Invictus

78

A young police rookie is profoundly affected by his first exposure to tragedy on the job. Starsky and Hutch, as experienced officers, reflect on their own response to the same events.

 

Archivists’ Warning: There are graphic depictions of a gruesome crime scenes in this story. Please be warned if you do not like reading descriptions of this kind.

Originally published in the Starsky and Hutch gen zine, Venice Place Times III, published in 2002.

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Detectives didn’t usually have to attend the daily briefing, because their captains kept them up on whatever cases they were supposed to be handling. But sometimes it was necessary and sometimes when there were particularly bad cases going on—cases that got ugly—everyone went to the briefings.

Today was one of those.

“I’m sure you’ve heard about the family that was killed,” said Lieutenant Howard, the uniforms’ watch commander. “Many of you were on the scene yesterday after we found them. Those who weren’t, be grateful you weren’t there. The reason I’m bringing it up is, I want to remind you, all of you, that we have chaplains on staff. If you need somebody to talk to, whether you were there or not, feel free. That’s what they’re there for. It’s confidential, you know that. Don’t keep it all bottled up. Cops are human, too.”

There was a bit of nervous, scattered laughter at that remark, but not much. Too many of the officers present were still reeling over yesterday’s scene.

It had been the mailman who called. He’d noticed the mail and the newspapers were piling up on the porch on his first day back from being out sick for a week. He’d asked a neighbor if the Trasks were on vacation, and she’d said she didn’t think so, because usually she fed the dog for them when they went out of town. Worried, the mailman had gone back to the Trask home, and that was when he noticed the smell. If he hadn’t had such a bad cold, he’d have noticed it the first time. The neighbor came with him, and she had actually taken a step back and covered her mouth and nose with her hand. They’d looked at each other for a moment, and gone back to her house to call the police.

When the officers arrived, one a rookie still in training, they’d tried knocking, calling, and asking other neighbors if anybody’d seen the family lately. When that failed, there was no choice but to enter the house.

Inside, there was carnage that was enough to give the most veteran cop nightmares. Apparently, the father and husband had gone on some kind of rampage. He’d killed his wife and all three children and even the dog. Blood and brains were spattered everywhere. The wife had died from a shotgun blast at close range. The oldest child, a boy about 7, had been strangled and beaten. The Ovo younger kids, girls, 5 and 4, had been shot with the same shotgun. The little one’s head had almost been torn completely away by the blast. Then the man had hanged himself from a rafter in the garage.

The nearest the medical examiner could guess, considering the warm summer temperatures and the closed-up house, was that they’d been dead about ten days. Maybe two weeks. But the sights and smells would linger in the cops’ memories a lot longer than that.

Starsky and Hutch sat together near the back of the briefing room. They’d heard the call on the radio, “Officers need assistance,” and had been close enough to respond, along with about a dozen other cars. The young rookie’s face had been the color of chalk, and he’d already lost his lunch by the time they’d arrived. He was sitting on the curb, trembling, and his partner was trying to calm him, while other officers took charge of securing the crime scene and calling for the coroner.

“First week on the job,” another officer had remarked sympathetically to Starsky as he passed him, nodding toward the rookie. “Hell of a way to start a career.”

Once Starsky had seen the inside of the house, he understood. He’d been on the job for several years, and he’d never seen anything as bad as the scene in that house. He and Hutch had looked at each other for a moment: You or me? before Starsky had turned and gone to the young blond man sitting on the curb in his brand-new uniform. He reminded Starsky of Hutch when he was fresh out of the Academy. Idealistic. On fire for justice. And vulnerable, when the blood and the injustice and the pain of life on the streets hit home for the first time.

“Hey, Bernie,” Starsky had said to the veteran cop who was the rookie’s training partner. “Let me, huh?”

And Bernie, a good man with a fatherly way about him that made the lucky rookies he trained find their first few months very easy, had nodded and backed off a couple of feet. Starsky took his place on the curb and put a friendly hand on the rookie’s shoulder. The kid’s nametag read “L. Tanner.”

“What’s your first name, pal?” Starsky asked.

Tanner, so pale his skin was translucent, swallowed and said tremulously, “Lyle.”

“Lyle,” Starsky repeated. “I’m Dave Starsky. Pretty ugly, huh?”

Tanner nodded and visibly tried hard not to cry.

“Hey,” Starsky said softly, remembering the first time he’d seen an ugly murder, “it’s okay to be upset, Lyle. It’s when these things don’t upset you that you gotta worry. That’d mean you had no feelings left.”

“It was… it was the little girl that was the worst,” Tanner said, a tear escaping in spite of his best efforts. He wiped it away quickly and glanced at the detective.

“Yeah, that was godawful, Lyle. Horrible, that a father could do that to his own child. I know how ya feel.”

“But you’re handling it,” Lyle said as another tear escaped.

Starsky’s hand tightened on his shoulder. “Yeah. On the outside, Lyle. Inside, it’s tearin’ me up. You’ll get so you can keep movin’, do the job, and save the pain for later, when ya got time. It’ll take a while. But you’ll be able to do it. Just don’t stop feelin’ the pain, okay? Talk it over with Bernie, here. Go have a cup of coffee when this is all cleared up. That’s what partners are for.”

He felt rather than heard Hutch come up behind him, and he gently turned Lyle so he could see Hutch, too. “See, this here’s my partner. My best friend. We hash this shit out after it’s all over, get it out of our systems. It’s gonna be okay, Lyle. Right, Hutch?”

Hutch nodded. “We need good men like you, Lyle,” he said. “Stick with us, okay?”

Now, sitting in the briefing room, both Starsky and Hutch watched young Tanner with concern. The kid’s face was still too pale, even 24 hours later. He was nervous and kept dropping his pen.

“He’s taking this pretty hard,” Hutch whispered.

“Yeah.”

“Hope he goes and talks to the chaplain.”

“We didn’t,” Starsky said, raising an eyebrow.

“We have each other,” Hutch said. “Tanner doesn’t know Bernie well enough to spill his guts to him like you and I do to each other. A chaplain’s less threatening.”

“I guess,” Starsky said, though he’d never dream of “spilling his guts” to a chaplain. He didn’t even want to think about what it would be like not to have Hutch to talk to after an experience like yesterdays. They’d bought a 12-pack, taken it to Hutch’s place, and sat up half the night. They hadn’t even talked about the murders much. Mostly, they’d just been there, together, with each other to lean on. Both had shed a few tears. And today, in spite of their hangovers and lack of sleep, they both had their balance back. Tanner clearly did not.

So when the briefing was over, Starsky caught up with Tanner and stopped him with a hand on his arm.

“How ya doin’, kid?”

“Fine,” Tanner said, pulling away.

He obviously wasn’t fine, but Starsky thought he understood why Tanner didn’t want to talk to him. He was embarrassed about a senior officer having seen him in the state he’d been in yesterday. So Starsky gave a grin and said, “Good. It’s not always this bad, you know. We don’t often see shit like that yesterday. Go have a few drinks, huh? And maybe take Howard’s advice about the chaplain?”

“Sure, Sergeant. Thanks.” And Tanner took off down the hallway after Bernie as though he were being pursued.

Starsky sighed.

Hutch caught up and put a hand on his back. “Don’t take it personally, Starsk.”

“I know,” Starsky said.

“Why are you so worried about him, anyway?” Hutch asked. “You did your best for him yesterday. Let Bernie take it from here.”

“I guess I… I don’t know. I don’t want him to get spooked.”

Hutch gave his shoulder a squeeze. “He’ll be okay eventually. Bernie’s a hell of a good training officer.”

“Yeah.”

“Sergeant?” Howard came out of the briefing room and toward the two detectives. Both turned, but it was clearly Starsky Howard wanted to talk to.

“What can I do for you, Lieutenant?” Starsky asked.

“I heard what you did for Tanner yesterday,” Howard said. “He’s not going to say it, so I will. Thanks.”

Starsky grinned. “Sure. No problem. I remember my first murder scene. Thank God it wasn’t as bad as that. I’m not sure I’d have had the grit to stay in the department if I’d run into something like that fresh out of the gate.”

“Me, either,” Howard agreed. “I hope it doesn’t scare Tanner off. He’s a good kid. Real promising. I’d hate to lose him.”

“Anything else we can do?” Hutch asked.

Howard shook his head. “No, thanks, fellas. I’ve already spoken to Bernie. He’s a good officer. He’ll handle it.” He gave them a mock salute and walked away.

Starsky and Hutch walked to the car in silence, but once they were inside, Starsky said, “You remember your first murder scene, Hutch?”

“Yeah.” Hutch didn’t elaborate.

“Well?” Starsky prompted.

“It was a junkie in an alley,” Hutch finally said, after several moments of silence. “We never solved it, not enough evidence to take to court. But it was pretty clear what had happened. Another junkie knifed him and took his needle. Cut his throat, actually. With a dull knife.”

“God.” Starsky shook his head and started the car. “You never told me about that.”

“It affected me about the same way this one is affecting Tanner,” Hutch said. “Messed me up for about a month. I had nightmares. I did go and talk to the chaplain, though. You were working the night shift then. I was on swing. Remember? Right before they partnered us.”

Starsky turned and looked at him. “I remember that. We didn’t see much of each other for several weeks because we were on different shifts. I thought something was buggin’ you then, but I figured it was Vanessa—”

“It was that, too,” Hutch admitted. “She didn’t understand. She kept saying, ‘If it’s that awful, quit. Go back to school. It’s not too late.”‘

“How fuckin’ sensitive,” Starsky muttered.

Hutch gave a wan smile. “Yeah. So what was your first murder, buddy?”

“Domestic. The guy didn’t mean to kill her, though.” Starsky shook his head, remembering. “They were fighting and he was knockin’ her around, and he hit her too hard and she went down and smacked her head against this stone planter in the corner. Busted her head open because it caught her right in the temple. Blood everywhere. The guy sobbin’ and hysterical. Shit.” Starsky rubbed his eyes. “I couldn’t help asking him, ‘If you didn’t want to hurt her, man, why the fuck were you beatin’ the hell out of her?’ You know what that asshole said?”

“What?”

“He said, ‘I wanted to teach her a lesson, not kill her!”‘

“And you never told me about that?”

“Well, it was when you and Vanessa were getting divorced,” Starsky said, a little unwillingly. “I was gonna tell you, but one day you were really pissed about something, I think it was when she was makin’ noises about alimony, and you said, ‘I oughta teach her a lesson—'”

“Starsk,” Hutch turned and stared at him. “You don’t think I’d—”

“No, of course not. But I was afraid you’d take it the wrong way if I repeated what the asshole said, because you were pretty on edge there for a while, so I just shut up about it.”

“Damn.” Now it was Hutch’s turn to rub his eyes. “I’m glad we don’t keep that kind of thing bottled up anymore. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“Me, either,” Starsky said with a grin and a friendly punch to Hutch’s arm.

***

The coroner had to hold an inquest, of course, after the autopsies were in. Starsky and Hutch, as the ranking officers on the scene, had to be there and testify. Hutch elbowed Starsky as they entered the courtroom and indicated Bernie and Tanner sitting together in the first row. Bernie raised an eyebrow in greeting. Tanner stared stonily ahead.

Apparently, it hadn’t been easy to establish times of death because of the length of time the bodies had gone undiscovered, but the medical examiner had concluded at last that it was, indeed, murder/suicide.

He read out the names of the victims. “Tanya Trask, age four. Nicole Trask, age five. Michael Trask, age seven. Diana Trask, age thirty-six. George Trask, age thirty-nine.”

Hutch shot a glance at Starsky and mouthed the last name on the list. Starsky nodded. They hadn’t recognized him—hell, his own mother wouldn’t have recognized him in the condition he was in—but they knew the name.

George Trask had been a detective in the Vice division for several years already when Starsky and Hutch made detective five years ago. He had a reputation as a loose cannon and had repeatedly been in trouble for violating procedure. About a year ago, he’d finally accumulated so many bad reports on his conduct that he’d been dismissed. Rumors had circulated that he was a drug addict, an alcoholic, an abusive husband—a statistic waiting to happen. It looked as if it finally had happened.

Starsky looked at Lyle Tanner, sitting on Hutch’s other side next to Bernie. The kid’s face had that strained, sweaty look he’d had on the curb the day they’d found the bodies. He couldn’t have recognized Trask’s name, but reliving all of this was obviously taking its toll on him.

After the verdict, the four officers paused in the hallway outside the courtroom before going their separate ways.

“Can’t believe it,” Bernie said, shaking his head. “Trask used to be a good officer, once upon a time. Wonder what happened?”

“Trask was a cop?” Lyle said, his voice cracking.

Starsky tried to shoot Bernie a warning look—he didn’t think this was a good time to discuss this with Tanner—but Bernie didn’t see the look. Instead, he nodded at Tanner and explained.

“Yeah. He was a detective. But he kinda flipped out. One too many perps who got a slap on the wrist, I guess. I don’t really know. Got sloppy. Drank too much. Lost his edge. Quit caring, I suppose. Finally lost his badge over it. Happens sometimes. Pressure gets to ’em.”

Tanner stared at Bernie several moments, his eyes wide. “How often does that happen?”

“Not often,” Starsky put in. “Most cops cope just fine, Lyle. Let off a little steam now and then, and it’s not a problem. But some guys bottle it up or take it out on their families, or screw up on the job. They don’t go home and kill their whole families, though.”

“Trask did.”

“Trask must’ve had other problems,” Starsky said. “He got canned quite a while ago. Wonder what he’s been doing since then?”

“Driving a truck,” Bernie said. “Big rig.”

“Hell, maybe that’s what did it,” Hutch said. “Too many days staring at a white line.”

Tanner shook his head and suddenly bolted. Bernie watched him blankly for a moment before raising his eyebrows at Starsky and Hutch and following him.

“He sure is taking this to heart,” Starsky said.

“Yeah. Poor kid. They don’t tell you about this stuff in the Academy.”

***

A couple of weeks later, Starsky and Hutch were cruising their district as usual, when they heard another “officer requires back-up” call on the radio. This time it was a domestic violence call in a rundown residential neighborhood just on the edge of their beat. But they were the closest unit, so Hutch slapped the mars light on and Starsky hit the siren and floored the accelerator. They squealed to a stop outside a house with a mattress in the yard and one front window boarded up. Both men drew their guns as a precautionary measure before getting out of the car. They could already hear the yelling coming from inside the house.

Running toward the front door, Starsky was almost bowled over by Tanner as he fell backwards onto the porch. Starsky caught him and kept both of them from going down the steps. Tanner was shaking and pale and hadn’t drawn his gun. Before Starsky could move, a heavy-set, balding man wearing a white undershirt and work pants appeared in the door and bellowed, “Get the fuck outta my house, pig, ya hear me? This is between me and her!”

“Not anymore, pal,” Starsky said, leveling his gun. “Hands behind your head.”

Hutch, on the man’s other side, was ready for the inevitable. The man took a swing at Starsky, and Hutch turned his gun butt-side-up and whacked the man behind the ear. He went down like a ton of bricks. Hutch put his gun away and cuffed the guy.

“Bernie?” Starsky called into the house, still wary. For all he knew, the wife was as mean as the husband.

“In the back.”

Starsky stepped cautiously around the door, gun still leveled. Hutch was right behind him. In the back bedroom, he found Bernie with the wife, trying to stop the heavy bleeding from a nasty gash in her cheek. “You okay, Bernie?”

“Sure, Starsky. What was all that commotion I heard? What the hell happened to Tanner?”

“He’s outside. The man’s cuffed and unconscious for the moment,” Starsky said. He reached for the phone, but there was no dial tone.

“It got turned off,” the woman said, pale, but otherwise composed.

“I’ll use the radio,” Hutch said and left the room.

“Wanna tell me what happened?” Starsky asked, moving Bernie’s hand enough to see the woman’s cut. It was ragged and deep and it made him wince even to look at it.

“Charlie’s jealous,” the woman said, still remarkably calm. “He came home for lunch and found the meter man here.”

“Inside?”

“Yeah. The meter’s in the basement. He has to come in,” she said. “Anyway, Charlie got mad and punched the meter man, and the meter man took off. Left his clipboard layin’ by the meter, too, he was in such a hurry. Then Charlie beat me up.”

Tanner re-entered the room and stood, silent, while Starsky jotted down a few notes as the woman told her story.

“How’d you get that cut?” Starsky asked.

“Charlie shoved me into the door and I cut it on a nail that was stickin’ out,” she said, matter-of-factly.

“You’re pretty calm about all this,” Starsky said. He couldn’t help it.

She shrugged. “Happens all the time.”

Tanner made a sound like a wounded animal and hurriedly left the room again. Starsky looked after him, but he had a job to do. He wrote a couple more notes, then asked, “Are you gonna press charges?”

She shrugged again. “Won’t matter. He’ll be out in a coupla hours. But by then he’ll be sorry and he’ll take me out to dinner.”

Starsky stifled the urge to demand why she didn’t leave the man, because he knew from experience that she’d leave only when she made the decision herself. No one could talk her into it. Instead, he said, “You know Charlie shoved Officer Tanner out the door? That’s assault on a police officer. Officer Tanner can press his own charges.”

“Really?” She considered that for a few moments. “Does that mean Charlie won’t get out in a couple hours?”

“Probably not.”

“Well,” she gave another shrug, “that’s okay. He’ll get out eventually.”

Hutch came back, with Tanner, and said, “The ambulance and a paddy wagon are on the way. I don’t think the big guy^tll fit in your backseat, Starsk.”

Starsky grinned a little. “1 don’t much want that sweaty character in my car, anyway.”

“Are you Officer Tanner?” the woman asked.

Tanner nodded without speaking.

“I’m sorry if Charlie hurt you. He kind of…” she paused and considered, “he forgets himself sometimes.”

“I’m not hurt,” Tanner said, his voice choked.

Starsky and Hutch exchanged a glance, another of those You or me? moments, and this time, Hutch took Tanner by the arm and propelled him out of the room. Starsky could hear Hutch’s voice out on the porch, but he couldn’t make out what his partner was saying.

“The kid gonna make it?” he asked Bernie.

Bernie shook his head and shrugged. “Don’t know, Starsky. I’m beginning to wonder. He’s still shook by that murder.”

“Yeah, I can see that.” Starsky shook his head, too. “Too bad that had to happen this early on.”

“Hell, none of us took it well,” Bernie said. “That was a real cluster—” he broke off and glanced at the woman, who had been following their conversation with great interest. “Well, you know,” he finished lamely.

Starsky couldn’t stop the grin. He knew what Bernie had been about to say. “Yeah.” In the distance, he heard a siren, and in a few minutes the ambulance had taken the woman away while the paddy wagon took Charlie away. It was all over but the shouting.

“How’s Tanner?” Starsky asked as they got back into the Torino.

“Not good,” Hutch said. “He won’t talk about it. Not at all. Not to Bernie. Not to me. And when I suggested a chaplain, he almost took my head off.”

“What’d he say?”

Hutch rubbed his eyes. “He said, ‘That’s the last thing I need, Hutchinson!”‘

“Terrific.” Starsky was silent while he turned the car around and moved back toward their district. Finally, he said, “You think he’s gonna quit?”

“That or do something stupid,” Hutch said. “Remember Trask.”

“But Trask had been on the job for fifteen years or something like that,” Starsky objected.

“Maybe it just took him longer,” Hutch said wearily. “It’s a fuckin’ toilet, buddy. You say that yourself.”

Starsky took one hand off the wheel to squeeze Hutch’s shoulder. “Yeah. Sometimes it is.”

***

Hutch was typing up reports late one afternoon when Dobey came out of his office in such a hurry he almost tore the door off. Starsky had been half-dozing in his chair, but both men—and the rest of the officers working in the squad room—came to attention at the look on their captain’s face.

“Bomb alert,” Dobey said, wasting no words. “Flak vests. Riot gear. The Social Security office on Sixth.”

In moments, the room emptied. Starsky and Hutch ran down the hall, skipping the elevator and taking the stairs to the supply room, where a grim-faced Minnie was handing out riot gear to a dozen officers. No one spoke as they shrugged into the protective equipment and ran for their cars.

On the way, they listened as the dispatcher relayed what little information was available. A man had come into the Social Security office, ranting about some injustice he said they’d committed against him. But he was carrying a bag he said contained a bomb, and no one was willing to take any chances.

The bomb squad was already on the scene and the area was cordoned off when Starsky and Hutch roared up and squealed to a stop. A department psychologist was on a bullhorn, trying to communicate with the bomber.

“Anything?” Hutch asked.

The psychologist shook her head. “Not a damn thing. He won’t talk to me. He won’t come to the window or the telephone. The sharpshooters don’t dare fire on the place. He’s got hostages.”

Hutch and Starsky exchanged a look.

Some uniformed officers were directing traffic, cordoning off nearby streets and evacuating buildings. For a long time, there was no sound or movement from the building. Sharpshooters held their positions, tense and focused. The bomb squad waited for a chance to use their expertise. The sun slid down the sky as shadows lengthened.

At last, the door opened and a voice called, “He says he’ll let us go one at a time.”

The sharpshooters took aim and waited.

There were only a handful of hostages. They ran from the building, hands over their heads, to the protection of police officers in the street.

“Is this everybody?” Starsky asked of an older man.

The man let his eyes travel over his coworkers quickly before nodding. “Yes. We’re all here. Except him.”

“Okay.” Starsky gave the man a pat on the back as he was led away. He joined the group of officers Dobey had beckoned to gather around him.

“We’re going to try to talk him out,” Dobey said. “I don’t know if it’ll do any good. But if we can get him out here, the bomb squad’s got a chance and so do the sharpshooters.” He met the eyes of his officers one at a time before he added, “Be prepared to take cover.”

Silence descended except for the psychologist, who pleaded with the man to give himself up. “You can’t win, man,” she said. “You can’t stay in there forever, and we aren’t going to leave. You have to come out. Let us help you. We can’t help you if you stay in there.”

And at long last, long after dark, the man emerged—but he was carrying the gym bag and Starsky’s heart leapt into his throat. The man was clutching it to his chest and his eyes were wild and unfocused.

“It’ll blow!” he screamed at the gathered officers. “It’ll take us all with it when it goes! You let me leave and I won’t trip it!”

“Oh, my God,” Hutch breathed, and he reached out and clutched Starsky’s arm for a second. They looked at each other, eyes wide.

But one of the bomb squad, swathed in protective gear from head to foot, reached toward the man. Starsky and Hutch couldn’t hear what he said, but by his body language, he was trying to talk the bomber into putting the gym bag down.

“Who is that?” Starsky hissed.

“I don’t know for sure. Think it’s Michaels,” Hutch whispered back.

Little by little, the bomber’s grip on the bag lessened, until he sank to his knees and let it slide to the ground in front of him. The bomb squad member reached for it with one hand and the bomber with the other…

…and it went off.

Starsky and Hutch dove for the ground. The bomb wasn’t very powerful, but it was enough to kill the bomber and the officer. No one else was injured.

There was an utter, horrified silence for several minutes while the dozens of officers in the street stared at the scene in front of them. It was broken by a high, keening sound behind Starsky and Hutch.

“Nooo! Oh, God! Oh, nooooo!”

Tanner ran forward, breaking free of Bernie’s restraining hand and evading other officers who tried to stop him. He threw himself to the ground next to the dead officer and sobbed like a heartbroken child. His weren’t the only tears. Every officer there was stunned into immobility until Bernie, tears rolling down his cheeks, too, went to Tanner, gently urged him to his feet, put his arm around the younger man, and led him away.

“Shit, Hutch,” Starsky said softly, his own throat thick with emotion.

Hutch reached out and put a comforting hand on the back of his neck and gently squeezed. His hand was trembling. “Poor kid,” he said, and Starsky wasn’t sure if he meant Tanner or Michaels—or both.

***

Sunday morning Starsky was awakened by the thud of the newspaper against his door. He’d fallen asleep on the couch the night before, watching a late movie. He yawned, stretched, and almost fell off the couch. He staggered over to the door and retrieved the paper. Throwing it on the couch, he went to the kitchen, started coffee, and returned to open the newspaper.

Billy Carter was embarrassing his brother Jimmy again. So what else was new…

No movement on the hostage situation in Iran. That wasn’t new, either.

Somebody’d burned down a warehouse full of carpet and the entire waterfront stank.

Starsky grinned at that one. He knew who owned that warehouse and it served him right. He was a little fish trying to be a big fish in the organized crime pond, and he’d given Starsky and Hutch more than few sleepless nights while they’d tried to prove something against him. Looked like one of his rivals was helping the police put a dent in his fledgling organization.

Starsky turned the page to local news. A neighborhood group was fighting an adult book store. City council wanted to pass a new tax.

Police officer commits suicide.

The headline on the three-paragraph notice arrested Starsky’s attention. A young officer, new on the force, had shot himself to death with his service revolver the previous afternoon. No name was given—that was usual with suicides—but Starsky was suddenly afraid he knew who it was. Any officer’s death would have saddened Starsky, whether he knew the officer or not. But if he was right…

He turned to the obituaries.

BAY CITY—Edward Lyle Tanner, twenty-three, of Bay City, died 2:43 p.m. Saturday. Arrangements incomplete: Wikoff Funeral Home, Bay City.

***

Hutch was repotting one of his more delicate plants when the phone rang. He swore under his breath and decided to just let it ring, but he changed his mind by the tenth ring. Apparently whoever it was wasn’t going to give up. He sighed, carefully laid the plant aside, and picked up the phone. “Yeah, talk to me,” he said impatiently.

“Hutch.”

Only one word, but the pain in it was palpable. “What’s the matter, buddy?” Hutch asked, gentling his tone considerably.

“Got today’s paper?”

Hutch hadn’t bothered to retrieve it from his own front porch yet. “No.”

“Tanner shot himself.”

Hutch drew a dismayed breath. “My God. Are you sure it’s him?”

“I’m sure. There’s an obituary, too. Doesn’t give the cause of death, but—”

“Fuck.”

“Hutch, I….” A long pause, then, very softly, “Can I come over?”

“Of course.”

“Thanks.”

After Starsky hung up, Hutch dialed their precinct and asked to speak to one of the officers who had written up Tanner’s suicide. Sean Cavanaugh came on the line a few minutes later.

“It’s Hutch, Sean. Did Tanner leave a note or anything?”

Cavanaugh cleared his throat before answering. “Yeah, Hutch. Doesn’t tell us much, though. Just his parents’ names and phone number—thoughtful of him, considering—and where to find his important papers. At the bottom, like an afterthought or something, it said, ‘I’m sorry.’ But that was it.”

“No clue why he did it, then?”

“Huh-uh. Not in the note, anyhow. Though…” Cavanaugh paused a long moment and finally finished, “the newspaper that had the story about the Trask murder was on his bedside table.”

“Where was the body?”

“On the bed.”

“Shit.” Hutch thought about that for a moment. “Think he was still brooding over that?”

“That’s what we thought. Guess we’ll never know for sure. Poor Bernie’s a basket case. Thinks he shoulda been able to see this coming.”

“Yeah. I’ll bet he is.”

“Bernie says Tanner asked a lot of questions about Trask in the last couple of weeks,” Cavanaugh said. “What he was like. What kind of cases he had. In the last two or three days, Tanner got real interested in Trask’s private life, too, Looked up his old partner in Vice and was asking him a bunch of questions.”

“Who was Trask’s partner? I don’t remember.”

“Laskowski,” Cavanaugh said after a moment, during which Hutch could hear papers being shuffled. “Um… Joe Laskowski. Twenty-year veteran. What he hasn’t seen ain’t worth seeing.”

“I can imagine. Have you questioned him?”

“Not yet. We just came on at eight. Been busy talking to Bernie since then. We just got back a few minutes before you called.”

“Listen, Sean, I know this is your case, but…” Hutch paused and tried to think of a way to phrase his request.

“I’ll keep you and Starsky informed,” Cavanaugh said. “I know you guys were on the Trask call, too. Hell, most of us were. It was ugly. God knows it was. And if I’d been a rookie, and had to see all that… well, shit, Hutch. Who knows. Mighta sent me over the edge, too.”

“Yeah. Thanks, Sean.”

“Sure, Hutch.”

Hutch sat thoughtfully, staring at the telephone for so long that at first he didn’t hear Starsky’s knock on the door. It wasn’t until Starsky called his name that he came out of his blue funk and went to open the door.

Starsky was pale and his eyes had assumed that dark, midnight blue shade they always got when he was particularly upset. The two men simply looked at each other without speaking for a moment, before Hutch said, “I know it’s not even noon, Starsk, but I have plenty of beer if you want one.”

Starsky shook his head, reached out a hand to touch Hutch’s hair briefly, and walked past him to sink onto the couch. He threw his head back against the couch and closed his eyes. Hutch followed and sat beside him.

After several minutes of silence, Starsky said, “What made him do it, Hutch?” His voice wasn’t quite steady and he kept his eyes closed.

“Don’t know, buddy. I talked to Cavanaugh. He and Hill wrote it up.”

“What’d he say?”

“Tanner left a note, but he didn’t say anything but ‘I’m sorry.’ And the paper with the Trask story was next to him.”

Starsky drew a long breath and let it out slowly. “That’s what I was afraid of.”

“Yeah.”

“It coulda been any one of us,” Starsky said at last, opening his eyes and looking at Hutch. “We all see too much. Every goddamned day. We see too much.”

“I know we do,” Hutch said, putting his hand on Starsky’s arm and feeling it tremble under his touch. “But most of us deal with it.”

“Do we?”

“Yeah. We do. We talk to each other. Tanner wouldn’t talk to anybody, Starsk. He kept it all in. You can’t do that. It makes you crazy to do that.”

“You know, Tanner told me seein’ the littlest girl’s body was the worst part for him,” Starsky said. “And it was awful, Hutch. But the one that I didn’t get was the dog. Why kill the poor dog? What’d a dog ever do to anybody?” He fixed his eyes on Hutch’s face as though Hutch would be able to explain everything.

“I don’t know,” Hutch said gently. “Trask went crazy, buddy. None of it makes any sense. If he wanted to die, fine, but why kill any of the rest of them? I don’t know.”

“Tanner didn’t take anybody with him.”

“No. Thank God.”

“Did he have family? A girlfriend? Anything?”

“Parents. He left their phone number in his note,” Hutch answered.

Starsky’s eyebrows went up. “He wrote his folks’ number in the note?”

Hutch nodded. “And said where to find his important papers. I guess Cavanaugh meant his bank book or will or something. But no explanation.”

“This is gonna kill his folks,” Starsky said. “Can you imagine havin’ to make that phone call? I don’t envy Cavanaugh and Hill.”

“Me, either.”

“Aw, shit, Hutch.” Starsky’s voice shook a little, and he closed his eyes again. “This sucks.”

“Sure does.” Hutch risked a hand on the shoulder this time, needing to both give and receive touch. Starsky’s eyes didn’t open, but he covered Hutch’s hand with his own.

After long moments during which neither one spoke, Starsky finally said, very quietly, “You think that’s you or me someday?”

“Tanner?” Hutch asked, though he knew, with that instinct he couldn’t explain, what Starsky meant.

“Yeah.”

Hutch’s first impulse was to reassure Starsky. But he knew the question came from a deep, frightened part of his partner’s soul. He understood it, because he felt the same way. So he considered for a moment before answering. And he answered with the truth.

“I don’t know, Starsk. I hope not. And I don’t think, as long as we’ve got each other, that we’d ever get that crazy. Not as long as we have each other. When one of us goes a little nuts, the other one’s there to pull him back. Long as one of us is holding on to something, neither one of us will go down.”

“But what if something or somebody came between us?” Starsky asked, fixing his eyes on Hutch again. Hutch wished he wouldn’t do that. It made him feel like, if he didn’t have the right answer, Starsky would just give up. And he didn’t have the answers. Any of the answers. “I mean,” Starsky went on, “what if we aren’t always this tight?”

“1 trust you with my life every day,” Hutch said. “How could we let somebody mess with that? Okay, it could happen. Nothing’s impossible. But you know, I’m pretty sure that even if it did happen, it’d just be temporary. I think in the end we’d get back to ‘me and thee.’ We’d figure out we were being stupid to let something affect our partnership. Our relationship. I got a lot invested in you, buddy.”

“You think we rely on each other too much?”

“That’s all that’s saved us more times than I want to think about,” Hutch said.

Starsky grinned, a pale imitation of his usual Starsky Special, but close enough for the moment. “You make us sound like the Two Musketeers.”

Hutch chuckled. “Two?”

Starsky shrugged. “How many more does a guy need?”

 

Invictus by William Ernest Henley

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud,
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate;
I am the captain of my soul.