was working on a case that had haunted him for years and broken open a lot of old hurt. It was self-protection, and while Hutch didn’t like it, he could understand it.

And he would respect it.

Hutch looked at the file again. “Well, now he’s jailbait,” he said. “Looks like the last arrest date was a couple of weeks ago. Even if it’s already gone to trial, guy with his record had to get some time.”

Those midnight-colored eyes looked up at him. “You think—?”

Hutch patted his arm. “I’ll make a few calls and see. You keep looking.”

The information he received was even better than he’d expected, and Hutch was smiling as he returned to the small interrogation room. “He made a deal so he wouldn’t go to trial—he’s doing five-to-seven up in Lancaster,” he announced as he slid into the chair next to Starsky.

Starsky had paled again, but he immediately asked, “They allowing visitors?”

Hutch’s jaw went loose. “Starsky, you…you’re not seriously thinking about going up to see this guy?!”

“I haveta talk to him. See if he’s really the one.”

“You seemed pretty sure about it when you were puking your guts out earlier,” Hutch said angrily.

Starsky was unfazed, putting the file neatly together. “You don’t have to come.”

            “Oh, for—of course I’m coming! I just don’t think you should. You’ll see him when you have to testify against him eventually—why put yourself through it twice?”

            “I need to see him,” Starsky repeated resolutely. He tried to meet Hutch’s eyes, tried to smile, but didn’t quite succeed in either effort. “It’ll be okay. It just surprised me before, ’s all.”

            Yeah, sure, and all this was just an unpleasant memory. Hutch squelched his dismay, trying to remember that victims dealt differently with their trauma. Maybe seeing Vittorio in person really was what Starsky needed to start putting it behind him again. Trusting someone was usually hardest when you had to trust them with themselves. Hutch took a deep breath and nodded with only a little difficulty. “Okay. But we go together, and then we go home and put all this away until tomorrow, got it?”

            “Yeah.”

            “I mean it, Starsky,” he said sternly. Starsky had a tendency to forget promises like that, and Hutch didn’t want to wake up in the middle of the night to find his partner bent over a file.

            Starsky’s mouth turned faintly up. “Yes, Ma.” 

            Hutch scowled back even though humor was good—really good, in fact. But he still couldn’t squelch the deep unease inside his gut as he followed his partner out the door. He rather doubted either of them would be in much of a joking mood on this trip, and afterwards… Well, whatever happened, he’d be there. It was the one thing he could promise in what had become a very unpredictable day.

            But somewhere in the back of his mind, Hutch couldn’t forget the traumatized kid who’d had to do this completely alone twenty years earlier.

            “I can’t believe he’s been here all the time.”

            Hutch glanced over at his partner as he drove. They were in the Torino, but Starsky had headed for the passenger side without a word when they’d reached the garage. As wiped as he still looked, Hutch didn’t blame him. He would have been worried if Starsky had wanted to drive. Hutch had taken the driver’s seat also in silence.

            “You’d think we woulda crossed paths before or somethin’.”

            Starsky’s silent stoicism had given way to restlessness as they drove, and Hutch recognized it for what it was: nerves. The distancing was still there, but Hutch didn’t doubt that despite eight years of being a cop and bringing down countless cold-blooded murderers, seeing Vittorio made Starsky feel like he was a scared eight-year-old again. The prospect of meeting him in itself had to be intimidating, let alone coming to terms with the possibility of closing the case of his dad’s murder. It was a lot to get used to in a short amount of time.

            “I mean, we know about half the guys in Lancaster.”

            “More like a tenth of that, Starsk—it’s a big county.” Lancaster itself was over an hour to the north of the city.

            “It’s a big country, but Vittorio ended up here in LA.”

            Hutch couldn’t argue that; the coincidence still amazed him. He just shrugged. Starsky wasn’t really asking him anyway.

            “You think we can make the case?”

            Starsky was looking at him now, and his voice had changed to something far more hesitant. That was a real question, and one Hutch had been thinking about, too. “Well, we’ve got your eyewitness testimony.”

            Starsky snorted. “From an eight-year-old, twenty-five years later.”

            “It won’t be enough by itself, but if we can get something else to tie him to the scene, it’ll help a lot. We’ll have to get the records from New York, see if they have a ballistics report, prints, something.”

            “And hope he’s still got the same gun or shoes.”

            “Nobody said it’d be easy, Starsky.” A glance at his still-pale partner, and Hutch eased up again. “But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. You know they’ve closed even older cases than this one before, and I doubt the detectives on the case had as much motivation as we do. Besides, it was a copkiller case—I bet the NYPD has a pretty complete case file.”

            “Pop’s partner worked the case,” Starsky said quietly.

            Hutch winced—okay, so maybe the case detective had been as motivated as they were. “But we’ve got a name now, Starsk—that gives us a head start already.”

            Starsky sighed, shifted in his seat, and was silent for a long minute. Then, “I don’t know how I’m gonna tell Ma.”

            Hutch gave him a sympathetic half-smile. “One thing at a time, okay? Let’s just worry about Vittorio right now. We’re here.” He turned the Torino with one smooth motion into the drive and up to the gate of the prison, and sensed Starsky tensing anew next to him as he pulled out his badge for the guard at the entrance. Worry had probably been a poor choice of words. It was sheer fright on Starsky’s face when Hutch glanced at him, and he reached over and gripped Starsky’s shoulder as he pulled into the parking space he was directed to.

            Every prison he’d seen looked basically alike: a cold brick building with few windows, surrounded by barbed-wire-topped fences and barren fields. Even without the fences, the place would have looked like a prison. They were both staring at it as they got out of the car, then Hutch pulled his eyes away to look at his partner again.

            “You ready?”

            Starsky’s mouth curled briefly. “No.” He started walking toward the front door. Hutch jogged to join him, shoulders brushing as they strode up the long walk and went inside.

            The routine was familiar enough. They had to lock up their guns and sign in, showing their badges. Then there was a series of barred gates opening and closing behind them as they headed deeper into the prison. Hutch swallowed a nervous flutter of claustrophobia, but for once Starsky was oblivious to his friend’s momentary panic. He had plenty on his mind already, Hutch figured, and buried his queasiness deep.

Being cops entitled them to meet with a prisoner in private in one of the small consult rooms usually used for visits by counsel. Vittorio would be taken in to see them after they’d been escorted to one of the rooms. But at the door, Starsky stopped, and turned to face him. “Listen—”

            Hutch had a sudden suspicion of what was coming. His eyebrows drew together darkly. “Starsky, you’d better not be thinking what I think you’re thinking.”

            “I need to do this alone.”

            “Why?” he asked flatly.

            “I just…I need to know if…”

            Hutch was shaking his head. “We were gonna go through this together, remember? You don’t have to handle it alone this time, Starsk.”

            “Yeah, I do,” Starsky said quietly, conclusively. “This is between him and me, Hutch, finishin’ something that got started a long time ago.”

            “You can do that with me there.”

            “I need to know I can handle this. Please, Hutch.”

            Hutch slumped, knowing he’d already lost. “This isn’t what we agreed on, buddy.”

            “I know.” Starsky offered him a wrenching smile. “I’m not gonna keep you out of this, I promise. I just need to do this part by myself.”

            Hutch took a deep breath. “You know I don’t like this.”

            Starsky smiled a little again. “I know.”

            “All right, but you stay in there too long and I’m coming in after you.” He wagged his finger at Starsky for good measure.

            Another nod, less amused this time. Already Starsky was bracing himself, expression going blank, eyes guarded, the little bit of loosening with his partner completely tightened up again. He turned from Hutch without another word or look and went inside, the door shutting behind him.

            A minute later, the clanking of metal announced Vittorio’s arrival, flanked by a guard.

            Hutch didn’t move at first from in front of the door, just stood staring at the prisoner, taking in the man who had hurt the Starsky family so badly.

            Vittorio’s record stated he’d been in prison most of the time since 1951 on different charges, and prison hadn’t been kind to the felon. He was gaunt to the point of illness, face drawn and colorless except for the gray stubble on his chin. His hair was also grey and cut short. His eyes were faded and swimming, the eyes of a long-time addict, but they glared back at Hutch with a simmering rage that had probably only grown with his years of incarceration. Looking at those eyes, Hutch could well believe Vittorio had once killed a cop in front of his son, and probably never lost a night’s sleep on account of it.

            He returned the glare for a long moment, until the guard behind the felon shifted impatiently, then Hutch slowly stepped aside. Vittorio seemed unmoved by the show, but Hutch didn’t care. He’d made his point: the man waiting inside the room for Vittorio wasn’t alone, and Hutch would be watching.

            Vittorio shuffled inside dispassionately, the door closing again behind him.

            And all Hutch could do now was wait.

            Not for long.

            He counted nearly every second of those five minutes, but it still seemed fast when the door rattled and opened. Twenty years of waiting, and everything had already been said?

            Then Starsky appeared in the doorway and Hutch forgot what he’d just been thinking.

            “Starsk?” He didn’t know what scared him more, the way his partner was hanging on to the doorjamb like his legs might not hold him, or the look on his ashen face. Either way, Hutch had an idea how the meet had gone.

            He snagged the chair that had been left for him in the hallway and pushed Starsky down into it with one hand with a quiet, “Sit.” The guard disappeared into the room, returning a handful of seconds later with Vittorio in tow. The felon gave Starsky a leering smile, and Starsky stared back at him with eyes way too empty for how he had to be feeling.

             Hutch glared at the guard. “Get him out of here,” he said sharply, then moved to break Starsky and Vittorio’s locked gaze. He stared unflinchingly until the guard and felon disappeared out of sight, then uncurled his hands and turned back to Starsky with a deep breath and crouched next to his chair.

    
        “You wanna tell me what went on in there?” he asked, soft but pointed.

            Starsky seemed to draw into himself, as if he were replaying some scene in his head—Hutch didn’t want to think about which one—and he shrugged weakly. “He’s the one.”

            “I hate to tell you, partner, but I kinda figured that one out after just seeing a picture of him sent you running to the john. Did he know who you were?”

            Starsky shivered suddenly, just once, as if the memory had sent a chill through him. “Yeah. He said I looked just like my dad.”

            Hutch shut his eyes shut briefly. He’d been afraid of something like this. He could just imagine Starsky’s reaction to that, and the room was still in one piece, which meant the rage had gone inward instead of out. Hutch wasn’t sure he preferred that kind of self-control, not in this. Nor did it bode well that the guy would remember someone he’d killed twenty years earlier. That meant a history, which meant unearthing more of the past just when it seemed they’d dug up too much as it was. But Hutch patted Starsky’s leg supportively. “And what did you say?”

            Starsky blinked, staring blankly. “I asked him…why?”

            Hutch waited silently, wishing Starsky would look at him, look at anything.

            But he eventually just shook his head. “He just smiled, just like he did…”

            The thought lingered, not needing to be finished. Hutch glanced down the empty hallway at the long-gone prisoner, then back at the man in front of him, and swallowed his rage again. “You ready to go home now?” he asked gently.

            Starsky’s eyes slowly found him, anger and pain leaking past even the shutters he’d put up. “Home?” he asked bitterly.

            Okay, unfortunate choice of words. Hutch gave him a sympathetic look, squeezed his knee. “My place. I’m cooking.”

            It took a minute for Starsky to finally get moving, and Hutch shadowed him out of the building, forgetting for once his distaste for the clanging bars and locked doors. But even though he was right beside Starsky all the way out, his partner never once looked at him, never leaned in to him or slowed to keep step with him. Twenty years was a big chasm to bridge, and Hutch was feeling every inch of it just then.

            But he’d crossed further, and when less motivated. Cultists, heroin, poison, and hitmen hadn’t been able to get between them thus far. Hutch wasn’t about to let an aging felon do so.

            Starsky barely spoke during the trip home or the rest of the evening, ate only a few bites of his favorite pizza, and curled up on the couch without argument when Hutch asked him to stay the night. He could tell by Starsky’s breathing he was still awake when Hutch himself finally drifted off after midnight.

            This wasn’t going to be easy.

            Starsky was ready the next morning before Hutch, noteworthy in itself. Hutch got the distinct impression his partner would have left without him if he’d taken another few minutes, but as it was Hutch skipped breakfast and quickly pulled on some almost-clean clothes, and made it to the door with barely a glower from Starsky. His hopeful “’Morning!” received no reply.

Starsky drove to work, his turns and shifts an economy of movement. The control he’d lost the day before was bolted into place now, and again Hutch found himself wondering which reaction he liked less, the shaken but communicating Starsky from before the visit to the prison, or this tight-lipped, tension-locked one since. One man’s repression was another’s restraint, right?

But they weren’t communicating this way, and that was never good, not for them, not even when things were fine. Hadn’t been good without that for years, ever since “me” became “we.”

And besides, Hutch missed it.

He cleared his throat, rubbed his lip. “So, where do you wanna start?”

“New York. File shoulda come by now.” The NYPD had been all too glad to let them work one of their cold cases.

“Okay,” Hutch nodded. “You wanna take the forensics report and I’ll take the witnesses?”

Starsky momentarily seemed to waver. “I’ll take the witnesses.”

Hutch gave him a speculative look. “You sure? We’re gonna have to re-interview some of them, and you know some of these people. Might be easier for them to talk to someone objective, even over the phone.”

Starsky gave him a piercing glance, eyes as cold and inviting as ice. “Objective?”

“For them,” Hutch said quietly. “You know better than that.”

The storm clouds gathered a moment more, then slowly dissipated, and Starsky gave him a slightly abashed nod.

Good. Hutch shifted, throwing a casual arm over the back of the seat. “Is your dad’s partner still alive?”

Starsky nodded. “Saw him last year at Ma’s Hanukkah party.”

“Okay, we should talk to him, too. He might want to tackle the New York end of this. And might wanna start calling some of the PDs between here and New York—we’ve still got a few years of Vittorio’s career to account for.”

The routine of work, or maybe just the ability to do, seemed to unwind the tension a little in Starsky. Already he didn’t look quite as closed off as before, a thoughtful frown taking the place of his scowl. “Wouldn’t hurt to check out how he got himself arrested this time, either.”

Hutch straightened. “Or if he had any contraband on him.”

“Gun’s a long shot after so many years and time in jail.”

“Still wouldn’t hurt to check,” Hutch shrugged. “No stone unturned, right?”

Starsky’s shoulders came down another inch, and he cast Hutch a sideways look. “Hey…” he said, hushed. “Thanks.”

The edges of Hutch’s mouth curled and his fingers crossed that last bit of space to give Starsky’s shoulders a scratch.

That chasm was starting to look passable, after all.

The wheels of justice weren’t as slow to turn when you knew where and how to give them a push. But the pushing still took a lot of effort.

Three days of long hours on the phone, in the lab, on the streets, and again on the phone netted them a lot of little nuggets that were starting to add up to a real find. No gun had ever been seized from Vittorio, but an old girlfriend of his was willing to testify he’d once owned a German Steyr 9mm like the one that had killed Michael Starsky. Chicago PD had a file on him, too, and at least one suspicion of homicide that had never been proven. And Denver was looking into a killing of their own that had a similar MO to the senior Starsky’s murder. Plus the senior Starsky’s partner still had a massive personal file on him that he’d been more than willing to send out. Hutch had combed through that one himself, unwilling to subject his partner to that walk through the memories. It had no great surprises, but a lot of tidbits that were filling in cracks nicely. The case against John Paul Vittorio for the murder of one Officer Michael Starsky was slowly solidifying.

“It really is him,” Starsky muttered so quietly into his beer, Hutch nearly missed it.

He pushed himself up a little in the chair he’d been getting comfortable in while they half-heartedly watched Barney Miller solve all his precinct’s problems in a half-hour. “Huh? Vittorio. ’Course it is. You knew that the minute you saw him.”

Starsky shook his head. “It’s been twenty-five years, Hutch. Who knows what I really remember? For all I knew, I coulda seen the guy someplace and he just ended up guest-starring in my favorite nightmare.”

Hutch leaned forward, setting his beer carefully on the coffee table. Maybe the alcohol hadn’t been a good idea, but it was the only thing that had pried anything from Starsky those last three evenings, that and Hutch’s quiet insistence he not spend those evenings alone. Of course, Starsky was drinking three bottles for every one Hutch started, but he always ended up sacked out on Hutch’s couch for the night. And a man was entitled to drown his sorrows a little bit, especially so many years’ worth, as long as those sorrows didn’t drown him in return. Hutch couldn’t begrudge him that. “Something in you remembered him. That eight-year-old kid was the one throwing up in the bathroom, not you.”

“Sure felt like me.” Starsky smiled wanly.

“Yeah, well, buddy, I think your heart was trying to tell you what your mind wasn’t ready to listen to. Nobody expects to come face-to-face with a ghost they buried two-thirds of their life ago.”

“I never buried him,” Starsky whispered.

 Hutch’s lips parted but he held his tongue, just listened in fierce concentration.

Starsky took a swig of the bottle. “Ma—it was hard enough on her already, and Uncle Al and Aunt Rosie thought talkin’ about…what happened was just gonna make things worse. I thought they meant he was gonna come after me if I didn’t forget about him.”

“But you couldn’t,” Hutch said softly.

Starsky’s head shook, his head down and eyes hidden behind dark curls now. “How does a kid forget seein’ the most important person in his life bein’ taken away in front of him?”

Hutch sighed. “Oh, Starsky.” He touched his partner’s arm.

Starsky’s eyes didn’t quite meet his. “We were just gettin’ back from my baseball game—Pop went to as many of ’em as he could. I didn’t even know what happened at first—I thought it was some kids playin’ with firecrackers. Then Pop fell…there was all this blood, and his face…” Starsky’s throat bobbed, his face constricting, and he grabbed Hutch’s hand in a crushing grip. 

Hutch got up and moved to the couch next to him, squeezing into the space at the end, as near as he could get. But he didn’t lose that grip, not until Starsky found his way back out of the memory.

It took some ragged breaths and a few minutes of effort, but he finally did, drawing a long lungful of air before clearing his throat and once more shying from Hutch’s gaze. “Guess Aunt Rosie was right—not much point in bringing up the past.”

Hutch almost spluttered. “You can’t be serious. How many victims have you worked with, Starsky? You know that’s not true.”

Starsky coughed his throat clear again. “It is tonight. Memory Lane’s closed, okay?” Hutch figured   the look Starsky threw him was supposed to be no-nonsense, but it looked more beseeching instead.

There was something to be said for catharsis, but also for letting it happen in its own time. Hutch’s mouth quirked with resignation. “For tonight,” he said.

            Starsky nodded, then a moment later pushed himself to his feet and turned toward the kitchen, probably for another beer.

            And stopped just behind him. Hutch didn’t look up as a tentative hand ruffled a handful of his hair in awkward thanks. It was only for a few seconds, then Starsky continued on to the kitchen as if he hadn’t paused.

            Hutch picked up his beer again, and stared at it a moment before draining it. Heard you loud and clear, partner. But to the empty bottle, he murmured, “Just tonight,” then reached over and turned up the TV.

There were no prints or trace evidence from the Starsky murder, but of the three original eyewitnesses besides the victim’s son, two were still alive and prepared to tentatively identify Vittorio as the killer. A shoeprint found at the scene also turned out to match Vittorio’s foot size. And, thanks to the file the NYPD already had on Vittorio, his ties to the crime family the senior Starsky had been investigating when he was killed were already established. It didn’t take much to demonstrate the killer had left town soon after Officer Starsky’s murder.

 “It all fits,” Hutch said, tossing his pencil on his desk. The piles of files they’d been reviewing just days before, looking for heist suspects, had been replaced by new piles, all somehow related to the twenty-five-year-old case. But this time Hutch had made sure they were heaped along the sides of the desks, no walls between the two of them. He wanted to keep an eye on his partner.

“Yeah, but is it enough?” Starsky glanced up from the notebook he’d been scrawling notes into as they talked. “DA’s not gonna go for a twenty-five year-old murder if we haven’t got a good case.”

Hutch wriggled his shoulders, trying to loosen tight muscles. Too much sitting and reading had cramped them into one position: hunched. “DA’s gonna extradite him back to New York, anyway—they’ve got jurisdiction. Question is if the New York DA’ll think our case is solid enough.”

“Closing an old cop-killer case would make him look good,” Starsky mused. He looked Hutch in the eye. “What do you think?”

Hutch met his gaze evenly. “What do you think I think? We’ve got witnesses, a motive, a window of opportunity, everything but the gun to place him there. That’s a lot of evidence for Vittorio to fight.”

“Yeah…” Starsky flipped idly through his notebook, already fat from six days of work. They’d kept working even after their four-day rotation ended, coming in early every day and staying late. It was starting to tell on him. Hutch just watched his friend for a minute, taking in the five o’clock shadow, the tired droop of his face, his bloodshot look and persistent yawn, and the heaviness that lingered in his expression that had nothing to do with physical fatigue. And then there were the nightmares Starsky wouldn’t admit to but that Hutch knew were keeping him up half the night.

“Starsky?”

“Hmm?” He glanced up at Hutch again.

“We’ve still got information coming in, including those surveillance records from New York. We’ll make it stick.”

Starsky’s eyes warmed. They’d been doing that more the last day or so, Hutch had noticed. “Yeah,” he said, nodding, looking a little more positive. “That just leaves one question.”

Hutch’s eyebrow went up. “What’s that?”

“How’re we gonna bribe Dobey into lettin’ us go to New York for the trial?”

Hutch grinned, immediately cheered. “Departmental business. We can’t refuse another department’s request for us to testify in one of their cases.”

“Yeah, that’ll get me a ticket, but what about you, Officer?”

“Hey, who’s the one who went and talked to that old lady who saw Vittorio before he committed that last assault, huh?”

“Yeah, you’re indispensable to the case,” Starsky groused, looking like he was trying to keep a straight face as he closed and straightened files.

“Besides, who’s gonna look after you out there?” Hutch continued, feeling almost giddy with the returning-to-normal byplay. It was sadly true you didn’t fully appreciate something until it was gone, even for a little while.

Starsky made a face. “Right, what was I thinkin’, going home without a bodyguard?”

“And don’t you forget it,” Hutch said sternly.

Starsky just shook his head, but he was smiling.

They picked up tacos and alfalfa sandwiches on the way back to Starsky’s. Hutch didn’t tell him, but he would have eaten just about anything that evening, too relieved at starting to see his partner bounce back to deny him much of anything just then. Soon, Vittorio would be in jail for the rest of his life and a long-cold case would be closed, three family members and a partner left behind finally able to end that chapter of their past. And yet another crisis passed with the two of them still intact. 

Not bad for a week’s work that had started out so rottenly.

Hutch held the bags as Starsky wrestled with the lock. The phone was ringing inside, but even as Starsky cursed and tried to shift the files under his arm so he could get the key in right, it stopped. Which reminded Hutch, “Have you talked to your mom yet about Vittorio?”

Starsky’s struggle slowed, then ceased. “Last night.”

“Yeah?” Hutch invited.

“She took it better than I thought. I mean,” Starsky turned to him, “she cried a little, but that’s normal, right? But I think she was glad. She was always a little worried the guy would come after me.”

It wasn’t an unreasonable fear, and one Hutch had contemplated briefly before dismissing the what-if as pointless. What if they’d never met, if Hutch had decided to go to school in Minnesota instead of LA, if Starsky’s father hadn’t died and Starsky had never been sent to his aunt and uncle’s—the wondering didn’t do anything but send a shiver up his spine. He never would have known what he’d missed, of course, but somehow Hutch figured he’d have felt the empty spot inside anyway that his partner filled, because he never would have found another Starsky to fit it so perfectly.

“She said she’d talk to Nicky,” Starsky was continuing, back to trying to get the key into the lock. He moved aside without protest when Hutch nudged him and took the key. “I don’t know if she’s gonna wanna go to the trial, though.”

The lock opened easily in Hutch’s hand. “That’s okay,” he shot his partner a triumphant look. “You’ll be representing your dad there—that’s what matters.”

“I guess so. I still can’t believe—” The phone began to ring again, and Starsky, juggling bags and files now, nodded at it as he stepped through the door after Hutch. “Hey, get that, will ya?”

Hutch scooped up the receiver as he dumped his one remaining bag on the coffee table. “Starsky’s answering service,” he said cheerfully, deflecting his partner’s glare with a smile.

“Hutchinson, this is Dobey. Is Starsky with you?”

Even over the phone line, Hutch could hear the reluctance in his boss’s voice, and Hutch’s mirth cooled. “Yeah, he’s right here, Cap’n. What’s up?”

He listened for a long minute, all joy fading, feeling the fragile foundations rebuilt those last few days start to crumble. Starsky was watching him, wariness creeping into his eyes at whatever he saw in Hutch’s face.

“Yeah. Thanks, Cap’n,” Hutch finished quietly, and hung up the phone with care.

“Vittorio.” Starsky wasn’t asking.

“Yeah,” Hutch nodded once.

“Escaped?”

“Nope. Well, not exactly.” Hutch hesitated, knowing the storm he would unleash once he shared the news. 

Starsky’s eyes narrowed. “How does a guy ‘not exactly’ escape?” he growled.

“He’s dead, Starsky.”

There was a moment when he didn’t think Starsky had heard him, his partner’s expression unchanging. Then he realized how dark Starsky’s eyes were getting. “How?” came the quiet, terse question.

“They don’t know yet, but it looks like natural causes—maybe a heart attack. They found him dead in his cell when he didn’t come out for dinner.” Hutch was searching Starsky’s face, looking for some remaining bit of that equanimity he’d just recovered, and finding none, only extremes: cold, hard, lethal.

“Heart attack.” And still Starsky’s voice was quiet, flat. “Guy’s probably killed a half-dozen people, including Pop, and he slips off in his sleep before he pays for any of it.”

Hutch shook his head, utterly helpless for once. “Starsky…”

“Go home, Hutch.”

“Listen, we can still—”

“Go home, Hutch.” 

He snapped his mouth shut. It was a warning: get out of the way or be run over. And while he was willing to take the risk, someone had to survive intact to pick up the pieces after. “Okay,” he said quietly. “But I’m gonna be back tomorrow.”

Starsky didn’t answer, didn’t move, just stood staring at the couch. The muscles in his neck were corded, his hands curled into white fists. Hutch reconsidered his departure for a moment, wondering if there would be any pieces left to pick up in the morning. But there was a fine line between partner and babysitter, and he wasn’t willing to cross it, not if he wanted to keep Starsky’s trust.

“Call me if you need me,” he said in quiet defeat, knowing no call would come, and turned and walked out of the house, pulling the door shut behind him.

Something crashed violently on the other side of the door.

Hutch stopped on the porch, leaning against the wood as he listened to more crashes, glass shattering and metal clanging, flinching at each outburst. It sounded like the systematic destruction of Starsky’s living room that it probably was. As if that would fix anything.

As if he wouldn’t have willingly joined in.

He stayed there, shivering lightly in the spring air, until the tempest died and silence settled on the room just past the door. And then close to an hour more, until the light in the living room finally went out. Only then, stiff and frozen and weary in body and soul, did Hutch trudge down the stairs and finally head home.  

Back to square one.

The night was long, even though he didn’t crawl into bed until sometime after 2:00, and was already on his way back to Starsky’s at dawn. Tough break if he’d be waking up his partner; Hutch didn’t care. Once he was sure Starsky wasn’t bleeding or broken on the outside, Hutch would let him sleep all he wanted, and then they could start on what was bleeding on the inside.  

The only problem was, Starsky wasn’t there.

Hutch pulled into the driveway, in the space the Torino usually occupied, and got out, already knowing sinkingly what he’d find. But when you were looking for a missing person, you always started with where they’d last been seen, and so he trudged up the stairs, to the front door he’d gotten to know so personally the night before.

The door was locked, which was the first promising sign. No running out half-cocked in the middle of the night, at least. Hutch opened it with his own key and walked in, steps faltering as he caught sight of the devastation within.

If the living room mirrored what was going on inside Starsky, they were in more trouble than Hutch had thought.

Tables and chairs were upended. Books were strewn across the floor, the glass and ceramic shards of vases and picture frames and collectibles glittering between the fanned pages. One of the bookshelves was knocked down completely, the other sat bare. Only one thing seemed to have escaped unscathed in the whole room, and Hutch stepped around the wreckage with sorrow to reach the picture, the lone occupant of another set of shelves. The picture of Michael Starsky with his eldest son sat with reverent care amidst the other shattered and torn remnants of a man’s life. Hutch picked up the picture, looking at it for several long seconds before setting it back down with equal care.

The bedroom was almost untouched, the bed made but rumpled as if someone had lighted on it briefly before changing his mind. Hutch strode past it to the open closet and took stock: the two suitcases were still there. The duffel bag Starsky sometimes used on shorter trips wasn’t, and a quick trip into the bathroom confirmed his shaving kit was also gone. Both his guns were still on the hat rack by the door, and his stash of emergency cash under the floorboard in the bedroom was also untouched. Unquestionably a trip, then, but not an indefinite one, and probably not driving. Hutch climbed to his feet, dusting his hands absently on his slacks, and went to call Dobey.

Starsky’s Master Charge had already been used that day, at LAX. The credit card company couldn’t tell him what kind of ticket had been bought, but a call to Pan Am answered that, too: one-way to New York City. The flight had left just an hour before.

One way. Hutch hung up the phone and chewed his lip. That could mean Starsky didn’t know when he was coming back…or that he wasn’t planning on coming back. But leaving his house, his beloved car, his job all hanging, not to mention his partner—Hutch refused to believe that. No, this was an impulse decision, the desire to go back home, to simpler times, maybe back to when his father was still alive. Starsky would do what he needed to, find his answers, then come back, Hutch was sure of it.

He was sure of it.

Still aching for his partner’s loss, Hutch pulled off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves and started picking up the living room. The place would be ready for his return.

“Hello?”

Hutch straightened, his hand stilling on the book he’d been flipping through. “Rachel? It’s Ken.”“Ken! It’s good to hear from you, but is something wrong? Is Davey—”

“No! No, Rachel, I’m sorry, he’s fine. In fact, he’s on his way to you as we speak—his plane should be arriving in about an hour.”

“Here, today? But…he didn’t mention…”

“It was kind of a spur-of-the-moment decision—Rachel, we just found out last night. Vittorio’s dead.”

She muttered something in Hebrew, and Hutch’s hand tightened a little on the phone. “How?” she finally asked.

“They think it was a heart attack. I just, uh, I thought you should know.”

Another pause. “It hurt him, didn’t it.” She wasn’t asking.

Hutch winced. “Yeah, it did. He didn’t even tell me he was leaving. I don’t know what kind of shape he’ll be in when he gets there, but…”

            “I understand. Thank you for telling me, Ken. I’ll look after him.”

            He was actually starting to feel silly, calling a mother to take care of her son, but he’d been there for more of Starsky’s life now than she had, and he wasn’t taking anything for granted, especially if Starsky showed up on her doorstep as tight-lipped as he had been those last few days. Hutch nodded at the phone. “Thanks, Rachel. If he doesn’t show up by tonight, would you please call me? And call me if you need anything at all. I can be there in a few hours.”

            Her voice, shaken since he’d told her about Vittorio, grew tender much like her son’s did. “I will. Thank you, Ken.”

            Hutch hung up, took a deep breath. It wasn’t much, but he felt better somehow, as if he’d passed the metaphorical baton. Or the duty of watching his partner’s back. And to who better than the only other person who possibly cared about Starsky as much as he did? Rachel might have made some mistakes as a young mother and it was obvious to anyone who saw her with her sons that Nick would always be her favorite, but she cared deeply for her eldest child, too, and would make sure she was there for Starsky. It would probably be good for him to work some things out with her.

             Hutch took one more glance around the living room. It was more-or-less back in shape. Some things had been damaged beyond repair and were in the trash, but otherwise, everything was neat and reassembled. It was a shame you couldn’t do the same with people.

            Stuffing his hands into his pockets, Hutch jogged down the porch steps and tried not to think about how strange it was to do so without Starsky clattering along behind him.

            Hutch awoke with a start, staring in confusion at the room around him before sagging back onto the sofa. Something had woken him, sound or dream or sensation, but whatever it was gone now, leaving only an itch of disquiet behind.

He rubbed his eyes with both hands, then up through his askew hair before blinking at the TV that was babbling cheerfully just feet away. With a disgusted huff, Hutch stood and turned it off, then stumbled toward the bathroom.

            Day two of his solo act. He’d been off the day before, and after cleaning up Starsky’s place, had gone in to work to pick up the autopsy report. Just as expected: myocardial infarction resulting from multiple artery blockage. A heart attack, and from how Vittorio had looked in prison, it had probably been a long time coming. Uncheered by the news, Hutch returned home to listlessly work on his own, only to end up in front of the TV with beer and pizza and some of the junk food he usually kept around the house for his partner. God only knew when he’d dropped off to sleep, but considering Kojak was the last thing he remembered, it hadn’t been early. And Dobey was expecting him in the office in…three minutes. Hutch snorted and stripped to shower.

            It didn’t wash away the crawl of his skin.

            Hutch contemplated that as he shaved and dressed. Was it because he was going in to work without Starsky? But he’d done that many times before, and while it was always difficult leaving his partner when Starsky was injured or really ill, even then it rarely carried with it this kind of unease. Besides, he knew exactly where and with whom Starsky was, and that he was safe. Right?

            But the last time he’d felt this way was…it took a minute to pin down, but then Hutch stopped midway through pulling on his shirt. He knew when. When he’d gone to look for his partner in the courthouse during Simon Marcus’s sentencing, after receiving the note that ominously asked only, “Where’s Starsky?” Before finding the bathroom empty and his partner’s name scrawled on the mirror in blood.

            He should have gone to New York after his partner.

            Not that anyone there would have it in for Starsky, not like they sometimes did in LA; that very minute he was probably sitting at his mother’s kitchen table, digging into a home-cooked lunch. But you backed up your partner no matter what, and that included when he was running away from demons, too, not just bad guys with guns.

            Hutch finished dressing with alacrity and had just gone into the kitchen for the phone book when the phone rang. He detoured into the living room on the way to answer it.

            “Yeah, Cap’n, I’m sorry, I—”

            “Ken?”

He blinked. “Rachel?”

            “Ken, I’m…I’m sorry to bother you. I didn’t want to call—I thought he was just staying out late, thinking, yes? He’s been doing that a lot since he got here. But he hasn’t been home all night and I’m worried.”

            Hutch’s senses seemed to sharpen with the surge of adrenaline, the air prickling his skin. “Wait, Rachel—are you saying Starsky’s been missing all night?”

            “He went out last night after dinner, ‘just to think,’ he said. He ate so little, I thought maybe it would be good for him. But he never came back. I called some of Michael’s old friends at the station, but they said not to worry, he’s a grown man, it hasn’t been that long. But all night, with so much on his mind—how can I not worry?”

            Hutch’s stomach was starting to clench with apprehension. “No, I’m glad you called. I’m sure he’s all right, but I’ve been kinda worried about him, too. I’ll catch the first flight out there, okay? He’ll probably be back before I get there, but if he’s not, I’ll take care of it, okay? Try not to worry.”

            “Would it do any good to say the same thing to you?” 

            Hutch smiled. “Probably not.”

            “I hate for you to come out all this way if he just met a girl…”

            “He’s my partner, Rachel,” Hutch said quietly. “I’d go a lot farther than New York for him. I’ll see you soon.”

            “All right. Safe travel.”

            Two hours later, he was on a plane heading east.

            Hutch stuffed a handful of bills into the cabby’s hand and looked up at the brownstone where the taxi had dropped him off. The afternoon shadows were starting to lengthen, making the house seem taller and more ominous than he knew it looked in midday sun, but once again he found himself wondering about the boy who’d grown up there, who’d seen his father killed on the front sidewalk and then had left behind the only home he’d known before he was even ten. It was a wonder he hadn’t grown up overnight then.

            Or maybe he had, but had carefully saved the rest of his childhood for when he’d found someone who would foster it. Hutch shook his head, shouldered his one hastily packed bag, and strode up the walk.

            Rachel must have been watching for him, because she flung open the door as his foot touched the first step, with a glad cry of “Ken!”

            They’d met before, on two previous trips back home with Starsky, and Hutch liked the warm-hearted woman with her quick laugh and outgoing nature. She didn’t look much like Starsky, but Hutch could see his partner sometimes in her knowing glances and love of life.

            It was painful this time.

            He quickly found himself smothered in a hug, then ushered into the small, crowded living room and folded into the easy chair by the door.

            “Any word?” he asked immediately, although the lines of her face had already left him guessing the answer.

            Her cheerfulness washed away as if it had been painted on. “Nothing,” she shook her head. “Even if he was busy, he would have called by now—he’d know I’d worry.”

            Yeah, Starsky would have, Hutch had to silently concede. Even recovering from being gunshot, Starsky always made sure to call his Ma regularly. Unless he was so distracted… “How was he acting before he left?”

            He could see the distress in her eyes. “Upset. Angry. Frightened—just like when he was a child, when his father was killed.”

Not exactly the return to the past Hutch had hoped for. “Okay,” he nodded, taking a breath. New York or not, he was the one with the experience, and Rachel was looking at him to take charge and find her son. Just another investigation, right? Hutch leaned forward, looked her in the eye. “It’s time to call the station again—it’s been twenty-four hours, and grown man or not, we need to put a missing persons out on him. That’ll get the police started looking for him.”

            “Yes,” she nodded, and waited.

            Hutch hesitated a moment, then added with compassion, “You also need to start calling hospitals and…well, let’s start with the hospitals. If he was mugged or injured somehow and didn’t have ID on him, he could have been taken in as a John Doe. You need to call and ask if they’ve admitted anyone in the last twenty-four hours who matches his description. Can you do that?”

            Rachel had paled at his slip of the tongue, knowing what he’d meant, but she swallowed and nodded now with determination. Still a Starsky, Hutch thought with a quiet pang.

            “Okay. Meanwhile, I’m gonna go out and look for him. Rachel, does he have any favorite spots to go when he comes home? Any hangouts, friends, anything like that?”

            Rachel’s forehead wrinkled, her face drawn in concentration, but she shook her head. “Every place I could think of I called already.”

            Hutch hid his wince. “Okay, uh, then…” He thought for a moment, remembering again his partner’s reaction to Vittorio’s photo, the checked tears when he’d recalled the day his father died, the explosion of temper that had him tearing up his own home, Rachel’s description of her son before his disappearance. And realized again he was looking for the wrong person, one twenty-five years older than the real victim here. Hutch fixed a searching stare on Rachel. “How about some place he went when he was a kid? Maybe someplace he went to be alone for a while?”

            “Well, there was a place…I wasn’t supposed to know about it, of course, but I did. But…I don’t think he’d go there now, Ken.” She was shaking her head again. “It’s a bad part of town now—it’s not safe to go there after dark. Davey knows that.”

            Safe. Hutch grimaced. If Starsky’s state of mind had remained anything like when he’d left LA two days before, his own safety was probably the last thing he was worrying about. And it wouldn’t take much to wander somewhere purely out of instinct instead of rational thought. A bad part of town would also explain a lot.

            New worry gnawed at Hutch’s gut as he took Rachel’s hand.

            “Maybe not, but we should check every possibility, don’t you think?”

He waited for her nod, trying not to show half his anticipation or anxiety. The last thing he wanted was to get her hopes up, or share the concerns his cop mind automatically produced. Still, urgency dogged his steps: LA or NY, Starsky had been missing for nearly a day, possibly headed into a bad section of town. Mrs. Starsky or no, Hutch had to hurry. He grabbed the pad of paper on the table by the chair and fished out a pencil from his pocket.

“Can you describe to me where this place is?”

The address she gave him wasn’t far, but the neighborhood changed drastically as Hutch hurried down the darkening streets. Row houses gave way to a shabby little park, which in turn became a seedy business district. Abandoned buildings flourished, windows haphazardly boarded and painted with old graffiti, and eyes watched him from the dark. Hutch unzipped his jacket despite the chilly air, leaving his holster visible and accessible. A quick check of the map Rachel had drawn him and he kept walking.

Rachel had told him the place was an empty car-part factory Starsky had liked to explore, probably feeding his nascent interest in cars. Hutch vaguely remembered Starsky mentioning it once, something about a place where he found rusty engine parts to bring home to construct his own fantasy vehicles, usually with a cardboard box frame.

Hutch glanced at another aging street number, then jerked to a stop and stared again. Twenty-two twelve—he’d passed it. But the only other site on the block besides a few tiny, empty storefronts, was a construction site. Surely that couldn’t be it? He backed up, checked the numbers on the storefronts…yes, it was.

With a resigned flick of the eyebrows, Hutch turned in and tried the gate on the fence surrounding the site. Locked securely, but the lock looked old, weathered. Not an active construction site, then. The fence itself was warped and twisted, not well-maintained, and Hutch began trailing along its length, looking for an entrance. Near the corner, he found one, the metal mesh bent up and inward and the ground beneath it scuffed from repeated use. Hutch leaned down and scrambled through.

The darkness that had finally settled over the city was even thicker within the fence and maze of I-beams and rusted equipment. The place seemed unnaturally quiet, as if there was something not to be disturbed there. A lot of memories, Hutch conjectured, although they would have been torn down with the building. A graveyard, then. The comparison seemed apt.

“Starsky?” he called softly, not really expecting a response but wanting to break that sludgy darkness. This wasn’t the place from Starsky’s childhood, neither a real escape nor the one he might have built in his childhood dreams. The chances Hutch would find his partner there, among the graffiti-etched skeleton of a building that had collapsed before it had ever been raised, were looking smaller all the time. But still he pressed on a little deeper into the maze of metal, raising his voice to pierce the blanket of quiet. “Starsky!”

“’M here.”

Hutch’s head whipped around at the tired, gravelly voice, the leap of his heart making it suddenly obvious just how little he’d expected to find Starsky there, let alone in one piece. Hutch stumbled around the beams and wreckage in the direction Starsky’s voice had come from, trying to peer through the dark and wishing he’d thought to bring a flashlight. “Where are you? Keep talking, partner.”

But all Starsky said again was an even softer, “’M here.”

It was enough to give him direction, though. Hutch stepped over the last few obstacles and ducked below a low-hanging girder, and finally got a glimpse of his partner’s face, reflecting the moonlight dimly.

Starsky was sitting on the ground, one leg drawn up to his chest and the other stretched out before him, as if he’d just grown tired and sat down to rest. His face was pink with the cold but otherwise untouched, no sign of injury to Hutch’s practiced eye, no reason why he was sitting alone in a deserted construction site in the dark. But the lack of individual clues did nothing to dispel the wrongness of the total picture, of Starsky’s stillness, or lack of reaction to Hutch’s arrival, or the unhidden pain that seemed to cling to him.

Hutch moved closer, more slowly now, his eyes fastened on his friend’s face. Starsky’s head was tilted back to the sky but his eyes were closed, not even watching Hutch approach. And the gleam of moonlight caught the trail of old tears down his dusty cheeks.

 Hutch cleared a spot next to him and eased himself down, his arm touching Starsky’s but careful not to jostle him, not until he knew better what he was dealing with.

“What’s going on, Starsky?” he began conversationally. They’d had more normal talks in stranger places, he guessed, although he was hard-pressed to think of one just then.

Starsky’s head rolled fractionally toward him, the dark curls brushing his ear. “Shoulda known you’d come,” he mumbled.

“Yeah, well, your mom’s a little worried about you,” Hutch conceded. Starsky’s face was drawn and old, closer to that of his father’s in the picture in the living room than the man Hutch knew. His breathing sounded normal, though, and as their foreheads brushed, he felt no colder than was reasonable for someone who’d spent a day and a night out there. “Have you been here since last night?”

 “Used to be a factory—made carburetors. I used t’come here as a kid.” Starsky was looking up now, maybe seeing a ceiling that wasn’t there.

Hutch pulled his knees up to his chest and rested his arms on top of them. “I remember you telling me about it. You used to find old car parts here.”

A soft smile lifted the corner of Starsky’s mouth. “Yeah…built some beauties out of those parts. You shoulda seen the Fairlane.”

Hutch chuckled, sharing the moment until it faded. Then he half-turned to Starsky. “What happened, Starsk?” he asked seriously.

Starsky’s eyes sank shut and his smile changed. “Ah, I blew it, Hutch.”

“Which part?”

“All of it. Throwing you out, taking off. Comin’ out here. I thought it would be like I remembered, but nothing’s like I remembered.”

And if that didn’t define being lost, Hutch didn’t know what did. He thought for a minute. “I’m not mad at you, and I bet your mom won’t be, either, soon as she finds out you’re okay. It’s nothing we can’t fix. Maybe you weren’t thinking too straight for a while, but cut yourself some slack, Starsk—that doesn’t mean you blew it.”

“I wanted him to pay for what he did to Pop, to us.”

Hutch leaned his head back next to his partner’s and sighed. “I know, buddy.”

“It wasn’t fair. He never even had to face Ma and Nicky.”

“Guy like that, probably wouldn’t have bothered him much, you know that. His conscience withered away before he even crossed paths with you and your dad.”

“I know, but…” Starsky’s voice trembled.

“It still hurts,” Hutch finished quietly. “I’m sorry. I know it stinks.”

“Wasn’t your fault. Don’t know why you put up with me—I shouldn’t’a cut you out.”

“No, you shouldn’t’ve,” Hutch conceded.

Starsky looked at him sideways again, his face was an open wound. “It was just…it was too much, you know? I didn’t expect t’ever see him again.”

Hutch hunched up his shoulder against Starsky’s, wanting him to feel how much he wasn’t alone. “It didn’t sound like you’d ever had much chance to deal with the first time you saw him. That’s a lot to work through in one week, buddy.”

“Then him dyin’ like that…” Starsky swallowed, shaking his head. “We don’t even know who ordered the hit.”

Hutch had thought about that, too. The investigation wasn’t done yet, and after twenty-five years, might never be, but there would be time for that reality later. “We’ll keep looking,” he vowed.

“How? Our only lead’s dead.” Starsky shifted again. “I know comin’ here was stupid, but I didn’t—”

Hutch interrupted, gentling his voice to cut off his partner’s spiraling agitation. “Hey, I know, I understand. We all do stupid things when we’re hurting.” He could understand Starsky running as far away from this as he could. Hutch only hoped he’d known deep down that someone would come after him. Starsky had done the same for him before, Hutch had just never made it as far as the other side of the country. “We’ll figure this out, Starsk. It’s okay.” He patted Starsky’s outstretched leg.

The body next to him flinched involuntarily even at that light touch, and Hutch’s eyes immediately narrowed in a new suspicion. He raised his head to stare at Starsky.

“So talk to me now—why didn’t you come home last night?”

Starsky shriveled a little more and gave him a wan glance. “I think they busted my knee.”

“What?!” Hutch jerked upright. “Who—why didn’t you say something?”

A shrug. Which Hutch interpreted too easily: after that week, what did one more hurt matter?

Except, it mattered to him, and it was high time his partner realized that. Hutch pivoted on his knee so he was facing Starsky, examining him more carefully now.

“Where else?”

“Got some bruises—it’s no big—”

“Where else?”

Starsky mutely, reluctantly, lifted the hand that had been out of sight in his lap, and Hutch recoiled at the sight of the two swollen and discolored fingers.

“Broken?” he asked with illusory calm, not daring to touch them.

Starsky’s head bobbed a little.

“Anywhere else?” Hutch demanded.

A shake of the head this time.

“Where’s the bruising?”

A vague wave at his side, down his leg. All on the left side, probably the side that had remained exposed as Starsky tried to protect himself. Hutch couldn’t even imagine the pain a kneecap being broken would cause, let alone one left unattended for twenty-four hours.

He swallowed hard. “Who?”

Another half-shrug. “Some gang. Guess I was on their turf. They’re probably comin’ back tonight to finish the job.”

It almost sounded fatalistic for a moment, but even as rage rose in Hutch at his partner’s nonchalance, Hutch saw the shine of Starsky’s eyes and saw his throat working, and realized. This wasn’t a death wish; it was resignation. Twenty-four hours alone with your pain left a lot of time to think, and whatever had driven Starsky there, oblivious or uncaring of his own safety, wasn’t what had kept him there. The detachment was just another coping mechanism, one last defense for a man who’d reached the end of his rope.

The Starsky he knew would have made his way out of there if he’d had to crawl, and maybe eventually he would have. But perhaps that was also a lot to ask of someone who’d fled there to get away from Life in the first place. Who was already disgusted enough with himself and needed just one person to be on his side.

And that, Hutch could do.

Without a word, he leaned in and pulled Starsky to himself, wrapping his arms around him.

The buttresses Starsky had built up so determinedly that last week must have crumbled while he’d sat there waiting for help that might never have come, because the reaction was immediate. His good hand slid under Hutch’s jacket and curled around his ribs like he needed something more solid to hang on to than a handful of clothing. And so anchored, Starsky buried his face in his partner’s shirt and wept.

            Hutch’s heart broke a little more, but it was a good hurt this time, the kind that heralded healing. “Let it out, Starsk,” he murmured in conscious imitation of a time Starsky had done the same for him, and that wound hadn’t run nearly as deeply or festered as long as this one. Nor was there any bad guy to hurry after this time. He slid a hand up to Starsky’s neck to hold him there. “I’ve got you.”

            He was careful not to jar Starsky’s broken left hand, cradled in his lap between them, but his partner’s body twisted as if it couldn’t get the grief out quickly enough. Had he ever really mourned his father, the loss of his family? It hadn’t sounded like he’d been encouraged to. Well, that was just one of the things Hutch was determined to change, but for now he simply held fast, wicking the pain away as quickly as it surfaced. His ribs groaned at being wrung like that, Starsky holding on like a drowning man, and maybe that’s what he had been. But all Hutch felt now was relief, and the hope that had been missing a half-hour before, and he hung on a little tighter.

            Voices approached, and Hutch stiffened, shifting Starsky just enough so he could ease his Colt out of the holster and lay it in plain sight on his thigh.

A face appeared from behind some twisted girders, paled at the sight of the gleaming Python, paled even more at the venomous glare Hutch gave him, and disappeared again. The voices quickly faded.

            And still Starsky hadn’t run dry. Hutch set the gun aside within arm’s reach and went back to rubbing Starsky’s back, tracing the faint swelling and heat he could feel. Left lower abdomen, left arm and thigh, but no sign of broken ribs, and his head seemed okay as Hutch slid his fingers through the curls. The knee was swollen, trapped inside the tight jeans, but they’d cut those off at the hospital. Light injuries, relatively. It could have been a lot worse from a gang beating.

He rocked Starsky a little, stared out into the shadows around them and waited, absorbing his partner’s pain.  

“I’ve got you.”

A whole lot worse.

Starsky pushed the plate away from him with a contented sigh. “Ma, I think that’s the best meal I ever ate in my life.”

“That’s the third time you’ve said that this week,” Rachel teased him as she gathered the dishes, but she was beaming. It was good to see her like that again, Starsky couldn’t help thinking, especially after how worried she’d been about him when he’d been fresh out of the hospital.

Hutch, across the table, was watching them with a small grin but couldn’t resist putting in his own two cents, of course. “I don’t know, Rachel—if you’d see the kind of stuff he eats back home, I’m not sure how much of a compliment you’d consider it.”

Starsky made a face at him, grinning back inside.

“I can’t believe you eat much better, Ken, as skinny as you are,” Rachel said over her shoulder from by the sink. “You need a girl to cook for you.”

Hutch swallowed wrong and coughed. Starsky’s grin rose to the surface, too light to keep down. It hadn’t been a good year for the two of them and women, Hutch losing both Gillian and Abby, and then Terry… Starsky’s grin slipped a little. But the two of them were still there, intact and together in the small kitchen. Survivors, they were.

And then there was Rachel, with whom Starsky had had several unusually serious and good talks those last two weeks. Cleared the air about a lot of things, mending holes in his heart he’d never thought would be patched. He was actually sorry they’d be going back to LA the next day.

Hutch’s eyes were on him, not just looking but watching, and Starsky’s smile softened into reassurance. He got a happy but sheepish look in return. Typical Hutch: he didn’t care if a whole gang walked in on him while his partner was falling apart in his arms, but catch him simply showing a little concern and the guy went all pink and embarrassed. How did you thank someone like that for saving not only your life, but you, without turning him permanently red?

Starsky reached over and patted his hand once, then turned back to Rachel, deliberately saving Hutch from reacting. “Hey, Ma, what’s for dessert?”

Rachel laughed. “You and your stomach. See, Ken, this is how you should be, too—always ready to eat a little more.”

“Oh, I don’t know, I think one of him’s plenty,” Hutch deadpanned. Starsky rolled his eyes.

“Well, I made an apple pie, from those beautiful Jonathan apples Mr. DeMarco gets every fall. You will have a piece, yes?”

“How can I say no to that?” Hutch asked weakly, sending Starsky a plea for help. Starsky had seen him eat more in those two weeks than in the whole of the previous month, and knew it was starting to get to his granola-addict of a partner.

Starsky couldn’t resist one last jibe. “It’s got fruit in it,” he offered pleasantly, and got a wilting look in return. Suppressing another grin, he took pity on his partner and looked at Rachel. “Ma, we’re gonna go have dessert out in the living room, okay?” What she didn’t see wouldn’t hurt her.

“Yes, yes, go on. I’ll come join you after I do the dishes.”

“Rachel, we’d be happy to—”

“Out,” she waved her dishcloth at Hutch, then handed him two plates of pie. “Nobody does dishes in my house but me.”

They both knew when they were outranked. Hutch shook his head in amusement, then switched both plates to one hand as he slid his other hand under Starsky’s arm. “C’mon, gimpy.”

Between his cane and Hutch’s levering, Starsky gained his feet and shuffled out with his partner into the living room, sinking onto the sofa with a sigh. It was awkward, maneuvering with the cane in the wrong hand while the left one was splinted and unusable, but at least most of the bruising had faded to slight twinges so it no longer hurt much to move like it had the first few days.

Not that he remembered much from then. Starsky had mostly slept, waking occasionally to the sight of Hutch sitting by the window reading, or Rachel waiting to offer him soup and crackers. And knowing that those he loved would wait for him, he returned each time to sleep until he finally felt up to facing the world—and his past.

Then he’d talked himself hoarse, while Hutch moved his chair close and leaned in toward him and listened intently for hours. Starsky wasn’t even sure what he’d talked about, but whatever it was made him feel better for the saying, and ready to sort through some things with Rachel afterward. But Hutch had stayed on, never mentioning the leave he was using up by staying in New York, or that the very things Starsky couldn’t seem to shut up about now were the same ones Hutch had tried fruitlessly to get him to open up on just a few weeks before in LA. Starsky hadn’t questioned it for years, but one of the many things he’d gotten out of all this was a reminder of just how good a partner he had.

Even if the man’s taste was hopeless. Even now he was looking at the pie in his hand like it was a scorpion ready to sting him.

“Gimme that,” Starsky groused, and snatched both pieces away from him.

“You’re gonna eat both?” Hutch asked with raised eyebrow as he joined Starsky on the sofa.

“Why, you want one?” Starsky asked.

“No, no,” Hutch said hastily. But he was still looking at the pie.

Starsky had to balance the plates on his lap to be able to cut a bite, but he groaned with pleasure at the taste once the fork made it to his mouth.

“That good, huh?” Hutch smiled.

“Here, have a bite—then you can say you tasted it.”

“Okay.” Hutch took back the plate, took a bite half the size of Starsky’s. Starsky grinned at the look of surprised pleasure and reached for the plate, but Hutch pulled it away. “Maybe I should have a little more. I wouldn’t wanna hurt her feelings.”

“Yeah, sounds good,” Starsky nodded wisely, utterly not fooled. He dug back into his own pie with relish. “So, you talk to Dobey yet?”

“Yup. He’s expecting us back on Tuesday, if you get the doctor’s okay for desk duty. Ah!” He raised a finger to forestall Starsky’s protest. “The retired gynecologist next door doesn’t count.”

“He said I was movin’ good,” Starsky protested.

            Hutch stuffed another bite in his mouth and talked around it. “Compared to what, a pregnant lady? Forget it, Starsk—it’s one of the department doctors or you can just stay here.”

            “Pop’s case isn’t closed,” Starsky said seriously.

            “I know. We’ll keep working on it,” Hutch promised just as earnestly.

“We’ve still got all those files to go through from the heist, too.”

            “And probably another dozen new cases from while we were gone,” Hutch nodded, unperturbed.

            Starsky moaned. “Maybe we should stay here another week.”

            Hutch snorted, pressing his fork down to get the last few crumbs. “We wait any longer and they won’t find us in all the paperwork until spring.”

            Starsky watched the last remnant of pie disappear. “Well, maybe you can do some more research on that theory of yours.”

            Hutch frowned at him. “What theory?” He reached over and took a forkful of what was left of Starsky’s slice.

            Starsky grimaced. “Your ugly-bad-guys theory. You want this?” He held up his piece.

            “Oh. You sure you don’t want more?” But Hutch was already reaching for the plate.

            “There’s more in the kitchen.” He shook his head. Blonds could be hopeless sometimes. “But, hey,” Starsky perked up, “it won’t be so bad, right? Between the two of us, we’ll have it all licked by the time the brace comes off.”

            Hutch stopped shoveling the pie, gave him a long look, then a small smile. “Yeah. That doesn’t sound too bad.”

            Starsky knew exactly what he was talking about. Mushball, too, his partner. He nodded once his agreement, then gave Hutch a sudden smug look. “Although, the way you’re puttin’ that pie away, it better be soon or you’re not gonna be able to keep up.” It didn’t hurt to keep him on his toes.

            The last forkful hesitated halfway to Hutch’s mouth.      

            Starsky smiled sweetly at him. “I think I’m rubbin’ off on ya,” he added the coup de grace.

            Hutch instantly and silently jammed the last bite into Starsky’s mouth.

            And so easy to manipulate, too, Starsky chewed with a grin. Yup, they were becoming a little more like each other all the time.

            Didn’t sound too bad at all.