Innocence Lost

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Kids are turning up dead in Bay City.  Is a serial killer at work?

 

This story first appeared in the zine Venice Place Times II published in 2002.

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When Starsky entered the parking lot at the end of the alley, the sound of gunfire was ringing in his ears.  He was panicked that he could no longer hear Hutch’s Python’s roar, just the sounds of other guns.  He and Hutch had been hot on the tails of a gang of bank robbers.  For over three months, the Back Alley Bandits had terrorized banks in Bay City.  The heavily armed gang was called that because they were believed to escape through the alleys in neighborhoods where the banks were located.  They wore masks and dressed in casual clothing in layers that they shed as they ran.  This was an unusually large group, seven men in all, and so far, they hadn’t been caught.  Their luck was about to change.

The First Southern California Bank was robbed at ten in the morning.  Their silent alarm called for help and all available units scrambled to the scene.  The robbers fled into the neighborhood, but not soon enough.  Starsky and Hutch were practically around the corner when the call came.  They were there in time to see the men fleeing the bank.  The gang split up as they gave chase.  When they separated, Starsky had a couple of the men in front of him, and he couldn’t see Hutch.  He had gotten ahead of Starsky, who took one of the men down at the scene.  He’d fired at the detectives as they scrambled from the car and Starsky dropped him.  He kicked the unconscious man’s weapon away from him, scooped it up and shoved it in his waistband as he ran after his partner and the rest of the gang.

Hutch was ahead of Starsky by a block when he ran into the parking lot behind a local movie theater and Starsky lost sight of him.  The streets had emptied of people, ducking behind cars and into buildings to escape the gunfire.  Fortunately, the robbers hadn’t decided to grab hostages.  They were just running in a blind panic.

A black-and-white unit rounded the corner in time to see Starsky disappear into the lobby of the El Capitan Hotel and they rushed to his assistance.  The uniforms took over chasing Starsky’s two men, freeing him up to go after his partner.

As he ran along the alley hugging the wall, just before he jumped into the fray, Starsky heard the suspects shouting at each other over their own gunfire.

“Hold it!” a young-sounding voice called.  “I think we got him.”

“Shit!  He’s a cop!” called another voice and the sound of gunfire rang out again, but still not the Magnum.  Starsky’s heart missed a beat as he feared they were trying to make sure they’d gotten his partner.

Starsky dove behind a car near the theater’s back door and fired.  The other gunshots were pinging off a dumpster about fifteen feet from him, and he was certain Hutch had jumped inside it for cover.  He said a silent prayer that Hutch was just lying low, waiting for his partner to come and join him.  Starsky’s gunfire had the desired effect, drawing the suspects’ attention away from the dumpster.

“Police!”  Starsky shouted.  “Hold your fire and come out with your hands up!”

He was sure it wouldn’t work, but it couldn’t hurt to try.  He heard footsteps running toward the other outlet from the alley and peeked under the car to see two men trying to escape.  He wasn’t sure how many others were in the alley, so he didn’t go after them, but he got his answer when the sound of two guns from different positions opened fire on him again.  He didn’t have time to call to his partner and he knew Hutch wasn’t going to hear him anyway.

The sound of a siren wailed to a stop at the alley opening closest to Starsky.  He could hear the clatter of the other officers’ shoes.  The bank robbers knew they were about to be cornered.

One of them shouted, “Cover me!” just as Starsky raised up to fire at the men.  Rapid gunfire caused him to duck behind the car again.  The next few moments seemed to move in agonizingly slow motion.  He looked under the car again and watched as a man stepped from behind a pickup truck and lobbed a hand grenade in his direction.  The other cops were just rounding the corner of the wall to come behind him when he saw it and called out to them.

“Take cover!  Live grenade!”  Hoping he’d hear he added, “Hutch!  Cover yourself!”  That was all he could do.

The uniforms ducked back behind the wall and Starsky huddled behind the car.  The grenade hit the car’s tire and bounced back toward the dumpster.  He only had to wait a few seconds before the explosion.

His cover car blew toward him, throwing him back onto the ground and spraying him with shattered glass.  Pieces of its roof, hood, and fenders blew into the air.  The dumpster’s lid was open and its wheels were unlocked.  The giant metal box slammed against the wall next to it and bounced into the parking lot, rolling toward the parked cars and coming to a stop next to the car Starsky had been using for cover.  He was lying on the ground, stunned, and he didn’t see the men running away toward the other end of the alley.  He couldn’t hear it, but another squad car had blocked the alley on the other end of the lot and the uniforms had rushed in like cavalry riding over the hill.  The suspects stopped and dropped their weapons.

With the danger passed, one of the uniforms rushed to Starsky’s side and knelt beside him.  Starsky’s ears were ringing and his vision was a little fuzzy, but he sat up, fighting a wave of dizziness, and felt the other man’s hand on his arm.

Shaking his head, he said, a little too loudly, “Hutch!”  He staggered to his feet, shoved his Beretta back into its holster, and moved around the car toward the dumpster.  The alley was a mess of burning cars, and the other officer was pulling on Starsky’s arm, wanting to drag him away from any potential gas explosions, but Starsky shook him off and continued toward the dumpster.  He could hear the sound of sirens.  When he reached the dumpster and looked inside it, his heart sank.  A large chunk of a car’s roof had fallen into it, and he could see Hutch’s legs sticking out from underneath, and his right hand, still clutching the Magnum.

“Oh, no!” he exclaimed.  “Hutch!  Can you hear me?”  The other officer was right behind him, and he reached in to help Starsky pull out the twisted piece of red metal that was once part of a car belonging to someone who was going to be surprised to not have a way home from the movies.  Starsky didn’t register the pain as the jagged metal cut into his right hand.  As soon as they had the metal out, he got into the dumpster and knelt next to Hutch.  The trash had just been collected early that morning, so Hutch lay on the grungy metal floor, and he was out cold.  Blood was pooled under his face and Starsky noticed that a few of the rounds had pierced the metal can.  He could see daylight through the holes they had left.  Fortunately, they were all above where Hutch was lying.  The bank robbers must have been using heavy rounds for them to pierce a metal dumpster.

“Ambulance!” he called to the other officer, unnecessarily.  The man was just about to run to make the call.

Starsky put a trembling hand out to check for a pulse.  Satisfied that his partner was breathing and his heart was pumping, he quickly looked Hutch over for injuries.  He didn’t seem to have been hit anywhere, but the blood was coming from the other side of Hutch’s head.

“Hutch!”  Starsky said as he gently shook his partner’s shoulder.  “Come on, buddy, snap out of it.  Hutch?”

He got no response.  He pulled off the lightweight jacket he was wearing to use as both a bandage and a cushion.  When he gently lifted Hutch’s head, anxious to get some kind of barrier between an open wound and the foul smelling bottom of the dumpster, he was glad to see it looked like his partner had just gotten a crease from the gunfire on his temple.  He couldn’t find any penetrating bullet wounds, but Hutch did have an impressive bruise starting to form on his left cheek.  Starsky took the gun out of Hutch’s hand and stuffed it into his waistband with the one he’d taken from the downed suspect.

“Three guns, no waiting,” he muttered to himself.  “Hey, Hutch.  You all right?”  Still no answer.  “You’re making me a little nervous here, buddy.”  Suddenly, Starsky had a flashback of another time when he had been the one to get a crease from a bullet – lying on the floor of Giovanni’s restaurant with Hutch hovering over him and speaking to him gently.

“Want me to help you get him out of there?” a voice called from above.  He looked up and saw the young, obviously freaked out uniform looking down at them.  “No, let’s wait for the paramedics.”

“Your partner okay, Sarge?”

“I think so.  Looks like just a crease.  He’s going to be plenty pissed when he wakes up and smells where he landed.”  Starsky attempted to lighten the situation, but he was worried.  Out of superstition, more than any evidence that anything else had happened to his friend, he checked Hutch again, reaching a hand underneath his chest and feeling to be sure he wasn’t hit anywhere else.  He remembered Hutch telling him, after that night in the Italian restaurant, how he’d been relieved, initially, that Starsky seemed to have escaped with only a head crease.  Then he had put a hand on Starsky’s back and felt something warm and wet.  He told Starsky how his stomach had lurched when he realized that meant Starsky was shot in the back.

“Where’s that ambulance?”  Starsky asked, but his attention was immediately riveted on Hutch, who had started to come to and had let out a low moan.

“Hutch?” he said nervously.  “Wake up, buddy.”  Hutch’s eyes fluttered open and Starsky added, “Good morning.”

The other man moved a hand toward his head and moaned again, adding, “Dammit, it smells bad in here.  Where am I?”

“You hopped in a dumpster in a firefight, don’t you remember?”

“Dumpster?  Shit.”

Starsky chuckled at him and tried to hold him down when he started to sit up, but Hutch said, “I’m all right.  Just get me outta here.”

Relenting, Starsky helped him to sit up, then steadied him when he started to fall to one side.

“You’re listing to port there a bit, buddy.  Why don’t you wait for the paramedics?”  They could hear the sirens approaching and Starsky was relieved.

“No, just gimme a minute.”  Hutch leaned against Starsky.  He blinked hard a few times and looked up at his partner.  Starsky’s face and hair had tiny pieces of glass all over and Hutch was concerned.  Hoping to deflect the attention away from himself, he said, “What happened to you?”

“Never you mind that, let’s just worry about you.”

After Hutch seemed steadier, Starsky reached down for his jacket and helped his friend to stand.  The two men got him out of the dumpster as the paramedics joined them.  When they had Hutch sitting on the back bumper of their ambulance, one of them pointed to the red smear on his varsity jacket’s white sleeve.

“Where’s that coming from?” he asked.

“Huh?”  Hutch responded, looking down at the blood.  He wasn’t hurt anywhere but his head.  For a second he was confused, then he pointed at Starsky and said, “Check him.  That’s his blood.”

Hearing that, Starsky turned both of his palms up and noticed the gash on his right hand for the first time.  He hadn’t even felt it, his concern for Hutch taking all of his attention.  “When did that happen?” he muttered.  He swore softly and hissed breath through his teeth when one of the paramedics squirted saline solution in his hand to clean it enough to bandage.  His partner was checking Hutch’s pupils and asking him the standard questions to see if he knew where he was, and what was happening.  He was alert enough and the paramedics got his wound cleaned.  They wanted to transport both men to the emergency room, but both of them were not having any of that.  They agreed to drive over to their doctor’s office and the paramedics had no choice but to allow it.  Both men were alert and capable of making decisions.

Starsky handed the gun he had confiscated to one of the uniforms and told him they would meet them back at the station later to help book the suspects.  The younger officer told him they had caught all but one of the men, including the one Starsky wounded in front of the bank.

The two men laughed a little over who would drive – Hutch, with his head wound, or Starsky with a damaged hand.  Starsky won, and they drove over to Dr. Kelly’s office, happy to both be alive.  They knew Trevor Kelly well.  He was a friend of Hutch’s who went to medical school when Hutch went to law school.  A few years back, Trevor decided he’d had enough of icy winters and left Minnesota for the warmer Southern California climate.  They had little doubt he’d see them, no matter how busy he was.

“Sorry to barge in on him like this without an appointment,” Starsky said to the doctor’s receptionist, “but the bank robbers didn’t let us know ahead of time.”

His sarcasm was a direct response to her curtly delivered information that they couldn’t just barge in on the good doctor anytime they wanted and that they should just go to the emergency room.  Starsky held up his palm with a strip of now bloody gauze around it and he pointed to Hutch’s bruised and bloody face.

“Have a seat,” she said as she picked up the phone to call back to the doctor.

Both men looked at the waiting room.  Not too full, thankfully.  They only saw a lady with a red nose who kept sneezing and a man with a pair of crutches.  Before they could sit, the receptionist said, “Doctor doesn’t want you out here bleeding all over everything and scaring the other patients.  Go through the door and wait for him in exam room two.”

“Yes, ma’am,” they said in unison as they headed toward the door.

“I was here first,” the man with the crutches complained.  “Her, too.”

“Yes, Mr. Williams.  Doctor will see you two first.”  As the officers walked past her desk, she added for their benefit, “Doctor won’t get a lunch to see these two… gentlemen.”

Hutch shoved Starsky down the hall and into the exam room before he could come up with a retort.  They chatted for almost half an hour before Trevor Kelly joined them.  Hutch was on the exam table and Starsky was using one of Kelly’s instruments to look into his eyes when the door opened and the other man breezed in to greet them.

“Well, if it isn’t my two favorite lawmen,” he said jauntily as he paused to wash his hands in the small, stainless steel sink.  “Damaged, but not broken today, I hope.”

“Nope.  Just winged,” Hutch replied as he held his hand out to shake Trevor’s hand.

“Put that down and have a seat, Curly,” Trevor said with a smile.  “Is it just you, Ken, or is it really both of you?”

“Just him,” Starsky said.

“Both of us,” Hutch said at the same time.

“I see.  I hope Betty didn’t give you too hard a time.  She said you tangled with some bank robbers.  She’s never going to get used to you two daredevils.”

“Daredevils?”  Starsky said from his chair in the corner.

“Yep, daredevils.  Now shut up and let me look at your partner, first.”

Kelly looked at the purple bruise on Hutch’s cheek.  He checked his pupils and looked at the gunshot crease.  “Nice,” he remarked.  “I don’t suppose you could have ducked better.”

Starsky chuffed a laugh but was immediately admonished.  “Don’t laugh, wise guy, you’re next.”

Hutch chuckled at that.  “I’m sorry, Trevor, but I was a little outnumbered.  I jumped into a dumpster and I guess I was a half a beat too slow.”

“A dumpster, huh?  That must be where that Eau de Garbage came from.  Hm.  Not the cleanest hideout, my friend.”

“Next time I’ll try to make sure I dive into a nice, clean spot while gunfire is raining down around my head,” Hutch replied.

“Good point.  The worst thing I have to worry about around here is somebody complaining that I only have Golf Digest and the New Yorker in the waiting room.  Can I help it if all the good magazines get lifted by my patients?”

Starsky self-consciously put down the copy of People magazine he was perusing.  Tony Orlando was on the cover.  He smiled at the doctor and put it back in the rack.  Kelly laughed.

“I didn’t mean you, Starsky.”

He continued to chat and to check Hutch.  Kelly was satisfied with Hutch’s reactions and responses.  Although he didn’t like it that Hutch had lost consciousness for an undetermined time, Starsky assured him it couldn’t have been longer than a few minutes and there was a lot happening.  First, there was the crease to Hutch’s head, then the gunfire bouncing off the dumpster, then the explosion.

“Do you boys ever do anything the easy way?”

“What’s that?”  Starsky quipped.

Kelly decided not to X-ray Hutch’s head.  He seemed all right and there was little that could be done for him other than a couple of stitches and a prescription for antibiotics in case the open cut was infected by anything in the dumpster.

Starsky’s hand also required a couple of stitches, some bandaging, and a prescription for antibiotics.  Kelly released them both to active duty with admonishments to be a little more careful.  He reminded them to come in any time they needed to and not to let Betty deter them.  His door was always open for his friends.  He knew how much they hated the emergency room and if he could help, he was always willing.

            ~*~*~*~

When the two detectives showed up at the precinct, Captain Dobey was waiting for them.  He was his usual grumpy self, unhappy that his men had refused the paramedics’ invitation to a ride to the hospital.

“It really wasn’t that bad, Cap,” Hutch said.

“Uh-huh,” Captain Dobey replied.  “I don’t have time to worry about it now.  If you two are really all right, I’ve got a new case for you.”

The two men looked at each other.  “What about the bank robbers?  I hear they killed the security guard in this last heist,” Hutch asked.

“I know.  You’re moving to secondary on that one.  We have something big going on and I’ve already had a call from the commissioner about it.  This one’s a homicide and we’re afraid it may be a serial killer.”

“Terrific,” Starsky muttered.

Serial killer cases were stressful and depressing.  They never seemed to be able to move fast enough and there were often more victims before they could solve them.  Many times, they couldn’t be solved at all and they had to be pushed to the back burner as open cases.  Starsky and Hutch had worked on many of these cases, but this one was going to be a tough one.

“What kind of victims?”  Hutch said.

Dobey looked at them both with an odd mixture of anger, sympathy, and disgust for the case.  “I’m sorry, boys, but this one is after kids.”

Both detectives had stricken looks on their faces.

“K-kids?”  Hutch said.

“What kind of kids?  What’s the link?”  Starsky asked.

“The victims have all been boys between the ages of ten and twelve.  Several of them have disappeared from scouting trips,” Dobey answered.

“How are they killed?”  Hutch asked.

“Strangulation.  Over the past few years, ten of these boys have died across multiple states.  Looks like the killer has settled here in Southern California.  True to form, he’s escalating.  Two boys were killed in San Diego in the past six months and now two here in Bay City.  I’m sorry to dump this on you, but I need my best team on it.”

Starsky shot a worried look at Hutch.  The last time they’d worked one of these cases had been tough on the big blond.  Not that it was easy on Starsky, but for some reason, Hutch took it extra hard when the victim was a child.

“You have the file?”  Starsky asked.

Dobey pushed it across the desk at his men and watched them as they passed its contents between them.  Hutch’s face seemed even paler and then, he looked angry.  Starsky’s expression mirrored his partner’s.

“They haven’t all been taken from a camping trip.”

“No.  About half of them have.  That’s the only link, apart from the boys’ ages and physical descriptions.”

Hutch read with fascination.  All of the boys were small for their age, Caucasian, and they had dark hair with blue eyes.  That meant the killer had to get pretty close to select his victims.

“We’ll get right on it, Cap.  Starsky and I need to fill out a few reports on the bank robbery this morning.”

“Wrap that up as fast as you can and then turn everything over to Jenkins and Sloan.  They’re taking up the case.  I want you to clear your decks to work on this one.  Keep me informed.”

The two men rose and walked back out to the squad room.  Hutch got to work on the reports they needed to file while Starsky went through the motions necessary to handle an officer involved shooting.  By the end of this shift, they both wanted to be ready to start on the new case.  Starsky sighed as he read through the last of the file near the end of the day.  The press had gotten wind of the link between the cases.  They always seemed to find it necessary to give the killers a name.  This one was being called “The Boy Scout Killer.”  Starsky knew how happy the Scouts must be about that.

The next morning, the first thing they did was start running background checks on the Scoutmasters of the troops the dead boys had belonged to.  If the killer had gotten close enough to see the boys’ eye color, he had to have been acquainted with the kids.

The San Diego Scoutmasters both checked out okay.  In fact, one of the boys who had been killed was his Scoutmaster’s nephew and the man had been in plain sight of the rest of the troop when the victim had disappeared. The second man had been in the hospital recovering from surgery when the second victim had vanished.

“This guy’s good,” Hutch said, reading over the newspaper clippings in the files of the San Diego boys.

“What d’ya mean, he’s good?”

“He took this one kid practically out from under the nose of his trail buddy,” Hutch said, looking down at the clippings as he spoke, “and the kid raised the alarm right away.  There were 14 kids plus two adults who immediately started searching for him, and they didn’t find him until almost a week later.”

“He had a car nearby?”  Starsky leaned over and took the file from Hutch to look at it himself.

Hutch shook his head.  “Not out in the middle of the woods.”

“A hideout?”  Starsky glanced through the clippings.  “Looks like the kid didn’t even yell.”

“He didn’t.  His trail buddy stopped to take a piss on a tree and when he turned around, the kid was gone.  Vanished.  Into thin air, apparently.”

“He plans ahead.  He’s got some kind of escape route already figured out before he ever grabs the kid,” Starsky guessed.

“Must have,” Hutch said.  “But why would a guy grab little boys?”

“He’s a perv,” Starsky said.

Hutch shivered.  “That’s scary, buddy.”

“Serial killers are scary, buddy,” Starsky said.  “What do we know about the two guys here?”

Hutch shuffled through the paperwork that had already assumed gargantuan proportions.  “Well, the first thing is,” he said after several moments, “the most recent kid wasn’t nabbed from a Scout outing.”

“Really?”  Starsky held out his hand and Hutch gave him the report.  “No kidding.  This one was snatched from a playground.  The rest is the same, though.  The kid was small for his age and had dark hair and blue eyes.”  Starsky shook his head.  “Man, that’s just sick.”

“The fact that the kids all have blue eyes?”

Starsky glared at him.  “The whole goddamn thing.”

“I know,” Hutch said.

            ~*~*~*~

“Take your jacket!”

“Aw, Mom.”  Mark Roddis, a few weeks shy of his thirteenth birthday and already certain he was almost a man and too old for his mother to tell him what to do any longer, gave a loud, theatrical sigh and tossed his favorite worn-out denim jacket over his shoulder as he left the house.

He rode his bicycle over to the Boys Club a few blocks away where Coach John Martin was holding practice for the junior basketball team.  Most of the other boys were already there and Martin was splitting them up into squads for practice.

“Hey!  Rod!”  Mark’s best friend, Lee, called to him as he parked his bicycle and draped his jacket over the handlebars before trotting over to the court.

Mark grinned and gave Lee a friendly punch in the shoulder.  “Rod” was short for “Nimrod,” not Roddis, and it was a nickname Lee had given him when they were in first grade, one of many friendly insults the boys used on each other.  “Think you’ll be able to actually make a basket or two today?”  Mark asked him.

“I’ll make ya a bet,” Lee said.  “I’ll betcha my dessert tomorrow that I make more than you do.”

“You’re on,” Mark agreed.

It was a hard-fought match; Martin was a tough coach, though much admired by the boys, but he didn’t stand for any fooling around or slacking off.  He expected them to work hard and they did.

After practice, the boys were tired, but not too tired to blow off some steam on the way home by trying to pull wheelies and do stunts on their bikes.  Lee was attempting to stand on his seat and flip the back tire back and forth as he’d seen somebody do on television when he heard squealing tires behind him.  The sound startled him so much he fell off his bike, but he wasn’t hurt and scrambled to his feet.  He looked back and saw a car that had apparently barely missed hitting Mark.

A man got out of the car and scurried around to Mark.  “Are you okay?  Did I hit you?”

“No, I’m all right,” Mark said shakily.

The man reached out as if to pat Mark on the shoulder, but instead he grabbed him around the waist and dragged him to his car, stuffing him in the front seat and clambering in after him before Lee could even react.  In another moment, the car had sped past him.

“Mark!”  Lee screamed after them, his heart galloping in his chest.

            ~*~*~*~

Starsky and Hutch were just getting ready to leave for the day when the call came in.

Another of the detectives had answered the phone, and he called out to them just as they were leaving the squad room.  “Hey, you two, you better take this.”

Starsky, who had been holding the door for Hutch, exchanged a glance with his partner before turning back into the room.  “What is it, Baker?”

“Another kid,” Baker said.

Starsky took the phone.  “Starsky,” he said into it.  He listened for several moments and scribbled down notes on a pad that Baker slid across to him when he motioned for it.  When he hung up, his face was ashen.  “If we hurry and we’re lucky,” he said to Hutch, “we might save one.”

They sped across town and pulled up in front of the address the dispatcher had given them.  A black-and-white was already there and in the living room of the house, two women were comforting a sobbing boy of about 12, who tried to stem his tears when he saw Starsky and Hutch.

Starsky introduced them and glanced up at the uniformed officer who was standing nearby.

“We’ve already got a description on the air,” the officer said in answer to the look.  “It’s kind of vague, but it’s the best we’ve got.”

Starsky nodded and took out his notebook.  “Tell me what happened.”

“I’m Madeleine Walker and this is my son, Lee,” one of the women said.  She, too, had been crying, but was calm now.  “Mark is his best friend.”

“I’m Mark’s mother,” the other woman said, holding onto Lee as if she’d never let him go.  “My God, what if… what if….”

Hutch put a hand on her shoulder as she broke down again.

Starsky knelt in front of the child.  “What can you tell me, Lee?”

Lee was pale and trembling, but he tried to pull himself together.  “Me and Mark had been to basketball practice at the Boys Club,” he said.  “We were ridin’ our bikes home and some guy in a car almost hit Mark.”

Starsky nodded encouragingly but didn’t speak.

Lee took a deep breath and went on, “So we stopped, and the guy got out of his car and asked Mark if he was okay, and Mark said he was.  And then – “His eyes welled up, but he rubbed them hard. “The guy just grabbed Mark and stuffed him in his car and drove away.  There wasn’t nothin’ I could do!”

“You did exactly right by telling us right away,” Hutch told Lee.  “How long ago was this?”

Lee glanced at his mother.

“About 20 minutes,” she said, gently pushing Hutch aside and putting her arms around the other woman.

“Did you get a good look at the man or his car?”  Starsky asked the boy.

“I already told him,” he answered, indicating the uniformed officer.

“I know,” Starsky said.  “Tell us, too.  We’re lookin’ for this guy and it would help a lot if you could describe him.”

Lee nodded.  “The car was a dark blue Pontiac,” he said.  “A ‘72 four-door.  Kinda beat-up.  The guy –” He paused and gave a shrug. “I didn’t look at him too close, y’know?  I mean, I was lookin’ at Mark, I thought he’d been hit–”

“That’s okay, tell me whatever you can remember,” Starsky said.  “Anything at all.”

“He had brown hair, I think,” Lee said.  “He was wearing a suit.  I think it was brown, too.”

“How old was he?”

Lee shrugged again and shook his head.  “I dunno.  Grown up.”

“As old as me and Starsky?”  Hutch asked.  “Younger than us?  What?”

Lee studied Hutch’s face for a few moments.  “Younger than you, I think.  How old are you?”

“Thirty-four,” Hutch said.

“Then I guess he was maybe thirty,” Lee said, but he didn’t sound very sure of himself.

“Are you sure about the car?”  Starsky asked.

Lee nodded.  “Yeah.  Me and Mark –” His voice broke, but he swallowed and tried again.  “We play this game, guessin’ cars’ years and makes, and we’re pretty good at it.”

Starsky nodded.  “All right.  We’ll need your phone number, buddy, so we can call you if we catch the guy and maybe you can tell us if he’s the right guy.”

“He won’t have to testify or something, will he?”  Mrs. Walker asked in a horrified tone.

“I don’t know,” Starsky said.  “Right now, we just gotta worry about getting Mark back safe.”

Mrs. Roddis gave them a good description of Mark, including what he had on at the time he was grabbed.  Hutch took a school picture from her that she had in her wallet.  After he took a good look at it, he couldn’t help but stare at Starsky for a moment.  The picture bore a striking resemblance to his partner as a child.  Starsky noticed the stare and shot him an inquisitive look.  Hutch shook his head.  Later, partner.

“Thanks, ma’am,” Hutch said with a compassionate smile.  “We’ll do everything we can to find him.”

“What was that look for?”  Starsky asked as they walked back to the Torino.  Hutch handed the picture to Starsky.

“Oh.  That’s extra creepy,” he said as a shiver went through him.

“Tell me something I don’t know,” Hutch replied.

            ~*~*~*~

Blue, 1972 Pontiac sedans were plentiful in Bay City.  Every unit on the prowl was looking for that car and by the time it was too dark to see them easily, Starsky and Hutch thought maybe blue was the only color Pontiac produced in 1972.  Starsky had checked on reports of stolen vehicles, but none had come in matching that description.  His desk phone rang at six in the evening.

“Starsky.”

“Sarge, this is Benson.  I’ve just taken a report from a young lady who works at Licorice Pizza at The Square – you know over on Lamont?  She got off work and found her 1972 blue Pontiac sedan was missing.”

“Thanks, Benson,” Starsky said as he knocked on the desk to get Hutch’s attention.  Hutch looked up from the file he was reading and listened.

“We’ll take it.  What’s her name?”  Starsky asked.

“Shelly Watson.  She’s waiting at Licorice.”

“On our way,” Starsky said, hanging up before Benson replied.

Hutch stood and grabbed his jacket, following his swiftly exiting partner through the squad room doors.  Starsky was so encouraged to get a lead on a stolen vehicle matching Lee’s description, he was moving like they were on their way to a 2-11 in progress with a silent alarm and possible hostages.

“Where to?”  Hutch asked, catching up to his partner.

“Record store at The Square.  Licorice Pizza.”

The Square was a sprawled version of a strip mall.  The slightly run down shopping center included a grocery store, two discount, off-season clothing stores, a craft shop, and several dozen smaller retailers.  Licorice Pizza was near the center.  Employees parked their cars on an upper terraced lot, away from mall traffic.  Starsky made it there in what Hutch considered to be a nerve-wracking amount of time without the use of the light or siren.  Starsky knew exactly where the store was in the mall and he found a close parking space.

Hutch’s longer legs allowed him to keep up with Starsky without difficulty, but he was amazed at his partner’s intensity.  Although this was the first good lead they’d had, he preferred not to get too hopeful.  Hutch rubbed the back of his neck as they walked, trying to relieve the knots he’d developed from looking through the case file.

Quickly advancing on the store’s manager and flashing his badge, Starsky identified them and started questioning.  Starsky was on point, so Hutch glanced around the store.  He chuckled as he watched a teenager in a raincoat that was inappropriate for a cool, but dry, February evening as he nervously slipped something back on a shelf and rapidly left the store.  Just for the sake of it, Hutch followed him out the door and the terrified kid took off at a run with his Converse shoes slapping the concrete and the black trench coat flapping.  Hutch shook his head and turned back to the store.  Starsky hadn’t removed his attention from the manager, his Hutch-radar telling him that it was nothing and that he could stay on target.

A young woman had joined Starsky and the manager.  She was describing her car as Hutch approached.

“It’s got a long scratch on the driver’s side door where my scum-of-an-ex-boyfriend keyed it last year,” she said.

Hutch was already reaching for his small notebook when Starsky looked up as he patted his own pockets and came up empty.  He nodded at Hutch with a slight smile.

“Miss Watson, this is my partner, Detective Hutchinson.”

“Hi,” she said with both a blush and a smile.  Starsky had gotten similar treatment.  “You guys don’t look much like policemen.”  Hutch guessed she was between twenty and twenty-five.  She had on jeans and a t-shirt from one of the more prestigious local universities.  He noticed she was wearing a large diamond engagement ring.

“I promise we are,” Starsky replied, pulling his shield again.  “We even have badges.”

Shelly Watson smiled again.  “Okay.  You can’t be too careful, you know.  I’m a law student.”

“Always best to be careful, Miss Watson,” Hutch said.  “Was it a ‘72?”

“Yes.  My grandfather gave it to me when I graduated from college.  Used to be my grandmother’s car.  I hope I get it back.  Grandmother died and I kind of feel close to her when I’m in it, you know?”

“I hope so, too.  What time did you get to work today?”  Starsky asked.

“I got here at ten.  I didn’t have any classes today, so I worked a full shift.  When I went out to go home, my car was just gone.”

Hutch asked, “Any chance you just forgot where you parked it?”

“No way.  I parked up in the employee lot right next to the employee only sign under the street light.  I always try to park it under a light.  The car’s gone.”

They took down the other identifying information on the vehicle.  Hutch left to call in the license number and to look around where the car was parked when it was taken.  He would also order a crime lab team to comb the area.

“Why’d they send a couple of detectives out on a simple stolen car?”  Shelly asked.

Direct, smart question.  Wonder if she’s going to be a lawyer on our side someday.  “It’s possible your car was used in the commission of a crime.”

“Oh, no.  What kind of crime?” she asked.

Starsky wasn’t eager to tell her that her car may have been used to assist a man in the kidnap and possible murder of a child.  That information could come later if it proved to be her car he used.

“I really can’t say just now.  We’ll be in touch about that.  Do you need a ride home?”

“No, but thanks.  My fiancé is going to pick me up as soon as he gets off work.”

When he joined his partner, Starsky said, “Her fiancé is going to pick her up soon.  Did you get a load of the size of that ring?”

“Ice rink size,” Hutch replied.

He’d already looked around the area with his flashlight.  He didn’t find any evidence, but the lab team was on its way just in case.  “Nothing to see here.  The guy is good.  It’s even been too dry for there to be a footprint to snag.”

“Too bad.”

They waited for the lab team and then returned to the Torino.  Starsky was hungry, so he turned the car toward the closest diner where he knew they could both get something they’d like when the radio interrupted their progress.

“Zebra Three from Control.”

“This is Zebra Three, go ahead,” Hutch said into the mike.

“Baker Seven reports they’ve spotted your Pontiac, California plate 401 MLT, abandoned at a lot on Foothill and Wall.”

Starsky swung the Torino back around and headed for Wall.

“10-4, we’re on it, ETA five minutes.  Tell Baker Seven not to let anyone near it.”

“10-4, Zebra Three.”

Uniformed officers Ted Bailey and John Grigio were waiting for them.

“That was fast, Ted,” Starsky said.  “Hutch just called in the plate.”

“Maybe we got lucky, for once,” Ted replied.  “Want me to call for a crime lab team?”

Hutch said, “Wait a minute while we have a look.  Did you check the inside?”

“No, we were waiting for you guys,” John said.

Hutch nodded and he and Starsky walked over to have a cautious look at the vehicle.  This was definitely Shelly’s car.  The driver’s door was keyed and the plate matched.  Starsky thought about how much he wished Lee had noticed the driver’s door, but he was grateful the boy was able to describe the car as well as he had.

Finding the car unlocked, Hutch took the front seat and Starsky the back.

“Hutch,” Starsky said softly.

A sense of dread crept up Hutch’s spine as he looked up over the seat and saw what Starsky was looking at.  Even in the dimness of the car’s dome light, he knew what he was seeing.  Starsky shined a flashlight on it so they could have a better view of a child’s denim jacket with a bloodstain on the front.  Their eyes met across the seat back as they silently sent each other a message.  We’re not going to find this one alive.

            ~*~*~*~

A brown Ford sedan cruised slowly toward the back of Sanford Park.  A stand of old trees appealed to his sense of irony as a final resting place.  Such a location had changed his life – long ago, when his innocence was forever lost.  Driving in the darkness, with no headlights, was challenging to most people, but not to him.  He wasn’t like most people.  He smiled at that thought, secure in the knowledge that he was different… special.

“You know,” he said to the still body on the backseat floorboards, “this is a nice place.  Now your life won’t have to change ever again.  Not like mine.”

He pulled into the stand of trees and cut the engine.  A quick look around him revealed that no one was near.  Climbing out and into the back, he pulled out his pocketknife.  Mark had nice, curly dark hair and he wanted to keep a little of it.  He got out a baggie and put the hair into it along with the button he’d pulled off of Mark’s jacket.  Something for remembrance.

Mark looked peaceful.  He’d liked this one.  The boy was terrified, but he was smart enough to stop screaming when he was ordered to be quiet.  He only had to hit him a few times.

He preferred to keep the boys around for a few days before he killed them.  Unfortunately, another child had seen him grab Mark and could possibly identify his killer, or the car.  No matter.  He had ditched the car earlier and lifted the brown one.  He was also confident his false mustache and the makeup he wore to help disguise his identity would keep him from being discovered, and he always wore gloves.  I’m too smart for them to catch.  I’m only helping these boys.  People would never understand how much I sacrifice for them.  Freeing them.  Freeing them from pain and embarrassment.

He carried a new sleeping bag into the trees and laid it out on the ground.  Then, he went back for Mark.  Carrying the limp, dead child was easy.  He talked softly to him as he walked over and carefully placed him in the sleeping bag.

“Now you won’t have to worry.  No one can hurt you anymore.”

He zipped the sleeping bag up and gently caressed Mark’s cheek before he covered his face.  His nose was swollen and still had traces of dried blood on it from where he had backhanded Mark to keep him quiet while he took the boy inside the workshop at the back of his house.  The workshop was well insulated.  No one would hear the child scream, but he didn’t want to hear it either.  “See, you’ll never have another accident.  No one will know.”

Content with his handiwork, he left the scene.  The next order of business would be to leave the brown car somewhere.  He would wait a little while before he stole the next one.  Maybe he would buy a junker somewhere instead this time.  He had plenty of money.  His mother had seen to it that he would always have plenty of money.

            ~*~*~*~

Starsky and Hutch didn’t make any headway on the case for several days.  After looking through the files of known child molesters who preyed on boys, eliminating the ones who were dead or in prison during any of the abductions, and showing Lee the photos, they still didn’t have a suspect.  And there was no sign of Mark Roddis.

Almost a week after the boy’s abduction, a call came into Dispatch that some kids playing in the woods had found a body.  Uniformed officers answered the call, but as soon as they realized what they were seeing, they called Starsky and Hutch.  The entire department was aware of the serial killer’s M.O. and the search for him, though they were keeping as many details as possible out of the media.

“It might not be Mark,” Hutch said to Starsky after the call came and they were speeding toward the patch of woods at the edge of the city.

“You don’t really believe that, do you?”

Hutch sighed.  “No.”

There were two marked units and a coroner’s wagon already on the site when Starsky and Hutch arrived, but nothing had been disturbed.  Three boys were sitting in a row on a fallen tree, their faces ashen, while one of the uniformed officers knelt beside them, talking to them.

Starsky showed the officer his badge and took over with the kids.  “Tell me what happened.”

The oldest of the three, a redhead of about 10, said, “We was just messin’ around, mister.  We live over there,” he waved his hand vaguely to the west, “and we play here all the time.”

“That’s okay, nobody’s accusing you of doing anything wrong,” Starsky said soothingly.  “Just tell me how you found the body.”

“Andy fell over him,” the kid said, pointing to one of the younger boys.

“Have you seen anybody around lately?  Any strangers?”

The boy shook his head.  “Nope.”

“Okay.”  Starsky rose and beckoned to Hutch, and they went to look at the body.  Hutch reached into his pocket for the school photo Mrs. Roddis had given them.  Another uniformed officer was standing guard over the body.

Hutch knelt and pulled the edge of the sleeping bag back.  The body had lain there for several days and had already begun decomposing.  But the clothes had been protected by the sleeping bag and were exactly the same as Mrs. Roddis had described.  “Strangled, I’ll bet,” Hutch said to Starsky.  “Just like the others.”

The coroner, standing nearby, nodded.  “I’ll have to order an autopsy to be certain, but that’s what it looks like to me,” he said.

“You think it’s Mark?”  Starsky asked.

Hutch nodded soberly, looking down at the boy’s face.  “Yeah.”  He raised his head.  “But the hardest part’s yet to come.”

When they pulled up in front of the Roddis home, Lee was working in his family’s yard two doors down.  He recognized their car and dropped his tools, approaching them at a run.  “Didja find him?  Is he okay?  What’s going on?”

Starsky and Hutch looked at each other.

You want to take this one?

Are you kidding?

“We’re not sure yet, Lee,” Hutch said very gently.  “We found….”

Lee’s eyes started to fill.  “Oh, man.  Oh, man.  He’s dead, ain’t he?  He’s dead!”

Wordlessly, Hutch put a comforting hand on the boy’s shoulder as Lee dropped his eyes and struggled to regain control.  After a moment, Lee pulled away and ran back home, slamming through the front door of his house.

“Shit,” Hutch said, looking up at Starsky.

“Gotta get it started if we’re gonna get it done,” Starsky said, putting a hand on Hutch’s arm and giving him a gentle push toward the Roddis’ front door.  He was the one who knocked and he was the one who broke it to Mark’s mother that they’d found a body they suspected was her son’s.

Even she couldn’t identify the body positively, and one look at it upset her so much that if her husband hadn’t been nearby to comfort and calm her, Starsky and Hutch would have been on the phone summoning an ambulance.  In the end, they had to obtain Mark’s dental records for a positive ID.  It was Mark.

“Number 11,” Hutch said to Starsky when the coroner’s report came in.

“I can count,” Starsky snapped, but Hutch ignored the anger, knowing what prompted it.

“We’ve got to get this guy,” Hutch said, his voice low and sharp.

“Yeah.”

But two weeks went by without a single lead.  Both men had pored over evidence photos, interviews, and crime scene reports until they could quote them from memory and they couldn’t make any headway on figuring out who the perp could be.  Dobey was all over them, demanding progress, because the D.A. was all over HIM.

They even asked Lee to come in and describe the man to a police artist to get a sketch to release to the newspapers.  Lee did his best, but he hadn’t gotten a good enough look at the man to be of much help.  When the sketch was finished and the artist showed it to Lee, the boy shook his head.

“I don’t know, you guys,” he said to Hutch.  “It kinda looks like what I remember, but I’m not sure….”

Hutch put a hand on Lee’s arm.  “Relax.  You’re helping as much as you can.”

“What’ll happen to the guy when you find him?”  Lee asked.

“He’ll go to prison,” Hutch said.  “For a very long time, probably the rest of his life.”

“And he ain’t gonna like it much,” Starsky said from the other side of the desk.  “Guys who kill kids have a hard time in the joint.”

Lee looked at him.  “What do you mean?”

Hutch gave Starsky a look and Starsky reddened a little.  “The other guys’ll be pretty mean to him,” Starsky said, trying to be evasive.  “Even cons have kids.”

“What’ll they do to him?”

Starsky reddened a little more and silently appealed to Hutch for help.

“Usually they get beat up a lot,” Hutch said.

Lee looked back down at the sketch in his hands.  “Good.  The bastard deserves to die.  Slowly.”  He blushed slightly, and looked up at Hutch, hoping he hadn’t pushed it.  “I’m sorry.  Guess I shouldn’t say stuff like that.  It’s just….”

Starsky smiled at the boy and shared a look with Hutch.  They both knew Lee needed reassurance that the way he felt was normal.  “Hey,” Starsky said, “it’s okay.  We understand how you feel.”

Hutch tightened his hold on the boy’s shoulder.  “Lee, this man is sick.  I’m not sure he can help what he’s doing.  Try to remember that.”

“He didn’t kill your best friend,” Lee said bitterly, slapping the sketch down on the desk.  “What’d he do to Rod, Hutch?  Beat him up?  Worse?”

“You don’t want to know all that, buddy,” Hutch said.

“I gotta know,” Lee pleaded.  “He was my best friend!”

Hutch met Starsky’s eyes.  I know how I’d feel.

Me, too.

Hutch turned in his seat to face Lee.  “Okay, I’ll tell you what we know.  But before I do, promise me something.  Will you?”

Lee nodded.

“Promise you won’t let this mess you up, okay?  I know how you feel.  There’ve been times when I thought somebody’d killed Starsky or was going to.  And times when Starsky thought somebody was going to get to me.  But you can’t let it ruin your life, Lee.  You’ve got to hang onto what you remember about Mark, the fun you had, that he was your friend.  Honor his memory.  Will you do that for me?”

Lee wet his lips and nodded again.

“Okay.  He did beat Mark up, a little.  Bloodied his nose.  And he strangled him.  You know what that means?”

“Yeah.”  Lee’s eyes were wide and haunted.

“Then he put him in a sleeping bag and left him out in the woods, covered up.  Some other kids, a little younger than you are, found him there and called us.”

“Oh, my God.”  Lee swallowed hard.

“And you’re helpin’ us catch him, Lee,” Starsky put in. “You helped us find the car he used and you’re gonna help us identify him when we catch him.”

            ~*~*~*~

 The cabinet behind the bookcase was one of his favorite projects.  He’d built it himself and he’d concealed it so well that no one would ever be able to tell it was there.  One of his talents was cabinetmaking.  To get to the cabinet, he didn’t even have to take the books off the shelf.  A secret latch concealed at the top and the bottom of the bookshelf released it and it swung open like a door, revealing the cabinet behind it, recessed into the wall.

The cabinet is where he kept his collection.  Several times a week, he examined it, gloated over it.  It wasn’t complete, but he was very particular about what he added to it.  Each addition had to be exactly right.

Two rows of locks of dark, curly hair, with only the slightest variation in shade.  It had to be a particular shade of brown, very dark, preferably with slight reddish highlights when the sun caught it.  Not medium.  Not light.  Not sandy.  Very, very dark brown.  But not black, either.

Next to each lock of hair, a button.  He preferred shirt buttons and he always took the collar button because it was unused and perfect, not grimy from little-boy fingers.  But twice he had taken jacket buttons – only from the two boys whose jackets had been denim.  Something about denim and little boys … they just went together.  Perfectly.  It was important that it be perfect.

Each lock of hair and button was neatly labeled, numbered, and dated.  He knew where each came from, could remember the boys’ faces perfectly.  Their voices, too.  He always tried to get them to talk to him so he could hear their voices.  His brow creased a little as he examined No. 9.  That boy had refused to talk; all he could do was cry.  That was messy and marred the perfection of his memory.

He gently stroked the curl marked No. 11.  That boy had been his favorite so far.  Sweet, once he’d gotten under the tough exterior.  That boy had talked to him, even when he had explained to him that he wanted to touch him….

            ~*~*~*~

Starsky swore and threw the pencil he was holding so fiercely that it skittered across the desk and landed at the feet of Bartlett, who was sitting across the room.  Bartlett picked it up, set it on his desk, and said not a word, only exchanged a sympathetic look with Hutch.

“Starsk, take it easy,” Hutch said quietly.

Starsky sighed and ran both hands backwards through his curls in a gesture eerily reminiscent of Dobey when HE was frustrated.  “I just can’t believe we don’t even have a place to start!” he hissed back at Hutch.

“Maybe it’s time to try something a little unorthodox,” Hutch suggested.

Starsky raised an eyebrow.

“You ever hear of profiling?”

The eyebrow came down in a scowl.  “You mean those guys who think they can describe a perp by his M.O.?  You nuts or somethin’?  They always figure he’s a bed wetter who hates his mom.  That ain’t gonna help us find the creep.”

“It’s a lot more sophisticated than that,” Hutch said.  “And it’s not like we’re getting anywhere on our own.”

“No, we sure aren’t,” Starsky admitted with a heavy sigh.  “Okay, why not?  Think Dobey’ll go for it?”

“Worth a try.”

The two men stood and headed for Dobey’s office.  Starsky knocked on the door, knowing what they were about to ask might be met with skepticism at best, outright annoyance at the worst.  Hearing the captain’s barked invitation to enter, Starsky opened the door and Hutch preceded him through it.  With the door closed behind them, each man took a seat and turned serious, hopeful eyes on their superior officer.

“Must be big,” Dobey quipped, “Starsky even knocked.”

Starsky smiled slightly and nodded, looking toward Hutch as his partner began to speak.

“Cap, we’ve been working this thing for weeks.  It’s only a matter of time before another kid goes missing.”

“Why don’t you tell me something I don’t know?”  Dobey asked gruffly.

“I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and I have an idea.”

Dobey nodded and said, “You want to bring in a profiler.”

The two younger men shared a quick glance and the captain smiled at their incredulity.  “You needn’t look so surprised, gentlemen.  Sometimes even a captain comes up with a good idea.”

Dobey passed a file across his desk to Hutch.  Starsky scooted his chair a little closer so he could look through it with him.  When Hutch opened the folder and they looked at the picture stapled to the inside, they both recognized the man in the photo instantly.  “Carl Devlin,” they said simultaneously.

“He’s a profiler?”  Starsky asked, looking up at the captain while Hutch continued to peruse the file.

“Out of Quantico,” came the reply.

Carl Devlin went to the academy with Starsky and Hutch.  His academic standing was near the top of their group, but he wasn’t a match for either of his classmates in any other area.  Regardless of his inadequacies, his obvious gift for understanding the criminal mind had helped him advance.  He’d made detective six months behind Starsky and Hutch.  Also assigned to Captain Dobey, Devlin was an excellent detective and his partnership with Leon Baxter was successful.  Baxter was a forty-year-old veteran when Dobey partnered him with Devlin.  He was one of several men the captain attempted to pair with Starsky before he capitulated to the former New Yorker’s insistence that academy classmate, Ken Hutchinson, was the perfect partner for him.  Starsky’s constant motion and need to be in the action had driven poor Baxter nearly insane before he begged Dobey for a divorce from the younger detective.  After meeting Hutch, Dobey hoped that the intelligent, soft-spoken Midwesterner and the quick-witted, street-wise Starsky would share a good balance.  He knew that men who seemed to be polar opposites on the outside sometimes wound up being the best partners.  Yin and Yang.

Dobey reflected on the day Baxter stormed into his office after a robbery-gone-bad that left Starsky injured.  He had stomped right past a blond man seated in one of the chairs facing the captain’s desk without noticing his presence.

“Dammit, Cap, that kid’s gonna get himself killed one of these days!”

“Sit down,” Dobey invited, but Baxter preferred to pace.  “Where’s your partner?”

“My *partner* is downstairs in the doc’s office getting that hard head of his checked for a concussion.”

“What happened?”  Dobey demanded.

Ken Hutchinson sat forward in his seat a bit and said, “Starsky’s hurt?”

Baxter, just noticing the other man, turned toward him.  “Who are you?”

Dobey said, “This is Detective Ken Hutchinson.  Hutchinson, meet Leon Baxter, Starsky’s partner.  Now what happened to Starsky?”

“He’s all right, Cap, but I want out.  I’m done.  Finished,” Baxter replied.  “I’m not going to be responsible for him anymore.”  He turned toward Hutch and said, “Starsky told me he’d asked the captain to bring you over from the 15th as his partner.  I wish you better luck with him than I’ve had.”  Baxter had not made it a secret that he wanted out of the partnership, so Starsky had not made it a secret that he had a replacement in mind.

Hutch was worried about his friend and shocked at the lackadaisical attitude the older man was taking toward Starsky’s injury. 

“What happened to Starsky?”  Dobey bellowed.

Baxter said, “We went on a call for a 211 in progress.  I told him we had to wait for backup, but he heard some kid crying from inside the convenience store and he ran around the back before I could stop him.  I waited out front, but when the fighting started, I had no choice but to try and get in there to back him up.  By the time I got inside, he’d wrestled the gun away from one of the perps, but he didn’t know about the other one.  The unarmed one beaned him with a bottle of Gallo and he went down before I could prevent it from happening.  He’s just lucky the other perp had a bottle of cheap wine in his hand instead of a .38!”

“Is he all right?”  Dobey and Hutch asked together.

“He will be.  He came to and refused to go with the paramedics.  Then he threw up in the car on the way back in and passed out on the stairs.  Smells like a bottle of Muscatel.  I dropped him off with the doc.  So help me, Cap, if you don’t let me out of this partnership, I’ll retire early…  I’ll transfer to traffic….”

“Captain Dobey, can I go check on him, please?”  Hutch asked.  Dobey had accepted him into his command and the two men had just finished discussing his partnership with Starsky. 

Dobey nodded and Hutch left without resisting the urge to glare at Baxter on the way out of the room.  Hutch couldn’t believe the man had just dumped his injured partner off and left him.  He didn’t know that Baxter had lost his first partner years ago during a robbery.  Baxter had sworn he’d never go through that again.  Dobey had a better idea for the veteran cop – a klutzy young man who had just joined the department.  Carl Devlin was as prone to hang back from dangerous situations, as David Starsky was to rush into them.  Dobey would pair Baxter with Devlin and assign them to pure investigative work – no undercover.  Maybe Carl would come out of his shell a bit and Leon would survive to retire.

Starsky remembered aloud, “Carl’s partner was killed a couple of years ago.  Bad break.  He left the department a little while later.”  Leon Baxter died in a firefight when he and Devlin went to investigate a homicide suspect.  Devlin blamed himself.  Although he qualified with his gun like every other cop, he was no marksman.  He’d taken down Baxter’s killer, but not in time.  When he disappeared, everyone assumed he’d left because he couldn’t take the remorse and guilt.

Anticipating Starsky’s line of thought, Dobey said, “I know everyone thought he just washed out after Baxter died, but he didn’t.  The FBI was looking for recruits with certain characteristics for a special training program.  I thought Devlin fit the bill and I recommended him.  He went to Quantico and now he’s a special agent on a violent crimes task force.  He specializes in serial killers.”

Hutch couldn’t believe what he was seeing in the file or what he was hearing from his boss.  Devlin was bright and capable, but Hutch struggled to remember what their classmates used to call him.  He looked up at Starsky and his partner said, “Goob.”

“What?”  Dobey asked as Hutch smiled and laughed quietly.

“Colby used to call him that, Cap.  At the academy.  He said Carl was a ‘goob’ and it kind of stuck.  Poor guy.”

“He may be a goob, gentlemen, but that man has an uncanny ability to get into a serial killer’s head.  He’s broken some big cases and I’ve already sent for him.  His assistant director said he owed me and the department for recommending him.  He’ll be here this afternoon.  I was just going to call you two in here to ask you to pick him up at the airport.”

“Thanks, Cap,” Hutch said.

“Just see to it that you make good use of him,” Dobey replied with a dismissive wave.  “He’ll be on the two o’clock from Dulles.  TWA.”

            ~*~*~*~

“Starsky!  Hutch!”  Devlin said as he recognized the two men waving at him.  His smile was broad, and his demeanor friendly, not matching his formal, FBI uniform of a charcoal suit, white long-sleeved shirt, and regimental striped tie.  He looked little like the man who had dropped out of sight after his partner’s death.  Carl looked confident and cheerful.

“Carl,” both men greeted him, shaking hands.

“Thanks for coming out, Carl,” Hutch said.  “We could use your insight.  This case….”

“Kids,” Starsky said to fill in his partner’s uncomfortable pause.  “The guy is good.  We don’t have any solid leads.”

Carl shook his head.  “The cap said there have been eleven of them,” he said quietly.

Both men replied, “Yeah.”

They walked toward the baggage claim as Starsky said, “Hope you brought something besides suits.”

“Oh, yeah.  I haven’t been away from Southern California that long.  I’m supposed to travel like this,” he said as he picked at the lapel of his gabardine suit.

“How much do you know?”  Starsky asked.

“Just that the victims are boys and the number discovered so far.  I told the captain I wanted to form some impressions before I read the file or heard the details.  Sometimes I get off to a better start that way.  I do know he’s being called the Boy Scout Killer.”

After they picked up Devlin’s bag, he asked to be driven to the latest crime scene.

“It’s in the woods at a park.  Let’s swing by my place and you can change,” Hutch said.

“What about just checking me into the hotel first,” Carl said.

“You don’t have family in town?”  Starsky asked.

“No, my folks moved to Hawaii.”

“Why don’t you just bunk with me or with Starsky?  We’ll be working some pretty long hours on this case and it seems like a waste of taxpayer money to put you up in a hotel you’ll never see.”

The three men settled their arrangements on the way to Hutch’s place.  Once Carl was more suitably dressed, and they had checked in with Captain Dobey by phone, they drove to Sanford Park.  Carl walked away from the car and toward the woods.  The day was overcast and breezy.  Evidence that this was a crime scene had all disappeared and neither Starsky nor Hutch told him exactly where the body was found.  Carl stood in the ankle high grass and stopped.  He looked around the area for a few moments as Starsky and Hutch exchanged some silent communication.  They both sensed his desire to have his impressions take him where they would.

Is this guy a psychic?  Starsky thought as he raised an eyebrow and jerked his head in Carl’s direction.  Hutch shrugged in response and both men watched quietly to see what would happen next.

Carl turned and started walking.  The two detectives trailed along behind him.  He wasn’t walking in the right direction, but he stopped and changed his path.  Soon he was standing two feet from where Mark’s body was discovered.  He knelt in the damp dirt and put his hand down on the ground.  He didn’t look at the other two men as he started to speak.

“He places them carefully, in a sleeping bag or a blanket,” Carl began.  “Most of them have been found in the woods, right?”

“Yes,” Hutch agreed.

“How did you….”  Starsky started, but he stopped when Carl put his hand up toward him, shook his head, and closed his eyes.

His training at the FBI Academy had only honed his natural abilities to see a crime in his head.  Exposure to a crime scene gave him vivid visual impressions.  He saw the scene and the murders he investigated almost as if he were inside the killer’s head.

“He kills them somewhere else,” he continued.  “Someplace quiet, where no one will hear them.  Then, he brings them to a final resting place and displays them.”

“Why?”  Starsky asked.

“I don’t know yet,” came the honest answer.  “He’s good at this.  Intelligent.  Driven.”

Hutch closed his eyes and tried to tap into what Carl could see.  He allowed the other man’s words to filter into visual images, his vivid imagination taking him to a disturbing place.  Starsky looked toward him, concerned at how pale his partner’s face had become.  He placed a hand on Hutch’s arm and gave him a little shake to snap him out of his introspection.

“Hey,” he said, “you all right?”

“Yeah,” Hutch replied.  “I was just trying to see it.”

Carl looked up at that remark and said, “Maybe you shouldn’t, Hutch.  I can’t get away from it, but there’s no need for you to go to that place.”  He stood and brushed the dirt from his knees.

“He takes something from each of them.  Have any of the parents identified missing items?”  Carl asked.

“You mean like something to remember them?”  Starsky asked.

“More like a trophy.  He’s proud of his work.  Wants to relive it from time-to-time.”

Hutch shivered at the notion.  “Nothing significant, no.  Maybe we should look back through the files for that.”

“How long since the last one, guys?  Two, maybe three weeks?”

Hutch answered, “Three.”

“How long before that one?”

“About a month,” Starsky answered.  “He’s killed three kids here in Bay City, two in San Diego, and six others in Arizona, Nevada, and Oregon over the past three years.”

“Those are just the ones you know about,” Carl said.  “He’s been doing this for a while and I suspect he’ll be making his next selection within a few days.”

Starsky looked at him with a flash of anger.  “His next selection, Carl?”

“Yes.  He picks them carefully.  I’m guessing they all look similar, have some common characteristics.  He has to stalk them.  Get to know about them.”

The sun was setting, so it was too late to take Carl to the other two local crime scenes.  They decided to go back to Hutch’s to review the copies of the files he had there over some dinner.  Carl was ready to review the case details and his belief that the next victim would soon be taken outweighed his encroaching jet lag.  All three men knew their killer wouldn’t stop.  Only the killer’s death or capture would end the murders.

            ~*~*~*~

At Hutch’s, Carl took the stack of files Hutch handed him and settled down in a chair, shaking his head mutely when Hutch offered a beer, and buried himself in them.  Starsky and Hutch glanced at each other, both shrugged, and they left him alone to go out to the greenhouse where they could talk without disturbing him.

“Y’know, that’s kinda weird,” Starsky said softly, jerking his head in Carl’s direction.

“But if he gets results, buddy….  “Hutch sat down and started picking dead leaves off one of his plants, his back to the living room. “Come on, Starsk, quit staring at him.  Let him do his thing.”

“I’d have nightmares,” Starsky said, sitting down next to Hutch and sticking his feet out in front of him so he could slump in the chair.  “Living in a sicko’s head like that.”

“He probably does,” Hutch said.

“But why would you do that?”  Starsky shook his head.  “It’s creepy.”

“He wants to catch the bad guy,” Hutch said, moving on to another plant.  “Just like you and I do.  He just goes about it differently.”

“Ya think it’ll work?”

“I hope so,” Hutch said, picking up a spray bottle to spritz a couple of plants and crooning to them softly.  “We’ve got to stop this guy, one way or another.”

It was a good two hours before Carl called to them to come back.  They sat down on the couch across from him and waited expectantly.

He was holding a copy of the sketch made from Lee’s description.  The files were spread on the coffee table like a fan.  “He was abused as a child by someone he trusted,” Carl said without preliminaries.  “A teacher, a coach.  Not a family member, I’d say, though it’s possible.  In his mind, he’s protecting these boys from a similar fate.  That’s why he’s so careful to leave them in a comfortable position, covered by a blanket or a sleeping bag.  He’s protecting them.”

Starsky snorted and Hutch elbowed him in the ribs.

Carl smiled, though his eyes were shadowed with fatigue.  “I know it sounds crazy, but the guy ain’t right or he wouldn’t be doing this, now, would he?”

Starsky had the grace to look embarrassed.

“He’s very particular that all the details be just right.  If he snatched a boy who turned out not to fit his mental image of the ‘perfect’ candidate, he’d probably kill him anyway to avoid the kid being able to tell on him, but he wouldn’t go through his ritual.  They always have a ritual.”

Hutch shivered a little.  “Do you know what his ritual is?”

Carl shook his head.  “I can make some guesses.  Taking the trophies is one of them.  He probably does that after the child is dead.  Something personal.  An article of clothing, maybe.”

“And does what with them?”  Starsky asked.

“He keeps them,” Carl said.  “Puts them away someplace where no one else can see them, but accessible enough that he can go back to them and, well,” his brow creased in distaste, “gloat over them.  Relive the experiences.”

“Holy God,” Hutch said.

“But we haven’t found nothin’ missing from these kids,” Starsky said.  “At least, nobody’s mentioned anything.”

“It wouldn’t be something obvious,” Carl said.  “Maybe he snips a piece off the kid’s shirt or underwear, somewhere it wouldn’t show.  He’s smart, this guy.  He doesn’t want to be caught.  Not consciously, anyway.”

“What’s the link between these kids?”  Starsky asked.  “You said they’d all have something in common.”

Carl nodded.  “So far, it looks like they’re all about the same age and most of them are small for their age.  They haven’t really entered puberty yet, but they’re close to it.  He’s not grabbing little boys of seven or eight.  They’re all around 10, 12 years old.  My guess is he was about that age when the abuse took place.”

“What kind of abuse?”  Hutch asked with trepidation.

“Sexual,” Carl answered promptly.  “Had to be.  Might’ve only been fondling, might’ve been penetration.  It’s not the abuse that screwed this guy’s head up so much as the breach of trust.  The person who abused him was somebody he really admired and looked up to and he couldn’t square that feeling with what the guy did to him.  Bet he never told anybody about it, too.”

“Why do you say that?”  Hutch asked.

“If he’d told somebody, it wouldn’t have festered in him quite the same way.  He’s secretive, keeps to himself.  No close friends, no girlfriend.  He’s a loner.  Always has been, I’d say.  And this person who abused him was the one person he let get close to him.  That’s part of what twisted him.  He finally let somebody in, and that somebody turned on him.”

“Jesus,” Hutch said with feeling, causing Starsky to turn and stare at him.  Hutch almost never used that name as an expletive.  Hutch flushed a little at Starsky’s look and gave a slight shrug.

“I know how creepy this is, guys,” Carl said sympathetically.  “Imagine having to do this all the time, not just here and there.”

“How many of these cases have you done?”  Hutch asked him.

Carl shook his head.  “Lost count.  Thirty, forty.”  At the bug-eyed looks of the other two, he put up a hand.  “Not all of them went after kids and not all of them were serial killers.  We get called in on regular murders, too, if the guy’s elusive.  And on some missing persons cases where the clues point to an abduction.  I’ve had a couple of firebugs.  One guy killed his whole family, wife, kids, mother, and then split.  Took up a new identity across the country, and it was almost 10 years before we found him.  I came in on that one about two years before we caught him.  But I specialize in serial killers.  Done a lot of them.  I seem to be able to figure out how they think.”  He paused and his face took on a sympathetic expression.  “I hate to tell you guys this, but at any given time, there are as many as forty or fifty serial killers operating in this country.”

Hutch shivered again and repeated, “Jesus.”

“I’m glad you’re on our side,” Starsky said.

Carl grinned.  “Now, our guy,” he went on, tapping the sketch, “he’s been doing this a long time.  I hate to tell you this, but he’s probably killed 20, even 30 kids.  The first one was probably years ago.  I’m guessing our killer’s in his late 20s, early 30s at most, and he probably killed his first victim when he was 18 or 20.  It scared him, maybe even made him sick, but when he got away with it, he realized it gave him a thrill, and he did it again, and again.

“At first, he only did one or two a year, but the more he did it, the shorter the time the latest killing lasted – it’s like a drug, and he needs a fix more and more often.”  Carl was intently staring at the sketch as he talked and didn’t see the look Starsky and Hutch exchanged when he used the word “fix.”  “So he started doing them closer together, maybe a few months in between, then a few weeks, and now, he’s escalating.  I’m sure the next one will be within a week or two.”  Carl looked up at them.  “This is a man who’s never been successful at anything else.  He couldn’t play sports, after he started to get sick, he probably stank at school, he doesn’t have any friends or any talent for anything except killing.  But he’s highly intelligent and he knows how to cover his tracks.  He’s an expert at this one thing, gentlemen, and finding him won’t be easy.”

            ~*~*~*~

Carl spent the next several days working in the Bay City FBI office where he could access the department’s computer files, looking for unsolved murders of preteen boys throughout the country.  He told Starsky and Hutch he was hoping to find possible suspects and maybe put some families’ pain at rest if, when they caught the guy, they could solve some old cases at the same time.

“I like the way you say ‘when’ we catch him and not ‘if’,” Hutch remarked.

Carl smiled, but it was grim.  “I don’t take failure well, Hutch.”

After endless hours of sifting through case files, Carl came to them at headquarters with a handful of files.

“Six more possibilities,” he said, dropping them on the desk in front of Hutch.  “Boys between 10 and 13 – only one of them was 13 – who vanished and were later found dead.  The first three might or might not fit, but my gut tells me it was our guy.  The rest are the exact same ritual.  All over the country, fellas.  The first one was 12 years ago, in Missouri.  That’s where the killer’s from.”

“How do you know THAT?”  Starsky demanded.

“These guys like familiarity and comfort,” Carl said, sitting down.  “That’s part of the reason for the ritual.  And they always start out in a place they know well.  This was in a town called Rolla, which isn’t very big, so somebody there knows him.  They may not know they know him, but if we could go there and describe him, maybe somebody could identify him for us.”

“Sounds like looking for a needle in a haystack,” Starsky said skeptically.

“Not really,” Carl said.  “First place I’ll go is the high school.  Trust me, guys like this are creepy by the time they’re adolescents.  A teacher or a coach or somebody will still be there who remembers the loner that gave him the willies.  This is a kid who slunk around unnoticed and uncared about by the other kids, but part of the reason the other kids avoided him was he scared ‘em.  Maybe the kids didn’t realize it consciously, but the teacher or the coach will remember keeping an eye on this kid without quite knowing why.”

“And then?”  Starsky asked.

“Then we’ll have a photo instead of a sketch and a name so we can pull the guy in and start questioning him – which I will do, with you guys in the room.”  Carl leaned forward and fixed Starsky with a stern look.  “I know you like the bad cop-good cop routine, Starsk, but trust me, you gotta let me question him.  You guys just stand there and let him feel your presence.  I know what to ask him to get him to break.  These guys are kinda proud of their ‘work,’ and he’s gonna want to tell me all about it if I can get past his defenses.  Bullying him won’t work.  I gotta be his friend.”

“You can have him,” Starsky said with a shudder.  “He sounds like a wacko.”

            ~*~*~*~

It was a perfect day to start the annual Boy Scout Jamboree.  Bright and sunny, warm but not hot, with a slight breeze.  Doug Jennings stood in the middle of what looked like chaos, but really wasn’t, directing the boys in his troop as they set up camp.  All over the campground, other troops were doing the same thing.  Doug grinned as his one and only Eagle Scout hoisted the flag and saluted it, very seriously.  Though Timmy was 14, he looked at least a couple of years younger, with a rounded face and freckled nose that gave him a deceptively innocent look.  The moniker “Timmy,” which he couldn’t shake no matter how he begged the other boys to call him “Tim,” didn’t help, either.  But he was a leader among the other boys, and in spite of their good-natured teasing, they looked up to him.  And Timmy could always be counted on to whip the other boys into shape when something needed to get done.  It was thanks to Timmy that their camp was almost all set up already, while most of the other troops he could see from here were still struggling to get tents up.

“Timmy,” Doug called to him.  “As soon as everyone’s finished, we’re going to meet at the main campfire circle.  Make sure everybody knows.  I want to arrive as a group.”

“You bet, Doug,” Timmy called back.  Fifteen minutes later, Boy Scout Troop 91 was assembled in military formation, ready to go.  Today’s first activity, after setting up camp, was lunch and then there was a scavenger hunt hike in the woods, with each troop given a list of things to spot and collect.  Both Doug and Timmy were determined that Troop 91 would win.

The woods were cool and fragrant as they started out.  Doug took point and Timmy brought up the rear, keeping the other boys focused on the task at hand instead of chasing each other and climbing the trees.  They’d been walking for about an hour and found several items on their list when Brandon, the youngest boy in the troop, tripped over an exposed root and bumped his head hard enough to open a gash on his forehead.

“Run ahead and tell Doug I need the first-aid kit,” Timmy told another boy, who nodded and trotted away.  Timmy pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and dabbed at the blood on Brandon’s forehead.  “You’re okay,” he told Brandon, who was trying not to cry.  “Just a flesh wound, no big deal.  Honest,” he added with a smile.  He opened his canteen and poured a little water on the handkerchief to help him clean the wound, then offered the canteen to Brandon.  “Here, drink just a sip or two.”

Brandon had just accepted the canteen when a terrified scream came from behind them.  “What was that?”  Brandon asked, his lip trembling.

“I don’t know,” Timmy said, frowning in that direction.  “Somebody from another troop in trouble?”  He rose and peered through the trees, but they were thick and he couldn’t see.  All the boys had been warned about the Boy Scout Killer, and to stay together, but Timmy could hear the voices of other members of his own troop and other troops here and there through the woods, and when the scream came again, he handed his handkerchief to Brandon.  “I’ll be right back,” he told the younger boy.  “I’m going to go see what’s going on.”

Brandon nodded, and Timmy loped away.  He caught a couple of glimpses of other Scouts running back and forth, but none were close enough to hear him call.  He had a good sense of direction and knew instinctively where the scream had come from, so he headed that way at a relaxing, but ground-eating trot.  In a few minutes, he found a man lying on the ground with blood all over the right leg of his jeans.

“Hey, you okay?  What happened?”  Timmy knelt next to the man, who was breathing fast and shallow and was pale.

“I think I might’ve broken it,” the man said.  “Thank God you heard me.  I must’ve yelled for half an hour.”

Timmy bent to peer at the leg, but the jeans weren’t torn and he was a little afraid to touch it, in case he made the injury worse.  “I’m Tim,” he said to the man, producing a reassuring smile.  “Hang on.  I’ll get my Scoutmaster and we’ll get you some help.”

The man tried to smile.  “Thanks, little buddy.”

Timmy rose and turned to go, but in the next moment, he felt a blinding blow to the back of his head and fell face first into the dry leaves.  Everything went black.

            ~*~*~*~

School had just let out for the day when Carl arrived.  Kids wearing jeans and t-shirts and platform shoes and Earth shoes streamed past him in droves, forcing him to do some dodging and ducking to avoid getting run over.  A few of them gave him curious glances, but in his nondescript suit and tie, he probably blended in with their teachers well enough they didn’t realize he was a stranger.  It was a large school, several hundred students.

He had called ahead and the principal was expecting him.  He only had to wait a few minutes for the principal, John Mooth, to come out of the office and beckon him in.

“I appreciate your taking the time to talk to me,” Carl said to him once they were seated with the door closed.

Mooth smiled, but it was a nervous smile.  “If what you told me is true, Agent Devlin, we want to do everything we can to help.  But the thought that one of our own kids is a serial killer….  “He shook his head.

Carl opened his file and laid the sketch in front of Mooth.  “Were you here 10 or 12 years ago, when we suspect this guy was a student?”

“I’ve been here for 20 years,” Mooth answered, accepting the sketch and frowning down at it.  “I was a history teacher for 15 of those years, then dean of boys, and I’ve been principal for two years.”

“Does that face look at all familiar to you?”  Carl asked.

Mooth shook his head.  “No, not really.  It could be one of a dozen boys I’ve taught over the years.”

“I realize that,” Carl said.  “The child who helped us make that sketch didn’t get a very good look at the man, and even he says it isn’t a good likeness.  He just didn’t have enough detail to give us.”  He paused.  “Do you know what a profiler is, sir?”

Mooth raised his head and looked at him blankly for a moment.  “I’ve heard the term,” he said uncertainly.

“It’s an agent who specializes in trying to figure out what makes a killer tick,” Carl explained.  “I look at his methods and I predict what kind of a person he is based on those clues.  I’ve been studying this guy, and I hope that if I describe his personality to you, it’ll ring a bell.”

Mooth nodded.  “Okay.”

Carl ran down the same kind of description he’d given Starsky and Hutch, along with a few additions he’d made since reading over some of the unsolved cases in other parts of the country.  The longer he talked, the more upset Mooth looked.  Carl wasn’t sure whether Mooth was upset by the description or because it reminded him of someone until he stopped and waited expectantly.

“Dear God,” Mooth said after several seconds of silence, in which his eyes rested on the sketch.  “You just described Steve Wagner as well as if you’d known him all his life.”

Carl scribbled down the name on his notepad.  “Tell me about Steve.”

Mooth sighed and rubbed his eyes.  “He’d be 28 or 29 now, I guess.  I had him for American history when he was a junior here.  I remember him because the poor kid was such a mess.  All the teachers tried to befriend him but nobody got very far.  He was small for his age, always seemed to need a shampoo and a haircut, and had the worst case of acne I’ve ever seen.  He never hung around with the other kids and he sort of crept through the hallways as if he was afraid somebody would speak to him or see him.”

Carl nodded, making notes.  “Go on.”

“There was something very strange about him,” Mooth said.  “It wasn’t that the other kids teased him.  They just didn’t see him.  I’d be willing to bet that if you asked some of the kids from his class if they remembered him, they wouldn’t even have known a boy named Steve Wagner was in school with them.”  He sighed again.  “The troubling thing is, I remember assigning the class to write a paper about presidential assassinations.  They were supposed to re-tell the story as a story, a narrative, from the point of view of someone directly involved in the incident.  And they could choose the president in question.  Almost everyone chose Kennedy, because that happened when they were old enough to remember it clearly.  Steve chose Lincoln.”

“And that’s significant for what reason?”  Carl asked.

“He wrote his narrative from Booth’s point of view,” Mooth said.  “And he clearly took Booth’s side.  The paper was, well, it was frightening in the detail he went into as he talked about the killer’s motivation and reasons for killing Lincoln.  He described the preparations and the planning almost,” he paused and shook his head, “lovingly.”

Carl nodded.  “What happened?  What did you do after you read it?”

“I kept him after school the next day and tried to talk to him about it,” Mooth said.  “At first, I approached it as good writing – and it was, actually, very good – and told him he had a real gift for storytelling.  But then I tried to get him to talk about why he approached it the way he did and where he got the details, and he became very agitated.”

“Agitated how?”

“Angry, violently so.  Screaming and hysterical.  I tried to calm him down, but he only got worse and finally he stormed out of the room.  I talked to the principal about it and we sent a letter home to his parents suggesting he might need counseling, but they never answered the letter, and we never managed to reach anyone on the phone.  Finally, we gave up.”

Carl stared at him.  “You gave up?”

“Agent Devlin, there are over 800 children in this school,” Mooth said.  “Even 10 years ago, we had a large proportion of troubled children, who were on drugs, pregnant, on the verge of dropping out or otherwise at risk.  We try to help them all, but we just can’t.  We couldn’t force Steven’s parents to get counseling for him.”

Carl had plenty of things he wanted to say, but he didn’t say them.  “How did the boy act the next day?  Did he come to school?”

Mooth frowned.  “I can’t remember for certain.  I know that after that outburst in the classroom, he was even more secretive in his behavior.  Never raised his hand or spoke in class if he could help it.”

“Do you have a photograph of him?”

“Our school library keeps copies of all the yearbooks,” Mooth said.  “He should be in one of those.”

Once Carl had the photograph, he visited the Rolla police to discuss the missing boy case from ten years before.  The child, a 13-year-old neighbor of Wagner’s family, had vanished while on a church camping trip and had been found almost two months later, so badly decomposed that the M.E. could only guess at the cause of death.  Though the police had questioned everyone they could think of and had posted “missing child” photos in all the area newspapers and in public places, the body had been found by chance by a hunter and there had never been any real suspects.

“What makes you think this is connected with your case?” the commander asked.

“The child’s age, the proximity to Wagner, and the timing,” Carl said.  “Wagner was 18 then, and that’s about the right age for his personality type to kill the first time.  Did you suspect him?”

The commander paged through the file and finally said, “We questioned him.  Apparently he and the missing boy had spent a lot of time together immediately prior to the boy’s disappearance, which our investigating officers thought was a little strange, considering the difference in their ages.  But they decided he wasn’t a viable suspect because he was so upset about the boy and because he gave a good reason for them spending that time together.  Wagner was the kid’s basketball coach at the Boys Club and they were in the habit of shooting baskets together outside of scheduled practices.”

“Was there any sign of sexual abuse on the body?”

The commander shook his head.  “We couldn’t tell.  It was too decomposed.”

            ~*~*~*~

Carl had only been gone a couple of days when the call came in.  A boy was missing from the annual Boy Scout Jamboree.  Officers from surrounding districts were dispatched to the Boy Scout camp up in the mountains outside of town to help in the search, and Starsky and Hutch were among them.  All the stops were pulled out this time because of the killings.

“Shit, Hutch,” Starsky said miserably on the drive there.  “Carl was right.  Within a week.”

“The kid could’ve just gotten lost,” Hutch said unconvincingly.

“Yeah.  Right,” Starsky growled.

When they arrived at the camp, Doug Jennings was describing Timmy to the officers who were gathered around him.  Jennings’ face was pale and he was so upset he was hard to understand.  His voice shook and he was trying hard not to cry.

Starsky and Hutch, as the officers in charge of the Boy Scout Killer case, took over.  They pulled Jennings to one side to question him as the other officers took off to begin the search.

“Timmy wouldn’t get lost,” Jennings said, rubbing his forehead and eyes.  “He’s an Eagle Scout and he has a compass with him.  I saw him hang it from his belt before we started out.  Something’s wrong.  I know it is.”

“Easy, fella,” Hutch said soothingly.  “We’ll find him.  We’ve got to.  Did any of the other kids see anything?”

“No.  Brandon,” Jennings indicated a boy of about eleven who was seated on a camp chair holding an ice bag to his forehead, “fell and hurt himself and Timmy stayed with him while another boy came to get me.  Brandon said he and Timmy heard somebody yell for help and Timmy went to see what he could do and never came back.  My God,” Jennings finished, covering his face with his hands, “we warned them about this guy.  We told them to stay in groups.”

“We don’t know it’s the killer,” Starsky said, but he didn’t sound very sure of himself.

“Timmy isn’t the kind of boy who’d go off and leave a fellow Scout hurt and alone,” Jennings said with a flash of anger.  “He’s a good kid, very responsible.  He only meant to leave Brandon for a moment and come right back.  I know Timmy, I’ve been his Scoutmaster for five years.  Back to when he was just a Cub Scout.”

“Okay,” Hutch said.  “You stay here and keep the rest of those kids in your sight.  Come on, partner, let’s go.”

“Hutch, he may have stuffed Timmy in a car and split.”

“I know, but I don’t think so, Starsk.  The road is too far away from here for him to get away cleanly.  Someone might have seen them.  I’m betting he has someplace up on this mountain to take him.”

Starsky agreed with him and they both hoped they would find Timmy alive.  If their killer had a local hideout, maybe they could catch him.  The search and rescue team leaders divided the area into sections.  Starsky and Hutch headed off in their area and soon found themselves alone.  The mountainous region was full of canyons, streams, woods, and caves.  The boy could be anywhere.  They would stay in their assigned section, but only as far as it felt like the right direction.  They were depending on their gut instincts and experience with the criminal mind to help them with their search.

            ~*~*~*~

Timmy had awakened in what looked like an abandoned cabin with no way of knowing how he got there.  Frightened and confused, he knew he didn’t have the luxury of panic.  Realizing that his hands were tied behind him, he also knew he was in trouble, regardless of the kidnapper’s identity.

The boy was limber and thin.  The first thing he did was to wiggle his bound hands past his feet and in front of him.  Next, he set about trying to get loose from the ropes.  Not knowing how long he would have alone was motivation enough to keep him moving.

Timmy had just gotten his hands loose when the man returned to the small, dirty cabin.  He scrambled back across the floor to get away from the furious man, ending up in the fireplace.  When his attacker started kicking at him and swearing, Timmy felt around behind him, found a metal andiron and came up swinging.

Steve Wagner didn’t know what to think.  None of the boys had ever fought him like this.  He managed to get in some licks, but Timmy was quick, his attack unexpected.  Timmy hit him on the head with the andiron and dropped him like a stone.

After Timmy fled the cabin, he ran through the woods trying to orient himself.  The Scout troop had hiked through this mountain many times, but he didn’t recognize his location.  His head was pounding, a large goose egg having risen where his attacker hit him.  A sharp pain in his head accompanied every step, but he had to run.  He stayed as much under the cover of trees and brush as he could.  Looking nervously back over his shoulder, Timmy didn’t see the drop off before he reached it.  He stepped on a loose stone and fell down an embankment.  When he came to a rest fifteen feet below where he started, the young man knew his ankle was broken.  As much as he hated himself for it, he crawled under some nearby bushes and cried.  Once he’d had a good, long cry, he shook himself out of it and looked around the area for someplace safe to hide for the night.  The sun was starting to set and he was already getting cold.  The overnight temperature in the mountains was expected to be in the high thirties.  He knew he couldn’t stay outside.  If he could just find some shelter, he could think of a way to signal for help in the morning, or maybe bandage his ankle well enough to try walking out on his own.

He found that he was half way down to the floor of a small canyon.  In the canyon wall, about one hundred feet away, he saw a small opening that could lead into a cave.  Timmy crawled around, searching until he found something to use as a walking stick and then got to his feet.  When he reached the opening, he saw it was part of a cave.  A quick search proved it wasn’t occupied by a bear or any other wild animals and hadn’t been for a long time.  Timmy went inside and got back from the opening, curling up on the ground to rest.  His breathing was coming in rapid pants and he ached in every part of his body.

            ~*~*~*~

When he woke up from the fight, Steve Wagner realized that his latest victim had escaped.  How did this happen?  Didn’t he know I only wanted to help him?  To save him?

He set off to find the boy, but soon gave up, fearing that someone would come looking for them.  The deserted cabin was far enough from where the Boy Scouts and anyone else might be searching, but he couldn’t take any chances.  He had found this place by accident while hiking in the mountains.  With any luck, he could hike back down to where he had left his latest car without detection.  The pain he felt at having lost his victim was as much physical as it was mental.  With this boy, he didn’t get to experience the euphoria of touching him… of being touched.  The rush he got as he took his young victims to that safe, protected final resting place was to be denied him.  I have to get home.  I have to decide what to do.

            ~*~*~*~

Combing the hills and canyons for hours hadn’t revealed any sign of the boy.  Starsky and Hutch were both getting discouraged as the sun began to set.  Hutch pulled out a flashlight and they stopped for some water.  They had come prepared with warm jackets, some food, and water in their backpacks.  Not knowing what to expect, Hutch also had a first aid kit with him and some other items they might need in their search.

Starsky looked up after drinking from his canteen and noticed a dark impression in the hill across from them.  “Hutch,” he said pointing.  “A cave, maybe?”

Hutch nodded.  “Worth a check.”

They hiked over and discovered that the dark spot was the opening to a large cave.  After hiking a short distance, they reached a place where they could turn off into one of two openings.  Hutch turned to Starsky and said, “Wait a minute,” putting a hand on his arm.  He knelt on the ground and reached into his backpack rooting around for something.

“What are you looking for?”  Starsky asked.

“Something to mark our way back out of here.  Won’t do us or Timmy any good to get ourselves lost.”

“You sure you were a Sea Scout?”

“Ha, ha.  Here,” he said as he handed over a large piece of chalk, “take that, city boy.”

“Sidewalk chalk?  What else you got in there?”  Starsky said as he leaned forward and pretended to peer into the backpack.

“I just grabbed some things I though might come in handy,” Hutch answered, swatting Starsky’s hand away and zipping the backpack.

“That thing’s like your Bat Utility Belt.  What if I told you I needed a snake bite kit?”

Hutch glared at him and stood, shrugging the backpack on again.  “Someday, when I’m gone, you’re gonna miss having me around to make sure you stay out of trouble.”

“In your dreams, big boy.  No way you’re leaving this city boy behind.  I’m gonna blaze that trail first.”

Hutch stopped in his tracks and Starsky kept walking.  He turned around when he heard that Hutch was no longer following, the smile disappearing from his face when he saw his friend’s expression in the beam of his flashlight.

“Hutch?  What?”

Hutch said, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“What’s what supposed to mean?”

“What you said, Starsky.”

“What?  Oh, that I was going first?  Shit.  That was just a joke, buddy.  ‘Sides, you started it.”

“That wasn’t the same thing.  Sorry, Starsk.  You just…  sorry, it’s stupid.”

Starsky walked back to where his partner stood and put a hand on his shoulder.  “I’m sorry, Hutch.  Really.”

Hutch felt more than a little foolish.  “Yeah, I guess I did start it.”

“Damn straight.”

“Let’s get a move on.”

Starsky reached out and drew a large arrow on the rock wall beside them, pointing back toward the entrance.  They proceeded through the cave marking their way, and taking frequent stops to listen for any other sounds.

“This isn’t getting us anywhere, Hutch.  There’s not even any sign of anyone having been here.”

“I know, but let’s look just a little longer.  I can’t explain it.  I just have a feeling.”

“All right.”  Starsky looked at his watch.  “How about another fifteen minutes?”

They turned a corner and found themselves in a narrowed section of the cave.  The ceiling was a little too low for Hutch, who had to duck, but Starsky could still stand up straight.  They were walking along a ledge about three feet wide that ended in a steep drop.  Hutch briefly aimed his flashlight down into the darkness, but realized by the sharp intake of air behind him that it was a mistake.

“Stay close to the side, Starsk.  And watch out for these loose rocks.”  Hutch tried to kick the rocks out of the way as he walked.  The cave was getting shorter and the ledge narrower.

After another five minutes of walking, Starsky said, “Hutch, let’s go back.  He couldn’t have carried Timmy in here.  Maybe we can try another direction, back near the front.”

Despite the nagging feeling that Timmy was somewhere close, Hutch agreed.  The two men turned around and started back toward their starting point.  They were just short of the entrance to the narrow ledge when they both heard a low rumble and the ground beneath them started to shake.

Starsky’s voice was higher than normal when he said, “Earthquake!”

The shaking continued.  Starsky was standing in the entrance to the cavern, but he couldn’t maintain his footing.  He slipped and fell to his hands and knees.  Then he did his best to cover his head with his arms.  The shaking didn’t last long, but it seemed like an eternity to Starsky as loose rubble and rocks tumbled down, pummeling him.

“Hutch, you okay?” he called, coughing from the dust.  When he got no answer, his heart began to pound faster.  He felt around for the flashlight he’d dropped.  When he put his hand on it, he turned it back on and turned around to shine it behind him.  “Hutch?”  Instead of finding his partner, or even the ledge behind him, Starsky was horrified to see that the ledge had broken away, leaving a gap of about three feet between Starsky and the other side.  Hutch was not there.

With a sinking heart, Starsky shined his flashlight down into the blackness.  The swirling dust dispersed the light beam, but he could see all the way to the bottom.  All the way to where Hutch lay, partially covered with rocks and dirt.  He wasn’t moving.

            ~*~*~*~

The ground began to shake half an hour after Timmy crawled into his cave.  He curled into a ball to shield himself and prayed for it to stop.  The boy was frightened and convinced that things couldn’t possibly get any worse.  At least his attacker hadn’t followed him.

When the shaking stopped, he sat up and looked toward the mouth of the cave.  Rocks, dirt, and debris had completely covered it.  Timmy was exhausted and disheartened.  He lay back against the ground, trembling both from the chill in the air and his own fear.  Sleep soon overtook him.

            ~*~*~*~

“Shit!”  Starsky exclaimed.  “Hutch!”

When there was still no response from Hutch, Starsky frantically began to search for a way to get down to him.  “Hutch!  Hey, wake up, buddy.  Hutch?” he continued to call.  This was frighteningly reminiscent of finding him unconscious in that dumpster weeks ago.  This time, though, Hutch had taken a steep tumble.

The earthquake left rough places in the exposed cave wall that Starsky hoped he could use as hand and footholds.  Even if he had to hang by his hands and jump, he was determined to get to his partner.  Hutch lay only twelve feet below him.  Starsky started his climb down the cave wall, using the jutting rocks and earth as a ladder.  He descended a few feet, and then the rock under his left foot gave way.  He scrabbled at the wall and mostly slid the rest of the way to the cavern floor, falling back onto his butt.

Crawling over to Hutch, he was alarmed to see that his partner was unconscious.  He lay mostly on his left side, on top of the backpack, with his right leg wedged between two large rocks.  Starsky gently felt Hutch’s head and found a large, bleeding lump just behind and above his left ear.

Hutch’s heartbeat was racing.  Starsky patted him on the cheek and called his name again and again.  He gave up long enough to pull the rocks away from Hutch’s leg.  When he had it free, he felt for broken bones.  He wasn’t certain, but he thought it was okay.  Both arms and legs seemed intact, but he could feel that Hutch’s knee was swelling.  Several large rocks lay under his back.  Starsky moved them out of the way and he was trying to slip the backpack off Hutch when a low moan grabbed his attention.

“Oh, my head,” Hutch mumbled as he reached up toward the pain.

Starsky grabbed his hand and said, “Easy, buddy.  Just lie still.  I don’t know how bad it is.”

“What the hell happened?”  Hutch asked.

“Don’t you remember?  Earthquake.  That ledge gave way underneath you.”

Hutch helped him remove the backpack, and he allowed Starsky to ease him onto his back without moving too much.  “I can move everything, Starsk,” he said as he demonstrated with each limb.

“That’s good, but unless you have a backboard in your Bat Utility backpack, you’re staying right there for now.”

Hutch chuckled, and then winced at the pain in his head.  “Oh, God,” he said.  “I feel sick.”

“Hold onto it, Hutch,” Starsky said.  He helped Hutch turn on his side again and held onto him as the wave of nausea ran its course.  He didn’t vomit, but only held onto it because he clamped his eyes shut against the swirling sights before them.

When he seemed better, Starsky laid him down again and said, “Hey, open your eyes and tell me how many fingers I have up.”

“No,” Hutch said.  “I can’t.”

“Sure you can, open up, Blintz.”

Hutch waved a hand in the air and said, “Spinning.  I can’t count ‘em when they’re spinning.”  Within a few minutes, Hutch was so quiet Starsky realized he’d passed out again.  Concerned that Hutch might have a concussion, he knew he couldn’t let him fall asleep.

“Hutch, wake up.  You have to stay with me, buddy.”  Starsky squeezed his hand and was relieved when Hutch opened his eyes again.  In the glare of the flashlight, they looked unfocused and glassy.

“I’m so tired,” Hutch muttered.

“I know, but you have to stay awake and help me figure out how to get us out of this.  Remember me?  City boy?”

            ~*~*~*~

When Carl got the word that another boy was taken, he returned to Bay City.  He couldn’t reach either Starsky or Hutch.  Not really expecting him to be in so late, Carl called Dobey’s office on a chance.  The captain was there.

“Devlin, where are you?” he asked.

“I’m at the airport.  Just got back in.  Where are Starsky and Hutch?”

“They went up to help with the search.  I haven’t heard from them in hours and there hasn’t been any word from the search team.  You coming in?”

“I have some good info on our man.  I think I have a name and a picture.  I’ll catch a taxi and be there shortly.”

The captain hung up, grateful to have the profiler on their team.  When Devlin arrived, Dobey got the picture out to be copied and had R&I start a search on Steve Wagner.  The two men sat in the captain’s office going over Carl’s notes on their killer.

“Don’t count on there being any record of this guy, Captain.  Serial killers are careful.  They rarely have so much as a parking ticket on their records.”

“I’ll get DMV on the name.  Maybe it will turn an address.”

“Go ahead, but he’s probably living under an assumed name.”

Devlin called Quantico and started them searching for Wagner.  Even if they couldn’t find the latest victim alive, with everyone looking for him, maybe they could locate the killer and prevent him from hurting anyone else.

            ~*~*~*~

Timmy woke up stiff with cold, thirsty, and hungry.  He’d left his canteen with Brandon, and in the darkness of the cave, he couldn’t tell if there might be a stream nearby.  It might not be safe to drink from it, even if there were a stream, he thought miserably.

The pain in his ankle was excruciating.  He shifted his position, trying to make it more comfortable, and cried out, in spite of himself, at the shaft of agony that shot through his leg.

“What a mess,” he said aloud, hoping the sound of his own voice would calm him.  It didn’t.  The echoes only made him feel more alone and frightened than ever.  He wondered how long it had been since he’d gone looking for the man who had attacked him.  Surely by now, Doug had come back to see to Brandon and Brandon had told him Timmy had never come back.  They’d be looking for him, especially with that crazy killer loose –

“Oh, my God!”  Timmy let his head fall back against the cold cave wall.  The killer!  That had been the killer!  And he had walked right into a trap, like an 11-year-old Tenderfoot.  He was disgusted with himself, and the emotion made him a little stronger, chasing away some of his helplessness.  “Tim, you’re a moron,” he said to himself, again out loud.  “Only an idiot would’ve done something that stupid, and after Doug warned us, too.  Now figure out how to get out of here and find the others.”

He didn’t have a flashlight – it was in his tent, back at camp.  He hadn’t thought he’d need it in the middle of the afternoon.  Okay, what did he have?  He had his compass.  Fat lot of good that would do him in the dark in a cave.  What else?  His knife, the deluxe Swiss army knife his dad had given him when he made Eagle Scout a couple of months ago.  That hadn’t been easy.  He’d given up both baseball and basketball and devoted every spare moment to the project.

And he’d specialized in first aid and emergency preparedness.  He could handle this.  He could.

            ~*~*~*~

“Hutch, what do I do?”  Starsky patted Hutch’s cheeks, too cool in the dampness of the cave.

Hutch forced his eyes open and tried to focus, but there were at least two of his partner when he tried to see him, and sometimes there were three.  He groaned.  His head felt like somebody had driven a railroad spike into it and was still pounding.  And if he moved at all, his stomach threatened to erupt.  “Starsky, buddy, I can’t….” He had to pause to force his stomach to cooperate. “You gotta go for help.”

“Oh, shit, Hutch.”  Starsky was fighting back panic and it was a losing battle. “I can’t leave you here!”

“You got to,” Hutch said, closing his eyes to shut out the waving walls. “Follow the chalk marks on the wall. That’s why we made them. They’ll lead you out and you can fire off a round or something to signal.”

“But, Hutch -”

“You have to,” Hutch said, his voice fading away on the last word. Staying conscious was taking every bit of strength he had.

Starsky bit his bottom lip and pawed through the knapsack. He looked into the first aid kit for something that would help, but there wasn’t anything.  In the bottom of the knapsack, he found a cold pack that Hutch had evidently put there to keep their lunches fresh. He pulled that out and shrugged out of his jacket and flannel shirt so he could get his T-shirt off. He wrapped the cold pack in that and gave it to Hutch. “Put that on your punk knot, partner,” he said. “Might help the pain. And take my jacket to keep you warm. It’s colder than blue hell down here.”

“You’re gonna need your jacket….” Hutch mumbled.

“Not as bad as you do,” Starsky said, tucking it around him. “I’ll be moving around and that’ll keep me warm. Now don’t run off, okay? I’ll be back just as fast as I can.”

“Be careful,” Hutch said, forcing his eyes open again in spite of the effect on his stomach. “Might be aftershocks.”

“I’ll be careful,” Starsky promised. He hesitated just before turning away. He couldn’t leave Hutch alone and hurt –

“G’wan,” Hutch said. “Get outta here.”

Starsky forced himself to go. With the flashlight, he found the arrows easily enough, making a small hash mark beside each one so he’d know he’d passed that way. He had just come to a branching off, with a passageway turning to his left, when he thought he heard a noise. He stopped walking and stood very still, trying to keep even his breathing quiet.

He heard it again. It sounded like someone scratching or digging. He cautiously drew his gun and took a couple of experimental steps down the passageway. “Hello?”

The sounds halted immediately. In the echoes of the cave, he wasn’t absolutely certain they’d come from this passage, but he thought they had.

“Hello?” he called again. What was the missing kid’s name again? Jimmy? No, wait, Timmy. That was it. “Timmy? Is that you?”

No answer.

“Timmy, I’m a cop. We’ve been looking for you. Is that you? Are you hurt?”

More silence. He chalked another arrow on the wall, making this one a different style so he’d be able to tell it wasn’t one of the ones he and Hutch had made earlier. He took another couple of steps and came to an obstruction, probably caused by the earthquake. It blocked the pathway, but most of it was loose rocks and dirt. He started digging at it and while he was digging, he heard the sounds begin again, more frantic this time.

“Timmy, take it easy, buddy. I’m a cop. My name’s Dave Starsky. Your troop leader, Doug, is waiting back at the camp for you. It’s okay, Timmy, don’t be afraid.”

Another brief silence, then a young and very frightened voice, “You’re really a cop?”

“I really am,” Starsky called reassuringly. “Detective Sergeant David Starsky of the Metro Division.”

“What are you doing way out here?” The voice was suspicious.

“Everybody’s scared to death for you, kiddo,” Starsky said. “What happened? You okay?” He had almost cleared a space big enough to crawl through, but it was too dark beyond it to get a look at the kid. He turned on the flashlight again – he’d turned it off while he dug – and shone it through the gap. The boy was leaning against the cave wall in a smaller chamber beyond, very white and scared, but alive. Thank God. “Are you hurt?”

Timmy bit his lip. “My ankle,” he said after a moment. “I fell and hurt it.”

“Okay. Sit tight, I’ll be right in.” Starsky dug with renewed fervor for several minutes until he could squeeze through. It was a tight fit; he’d have to widen the gap to get the kid out, especially with an injury, but right now the main thing was to get to the boy and make sure he wasn’t badly injured. He tossed the flashlight inside, wriggled through the hole and dropped down next to the kid. He reached for the flashlight, but the kid beat him to it and shone it on his face.

Timmy gave a strangled gasp. “Get away from me!” He scrambled backward, away from Starsky, who couldn’t see anything but the bright light in his eyes.

“Timmy, take it easy,” Starsky said, trying to soothe him. He didn’t know what could have spooked the boy.

“I won’t go down without a fight!” Timmy had backed up as far as he could against the far wall, which Starsky assumed must be blocked, too.

Starsky eased forward a few inches. “I’m a cop, Timmy. I won’t hurt you. I’m here to get you out -” He let out a gasp of pain as something struck his arm and warm blood gushed out and soaked his sleeve. “Timmy, for God’s sake, what’s the matter?”

“You aren’t gonna hurt me again!”

Starsky was dumbfounded. “What are you talkin’ about, kid? I’ve never seen you before. I’m here to help you, not hurt you!”

“You’re the guy who grabbed me!”

“No, I’m not!” Starsky’s right arm was hurting like fury and blood was still pouring, but he reached back anyway and pulled his badge out of his hip pocket. He held it out. “Look, Timmy. Look! Here’s my badge. Take it.”

The thin leather folder was snatched out of his hand and there were several moments of silence. Timmy turned the beam away from him long enough to examine the badge so closely that he must’ve memorized the information on the ID card. Then the light rested on his face again for several more moments. Then there was a tremulous sigh. “Geez, mister, I’m sorry. I just – ”

Starsky let out his held breath. “It’s okay, pal. Now tell me where you’re hurt.”

“My ankle,” Timmy said. “I think I broke it.” He handed back the badge and used the flashlight to look at Starsky’s arm. In the light, the blood looked bad. “Aw, man, I’m sorry about that. The guy who grabbed me – he looked a lot like you. I thought you were him.”

“Forget it,” Starsky said. He took the flashlight from the boy and looked at his ankle. He’d hurt his own so often he knew at a glance that this one was broken, not just sprained. He felt it very gently just to be sure, and when he touched the broken place, Timmy let out a cry of pain. “Sorry, kiddo.  Just wanted to know for sure.” He sat back on his heels. “How’d you get away from the wacko?”

Timmy grinned faintly, though his face was pale. “Hit him with an andiron. He took me to some old shack and tied me up, but I got loose -”

“How’d you get loose?” Starsky stared at him.

“Batman and Robin,” Timmy said. “You know how the Joker or the Riddler are always tying their hands behind their backs?”

Starsky nodded, puzzled.

“And they wiggle their butts and feet through the ropes so their hands are in front? Then they can untie the knots with their teeth.”

Starsky laughed. “You did that?”

“Yeah.” Timmy grinned, wider this time. “Me and my brother practiced that until we could do it. We used to play Batman and Robin all the time when we were little. Never thought I’d need that trick, though.”

“And then you conked him with an andiron?” Starsky whistled. “You’re pretty resourceful, skipper.”

Timmy shrugged. “I didn’t know who he was until after I got in here and started thinkin’ about it. He’s the Boy Scout Killer, isn’t he?”

“We think so,” Starsky said. “And you’re goddamned lucky you got away. You’re the only one who has, that we know of.”

“I’m not away, yet,” Timmy said. “You think we can get out of here?”

“Sure, we can,” Starsky said. “Let me get this hole a little bigger.”

“I can help,” Timmy said. He crawled over to the obstruction on his hands and one knee, and between the two of them, the hole was soon big enough to get Timmy through without further damaging his ankle.

Starsky bent down and picked him up and carried him into the outer passageway. He would have gone on right then, but Timmy insisted he stop and let him put a dressing on his cut arm. “It’s my fault you’re hurt,” Timmy said, pulling his spare handkerchief out of a pocket of his jeans. He rolled the sleeve of Starsky’s flannel shirt back out of the way and tied the handkerchief around the cut snugly and neatly. When he finished, he looked down the passageway. “D’you know how to get out of here?”

“Yeah,” Starsky said, looking back in the direction where Hutch waited.

“Somethin’ wrong?”

“My partner,” Starsky said. “You felt the earthquake a little while ago? He fell and hit his head pretty hard. He can’t walk, he’s too dizzy. I was goin’ for help when I found you.”

“Aw, man,” Timmy said miserably. “It’s all my fault. If I’d only stayed with Brandon -”

“Hey, come on, this ain’t your fault,” Starsky said, forcing a smile and starting to bend over to lift the boy in his arms again. “We gotta go, Timmy. We gotta get outta here and get Hutch some help.”

“I’ll just slow you down,” Timmy said. “You go get help and I’ll stay here. Where’s your partner? I could stay with him.”

“No, it’s too far back to where he is. Quit arguin’ with me and let’s go.” He scooped Timmy up – the boy didn’t weigh much at all – and started down the passageway. “We’re followin’ those arrows,” Starsky told the kid as they passed one. “Help me keep an eye out for ‘em.”

It took longer than he liked, knowing Hutch was back there alone, to get out of the cave. But finally they emerged into moonlight. Starsky wasn’t sure, but he estimated they’d only been in the cave a couple of hours. It sure felt like a lot longer than that. He paused, unsure of his direction.

Timmy pulled his compass off the clip at his belt, tipping it so he could see it in the moonlight.  “That way,” he said, pointing. “The main camp is down in the valley about a half mile away.”

“A half mile?” Starsky sighed. “Holy shit.”

“I can walk,” Timmy began, but Starsky shook his head.

“No, you can’t.” He started off in the direction that Timmy had indicated, trusting the kid to know what he was talking about, and in about 20 minutes, he recognized the landscape. Timmy had been right. He remembered coming this way when they’d started out.

He could hear dogs barking and gave an involuntary shudder.

“What’s wrong?” Timmy asked.

“They’ve got the search and rescue dogs out,” Starsky said. “They didn’t expect to find you breathin’, Bronco.”

Timmy shuddered. “Thanks. For finding me.”

Starsky grinned and freed one hand to ruffle the kid’s curly hair. “Just doin’ my job.”

The barking grew closer and a few minutes later a couple of men burst through the trees with several dogs just ahead of them. The dogs ran right toward them and surrounded them, making so much noise Starsky couldn’t hear himself think. He froze. He wasn’t any too fond of dogs, anyway, at least not dogs he didn’t know, and these didn’t seem to be friendly.

“Put the boy down,” ordered one of the men, pulling a gun and pointing it at Starsky. “Nice and slow, and nobody’ll get hurt.”

“I can’t,” Starsky said, his voice shaking in spite of himself. “He’s got a broken ankle.”

“I can talk,” Timmy said, a little tartly. “This is Sergeant Starsky,” he said to the men. “He’s a cop. He got me out of the cave back there.”

“I’m sure that’s what he told you, son,” the man said. “I got a photo right here in my pocket that says otherwise. Now put the kid down, Wagner.”

“My name isn’t Wagner!”

“Show him your badge,” Timmy suggested. He lowered his voice. “Don’t put me down. He might shoot.”

“No shit,” Starsky said sourly, but softly. He pretended he was just shifting Timmy’s weight and managed to get his badge in his hand. He flipped it open and held it out. “Look at that. David Starsky, DETECTIVE David Starsky, Metro Division, Bay City. My partner’s back in that cave with a concussion or worse and you clowns ain’t gettin’ him out of there!”

The man peered at the badge and sheepishly lowered the weapon. “Sorry, sir. But you sure do look like this guy –” He took a photo out of his shirt pocket and gave it to Starsky. The man in the photo did bear a certain resemblance to the detective but, Starsky thought, annoyed, not THAT much.

“Where’d you get this?”

“Agent Carl Devlin,” the man said. “FBI. He showed up out here a little while ago and handed these out so we’d know who we were lookin’ for.”

Starsky spotted a hand-held CB on the other man, who hadn’t said a word so far except to hush the dogs. “Call for some help on that thing,” he snapped at him. “My partner needs help!”

The man made the call, and, in about 15 minutes, a rescue unit had arrived at the bottom of the hill, and a couple of EMTs hurried up with a stretcher. Starsky turned Timmy over to the dog handlers and went with the EMTs to show them how to find Hutch.

It seemed to take hours to reach his partner in the cold dark of the cave, but finally, the blond hair caught the light of the flashlight beams Starsky and the others were carrying. In the time since Starsky left, the collapsed part of the cavern wall had crumbled further to be a softer incline.  Starsky sped up and slid down the incline to land next to Hutch, who was out cold. “Hutch? Hutch? Hey, partner, wake up, it’s me.”

Hutch’s face was cold and clammy to the touch, and he didn’t respond.  His pulse was racing; his breathing was shallow. The EMTs gently pushed Starsky aside and started working on Hutch.

“Is he okay?” Starsky asked, nervously backing away from the medics.

Ignoring the question, Kevin, one of the paramedics, looked up from shining a pen light in both of Hutch’s eyes and asked, “Did he slide down that incline, or fall?”

“He fell.  I think when the earthquake hit, the ground underneath him just broke away.”

Kevin looked up to the top of the ledge.  He turned back to his patient, checked his vital signs, and mumbled a few words to his partner, “BP 80 over 65, pulse 130….” They were putting a collar on Hutch and pulling out the backboard they had strapped into the stretcher.

“Watch out for his knee,” Starsky said, unnecessarily.  “When he fell, his leg was caught between some rocks.”

“We’ve got him,” Kevin said.  “Don’t worry.  Was he conscious?”

“He was out for a few minutes, but he was talking when I left him.  He said the room was spinning and he felt sick.”

When they rolled Hutch to put him on the backboard, Starsky was dismayed by the amount of blood on the ground under his head.  “Hey, you sure he’s all right?”

“What’s his name?” Kevin said, continuing to ignore Starsky’s questions.

“Ken Hutchinson.  Hutch,” Starsky answered.

Kevin turned back to his patient.  “Ken?  Can you hear me, Ken?  You need to wake up, now.  Open your eyes, Ken.”

Hutch was unresponsive.  The medics didn’t waste any time.  One of them immobilized the injured knee and they got him onto the stretcher.  While looking Hutch over for injuries, Kevin found his gun and passed it to Starsky, who shoved it into Hutch’s backpack.

“How long ago did this happen?” Kevin asked Starsky.

He remembered looking at his watch back in the cave right before Hutch fell, but couldn’t seem to recall the exact time.  “I’m not sure.  Three hours, maybe four, I don’t know.  Happened right with the earthquake.  Please, is he okay?”

Kevin faced Starsky and put a hand on his arm, his eyes compassionate.  “I’m sorry, but I can’t say.  I would like it better if he’d wake up for us, but the doc will have to tell you how he is.  Let’s just get him out of here.  Can you help us get him to the top?”

Starsky nodded.  Before he let go of Starsky’s arm, Kevin noticed the handkerchief bandage Timmy had applied and saw the red staining through it.  “Hey, what’s this?”

“It’s nothing to worry about.  Like you said, let’s get him out of here.”

Since the bleeding seemed to have stopped, Kevin accepted that.  The medics climbed back out of the hole they were in, taking the ropes with them.  They would pull up while Starsky guided the stretcher from the cavern floor.  They were ready to start hauling the stretcher up when the ground began to shudder.  Starsky dropped and covered his head while leaning across Hutch to shield him from the flying dust and tumbling rocks.  Fortunately, the aftershock didn’t do much additional damage to the cave and no one was injured.  As soon as the shaking stopped, the men moved quickly to help guide the stretcher out of the cavern.

By the time they reached the outside, Timmy had been taken to the hospital.  Carl left a message with the Search and Rescue commander that he’d meet Starsky there.  He had gone to speak with Timmy and to deal with the media storm.  Starsky was grateful for that.  The EMTs had called for air transport.  Hutch was still unconscious when they reached a nearby clearing and loaded him onto the helicopter.

“We’re flying him into town, to Memorial,” Kevin shouted to Starsky so he could hear over the sound of the chopper.

Starsky nodded and stood back, watching with a heavy heart as they took off into the cool night air.  He hitched a ride in a jeep back to the search starting point.  A worried Starsky started the Torino and pointed it back down the mountain.  Too far out of range for the police radio, Starsky stopped at a gas station several miles down the road and called Captain Dobey.  The dispatcher patched him through to the captain in his car.

“Starsky!  Congratulations on finding the boy.  I’m on the way over to Memorial.”

“That’s good, Cap.”  The worry in his voice told the captain that all was not well.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s Hutch.  He’s hurt.”

“What?  Why didn’t someone tell me?” the captain hollered into his mike.

“Everything happened pretty fast, Cap.  Look, he’s on his way to Memorial by Care Flight.  Keep an eye on things for me ‘til I can get there, okay?”

“Care Flight?  What happened?”

“We got caught in sort of a cave in when that earthquake hit.  He fell.  It doesn’t look too good, Cap.  He’s out cold.”

Captain Dobey was quiet for a few heartbeats.  Then, he thumbed the mike and said, “Try not to worry.  I’ll be there.  Take it easy on those mountain curves.  Don’t make me explain to him why you’re not there when he wakes up.”

Their boss knew him too well.  Starsky sighed and took a deep breath. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Safely,” Dobey chided.

“Aye, Captain,” Starsky said.  He hung up the phone and put his head on his outstretched arm for a moment.  Taking it easy would require concentration, but he knew the captain was right.

            ~*~*~*~

Carl Devlin had been through many cases where he, the victims, or their families were the objects of intense media speculation and attention.  He was an old hand at the art of deflection.  Together with the formidable presence of Metro Division’s captain of detectives, the media didn’t stand a chance.

The print and broadcast media teams were being held back behind a squad of uniformed officers.  Dobey had officers posted at every possible entrance to the hospital.  The frustrated media had no choice but to wait for someone to come out and talk to them.  When the ambulance with Timmy arrived, the photographers got some shots with their zoom lenses, but only of the boy’s back.  By the time the boy reached the hospital, his parents had been delivered to the emergency room by squad car.

“Mom!” Timmy cried when he saw his mother’s anxious face looking toward him.  “Dad!”

The boy’s parents rushed forward and the paramedics stopped their progress long enough for the family to have a short reunion.  The small group was soon ushered behind the double doors into the treatment area.

After the emergency room doctor was satisfied that Timmy wasn’t in any danger, he ordered X-rays of his ankle and left the boy alone with his parents.  He went out and told Captain Dobey and Carl that they could go back to speak with the boy while they waited for the X-rays.  Everyone knew how important it was to get information from this youngster if they hoped to catch the man responsible.

Before they could say anything in greeting, Martin Sanderson stood and said to Carl, “Is one of you the man who found my son?”

“No,” Carl answered, extending his hand to Mr. Sanderson.  “I’m FBI Special Agent Carl Devlin, and this is Captain Harold Dobey from the Bay City police department.”

Martin shook both of their hands and said, “Thank you both.  I want to meet the man who found him.”

“He’s one of my men, Mr. Sanderson, Detective Starsky.  He’s on his way here,” Captain Dobey said.  “How are you doing, Timmy?”

“I’m okay.  Um, I, uh….”

“What’s wrong, son?” Martin asked.

Timmy blushed and said, “I’m sorry, but, well, I didn’t believe he was really a cop at first.  Remember how you told me always to be careful with my Boy Scout knife, Dad?”

“Yes, did something happen?”

“I’m really sorry, but I kind of, well, I sorta stabbed him with it.”

“You what?” Martin Sanderson asked, his voice raised.  Timmy lowered his eyes and picked at his hospital gown as he mumbled that he was sorry again.

“Son,” Captain Dobey said, “it’s all right.  Did you hurt Detective Starsky?”

Timmy nodded.  “A little.  He showed me his badge and everything after that.  I’m really sorry, but he kinda looks like the guy who grabbed me. I was scared.”

The boy explained how Wagner had tricked him.  He looked at the picture Carl had and said, “Yeah, that looks like it could be him.  He’s older.”  His description of how he’d gotten loose and turned the tables on Wagner left all the adults impressed.

“Did you notice what color eyes he had?” Devlin asked.

“Blue, I think.  I dunno.  I hit him and he fell and I just ran and ran after that.  Turned my ankle and fell down.  Then, I found this cave and I crawled into it to hide.  When the earthquake came, the hole closed up and I didn’t know how I was gonna ever get outta there.  But Detective Starsky found me and dug me out and he carried me out to where the men with the dogs were looking for us.  That was scary, too.  They coulda shot him.  They thought he was the bad guy.”

As he finished describing how things had happened, the orderlies arrived to take him for his X-Rays.  The captain and Carl stepped back to allow them to pass.  Mr. Sanderson said, “Thank you, again.  Please let us know when this Detective Starsky gets here.  I want to thank him.”

“We will,” Dobey promised.

“Wait a second,” Timmy said.  He looked at Captain Dobey and said, “What happened to Detective Starsky’s partner?  He said he was hurt while they were looking for me.”

“I don’t know yet,” Dobey answered, “but don’t you worry about him.  He’ll be all right.”

After the boy and his family were gone, Dobey heard a flurry of activity as the elevator doors in the back of the emergency room opened and a crew pushed a gurney into the trauma room.  A brief glimpse of light blond hair caught his attention and he started in that direction to make sure the staff knew someone was there for Hutch.  After he explained the situation to one of the nurses, she promised to let him know about Hutch’s condition as soon as possible.

“Can you find out if he’s conscious for me?” Dobey asked.

“Wait here,” she replied and she disappeared into the trauma area.

When she returned, her expression was grim.  “I’m sorry, but your detective is still unconscious.  Dr. McIntire said to tell you he’d be out in a little while to speak with you.”

“Thank you.  I’ll be in the waiting room.”  Captain Dobey wearily ran a hand over his face and turned at the sound of Carl’s voice.

“Captain Dobey?  Is everything okay?” he asked.

“I don’t know yet.  Hutchinson is hurt and that nurse sure didn’t look like it was good news.”

Devlin knew that Starsky was on his way.  He and Captain Dobey went out to the waiting room.  They had no intention of speaking to the reporters until Starsky arrived and they had a better idea of what to say about Timmy’s condition.  Spotting Captain Dobey, Detective Babcock walked over to him to give report.

“Cap, we heard from the DMV. There are seven Steven Wagners licensed to drive in California.  Three of them are over fifty, one is a newly licensed teenager, one lives in Yuba City and we already reached him at his home, one is a Catholic Priest who lives in Bay City and vaguely resembles the guy we’re looking for and the last one is black.  At the time Timmy was grabbed, Father Wagner was giving a confirmation class, so he’s out as a suspect.  Besides, he only has one arm.”

The men stood and discussed what they would do next.  On the strength of Carl’s information and Timmy’s description, Dobey ordered an APB on Steven Wagner and noted that he was operating under an alias.

            ~*~*~*~

Starsky was grateful for the cover of darkness when he arrived at the hospital.  He parked his car in the garage and crept around the side of the hospital hoping to dodge the media.  As he approached the side entrance, he saw a uniformed officer guarding the door against a reporter and a cameraman hovering and waiting for information.  Terrific.  He and Hutch had been cornered by most of Bay City’s reporters, but he didn’t recognize this one.  He lowered his head and put his hand up against the bandage on his arm.  Doing his best to look like he was in a hurry to get in and be seen in the hospital, he stepped out of the shadows and headed for the door.

Officer Dan Brady saw Starsky approaching.  Despite the torn clothing and dirt-streaked face, he recognized Starsky immediately.  Doing his best not to let on, he made eye contact with Starsky.  The reporter turned and saw him coming, squinting at him in concentration, wondering if he was part of the investigation.  The cameraman looked ready, but she motioned him not to bother.  “He’s nobody,” she said in a disgusted tone.

Starsky took advantage of her lack of experience.  Brady stepped aside and held the door for him, blocking the reporter from following as Starsky said, “Thanks, Brady.”  The glass door closed behind him, leaving an angry reporter and an amused officer.

Brady picked up his radio and spoke into it.  “Brady to Captain Dobey.”

“Dobey, here,” came the reply.

Not wanting to say Starsky’s name in front of the reporter, he said, “You’ve got a worried partner headed your way.”

“Roger that,” Dobey answered.

Picking up steam, Starsky nearly ran right into Dobey as he crashed through the inner door to the emergency room.  Dobey was waiting for him.

“Whoa,” he said, grabbing Starsky by the shoulders to stop his progress.  “Come on over here and sit down.”

“Cap, how is he?” Starsky asked.

“I don’t know anything yet.  They have him in the trauma room and they’ll come out as soon as they can.  You look terrible, are you all right?”

“I’m fine, Cap, I’m just worried about Hutch.”  Starsky paused and said, “How’s Timmy?”

Devlin spoke up this time.  “He’s fine, thanks to you.  His dad wants to meet you.”

“I’m glad he’s okay, but Hutch…. ” Starsky shook his head and sat heavily in one of the chairs.  He had been racing around for hours and the stress was starting to take its toll on him.  Dobey and Devlin took a close look at him and saw that his hands were shaking and they noticed the handkerchief tied around his arm.

“Timmy did that to you?” Dobey asked as he pointed to the injury.

Starsky looked at it, realizing for the first time in the emergency room lights that his arm had dried blood on it and the handkerchief was soaked.  He saw how dirty he was and shook his head.   Looking up with a slight smile, he said, “Yeah.  Our wacko picked the wrong kid this time, thank God.  That little dude is a tiger.  Thought I was the killer and he skewered me.”

“Best get that looked at, Starsky,” Dobey said.

“No, it’s okay.  I’ll just go clean it up.”  He stood up to head for the men’s room, but at that moment, the treatment area doors opened and a doctor stood and looked around the room.  “For Detective Hutchinson?” he asked.

“Over here,” Starsky and Dobey said at the same time.

The doctor walked toward them and took an assessing look at Starsky.  He didn’t say anything about the detective’s appearance or his injury.

“I’m Dr. McIntire, I’m treating Detective Hutchinson.”

The introductions were made all around and the doctor proceeded to tell them what was happening with their friend.  “I’m afraid the news isn’t good at the moment.”  He turned toward Starsky and said, “You were with him when he fell?”

“Yes.”

“I suspect he may have fallen onto some rocks or something hard.  Is that right?”

“Yeah, we were in a cave.  He fell twelve feet or so, I think.  Hit his head and caught his leg between some big rocks.  He had on a backpack, too.  Might have landed on that.  Is he awake yet?” Starsky’s speech was rapid and his voice unsteady.

The doctor replied, “No, I’m sorry.  He has a concussion, but frankly, that’s not what I’m most worried about at the moment.  When he fell, he must have hit his back hard on the rocks, or maybe something in that backpack.  He’s in shock.  The fall did serious damage to one of his kidneys.  He’s been bleeding internally for hours and I’m afraid he may lose it.  I don’t know yet.”

“Oh, God,” Starsky said.  “I knew I shouldn’t have left him.”

Dobey said, “Dave, there wouldn’t have been anything you could have done.  You had to leave him to get help.”  He put a comforting hand on Starsky’s shoulder.

“Is he going to be okay?” Starsky asked.

“Too soon to say.  I’ve called in a kidney specialist.  We’ve been trying to replace his blood volume, but the bleeding is too severe.  He’s on his way up to surgery.  We’ll deal with that first, and we’re keeping an eye on the head injury.  Right now, his pupils are equal and reactive and that’s an excellent sign.”

“How long will it be before we know something, Doc?” Dobey asked.

“The surgery and recovery room time could take hours.  Go on up to the second floor, there’s a small patient conference room near the elevators.  Wait there and I’ll make sure you’re kept informed.”

“Thanks, Doc,” Starsky said.

Before he left, the doctor turned to Dobey and said, “If you’ll escort Detective Starsky into the treatment area, I’ll see that someone checks out that arm.”

“I don’t need it checked out, Doc.  I’m fine.”

“Nonsense,” the doctor said with a chuckle.  “A first year medical student could see that it needs stitches from across the room.  The amount of blood on that handkerchief makes it pretty obvious.  Besides, all that nice dirt you have covering you might just cause an infection.  Captain Dobey?”

Ignoring any further protests, the doctor and Captain Dobey led Starsky through the double doors to clean and stitch the knife wound.  The pocketknife had a left a gash that required a few stitches to seal.  The time spent treating the anxious detective kept him busy for the first hour of Hutch’s surgery.

“Do you want a painkiller, Detective?” the doctor asked when he was finished. He’d numbed Starsky’s arm before putting the stitches in, but they both knew it was going to hurt like hell when the Novocain wore off.

“No,” Starsky said, fidgeting while the nurse put a gauze bandage over the stitches and taped it in place. “I need my head clear.”

“Tylenol, at least?” the doctor offered.

“Only if it’s the straight stuff and not that codeine-laced crap,” Starsky said.

“I promise.” The doctor motioned to the nurse, and she finished with the bandage and left the room for the medication. The doctor watched as Starsky fidgeted even more, his eyes going to the clock three times in the 90 seconds it took the nurse to find the Tylenol and bring it back. When she’d given a dose to the detective, and a handful more to take as he needed to, and left the room, the doctor moved closer again. “David, try not to worry so much, will you? He’s in good hands.”

“It ain’t that I don’t trust you guys,” Starsky said, lifting his eyes to meet the doctor’s. “But he’s my partner.”

The surgery seemed to take forever. The Novocain had worn off and so had the Tylenol, but Starsky was reluctant even to take that for fear he wouldn’t have all his wits about him when Hutch came out of the surgery. When. Not “if.”

Finally, a doctor in scrubs approached, his eyes etched with lines of weariness. “We got the bleeding stopped,” he said. “We don’t think the head injury is of great concern, though we’ll continue to keep a close eye on him.”

“What about his kidney?” Dobey asked. Starsky couldn’t.

“I don’t know yet if he’ll lose it,” the doctor said. “The specialist got him stabilized and we’re giving him transfusions to replace the blood he lost. At this point -” He stopped and made a vague gesture with one hand. “We’re hopeful. We can’t say more with any certainty.”

It was a good while before they’d let Starsky go in to see Hutch, and when he did, he almost wished he hadn’t. Hutch was out cold and pale, with more bruises and cuts than Starsky had realized in the darkness and haste of getting him out of the cave. Someone had washed the blood out of his hair, but there was a large bandage – too large – covering the place where he’d hit his head. Starsky stood by the bed for a long time, one hand gently laid on Hutch’s arm, before going out.

He was seated dejectedly on a cold plastic chair when Trevor Kelly came in and saw him there.

“Hey,” Kelly said, sitting down and giving his arm a nudge. “I know it looks bad, but you know Hutch. He’ll pull through.”

Starsky sighed. “How d’you know that?”

“I know Hutch,” Kelly said. “And so do you. He’s tough. I’ve talked to his doctor and I talked to the kidney specialist. And when this is over, he’ll be able to give you a huge ration of shit about all the times you’ve teased him about jogging and health food. Those are the very things that will pull him through this. The specialist – Carson – has credentials from here to Harvard and back again. Knows his stuff thoroughly. And he told me Hutch was strong and healthy and has a really good chance.”

“That ain’t what they told me.”

“Doctors always play it close to the vest,” Kelly said. “We hate to be wrong.”

“What if they are wrong?”

“Think positive,” Kelly said. He looked up and his eyebrows rose. “Hey, look at what’s coming.”

Starsky looked up and saw Timmy swinging down the hallway on crutches, followed by a couple who had to be his parents. Timmy was beaming when he arrived next to Starsky, but a good look at Starsky’s expression and his own smile faded. “Whatsa matter?” he asked anxiously.

The man and woman stopped behind him.

“Hutch,” Starsky said, not bothering to try to soften it for the boy. Timmy was mature for his age. “He’s in a bad way, skipper.”

“Aw, man, I hate that,” Timmy said. “How bad? He’s… he’s not gonna die, is he?”

“Timmy,” the woman said reprovingly.

“I hope not,” Starsky said, looking up at Timmy. “I sure as hell hope not.” He forced his mind away from Hutch for a moment to take in Timmy’s parents. “I’m Dave Starsky,” he said to them, then indicated Kelly. “A friend of mine, Dr. Kelly.”

Martin Sanderson introduced himself and his wife, June. “We were afraid we’d missed you,” he said. “We wanted to thank you for saving our boy.”

Starsky managed a grin. “I didn’t do that much. He saved himself, really. I just hauled him outta the cave.”

“That’s a lot,” June said gratefully. “I know you policemen can’t take rewards or anything, but could you come over for dinner some night? You and your partner, when he’s well?”

Starsky gave a genuine smile this time, thankful for the word “when.” She smiled back at him. “I think maybe the captain would okay that,” he said.

“Terrific!” Timmy said. “My little brother’s dyin’ to meet you.  I called him and told him about you.  He was worried.”

Martin pulled a business card of out of a slim case and scribbled on the back of it. “There’s our number,” he said, handing it to Starsky. “Call us when -” He paused uncertainly.

“Hutch,” Timmy supplied, guessing his dad didn’t know the name.

“Hutch,” Martin said, “when Hutch is well enough to come for dinner. We really would love to have you.”

“I will,” Starsky said.

“And tell him I said thanks, okay?” Timmy said. “Nice to meet you, sir,” he added to Kelly, who smiled in return.

“I will, as soon as he wakes up,” Starsky said.

Timmy balanced on one crutch and held out his hand. Starsky shook it, ruffled the kid’s curls a bit with his free hand, and watched them head back down the hallway.

The reporters were still hanging around outside when Starsky left the hospital, accompanied by Dobey and Kelly and a uniformed officer whose job it was to fend off the reporters. It was getting close to time for the late news, and they weren’t going to give up without getting a story of some kind.

The reporter he’d passed earlier, who hadn’t recognized him, looked sick to her stomach when a reporter who did recognize him called out, “Detective Starsky! How’s your partner doing? Give us a statement!”

Starsky growled something obscene under his breath and the uniformed officer tried to shield him from the cameras with his body. But the woman from earlier, determined to rectify her mistake, dove between Kelly and the officer somehow and stuffed her microphone into Starsky’s face. “What kind of injuries did your partner sustain, Detective?”

Dobey caught the murderous look in Starsky’s eye, even if she didn’t, and he swiftly stepped between them. “Detective Starsky won’t be giving any statements this evening,” he told her in a tone even the most determined reporter would understand. “The public relations officer at headquarters will give the media a statement tomorrow. Please excuse us.” That last was an order in no uncertain terms, and she finally fell back, though the cameraman, and the other three, kept their cameras trained on the group as they moved away to the parking lot.

As they walked away, she gave a shrug and faced the cameraman. He dutifully pointed the camera at her. “Detective Starsky declined to answer questions,” she said in a level tone that belied her seething frustration. “All we know at this time is that Detective Kenneth Hutchinson is hospitalized and has undergone surgery. The kidnapped boy, Timothy Sanderson, suffered a broken ankle and is resting comfortably at home. This is Martha Reid for News10.”

Dobey insisted that Starsky come into work the next day, after promising he could duck out and go see Hutch for a while when visiting hours started. “I need you on this,” he told him when Starsky protested. “You and Hutch were the ones who’ve brought it this far. We’ve got to catch this guy before he snatches another kid.”

“I know, I know,” Starsky grumbled, but he was as anxious to catch the guy as anyone, and he went in.

Carl showed up a few minutes before ten, with a thick file folder under his arm. “I’m glad I caught you,” he said, sitting down in Hutch’s chair and putting the file down between them. “This took a while to pull together, but I want you to look at it.” He opened the folder and pulled out the enlargement of Wagner’s high school yearbook photo. “This may help,” he said, “simply because it’s a photo and not a drawing, but the problem is, he’s too young. He could’ve grown a beard, dyed his hair, damned near anything in all this time.” He pulled out another picture, this one a drawing showing the same man, aged to his late 20s or early 30s. “Thanks to your Eagle Scout, this probably looks a hell of a lot closer to the way he looks now.”

“He’s an Eagle Scout?” Starsky asked, stunned. “He can’t be more than twelve.”

“He’s fourteen,” Carl said, “and yes, he’s an Eagle Scout. Didn’t you see the emblem on his uniform?”

Starsky shook his head.

“Damned impressive accomplishment, even at fourteen,” Carl said. “I didn’t make it till I was seventeen.”

“You were an Eagle Scout?” Starsky was even more stunned.

Carl grinned. “Not ‘was,’ bucko. ‘Am.’ Once an Eagle Scout, always an Eagle Scout. Sort of like the Masons. If you try to leave, they have to kill you.”

“Now you’re shittin’ me.” Starsky grinned.

“A little,” Carl said. “But I made you laugh. Sort of. Can we get back to our perp, now? Look at that drawing. What do you think?”

Starsky took the drawing and examined it. The artist had done a good job. “Not bad at all,” he said. “Now what?”

“Now we release it to the media,” Carl said. “I’ve already given it to the local TV stations and two of the three newspapers, along with Timmy’s description of the man’s speech patterns and clothing. We’ve got a hotline set up at the FBI field office and it’ll be staffed 24 hours a day until we catch the guy. We’re offering a reward, so we’re bound to get some crackpots, too. Dobey’s been in touch with the chief and we’ve got a few extra warm bodies to help us track down leads.”

“You’ve been busy,” Starsky commented.

“I’m in a hurry,” Carl said. “The creep failed this time. He’s gonna do one of two things now.”

When he didn’t elaborate, Starsky said, “And what might those be?”

“Strike again right away, since he didn’t get his fix this time, or freak out.”

“And if he freaks out?”

“God knows,” Carl said. “He might not be as careful grabbing the next kid. Might off himself. Might do almost anything. He’s like a cornered rat now. We’ve got a live witness and he’s been made.”

“What if he -”

“Timmy, his brother Jeff, and their parents have taken a nice vacation to Grandma’s for a couple of weeks,” Carl said reassuringly. “Grandma lives in Oregon and we have agents keeping an eye on the whole clan. We’ll catch him before we let your Eagle Scout come back.”

Starsky gave a sigh of relief. “Good. I’d hate for something to happen to the poor kid now, after what he’s already been through.”

“It won’t. He’s in good hands. Now, you and I are going to be in charge of looking into leads, but as I said, we’re going to need some other warm bodies to help. I expect to get a lot of calls and most of them will be lunatics.”

Starsky nodded. He was used to that, too. Whenever a high-profile crime was committed, the crazies seemed to come out of the woodwork, accusing their boss, their neighbor, the milkman, and themselves in an effort to grab some headlines. He’d never understood that and he never would.

“I want you to choose the other warm bodies,” Carl said. “You know your fellow officers. Who’s good at spotting nut cases?”

“Burns,” Starsky said, frowning. “He’s partnered with Planka. They’re both gettin’ close to retirement, so they’ve seen everything. Dodson and MacMullan. MacMullan has a degree in psychology, why he became a cop in anybody’s guess…um, Henderson and Bray. Bray used to be in New York before he moved out here and that city’s got more nut cases than this whole state does.”

Carl chuckled. “Okay. If you say so. Obviously, you haven’t lived in Washington, D.C.”  He wrote the names down and put the list in the file with the photo and sketch. “You run off and see Hutch, and I’ll get a copy of this sketch to that weekly paper that appeals to the fringe element.”

“Don’t forget the university,” Starsky said, rising and reaching for his jacket. “They’ve got a weekly paper, too.”

“Good idea,” Carl said.

            ~*~*~*~

Steve Wagner stood in front of his trophies but couldn’t find any joy in admiring them tonight. He’d failed. For the first time, he’d failed.

And he didn’t even know what had gone wrong. He’d done everything right. The boy was so perfect in his Boy Scout uniform, out in the woods, where he had no business being. Why, anything could have happened to a boy out in the woods. He’d only wanted to protect him, care for him, like he had the others.   He had been so careful with his choice.  Following the boy without detection.  Planning how to lure him away and making contingency plans like he always did.

But this boy had not only rejected him, he had hurt him. And he’d gotten away.

Now what? Since this boy obviously didn’t understand, he might tell someone. Someone who also wouldn’t understand. That could lead to complications. Wagner hated complications. They interfered with his plans.

Wagner saw Starsky on the late news the night Timmy was rescued.  He was fascinated by the image on the screen.  Starsky didn’t look that much like him, but he bore a resemblance.  He had the same dark curls and blue eyes.  His build was similar.  In fact, his similarity to Wagner was less remarkable than the fact that he looked like a grown up version of his typical victim.  “Too bad I didn’t know you as a child,” he quietly said to the television.  “I could have saved you, too.”

For three days, he hadn’t left his home, hadn’t slept more than a couple of hours at a time, had hardly eaten. He’d called work to tell them he had a flu bug. He didn’t want to lose his job, not now, not when he’d failed. Not till he’d decided what to do.

With a sigh, he closed the bookcase over his trophies and sank down on his couch. The TV was on, as it usually was, but the sound was turned off. He stared unseeingly at the screen until the sight of his own face on that screen made his heart leap into his throat. He groped for the volume knob.

“Police say Wagner is possibly living under an assumed name and most likely has a job where he works with boys or children,” the announcer said. “If anyone has seen this man or has any information on him, please call the number on your screen. The FBI is offering a reward of $1,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Steven Wagner. And what’s tomorrow’s weather look like, Joe?”

Wagner snapped off the television and sat staring at the dark screen, stunned and suddenly terrified. But he only sat there a couple of minutes before he snapped it back on and tried the other stations.

“Police have named Steven Wagner a prime suspect in the case of the Boy Scout Killer,” said the anchorman on the third station he switched to. A copy of the sketch was displayed behind the man. “Bay City’s police force has called in an FBI profiler who says Wagner is probably working with or near children. They describe him as very dangerous and possibly suicidal and warn that no one should approach or attempt to apprehend him. Call the Bay City Police or the number on your screen if you have any information on this man….”

Dangerous? Suicidal? Wagner’s terror gave way to anger and hurt pride. They didn’t understand. People never understood. He reached for the phone, thought better of that, and got his jacket instead. He’d go down to the nearest 7-Eleven and use the pay phone.

            ~*~*~*~

Starsky and Carl were out following their latest false lead. This one turned out to be a lonely, mentally unstable shut-in with thirty-six cats.  His neighbor, a nosey elderly woman in her eighties, was convinced that he was so strange he must be the killer.  The poor man had such a bad case of agoraphobia he hadn’t been out of his home farther than the mailbox at the end of his porch in over a year.

“Ma’am,” Carl said, “the thing about agoraphobics is that they are afraid to leave their homes.  While we appreciate your tip, we can assure you that Mr. Arnold is not the man.”

“He’s up to something over there.  Maybe he goes out at night.  And what’s he doing with all of those cats, hm?  It’s just not natural,” Margaret Shea declared as she lovingly stroked the fluffy white dog in her arms.  “Cats just aren’t the same as dogs you know.  Dogs are practically people, aren’t they, precious?” she asked, touching her nose to the tiny fur ball’s head.  Mrs. Shea had seven small, white dogs running around the house.  They zipped in and out of the dog door in the kitchen at a constant and dizzying pace.

Both men were having trouble maintaining their composure.  Starsky patted her on the arm and said, “Try not to worry, ma’am.  He’s all right… even if he is a cat lover.”

The two weary men thanked the informant and left her living room with a bag of homemade tollhouse cookies and two barely concealed grins.  Since Mrs. Shea was watching them from her front bay window, they were both glad they made it to the car before they exploded in laughter.  “What the hell kind of dogs were those?” Starsky asked.  “Looked like a cotton ball with eyes.”

Devlin wiped the tears from the corners of his eyes and said, “Bichon Frise, I think.  My grandmother had one.”  He wrote up his notes from the contact while Starsky pulled out into traffic and turned the Torino toward the precinct.

As soon as they’d published the tip hotline number, the dedicated phone lines at the FBI field office began buzzing.  As Carl and Starsky anticipated, many of the calls were cranks and all of the tips went nowhere.  At least this last one was entertaining.  Since Timmy’s kidnapping and safe return, the Boy Scouts had declared that all camping trips and jamborees in the western states were cancelled.  Other youth oriented activity providers were also putting their functions on hold.  The Boys Clubs were closed, after school programs at the YMCA, too.  Especially in Bay City, the citizenry was terrified and keeping a nervous watch over its children.   David Starsky was keeping a nervous watch over his best friend.

While the search for Steve Wagner heated up all over the area, Hutch still lay unconscious in the hospital.  Torn between his wish to remain close to his partner and his need to help catch Wagner, Starsky was doing his best to keep up with both.  He was tired and his nerves were jangled.  Hutch had been hurt or sick before, but Starsky had been able to stay with him more.  Except for the time Hutch was sick with a killer plague, and even then Starsky was out trying to find the man who could cure him.  He had something to do that felt like he was helping his partner.  This time, although his work on the case was critical, he didn’t feel connected to what was happening at the hospital.  He would feel better when Hutch woke up, but for now, he was hanging on and doing his job.

“Zebra Three from Control,” the dispatcher’s voice called.

Devlin picked up the mike and said, “This is Zebra Three, Agent Devlin speaking, go ahead.”

“Patch through from the FBI field office.”

“Put it through.”

A female voice came through the radio.  “This is Agent Markowitz.”

“Agent Devlin here, go ahead.”

“I have a hot one for you. Can you stop by and pick up the tape?”

Devlin looked over at Starsky, who nodded his agreement as he signaled and moved to the left to change direction and head for the field office.  “Roger that. On our way.”

When they reached the field office, they were taken to the task force command center.  Someone had made a hand-written sign that read “Wagner War Room” and they had tacked it to the bulletin board at the end of the room. The board had pictures of each of the known victims, both in life and at their murder scenes.  Starsky took a moment to look over the board.  He’d seen all of the pictures in the files already, but seeing them up together, with the map full of pins marking the crime scene locations, was chilling.  The tip log was staggering.  He had to believe that something would turn soon.

Angela Markowitz invited the two men to sit and she pulled up a chair and held up a cassette tape for them to see.  “This came in thirty minutes ago,” she said.  “I took the call.”

The tape whirred in the machine and the call started to play.  “Tip line, may I help you?”

Silence for several seconds.

“Tip line, may I help you?” Markowitz’s voice repeated.

After several more seconds, a voice said, “You’re wrong.”

The hairs on the back of Carl Devlin’s neck stood on end.  He turned a little white and looked up at Starsky. “That’s him,” he whispered.

Starsky looked at him and raised an eyebrow.  He agreed that there was something indescribably creepy about the voice that spoke those two words, but he was intrigued to see the sure look on Devlin’s face.

“Pardon me, sir?”

“I said you’re wrong.  You’re all wrong.  I’m not suicidal.”

Markowitz’ voice remained calm, but something about it was different.  “Sir, this is the tip hotline.  Do you have some information for us?”

“I save them.  My work is important.”  Suddenly, the voice went from tense to furious.  “I want to talk to the agent in charge NOW!”

“He’s not here right now, sir.  May I help you with something?”

“WHERE CAN I FIND HIM?”

Markowitz gave him the phone number at Metro and promised him she’d get a message to the agent in charge.  “Tell him to be there in two hours.  He needs to be set straight.”  The line went dead.

Markowitz reached over, turned the machine off, popped the tape out and handed it to Carl. “It’s him, isn’t it?” she asked.

“Yes, I believe so.  Thanks, Agent.  Good call.”

“Catch him,” she said.  “We tried to trace, of course.  Too short.”

This was the first valuable information they’d received from the tip line.   Starsky was curious as to why Devlin thought it was the killer.  “Experience.  Psychic flash.  I’m not sure.  I just… knew.”

“But how do you do that?” Starsky asked.

“I don’t really know.  I just get these hunches.  Don’t you get hunches or gut feelings?”

“Sure, but you just seem so… certain.”

Devlin shrugged.  “I know it’s weird.  I wish I could explain it, but I can’t.  As I’ve worked more and more cases, it’s gotten stronger.”

Within another forty-five minutes, they were back at Metro and set up in Captain Dobey’s office to both trace and record Wagner’s call.  Devlin would speak with him and do his best to keep him on the line long enough.  “This was more than I hoped for,” he said.  “Sometimes the killer becomes angry if he is described to the public in a way he doesn’t like.  He’s angry with us and he wants to be sure we know why he’s killing.  He’ll expect us to tell the media… correct whatever it is that we’ve said that set him off enough to prompt the call.”

“Bet he’ll be right on time,” Starsky said.  “This kind of guy is usually meticulous.  Hutch would say ‘anal’,” he added with a chuckle.

“Hutch would be right,” Devlin agreed.

Captain Dobey said, “He’s going to be all right, Starsky.”

Starsky nodded and looked at his watch for the twentieth time in the past ten minutes.  As much as he wanted to be there for this call, he needed to get back to the hospital.  He had seen Hutch and spoken with his doctor in the morning before he went to work.  That was hours ago.  Huggy was at the hospital keeping an eye on things for him.

Knowing what must be bothering Starsky, Dobey said, “Huggy hasn’t called.  He’ll call if anything happens.”

Being away from Hutch was taking a toll on Starsky.  Knowing Huggy was there helped, but he had a bad feeling, and nothing was going to make him feel better until he could go make sure that Hutch was all right.  He’d planned to call when they got back to the station, but there wasn’t any time.  Trying to reassure himself, he said, “Yeah, I know, Cap.  I just don’t feel right.  Like something might be wrong, but I can’t put my finger on it.  I know Huggy’ll call.”

“Let’s see where we are after this call, Starsky.  Maybe you can get over there for a while.”

“Thanks, Cap.”

            ~*~*~*~

Huggy hadn’t noticed the changes in Hutch at first.  They were subtle.  But, over the past hour, something was different. When the nurse came in to check him, Huggy asked her about it.

“He don’t look so good.  Like, something’s different, but I don’t know what.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, not even looking up from the chart as she recorded.

“Well, he looks pretty white, even for him, and he’s got a fever.”

“He’s all right.  Try not to worry,” she said dismissively and she left the room.

“Try not to worry,” Huggy muttered sarcastically.  He looked at Hutch and said, “Hey, Blondie, why don’t you wake up for Huggy, huh?”

He continued to watch and within another half hour, Hutch’s pallor was worse.  Then, he started to sweat and the beeping from the heart monitor was increasing to an alarming pace.  He was obviously having trouble breathing and Huggy was pushing the call button when Hutch started into a seizure.  The call button wasn’t necessary. The nurses were already on their way, having seen the changes on their monitors, and they were in the room by the time the monitor alarms were squealing.  One of them pushed Huggy out of the room and he stood in the hall, anxiously watching through the window while the staff worked on Hutch.  When the doctor arrived and started calling out orders, Huggy decided he’d better call Starsky.  Now.

            ~*~*~*~

Starsky was right.  The phone rang at exactly the two-hour mark.  Devlin paused for two rings, took a deep breath and punched the line button, putting the caller on speaker.  “Agent Carl Devlin,” he said in a steady voice.

“Are you a moron?” the same voice from the tape asked.

“Who am I speaking with?”

“I asked you a question.  Are you a moron?”

Devlin looked at Dobey and Starsky, who both shrugged and leaned forward in their chairs.  “No, I’m not a moron,” he answered calmly.  “This is Agent Devlin.  Now you know my name, what’s yours?”

“Not important.  Wanna know what’s important?”

“What’s that?”

“I save them.  Because of me, they can’t be hurt anymore.  They can’t lose what I lost.”

They heard a barely perceptible knock on the door just before it opened.  One of the office secretaries stuck her head in and motioned for Starsky to come out for a moment.  He left the room as the conversation continued.

“What did you lose?” Devlin asked him.

Wagner offered a broad answer to his question.  “Everything.  Only everything.  Tell them the truth about me.  I’m not dangerous.  I’m not suicidal.”

Devlin tried to reason with him. “Does it make the pain go away for a while, Steven?”

Instant anger.  “DON’T call me that name!  Steve Wagner is dead!”

Dobey’s eyes lit up and he made a stretch-it-out motion with his hands as he nervously looked at his watch’s second hand.

“What happened to Steve?  Did you kill him?”

“I DIDN’T KILL HIM!  Just tell them I’m not suicidal, dammit!  I’m not crazy!”

“No one said you’re crazy.  If you don’t want me to call you by that name, what can I call you?”

“Nice try, Devlin.  You’d love it if I’d tell you that.   It’s all wrong, you know.  Everything.  The last one.  He wasn’t pure.  Did you know that?  He wasn’t worthy.  I’ll find another.  I’ll find another and another, but you TELL THEM I’M NOT CRAZY!”

The phone went dead before Devlin had a chance to respond.  Dobey looked at his watch and said, “I don’t know, maybe.”  The phone rang and he picked up the receiver. “Dobey.”  He listened and said, “Thanks, that’s better than we had a few minutes ago.”

“They have a partial trace.”  Dobey walked over to the map on his wall and pointed.  “The call came from here.  That’s a big area, but at least it’s something.”

“Could have been a phone booth.  City area, too.  Not where he takes the kids.  Still…. ”

“Starsky!” Dobey yelled.  He opened the door and looked out to the squad room.  The room was empty, no Starsky.  He noticed a pink piece of paper on the floor near Starsky’s desk.  The captain walked over to retrieve it, realizing immediately that the paper was from one of those “While You Were Out” message pads.  The sheet had Starsky’s name on it and the short message sent a chill down the captain’s back.  “Huggy called.  He said get here.”

“Damn,” Dobey said, turning around to go retrieve his jacket.

            ~*~*~*~

Devlin was right behind Dobey as they hurried up to the ICU floor.  When they stepped off the elevator, what they saw caused a cold sense of dread to hit them both.  Starsky sat in a chair with his head in his hands.  Huggy was standing next to him, his hand on Starsky’s back, speaking quietly to him.

“No,” Dobey said softly.

Huggy looked up at the approaching men, and Dobey saw concern on his face, but no grief. Huggy shot a look at him and realized how this must appear.  “Hutch is okay,” he said.

“Thank God.”

Starsky looked up at Dobey.  His face was relieved but his hands were shaking.  “Uh… we had a close call, Cap.  ‘S all right now.”

“What happened?” Dobey asked.

Starsky answered, “The doc hasn’t come out yet, but the nurse said he’d be okay.  Said something about a blood clot.”

Starsky didn’t say that when the nurse came out and told him, he got light headed and Huggy had pushed him down into the chair.  He knew that blood clots could kill and he was scared.

The doctor stepped out of Hutch’s room and went to talk to the group of men waiting.

“How is he, Doc?” Starsky asked.

“He’s going to be all right.  Mr. Hutchinson had a pulmonary embolism.  The condition can be fatal, but we’re treating him aggressively with a blood thinner and thrombolytic medication.”

Dobey asked, “Are you sure he’ll be all right?”

“He should be fine.”

“Should be?” Starsky asked, anger evident in his voice.  “How the hell did this happen?”

“Starsky,” Dobey started to say, but the doctor put a hand up and interrupted.

“No, it’s all right.  These things happen, unfortunately.  No one is at fault.  He suffered a trauma to an internal organ and subsequent surgery.  Sometimes, these embolisms happen and the clot travels to the lungs.  Unfortunately, they are notoriously difficult to diagnose before they cause a problem.  We’re lucky it stopped in his lungs.  I assure you we’re doing everything we can medically.  He’s running a fever, also.  I’m not certain if that is related, or possibly a secondary infection.  I’ve ordered some cultures and tests to get to the bottom of all of this.  We’re monitoring him closely.”

Starsky nodded and mumbled an apology.  He was feeling better and he got permission to go sit with Hutch.  The doctor left and Starsky went into Hutch’s room and left the other men behind him.

“Is Starsky okay?” Devlin asked.

Huggy nodded.  “Yeah, he’ll be all right.  I hope Blondie wakes up soon.  That’ll help.”

Starsky took a seat in the chair the nurses had left for him next to Hutch’s bed.   His best friend was so still.  He reached out and took one of Hutch’s hands.  “Hey, Blintz.  I think you’ve had a long enough nap, don’t you?” he asked, trying to sound cheerful.   “You scared me, babe.  Don’t do that again, huh?  Doc says you’re gonna be okay, though.  You rest.  I’m right here.”

While Starsky sat with Hutch, Captain Dobey and Carl made some calls.  Dobey needed to let his wife know Hutch’s condition, and to speak with the Sandersons to update them on the investigation.  They were relieved to hear that tips were coming in and Devlin was positive they were close.  Carl called one of the local television stations and asked for an interview.  They happily agreed to come to the hospital in time for the evening news.  Devlin wanted to make another public plea for tips on Wagner.  He joined Huggy when he was done and they sat talking quietly.

Half an hour before the scheduled interview, Dobey was walking back onto the floor with four cups of coffee when he saw a nurse hustling her way into where Hutch lay.  He didn’t see a crash team or hear any monitors going off, so he walked toward the room and looked in through the glass.

The nurse was checking Hutch’s vitals, and making notes in his chart. She turned and smiled at her patient, patting him on the arm and saying something so quiet Dobey couldn’t hear her.   When she moved away from the bedside, Starsky looked up at him from the other side of the bed, smiling and jerking his head toward Hutch, whose eyes were open for the first time in days.  Dobey nodded at Starsky and walked back out to the waiting area to share the good news with Huggy and Devlin.

“Hey, buddy,” Starsky said, scooting even closer and reaching up to touch Hutch on the cheek.  “Welcome back.”

Hutch gave his best friend a small smile.  He might as well have gotten up and danced a jig for the smile he was rewarded with in return.  “How long?” he asked.

“Too long.”  Starsky sighed.  “A few days, Blintz.  Everything’s gonna be okay, now.”

Hutch had no memory of much after Starsky left him in the cave.  He said he’d started to feel like he was going to pass out and then a searing pain hit him in his back and he was gone.  That was the last thing he remembered until he just opened his eyes.  He was glad that Timmy was okay and he felt bad that he’d missed so much of the investigation.  Starsky had to laugh at that.

“Blintz, you’re too much.  I’ve been scared to death you were never gonna open your eyes again.  You think that matters?”

“Tell me what I’ve missed, Starsk,” Hutch asked.

“Well, we’re getting closer,” Starsky said as he poured a cup of water for Hutch and put a straw in the cup.  He held it close to Hutch so he could take a sip.  “Not too much, buddy.  The nurse said you could have a little when you woke up, but don’t overdo it and get me thrown outta here.”  When he was finished, Starsky returned the cup to the table and sat back down, reclaiming Hutch’s hand.  Hutch could feel how frightened Starsky had been. “Devlin knows who the guy is.  He’s not living under his real name, though,” Starsky continued.  “We talked to him.  We’ll have to ask Cap what he said.  I got the message to come down here and I split.”

“What?” Hutch asked.  He also had no memory of the medical crisis he’d endured just a few hours earlier.

Starsky squeezed Hutch’s hand and said, “Huggy called in a message.  You were in real trouble, buddy.  The doc said you had a pulmonary embolism, but that it was gonna be okay.”

“Damn,” Hutch said.  “I slept through all of that?  I’m sorry, Gordo.  Didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Just see that it never happens again and I’ll forgive you.”

            ~*~*~*~

“Although no viable suspect has been identified yet, the FBI tip hotline has received some valuable information,” the news anchor said.  The screen changed to outside the steps of Memorial Hospital.  The man on camera was identified as “FBI Special Agent Carl Devlin.”

“We’re getting closer every day,” he said to the camera.

The camera angle switched to show a male reporter.  “What should the public do?”

Back to Devlin.  “Just what they’ve been doing.  Remain cautious.  Call us if they have any information.”  He looked intently at the camera and continued, holding up a picture of Steve Wagner for the camera to zoom on as he spoke.  “If anyone has any information on this man, please call the tip hotline at 555-5264.”

Robert Laine found himself writing down the phone number before he realized what he was doing. For the past few days, since the story broke and the FBI agent first advertised that phone number, Robert was troubled.  He didn’t want to be one of those wacky people who called and reported useless information.  He had no real reason to suspect that Sid Waters was the man the authorities were seeking.  Yes, the fact that his initials were S.W., just like Steve Wagner was a coincidence. That didn’t make the man a serial killer.  Still… Sid was an odd man.  After making what could be the hardest decision in his life, Robert dialed the tip hotline and asked to have Agent Carl Devlin call him.

            ~*~*~*~

When the newscast was over, Carl came back to Hutch’s room. “Maybe that’ll throw a scare into him and he’ll make a mistake,” he said, then made a face at Hutch’s food tray. “What the hell is that?”

“I don’t know,” Hutch said gloomily, poking at it with a spoon and finally giving up with a sigh and leaning back. “They said I couldn’t have solid food. Apparently, I can’t have edible food, either.”

Carl chuckled, and Starsky said, “I’ll get Huggy to whip you up a banana shake. How’s that sound?”

“Terrific,” Hutch said gratefully. “Would you crank the bed back down some, Starsk?”

Starsky obliged. The phone rang just as he finished adjusting it to Hutch’s specifications and he handed it to Carl with an expectant look.

“Yes?” Carl listened, nodded a couple of times, then made a notation in his notebook. “Thanks, Brad. I’ll get right on it.” He hung up. “We may have a hot one,” he said. “A man named Laine called and said he has something for us.”

“What makes you think he’s not just another crank?” Hutch asked. Starsky had caught him up on the many false leads they’d followed up on.

“A feeling,” Carl said. “Brad said the guy was hesitant and uneasy about making the call and made several references to how he wasn’t sure this wouldn’t be a wild-goose chase.”

“So how is that a good thing?” Starsky asked, his eyebrows bunched together in puzzlement.

“Cranks are always dead sure they’ve got the right guy,” Carl said. “People who are telling on a neighbor or ex-lover for meanness are always dead sure. It’s when somebody feels silly about calling us that my antennas go up.” Carl lifted the receiver again and dialed the man’s number. “This is Agent Carl Devlin of the FBI,” he said. “Is this Mr. Laine?”

“Yes,” Laine said. “I hope I’m not wasting your time.”

“Tell me why you called,” Carl said, injecting a brisk, but cordial note into his voice. He’d found that put the uneasy ones’ fears at rest.

“This guy I work with,” Laine said. “He looks a lot like that photo you had on the news, and -” He hesitated.

“And?” Carl prompted.

Laine sighed. “God, if I’m wrong and you arrest him….”

“We don’t make an arrest if we don’t have proof,” Carl said. “And what?”

“He’s odd. Strange. He almost never talks to most of us, but he spends a lot of time with the kids, the boys especially. And not just the boys, but the preteen boys who are 9 or 10 and up to about 12 or 13. Too much time, y’know?”

“Who is ‘us’?”

“The staff at the Y,” Laine said. “I coach swimming and Sid – that’s the guy I was talking about – he cleans up the place. He’s the janitor. Collects the towels for the laundry service, mops up, you know. He doesn’t really have a reason for talking to the kids, other than just saying hi or something, but he sure is interested in the boys. It’s a little weird, makes me feel funny watching him. I think it makes the kids feel weird, too. At first, they liked him a lot and wanted to hang around with him, but now they -”

“They what?” Carl was used to having to drag information out of people in these cases. Nice, normal folks hated to get someone in trouble.

“They kind of avoid him,” Laine said. “Edge away from him, like kids do when they’re afraid of somebody. It’s hard to explain, exactly.”

“How long has Sid been working there?”

Laine hesitated as if adding it up in his head. “A couple of months, maybe.”

“Do you have an address for him?”

“No. The office would.”

“Okay. And what’s his last name?”

“Waters,” Laine said. “Look, does he have to know I’m the one who called?”

“No, not at all,” Carl said. “Has he been absent at any time recently without a good excuse?”

“He’s been sick with the flu the last few days,” Laine said. “Is that important?”

“Could be,” Carl said noncommittally. “Thanks for calling, Mr. Laine. We’ll look into it.”

“I just hope I’m wrong,” Laine said.

After Carl hung up and reported the conversation to Starsky and Hutch, he said, “I got a feeling, boys. This is our man. Too late to get anybody in at the Y office tonight, but that gives me time to wrangle a search warrant for the guy’s house.”

“A warrant? Based on what?” Starsky knew from experience that judges didn’t hand over search warrants based on a “feeling.”

“Let me worry about that,” Carl said. “Starsk, you call Huggy and have him get that banana shake ready. I’ll go get the warrant and bring the shake back with me when I come. See ya in a couple of hours.” He reached for his jacket and left the room.

Starsky and Hutch looked at each other. “Maybe we’re in the wrong branch,” Starsky suggested with a grin.

“Maybe we are,” Hutch said. “FBI seems to have a lot more pull.”

Carl returned in a little less than two hours, carrying a sack containing the banana shake and some yogurt for Hutch, who accepted it gratefully and began eating. While he was doing that, Carl produced the warrant and handed it to Starsky.

“I don’t believe it,” Starsky said, stunned, reading it over. “How’d you do that? Judge Matthews ain’t exactly the most cooperative judge in the county.”

“I had my superior officer call him,” Carl said, grinning. “High profile case, a little federal pressure, and suddenly he became cooperative.”

“Hey, you got the guy’s address, too. How’d you do THAT? I thought the office was closed.” Starsky narrowed his eyes at Carl suspiciously, but with a twinkle in them.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Try me.”

Carl shrugged. “The phone book.”

Starsky laughed so hard he had to sit down and wipe his eyes. “You’re pullin’ my leg.”

“No, I’m not, really. I called Laine back and got his boss’ name and called him and he told me what street Waters lives on and I looked in the phone book and there he was.” Carl grinned. “So, what are we waitin’ for? Let’s go.”

“I want to go, too,” Hutch said.

“Huh-uh,” Starsky said sternly. “No way in hell. You and your blond ass are staying in that bed. You can do the paperwork as your share.”

“Gee,” Hutch said with exaggerated gratitude, “thanks.”

Starsky grinned. “You’re welcome.”

Carl had a team waiting to back them up, four agents armed and with radios. He and Starsky led the way in a nondescript FBI vehicle that wouldn’t stand out, and Starsky drove to the residential neighborhood where Wagner/Waters lived. The homes weren’t very close together, and Carl directed Starsky to park down the block from the house. Concealed in the shadows of the tall, old trees on the lawns, Carl gave directions to the other agents.

“Starsky and I will go to the door,” he said. “The rest of you secure the perimeter in case he bolts. But don’t shoot to kill unless you have no other choice. We want him alive.”

The agents, whom Carl had not introduced to Starsky, nodded and eased away into the darkness. Carl and Starsky moved toward the door.

The house was dark and silent, though they could see the television flickering through the curtains. Starsky pounded on the door and yelled, “Police! Open up! We have a warrant!”

There was no response. Starsky waited a couple of heartbeats and repeated the process with the same result. He glanced at Carl, stepped back, and gave the door a couple of strong kicks. When it popped open, he rolled through in a crouch, gun drawn. Carl eased in behind him and took cover behind a chair. When the house remained dark and silent, Starsky gestured toward the kitchen. Carl nodded and slithered in that direction, while Starsky moved stealthily toward the hall. The first door he opened was the bathroom, messy with dirty towels and laundry but otherwise clean enough. He carefully pushed open the next door, which turned out to be a bedroom converted into a den. Bookshelves lined two walls and a desk took up a third wall. Carl joined him in time to get to the last door, which was ajar, the room beyond it dark. Flattening himself against the wall, Starsky pushed the door open with his foot and dove through. He could see, in the dim light, a shape on the bed. Carl came in behind him and flipped the light switch.

“Oh, my God,” Starsky said, staring.

The man in the bed was naked, partially suspended by rope. On the wall opposite the bed was a huge mirror. The bed itself was littered with sex toys and porn magazines. Carl moved closer and bent to examine the dead man’s face.

“What the hell is this?” Starsky asked, rooted to the spot.

“I think it’s accidental autoerotic asphyxiation,” Carl said without turning.

“Huh?” Starsky still couldn’t make his feet move or take his eyes off the scene in front of him.

“Some people get off on damned near choking themselves to death while they masturbate,” Carl said, turning this time. “Sometimes they miscalculate and kill themselves accidentally. That’s what this guy did. See the protruding tongue? The broken blood vessels in the face?”

Starsky couldn’t see, but he nodded. He didn’t really want to see.

“Of course, the M.E. will have to examine him, but that’s what happened, mark my words. Not uncommon for serial killers to have weird sex fetishes. Usually that’s part of what drives ‘em to commit their crimes.” Carl headed for the door and Starsky scrambled to follow him. He didn’t want to look at the body any longer.

“You’re taking this awful calmly,” Starsky said. When Carl stopped and gave him a puzzled look, he added, “I mean, that’s weird in there, man. Just WEIRD.”

Carl looked over his shoulder toward the room, though they could no longer see the bed from their angle, and shrugged. “Yeah, but I’ve seen worse, Starsky. Come on. We gotta find the trophies.”

Carl called out to tell the other agents that they had a crime scene to work, and then paused in the living room. He let his eyes wander over the room, the silently playing TV, the slightly shabby furniture, and finally shook his head. He went back down the hall, and Starsky followed a bit reluctantly, expecting him to go back into the bedroom. But Carl paused at the den and peered in there, and suddenly moved into the room quickly.

“Take the desk, huh?” he said to Starsky.

“What am I looking for?”

“Anything,” Carl said, standing in front of the bookshelves and letting his eyes wander over those.

Starsky shrugged and started going through the desk. Mostly it was the usual junk, unpaid bills, a checkbook, a couple of catalogs, one from Frederick’s of Hollywood, which Starsky handled by the corners as if he might catch something. In the back of the bottom drawer, he found a book with a flowered cover, and when he opened it, he discovered it was one of those blank books people used for diaries.

The entries, even the few he glanced at, gave him cold chills. He shuddered and turned to tell Carl what he’d found and was stunned to see one of the bookshelves pulled away from the wall like a hinged door. Carl was standing in front of it, closely examining the items on the shelves built into a recess in the wall. Still carrying the diary, Starsky went over to join him.

“Oh, my God,” he said when he realized what he was looking at.

“The trophies,” Carl said unnecessarily. “Locks of their hair. Buttons from their clothes.” He reached out and snagged a toy car. “Even personal possessions.”

“That’s sick,” Starsky said, his voice shaking in spite of himself. There were enough items on the shelves to account for twenty or more kids.

Carl turned to look at him. “Starsk, you’re a little green. Sit down for a minute.”

“I’m okay.”

“No, you’re not. I’m sorry, I forgot you’re not used to this kind of thing. You’re used to street crimes, not sick sons-of-bitches who kill kids for a sexual thrill. Sit down. Please.”

Starsky backed away and sat in the desk chair while Carl produced a notebook and a pocket camera and catalogued the trophies. One of the other agents came in then and told them the coroner and a crime lab team were on the way.

That agent simply shook his head at the trophies. “Geez,” was all he said before he walked away.

Starsky felt stupid for being so badly affected by it and forced himself to stand up and go hand the diary to Carl. “Found this in the desk,” he said. “I’m not sure how much is real and how much he made up, but I think it’ll be enough to prove he’s our man.”

“So are these,” Carl said, indicating the shelves with one hand as he accepted the diary with the other. He opened the book and scanned a few entries. “This is more than I’d hoped for,” he said. “Usually, they leave something around, letters to the editor that they’ve never mailed or letters to the cops crowing about how clever they are. This is terrific. Details of every crime. I think we can call this case closed.”

“You think any of them look like the extra cases you found?” Starsky asked, looking over his shoulder.

“Mm-hm,” Devlin replied.  He was engrossed in the pages and didn’t look up at Starsky.

            ~*~*~*~

The press circled Devlin and Starsky, asking rapid-fire questions.  The two men deflected what they deemed unnecessary for the public’s information and answered the questions they believed should be answered.  Hutch was in a regular room in time to see his two friends on the news.  He was glad to see Dobey step in to give the FBI agent and his own officer an escape hatch.  Starsky nodded at the camera before he stepped away and Hutch knew it was for him.  That little almost smile told him that Starsky’s next stop would be to see him.  He was still disappointed that he was stuck in the hospital, but glad they’d stopped Wagner.  Hutch had no idea what had happened to the killer, but he knew it was something remarkable.  The look on his partner’s face as he and Devlin gave vague, broadcast-appropriate answers to the reporters’ questions about Wagner’s death said a lot that only he could see.

Devlin came in with Starsky twenty minutes later.  Hutch had fallen asleep again, despite his best intentions.

“Maybe we should come back tomorrow,” Devlin whispered to Starsky.

Starsky shook his head and moved toward Hutch, who stirred and opened his eyes.  “Hey,” he said, touching Hutch lightly on the hand.

“Do I still have a fever?” Hutch asked with a smirk.

“Busted,” Starsky retorted, moving his hand to Hutch’s forehead.  “Yeah, a little one, I’d say.”

Hutch smiled.  “Hey, Carl, pull up a chair.”  He indicated Starsky with his head and said, “I taught him all the first aid he knows.”

“I’ll bet,” Carl said.  “How you doing?”

“Better, thanks.  They’ve got me on blood thinners.  Better not get a paper cut for a few weeks.”

Starsky looked at him seriously and said, “You won’t be doing anything more strenuous than hollering at me to bring you another cup of juice for a while.  A paper cut isn’t going to be on your schedule.”

“Ha, ha,” Hutch said.

He shifted in the bed, to get into a better position and looked at Starsky, who realized he wanted the bed raised.  He did that, watching Hutch’s face carefully as he occasionally winced.

“So, tell me about it,” Hutch requested.

“First, you tell me what the doc said last time you talked to him.”

“I haven’t seen him. They said he’d come by later.  Let’s talk about the case.”

A voice from the door got all of their attentions.  “You think that could wait a few minutes?”  Hutch’s doctor was standing in the doorway.

Devlin excused himself, saying he needed to get to the FBI field office to file some paperwork.  “I’ll catch you back at the precinct later, Starsky.  Can you get a ride if I take the FBI loaner?”

“No sweat,” Starsky answered.

“Hutch, rest.  Feel better.” Devlin instructed as he walked out the door.

The doctor waited for Starsky to leave, too, but he didn’t budge.  He sat in the chair next to Hutch’s bed, flushed with a little embarrassment over the way he’d spoken to the doctor the last time he saw him.  Since Hutch made no move to get Starsky to leave, the physician came closer and started his exam.

“Just finishing my rounds,” he said conversationally as he checked bandages and vital signs.  “How are you feeling?”

“Okay,” Hutch answered.  “I want to go home.”

“He ain’t ready for that yet, is he, Doc?”

The doctor shook his head.  “Not for a few more days.  I want your blood results at a certain level before you go home.  Just to be certain you don’t have a repeat performance of the problem that worried your partner here.  Wouldn’t want him to have to rush you right back again.”

“Thought you said it wouldn’t happen again,” Starsky stated pointedly.

“It shouldn’t.  Let’s just say that doctors like to be right.  We’ll keep him here a few more days.”  The doctor smiled at Starsky.  “You going to stay with him when he’s cut loose?”

“Wouldn’t miss it, Doc.”

“Good.  I doubt there’s much that escapes your notice.”

“Not where my partner is concerned.”

The doctor wrote his notes in Hutch’s chart.  “You’re doing well, Mr. Hutchinson.  The head injury seems to be resolved.  Your lab values are improving.  The kidney is healing nicely and there’s no more blood in your urine.  The cultures came back.  You do have a urinary tract infection.  The antibiotics should take care of that.”

Starsky asked, “What about the kidney, Doc.  You think he’s going to keep it?”

Hutch turned white and looked at Starsky with a confused expression.  No one had told him there was some question about that.  “What?” he directed toward the doctor.

“Don’t worry. Everything’s going to be fine. Like I said, your kidney is recovering.  Barring any unforeseen complications, it will be fine.”

The doctor explained everything that had happened with Hutch medically since he arrived.  He assured both men that Hutch would completely recover.  The knee injury was minor.  All the rest the doctor was ordering, as part of his recovery from the fall, should handle that.  Hutch would continue on his medication after discharge and if everything went well, he’d be back on desk duty in a few weeks – active duty a few weeks after that.

When the doctor was gone, Hutch said, “Guess I really did a good job this time, huh?”

“You’re nothing if not thorough, partner,” Starsky said.

Hutch was getting tired and couldn’t suppress a deep yawn.  Starsky smiled at him.  “You’re almost out again, buddy.”  He settled down in the chair, looking like he was planning to stay, despite the doctor’s request that he let Hutch rest.

“You’re looking pretty tired yourself, Gordo.  How was it at Wagner’s?”

Starsky shook his head and closed his eyes as he shuddered. “Awful.  I felt like a greenhorn, but I just didn’t expect it to hit me like that.  The trophies, Hutch.  So many kids.  Little boys who will never grow up.  He took locks of their hair.”

“What about Wagner?  I saw that look on your face during the interview.”

After he’d explained about the way Wagner died, Starsky said, “Carl was surprised we’d never seen one of those autoerotic deaths, long as we’ve been on the force.  I told him we’d been lucky.”

“I remember they covered those in the academy.  Briefly, but they mentioned them as sometimes being mistaken as suicides.  Remember?”

“Yeah, I remember.  Sure looks worse in the flesh.  Carl said he was probably frustrated because he lost Timmy and we were all over the case, shutting him down here.  Had to get his ya-yas off somehow.  Guess we’re lucky he didn’t just disappear to another city.  He had some bags packed.  If he hadn’t accidentally offed himself, he just might’ve.”

“Damn.”

They sat and quietly discussed the case until Hutch was falling asleep in the middle of sentences.

“Hey,” Starsky said as he gently shook Hutch’s arm.  “I should get back over to the precinct.  You gonna be okay?  I’ll come back after I finish with Carl.”

“Yeah, go ahead.  You look beat.  Don’t come back tonight.  I’ll be out anyway.  Go get some real sleep, not the kind you’d get sitting in that chair.”

“Okay.  I’ll come back tomorrow. ‘Night.” Starsky patted him on the arm and walked away.  When he looked back from the door, Hutch was already asleep.

            ~*~*~*~

The days following Wagner’s death were a blur to Starsky.  The paperwork alone was enough, as Devlin put it, to sink an aircraft carrier.  Splitting the duties between them, they managed to assuage the paperwork monsters at both the FBI and the BCPD.  The hardest part was notifying the victims’ parents.  The parents of victims not previously identified as part of the official investigation were especially relieved to hear that a killer had been identified and that he wasn’t going to hurt anyone else’s child.

Carl was ready to return to Quantico the day after Hutch came home from the hospital.  Before he left, he wanted to debrief Starsky, Hutch, and Captain Dobey on all of his findings.  They all got together at Hutch’s for a celebratory dinner and to hear what Devlin had to say.

Starsky was in the kitchen putting the finishing touches on dinner and Hutch was comfortably installed on the couch.  While Starsky was out of the room, Devlin leaned over the back of the couch to Hutch and quietly said, “How’s he doing?  Driving you nuts?”

Hutch laughed.  “A little.  Let’s just say he’s treating me like I’m nitroglycerin and any unexpected bump might cause me to explode.”

“Can’t fault him for caring.  Bet you’re just as bad when it’s him who’s hurt.”

Captain Dobey heard that remark and he answered for Hutch.  “Worse, Carl.  Much worse.”  Hutch rewarded him with a scowl.

Carl unintentionally laughed out loud, causing Starsky to step over to the kitchen table with the salad he was tossing and say, “What?”

“Nothing,” Carl replied.  “Need any help in there?”

Starsky looked at him suspiciously, but didn’t press it.  “Nope.  Almost done.”  At that moment, the oven timer buzzed.  Starsky went back to retrieve their dinner.  Carl went in to inspect what they would be eating and was surprised to see a decent looking dish of lasagna.

“Ambitious,” he remarked appreciatively.

“Don’t get too worked up about it,” Starsky said. “I didn’t make it.  June Sanderson did.”

“She did?” Carl asked, picking at the fresh garlic bread Starsky had put into a basket on the countertop.

Starsky stepped around him to reach for some utensils, smacking Carl’s hand as he passed.  “Yep, ‘cause of Blondie.  She said she didn’t want us to wait for her homemade dinner for another few weeks till he feels better.  I’m supposed to call her when we’re ready to go over there, but she wanted to do something special for him.”

“That’s really nice.  How’s Timmy?”

“He’s fine.  The ankle’s healing.  I talked to him this morning.  He says he’s anxious to get started back with scouting.”

“What about some counseling?  He seeing anybody?”

“Yeah, the parents hooked him up with a counselor as soon as they got back to town.  He’ll be fine.  You mind helping me out with some TV trays?”  Starsky pointed to where he could find them.  They were all going to eat in the living room so Hutch didn’t have to sit up at the table.

As he started talking about the case, Carl remarked that only a bunch of cops would sit around discussing murder case details over dinner.  Especially grisly details.

“I knew Carl was abused as a child by some trusted adult.  Based on the information I’ve gathered, I think Wagner was molested by a Scout leader at around the age of twelve.  He was small for his age, much like the boys he grabbed.”  Devlin passed around a picture of Steven Wagner at age ten, and another at age twelve.  The smiling, ten-year-old Steve looked like a normal child.  Starsky thought something in his eyes was sad, but otherwise he looked like any other kid.  The twelve-year-old Steve looked troubled and afraid.  Wagner’s resemblance to his victims’ profiles was startling.

Carl continued.  “We uncovered papers in his home indicating that he had trouble in school starting in the seventh grade.  He was a model student up until then.  Remember when I said he stank at school?  I’m guessing that after the molestation, his performance began to slide in class and he went from being a kid with normal friendships to a kid with no friends.”

“What about the violent or destructive behavior you mentioned?” Hutch asked.  “Any of that in his records?”

“Yes.  In fact, he got in trouble in high school for killing an animal.  He turned in a science project complete with a dissected cat.  Lucky for him, the cat was a stray and not a pet someone was missing.”

That gave the three other men a collective chill.  Dobey said, “If one of my kids did something like that, I think I’d take notice and get some help.  Where were his parents?”

“Uninvolved, I’m afraid.  His mother was mentally unstable.  She committed suicide when Wagner was 17.  His father ran off when he was four.  The mother remarried when he was nine and the stepfather was an alcoholic.  Probably beat the boy.  Mother, too, I’ll bet.  The school sent someone to speak with them, but it never went anywhere.  Mom left him a lot of money.  He didn’t really have to work, so he could take low-wage jobs working in places like the Y as a janitor.”

“Any specifics on the original molester?” Starsky asked.

“I don’t know who it was.  We’re still investigating that.  I do know that Wagner was a bed wetter.  He had a hard time on overnight camping trips.  I think his stepfather beat him for it and he found a sympathetic ear in the Scout leader.  I don’t really know if it was a leader, or one of the other men who accompanied the kids on the campouts.  His journal shows that whoever it was – he never calls him anything other than ‘He’ or ‘Him’ – took him off in the woods.  Wagner says he stole his innocence.  Made him impure.  I think that’s why he limited himself to touching with his victims.  Then, he’d kill them, and put them in a similar environment to the last place he felt safe before he was changed by his own assault.  He actually believed he was saving them from something inevitable.”

All four men sat in silence and thought about Wagner and all that he had done.  All of their efforts had brought down a dangerous, sick individual.  Starsky voiced what they all were thinking.

“How did he know when he snatched Timmy that a kid matching his profile would happen along to respond to his cries for help?” Hutch asked.

“The journal says he’d stalked Timmy.  Wagner liked to haunt Boy Scout campgrounds and he had spotted Timmy on a previous outing. After he picked him for a victim, he came up with a couple of plans.  He’s not specific, but he even implies he set it up for the other boy to be hurt, although I’m not sure how he could have.  Maybe he saw an opportunity and acted on it.  Then, he just got into position and called out.  He had a contingency plan, in case it didn’t work.”

Starsky said, “I’m glad it’s over, but I wish he’d been brought to justice.  Seems too easy this way.”

Devlin nodded.  “At least this way, none of us had to sit in court and listen to a string of hired experts say that he was insane and that his terrible childhood is responsible for what he did.”

“Thank God for that,” Dobey said.  “What about the Y that hired him?  You’d think they’d be more careful about who they hire.”

Hutch said, “Even if they do background checks, Sid Waters had no record, according to what you’ve said, Carl.  Neither did Steve Wagner, for that matter.”

They all agreed that the system needed change.  Anyone who planned to work with or around children should be subject to extra scrutiny.  Devlin said that he and his office would continue to aggressively pursue the identity of the man who assaulted the young Steven Wagner.  They had no proof of who it was and they couldn’t press charges even if they did know.  Wagner was dead, and the statute of limitations for prosecution had probably passed.  If they did narrow it down to one of a few potentials, they’d have to be careful not to accuse the wrong man.  That type of accusation could ruin a life, even if it turned out to be false.  They only wanted to be certain that the man wasn’t still victimizing children somewhere.

“You ready to get back to Quantico?”  Hutch asked.

“I guess.  They already have another case for me.  This one’s in Northern Virginia.  Never a dull moment,” Devlin replied.

Captain Dobey said, “Carl, you’ve been incredible.  I want you to know I’ve already sent a letter commending your service to your assistant director.”

Starsky and Hutch smiled at him, amused that he was so obviously surprised at that.  “Yeah, thanks, Carl,” Hutch said.  “You did great.”

“You two did all of the background and legwork before I even got here.  Yeah, I did the profile, but you had the contacts,” he said to Starsky and Hutch.  “You found Timmy, too.  Do you know how unusual it is to rescue anyone from a serial killer?”

Dobey agreed.  “Almost unheard of, and at no small cost to you, Hutchinson.  Don’t forget that.  You all did good work.”

Devlin cleared his throat and said, “Uh, Starsky…I found something in the journal that you might find a little creepy.”

“Really?  What?” Starsky asked.

“Looks like Wagner saw you on the news the night you found Timmy.  He made some notes about it.”

Hutch asked, “He did?  What kind of notes?”

“Well, I don’t have it in front of me, but I can tell you the general idea.  He was fascinated by you, Starsky.  You match his profile.  I haven’t seen a picture of you when you were little, but Steve Wagner imagined that you’d have been just like him.  Just like the boys he took.  I think the journal entry said something about him being able to tell that you were just like them.  He thought it was too bad you were a grownup, and older than him.  He even speculated as to if you and he might have something in common.”

Starsky’s mouth had dropped open and his face was white.  “I suppose I should be grateful he stopped at being fascinated and didn’t come after me.”

Hutch said, “That’s not funny, Starsk.  Bad enough those Search and Rescue guys could have mistaken you for Wagner and blown your head off.”

“Ah, Timmy wouldn’t let them.” He reached up and touched his healing arm and said, “He felt bad enough that he stuck me with his official Boy Scout knife.”

Joking aside, Starsky wasn’t pleased to hear that he had earned a mention in the serial killer’s book.  The idea was enough to give him nightmares, as if the entire case hadn’t been enough for that.  He was already suffering from persistent dreams where Hutch fell off assorted high places and when Starsky reached him, he was dead.  He’d kept that to himself.

Carl had a flight out at the crack of dawn.  He didn’t want to disturb Hutch, so they’d all agreed Dobey would give him a ride out to a hotel right next to the airport.  With dinner over and the kitchen cleaned, he was ready to leave.

“Hutch, you take care of yourself.  Thanks for letting me crash here and for all your hard work,” Carl said, shaking Hutch’s hand.

“Thanks, Carl.  I hope we never need your professional services again, but if we do, we’ll call.  Next time you come out just for a visit, okay?”

“You got it,” Carl said with a smile.  He turned to Starsky.  “Thanks, Starsky.  Hope you’ll remember me the next time you play a hunch.”

Starsky laughed at that and shook hands with his friend.  “You give new meaning to that word.  Thanks for everything.  Let us know if we can ever help you out, okay?”

“Count on it.”

“Let me know how he’s doing, Starsky,” Dobey said as they left the apartment.  “I’ll see you back at your desk on Monday.”

Hutch sighed deeply and closed his eyes.  The evening’s activities, which amounted to resting and eating for him, left him tired.  He was achy and ready to sleep.  Starsky noticed his slide toward sleep and said, “Time for pills, you lucky dog.”

He retrieved Hutch’s medications and some milk from the kitchen and handed them to Hutch.  “Take these, then I’ll help you get into bed.”

Hutch put the pills in his mouth and brought the milk up to drink, stopping and talking around the pills. “I can handle that part.”

“Okay,” Starsky said, “go right ahead.”

Starsky watched with amusement as Hutch struggled to get up from the couch.  The smirk on his face faded when Hutch’s face went pale and he sank back the few inches he’d gained toward standing.  “Hey!”  Starsky said, moving to help.  “Be a good boy and let me help you, okay?”

Hutch’s face was pinched as he said, “Guess maybe I need the help after all.”  He let Starsky help him get ready for bed.  When Starsky was turning out the light, Hutch said, “Thanks, partner.  Sorry to be a pain in the ass.”

“You’re only a pain in the ass when you won’t let me help.  You make a much better nurse than a patient.  You know that?”

“Yeah, I know.  I’ll work on it.”

“See that you do.  You only have to behave for a few weeks.  I think you can handle it.  Goodnight, Blintz.”

“Goodnight, Starsk.”

The End