To Live Alone

Companion piece for “To Die Alone.” Starsky’s POV

“Where the hell are you, Hutch?” Starsky looked at the clock and then at his apartment door. Hutch had left over an hour ago to go to the store for more beer and snacks. They were planning on watching a double header baseball game. He should have been back within twenty minutes. The game was gonna start before Hutch got back.

A small sense of unease tickled the back of his neck. He should have been back by now. Or called.

Starsky decided to go down to the Torino, and call Hutch on the police radio. He walked down the steps, looking down the road, trying to see Hutch’s rust bucket. He opened the door and slid into the Torino. He turned the radio on and heard Hutch’s voice, breaking up. “Zebra three … pursuit … three robbers … truck. Heading east”… the radio faded out. Hutch had been having trouble with it the last week.

Starsky started to key his mike when Hutch’s voice came back over the radio. “Shots fired… hit … shoulder. Still … pursuit. Backup…” Static and then nothing more.

“Hutch, this is Starsky. Copy? Location? Copy?” There was no answer.

He ran back upstairs and grabbed his gun. He called Metro and asked Dobey to relay any further information from Hutch. He started the Torino and raced toward the store to talk to witnesses.

He found out Hutch had walked in on the robbers cleaning out the cash registers. Hutch had fought with one, but the other two grabbed hostages. They got their friend and the three left the store in a late model brown truck. No one had seen the tag number.

Hutch had run out after them. He fired three shots at the truck and was hit in the shoulder when they shot back. He’d gotten in his car and started after them.

Starsky headed east from the store on the main road. He kept listening to his radio but no one seemed to have seen which way the pursuit went once they were out of sight of the store. “Where are you, Hutch?” Starsky pounded on the steering wheel.

“Zebra three… backup… shot … house…”

Starsky grabbed his mike. “Hutch! Where? Location?”

“Stars…” Starsky heard a barrage of gun shots and a groan from Hutch, then nothing.

“Hutch! Hutch!! Talk to me!”

“Talk to this man!” A strange voice came over his radio. Then the sound of one last shot. Then silence.

Starsky’s mind raced. He tried to block out the shot he heard. Hutch was still alive. That’s all he would let himself believe. Hutch HAD to be alive.

His call to Metro didn’t get him much information. Someone had called to report what sounded like firecrackers near a rundown area known for gang shootings. He quickly steered the Torino toward that part of town.

He found Hutch’s car on the third street he cruised down. He stopped and ran toward it. He stopped short when he saw the splatters of blood on the ground near the driver’s door. There was a smear of blood down the back door. It looked like Hutch must have slid down the side of the car. There was a pool of blood there.

When he looked in the car he was horrified to see the back of the seat saturated with blood. There were bloody handprints on the steering wheel. “Hutch…”

“Zebra three. Come in Zebra three.” He ran back and grabbed the mike.

“Zebra three, here, go ahead.”

“Brown truck and robbery suspects cornered at Albert and 6th street.”

“I’ll be right there.” He called the location of Hutch’s car to dispatch then focused all his attention on his driving. He arrived about five minutes later.

He saw officers leading three boys out of an abandoned house. Two had the look of career criminals but the third looked like a scared kid. He quickly walked toward the third suspect. He told the officers, “I’m gonna to take this one back in the house and talk to him for a while.” The other two started yelling for the third to keep his mouth shut. Starsky pushed him back into the house.

“Where’s the officer you shot? Is he still alive?”

“Screw you, cop!” The young man tried to act like the two outside were acting, but Starsky saw him shiver.

Starsky pulled his gun and smiled at the young, handcuffed man.

“That how you want to play it?” He made a point of ejecting the clip from his gun checking that the gun was indeed fully loaded.

“I ain’t tellin’ you nothin’ pig!”

“That so?” He shoved the clip back into his gun and turned to fully face the suspect. “Sit on the floor. With your legs spread. NOW!”

The young man quickly sat on the floor with his legs spread.

“So? You’re a big man, huh? Playing in the big leagues? All grown up and ready to be a man?” Without missing a beat, Starsky pulled his gun up, aimed and fired a shot into the floor dead center between the spread legs and about three inches from the place where the inseams of the boy’s pant legs met. “Damn, I think my sights are off a hair.”

“Hey! You can’t do this!”

“Says who? You see anyone else in here? Who’s gonna stop me? I’ll just say my gun misfired… or you tried to escape.”

The kid leaned forward trying to protect his privates. He was shaking.

“Sit up straight!”

“Ya see kid, that’s not just another cop you shot. That’s my partner. And a man will do whatever it takes to save his partner. Now, you want to tell me where my partner is?”

The kid gulped but shook his head, ‘no.’

As cool as if he were at a shooting range, he sighted and fired, hitting about two inches from the kid’s privates. The kid screamed and tried to move back.

“I would advise you to sit still, or I might not hit what I’m aiming at. I would hate for this be any worse than it’s … going to be. You’re so young. Gonna be a big hit in prison… with or without your nuts.” He held his gun with both hands and sighted again. “Last chance kid. Where is my partner?”

“Wait!! Wait! I’ll tell you!” The kid was crying hard. “I’ll tell you! I didn’t shoot him! Dougray and Tommy shot him. I didn’t even have a gun.”

“WHERE is he?”

“They drug him to this shed back where there used to be a house. They hid the money there too. Thought if they didn’t have the cash on ‘em they couldn’t be arrested. They put him in the shed.”

“Was he alive?”

“I – I – I think so.” The kid was shaking and crying so hard he couldn’t get up when Starsky told him to.

Starsky hauled the kid to his feet by his arm and drug him out to the other officers. “Take him. I gotta go find Hutch!”

He raced the Torino back to where Hutch’s car was, calling for an ambulance and crime lab team to meet him there. “Hold on Hutch, I’m comin’ buddy.”

The Torino skidded to a halt behind Hutch’s car, almost hitting the bumper. Starsky was out of the car almost before it stopped. He quickly looked around and saw an old shed about fifty feet from where he stood. He ran toward the shed, seeing blood splatters on the grass and leaves.

When he was near the shed, he pulled his gun and tried to move quietly toward the door. He was a couple of steps from the door when he stepped on something in the overgrown grass that snapped loudly. He froze. There was no sound from inside the shed so he flattened himself against the wall by the door. He yanked to door open and took a quick look inside. What he saw almost froze him to the spot.

He quickly swung into the small shed, gun ready, sweeping his eyes for any danger. There was no one but Hutch in the room. He was tied to a pole in the middle of the room. His head was down, and it didn’t look like he was breathing. There was blood on the floor leading to where Hutch sat in a pool of blood. He rushed over to his partner and knelt beside him.

“Oh God! NO! Hutch!!”

“No… no, Starsk. Not you!” Hutch let his head fall down and began to cry.

“Hey, hey! Don’t cry, buddy. It’s gonna be ok. I promise.” He carefully untied Hutch’s wrists, gently moving his hands back to his lap. He cupped Hutch’s cheek and bent his head to press his forehead against the side of Hutch’s head that didn’t have a bullet crease in it.

“I didn’t want you to find me… sorry… for your pain… ”

“What are you saying, Hutch? What kind of crazy talk…”

“Hurt you too much… to find me… dead… s-s-sorry.”

Starsky carefully raised Hutch’s head. “Hey! Open your eyes. I’m here. You are NOT dead. OK?” He waited for Hutch to open his eyes. “NOT dead. And I’m not going to let you die. So stop talking stupid!” Starsky held on to Hutch, tightly. He kept telling him he alive, not dead.

He could hear sirens approaching. He continued to talk to Hutch. Hutch varied between understanding that he was still alive, and talking to Starsky about being sorry that Starsky was the one who found his body.

As soon as the paramedics entered the shed they pushed Starsky aside so they could evaluate and begin to treat Hutch’s wounds. Starsky could tell from what they said they were concerned with the amount of blood he had lost. They applied dressings and quickly loaded him onto a gurney and pushed him outside to load in the ambulance.

Before he followed them out, he looked at the floor where Hutch had been sitting. Too much blood. He shook his head and glanced around the room. He saw backpacks tossed against the far wall.

He told the officers just arriving about the backpacks and asked them to have Hutch’s car towed, then jumped in the Torino and headed toward the hospital, red light flashing and siren blaring. His prayers kept cadence with the siren. “Don’t take Hutch. I need him. Hang on Hutch. I’m coming. Don’t take him.”

Starsky arrived at the hospital in time to see them wheeling Hutch into surgery. Huggy and Captain Dobey arrived a few minutes later. He filled them in about the capture of the fleeing felons and on getting the information as to where Hutch was from one of them. He glanced at the other two men, but kept his gaze fixed on the doors leading to the surgery area.

“He’s got three bullet wounds, Cap’, one to his head, one to his right hip and one to his right chest. He uh, he lost a lot of blood.” Starsky stopped, took a deep breath and continued. “He kept talking like he was dead. Sayin’ he was sorry that I was the one who found his body. Cap…”

Captain Dobey put a hand on his shoulder. “He’s young and strong, Dave. He’ll make it.”

“Yeah Starsky. Keep the faith, my man.” Huggy said.

He wanted to believe them. He really did, but they hadn’t seen how much blood Hutch had lost. He paced but kept his eyes glued to the surgery doors. He wanted to be in there with Hutch. To keep telling him to hold on. That he couldn’t leave him. He couldn’t imagine living alone, without his best friend.

Dobey called the station and put out a call for anyone who could to come and give blood. Starsky would give, but didn’t want to leave the waiting room to do so.

Soon there was a steady stream of officers, detectives and other personnel checking in before or after having donated. Starsky thanked each one of them from Hutch and himself.

Starsky kept trying to be positive that Hutch would pull through, but thoughts of living alone kept intruding. He couldn’t see his future without Hutch. It was all black.

He continued his prayers constantly. Kept sending his thoughts to Hutch. “Hang on, Hutch. Don’t leave me. I need you. I don’t think I can live alone, without you.”

If was almost five hours later that the surgeon came into the waiting room. He walked over to Starsky, who stood up. “Doc…?”

“He’s in recovery. The wounds weren’t that serious, but he lost a significant amount of blood. He’ll be in ICU for a few days for monitoring, in a regular room for a couple of days after that and then he can be discharged home. It’s lucky you found him when you did, Detective. An hour or so later, and he wouldn’t have made it.”

The doctor turned to Captain Dobey. “Thank you for all the police personnel who donated blood, Sir. We needed it and we appreciate what you did.” He shook hands with Dobey, then Starsky. “A nurse will come and get you once he’s settled in ICU. I know you’ll want to sit with him. I told the staff it was okay. Not that you would take ‘no’ for an answer.” The doctor chuckled as he walked away.

The breath Starsky let out was probably heard back in New York City. His partner was going to make it! He clapped Captain Dobey on the back and did the same to Huggy. He was all smiles until Huggy encouraged him to go get something to eat and get cleaned up. He looked down to see his jeans covered in Hutch’s blood. But he refused to leave and possibly miss the nurse coming out to get him. He convinced Huggy to go by his place and pick up some clean clothes for him.

Captain Dobey left, admonishing Starsky to keep him posted. Huggy followed him out to pick up Starsky a change of clothing.

It was about an hour later, after he had changed clothes and washed up in the bathroom, that a nurse came out and took him into ICU and Hutch’s room.

He walked in to see Hutch with the head of the bed slightly raised. He had dressings on his right shoulder and around his head. He could see the lump in the covers over his right hip, denoting more dressings. Hutch’s eyes were closed and he looked to be sleeping peacefully. He picked up a chair and set it by the bed, quietly. He bowed his head for a minute to offer up thanksgiving that Hutch still lived.

He reached up and covered the hand lying on top of the sheets. He gave a quick, light squeeze and was startled when the hand turned, gripping his.

He looked up to see azure blue eyes barely open, but focused on his face. Hutch stared at him for a few seconds then looked around the room. Seeming to understand he was in a hospital, and that Starsky was there to keep an eye on him, he squeezed Starsky’s hand once more then drifted back to sleep.

Starsky reached up and brushed the tears off his cheeks. He said more prayers of thanksgiving that his partner was going to live.

He held onto Hutch’s hand to be sure to let him know he was still there.

Hutch wasn’t going to die… alone or otherwise today.

Not on his watch, he wasn’t.

And he wasn’t going to live alone.