Escapes

153

Starsky and Hutch capture a dangerous criminal who then escapes jail. It’s up to them to track him down before the criminal can do more harm to the people of Bay City.

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“Starsk, are you sure you’re feeling up to this trip?” It was Friday morning and we were packing the Torino, getting ready to head to the mountains for a long weekend. This weekend away had been on our calendar for some time, and as it turned out the weeks leading up to it had been long and difficult; we’d never been more ready to escape from Bay City. We almost had to postpone it due to the big and very high profile case we were working. We really earned this time away and were looking forward to some canoeing, fishing, cooking our catch of the day, and relaxing. Well, at least I was looking forward to all of that. My partner had honed in on the relaxing part.

Unfortunately, Starsky was still recovering from a severe whack to the head. The ER doc said he had a pretty serious concussion and kept him overnight Wednesday for observation. Since we already had Friday through Monday off, Dobey told him to stay home Thursday and rest up for the weekend. As anyone who knows Starsky could tell you, that didn’t go over so well with my bull-headed, and thankfully hardheaded partner. The doctors released him from the hospital Thursday morning, and Starsky immediately started giving the Captain grief.

“But Cap’n, Hutch and I have reports to finish up. I’ll just be sittin’ all day typing. I can do that.” Starsky argued as he rose from the wheelchair and walked the short distance to the car. He reached for the car door and obviously felt a moment of dizziness as he used the car as support to keep from falling.

“Starsky, if I see you in the squad room today you’ll get an official reprimand!” Dobey yelled. “Got it?” Captain Dobey was at the hospital to see that Starsky was ready to be discharged. The apprehension of the criminal who caused this injury was big news, and Dobey was making himself available to the press as well, as a way of diverting them from my partner and me. Once we were gone, he would be giving a press conference along with the commissioner and the mayor regarding last night’s activities and Starsky’s condition.

Starsky winced at the yelling, his head obviously not yet ready for Dobey’s bellow. “Okay, Cap. I’ll stay home.” The quick, brief reply and the clipped manner in which it was supplied said all there was to say about how Starsky was really feeling. He eased slowly in to the passenger seat of his car.

Wednesday night we apprehended Henry King, the suspect in a series of assaults of young, college-aged women, two of which ended in homicide. King was a dangerous criminal. The only weapon he had used so far to commit his crimes was his significant brawn and his own two hands.

We received an anonymous tip that King might be hiding out in an abandoned house on Green Street. We had been working long, fruitless hours; any and all tips were worthy of our attention. It was early Wednesday evening when Dobey called me with the information. Starsky had already dropped me off at Venice Place; I called to see if he’d made it home yet.

“Hello.” He sounded tired. I knew how he felt.

“Hey, Starsk. Just got a call from Dobey. A tip on where King might be holed up.” I gave him the address.

“You’re closer. I’ll meet ya there in ten.” He sounded like it was the last thing he wanted to do and the most important all at once. This case had made its way to disturbing all too soon after the fourth assault resulted in the first death. The M.O. on the assaults screamed King from the beginning, although he had never taken any previous assaults this far. And the fact that he continued to elude police this time was bringing added pressure from the commissioner, the press and the public, as if the pressure from Dobey and our own consciences wasn’t enough.

King had several convictions for assault, and had served time for them, but was currently out on parole. The fact that he’d never used a gun or a knife or other lethal weapon when committing these crimes always seemed to help him at sentencing time. When we caught him this time he would be put away for the rest of his life. We would make sure of that. The chance to catch this guy before heading off for the weekend would be a bonus.

I approached the area quietly and parked on a side street near 324 Green. Starsky rolled up on the other side of the road within moments. He must have broken every speed record to get there that fast.

“Okay, let’s do it,” my partner said as he approached. Starsky was ready to get this guy, and so was I.

“Dobey has black and whites securing the block. Even if he gets out of the house, King shouldn’t be able to slip through this net.” Starsky nodded in agreement. At that moment, Dobey drove up. He opened his window and handed me the warrant.

“I don’t want any slip-ups. All nice and legal. No excessive force. Everything by the book. Got it?” He couldn’t have been clearer.

“Yeah, Cap’n,” Starsky replied. We understood the need to keep this one clean. We headed to the corner.

“I’ll take the back,” Starsky announced. He headed down the driveway, gun in hand. I walked to the front porch. I gave Starsky some time to get in position, and then pounded on the front door.

“King, open up! Police!” I knew he’d make an attempt to exit the building, and that would mean King would be heading toward Starsky. I kicked the door in quickly and entered the house. I was in the living room and there was a faint light coming from what I assumed was the kitchen, toward the rear of the house. It was the only light, and it barely provided enough illumination for me to see that I wasn’t walking in to walls or furniture.

“King, the house is surrounded!” I yelled. “Give it up!” As I got to the doorway leading to the kitchen, I saw that the back door was wide open. He had, in fact, tried to make a run for it out the back. I hurried out to see what help I could be to my partner.

As I reached the bottom step of the back porch, I heard a struggle to my left. Starsky and King were going at it. And it looked like King had just gotten the upper hand, throwing a vicious right to Starsky’s face, knocking him back hard against the brick wall of the house. From the minute I saw King pull his arm back and follow through with the punch, I felt like I was watching a slow motion replay of the hit, because I could see exactly what would happen next. And I could do nothing about it. Starsky was too close to the wall to take a hit with that force without slamming into it. I heard a hard smacking sound as Starsky’s head connected with the wall, and I watched in dismay as his body folded, going limp as he ended up unconscious on the ground.

I fired my gun in the air. “That’s it, King! Move and I’ll shoot.” He turned to look at me; he was clearly considering his options, just as two uniformed officers rounded the corner of the house, guns drawn. He was surrounded and he knew it.

“Get on the ground. Now!” I ordered. I gave Coleman and Wilcox a nod and they took care of King while I headed to my partner.

“Hey, call for an ambulance!” I yelled to them as they escorted King away.

I quickly made my way to Starsky. I could see he was unconscious; he was not moving and hadn’t woken when I called to him. I dropped to my knees and reached to check his pulse. It seemed strong. His body had landed in what seemed an uncomfortable position, but I was afraid to move his legs for fear of causing further injury. I placed my jacket on the ground under his head, which was bleeding heavily. He groaned as I set his head gently on the jacket.

“Uuuh, Huutsch.” Starsky was coming to, which had to be good. He looked pretty pale though and as he started to move I placed my hands on his chest and shoulder, stifling any further movement.

“Hold on, partner, where do you think you’re going?” He stopped moving pretty quickly, the agony the head injury was causing him evident in the grimace on his face.

“Uh, nowhere. Oh, wha’ happen’d?” he asked, grabbing for the back of his head. I took his hand and held it and said, “Hey, just hold tight for a minute. Ambulance should be here soon.” I held on to his hand, hoping to keep him distracted from his injury; pulling his own bloody hand from his head wound would only have added anxiety to an already painful situation for my friend.

“I don’t… oh, Hutch my head is killin’ me. What’d I do?” I admit I was a little worried about these questions. Did he really not remember? I guessed he might have suffered a severe enough blow to affect his memory of the event. Hopefully that was the only negative result of this incident. And I hoped that was only temporary.

“You got in a fight with King, don’t you remember?” He looked at me, concentrating on trying to remember, his eyes glassy and unfocused, looking confused. And the energy he was wasting on talking was probably not helping him either. I was really worried.

“Starsky, just relax. Don’t worry about it. I’m sure it’ll come back to you. Just close your eyes.” He did just that, but now I was even more worried. The doctors like to keep people with a possible concussion awake, and keep waking them to make sure they were okay. I thought maybe I should try to keep him talking, so I decided a compromise was in order.

“Hey Starsk?” I asked. His eyes fluttered a little, he was under deep just that quickly. “Starsky, wake up a second.” I spoke a little louder and my partner blinked a few more times and was awake. Only then did I notice the nasty welt on his cheek from the blow he took from King. The entire left side of his face was going to be a rainbow of bruising soon.

“Yeah, Hutch, whaddya need?” Need? Well, I needed my partner to be okay, which was the only thing I was interested in just then.

“Nothing, I just want you to stay with me until the paramedics arrive. Can ya do that for me?” He was really drowsy and I knew he wanted to sleep. But Starsky’s a trouper and I don’t know whether he recognized the need to stay awake for his own benefit or if he was just doing it because I asked, but his answer was typical Starsky.

“Sure, Hutch. I’m more tired than I’ve ever been, my head feels like ten tons of concrete is restin’ on it and when I open my eyes everything’s spinnin’ around like a Ferris wheel, but sure, I can stay awake.”

“I don’t want to put you out, pal. Why don’t you close your eyes, if that helps, but I’m going to keep talking to you and I’m going to expect some responses, do ya hear me?” I heard Starsky’s trademark giggle, faint though it was and abbreviated by a pained look as he winced from the throbbing in his head. I grabbed tighter to his hand as he gripped hard through the wave of pain.

“Mmm. Oh, I feel sick.” He quickly leaned over and started to throw up. I pulled him over farther as he expelled what little he had in his stomach. It had been a long, rough day, and except for breakfast and a quick candy bar for Starsky we hadn’t eaten the rest of the day. He seemed finished after just one round, and even that little bit of nausea started him sweating. It was a cool night, though, and he immediately started shivering as he lay back down on the ground.

“Just a couple more minutes, partner. The doctors will be lookin’ at you in no time. Just hold on.” I soothed as I rubbed his arms to try to warm him up. He looked at me with watery eyes, the added strain of the vomiting having done a job on his already severely aching head.

I’m sure he read the worry in my countenance and decided to try and lighten the atmosphere. “How do I look?” He grinned through the pain and got the result he sought—a smile from me. I love that my best friend has that power over me. I think he does this to me on purpose, to help me through these crises when he physically cannot. The signal it sends is all I need. It’s that sign that says, ‘don’t worry, it isn’t life threatening. I’ll be okay’.

Thankfully, I had heard the sirens while Starsky was being sick and the paramedics jogged toward us with the stretcher and equipment. They quickly worked him up and contacted the hospital and were on their way faster than I could have asked.

* * * *

Despite my reservations about sticking with the plan to go away for the weekend, somehow my partner had managed to convince me that he would take it easy. Yet here he was, helping with the packing and really pissing me off.

“Hutch, I’m fine. Well, I will be fine if you’d stop hoverin’.” Just as my stubborn partner said that, he suddenly dropped the bag of groceries he had in his hand in to the trunk of the Torino and leaned heavily on the back of the car, a wave of dizziness undercutting his false bravado.

“I might be hovering, but I’m telling you Starsky that if you don’t go sit down in the car and rest right now then I’m calling off this trip.” He stared at me, jaw firm and pushed out slightly. He knew I meant business, but Starsky can be obstinate, even when it’s not good for his health. Especially when it’s not good for his health. But since he wasn’t going to have to back me up on the streets for four days, I could afford to be just as inflexible. We stared each other down a little longer, but Starsky folded first, no doubt the effort more than his tired body and mind were willing to bear.

“Okay, I don’t wanna start this weekend off like this.” It was a good sign. I was proud of my partner.

“Me neither, partner.” He smiled, and so did I, and Starsky headed to sit in the car.

“Hurry up, will ya. We’re wastin’ good drive time,” Starsky yelled back to me as he adjusted the seat back to a lounging position. I smiled, watching him get comfortable as I headed in to his apartment one last time for the remaining supplies for the weekend. While I was inside, I grabbed a pillow off of Starsky’s bed. If he was going to sleep the whole way there, he might as well be as comfortable as possible.

I shut the trunk and climbed into the driver’s seat, dropping the pillow on Starsky’s lap. I think he was already sleeping, and he woke with a start, but covered it well. “What’s this? I don’t need this. I won’t be sleeping, I’m gonna enjoy the scenery.”

“Sure you will. Well, you can just prop it between you and the door, just in case.” He gave me an irritated look, and stuffed the pillow just where I told him.

“Hey, let’s stop for some coffee and donuts for the ride, huh?” Starsky asked.

“That’s what you want today for breakfast? I thought maybe we’d get started and then stop for breakfast on the way.” At least that way I could be assured of something a little more nutritious than my junk food loving partner had in mind.

“I’m hungry now.” I wondered how his mother reacted to that pout when he was a kid. I wondered how she reacted now.

“Fine. We’ll stop at Jake’s Bakery. I guess you’ll want two chocolate glazed donuts, right?” My partner was smiling happily, having gotten his way once again. It was the story of my life.

“And coffee,” he added as he pressed his head to the pillow. It again did not take long for Starsky to fall asleep. He probably wasn’t quite ready for this trip, but I decided to alter the plans for the weekend to make it as easy, stress-free and relaxing as possible for my healing friend. I took the added precautions of including the Monopoly game, cards, chess, some magazines and books just in case fishing and canoeing never made it on the agenda.

I came out of Jake’s with a bag of donuts for my partner, a bagel for me, and two large cups of fresh squeezed orange juice. Starsky didn’t need the caffeine, and it seemed unfair to have some if he wasn’t having any. I downed a cup this morning before picking Starsky up anyway.

I shut my door and that woke Sleeping Beauty. “Where’d ya go?” my partner asked drowsily.

“Uh, donuts, Gordo?” That woke him right up. “And orange juice.”

“Orange juice? Where’s my coffee?” He looked so put upon.

“No coffee. Orange juice is good for you. It’s fresh squeezed.” I said helpfully. Fortunately, I had started the car and pulled away before my partner realized what had happened. That didn’t stop him from complaining about it for the next ten minutes, in between bites of donut and swigs of juice, which he finished with no trouble.

“Hutch, ya know I didn’t have time to make any coffee this morning. How’m I supposed to wake up today without my coffee?” My partner could be really dense sometimes.

“Starsk, you’re not working today, you don’t have to be anywhere that you need to be awake for, and most importantly, you need your rest. Don’t worry about missing your coffee today. If you feel like you need it, you can have some at lunch.” I think the warmth of the sun, the car’s constant, comforting humming and Starsky’s tiring of the conversation was all conspiring against him as he eased in to the pillow and fell asleep before I finished the last sentence.

We were heading to the same place we stayed after the Kohlman case. Even though we had an unfortunate experience the last time we stayed there, it was a nice place and since we weren’t planning anything at all adventurous I decided it was worth another try. Of course, I cleared it with Starsky first, or I would never have heard the end of it.

Traffic was pretty light and I was making good time, although I was driving at a leisurely pace so as not to disturb my sleeping passenger. I looked to my partner, who was sleeping comfortably. I could tell it was getting close to lunchtime; it was my stomach that was growling for a change. But I didn’t want to stop until Starsky woke; this sleep was surely helping him recuperate from that nasty head injury inflicted by King. Okay, that was going to be my last thought about work until Tuesday morning.

It was close to one in the afternoon when Starsky finally woke up. “Jeez, Hutch, why’d you let me sleep so long?” He wasn’t really upset, but maybe just a little embarrassed.

“You needed it, buddy. How do you feel?” He looked better, although he was still not looking like he was feeling quite up to par.

“Okay. Feelin’ just a little woozy.” He leaned back against the pillow, closing his eyes to fight the dizzy feeling.

“Maybe you’d feel better if you ate something. It’s almost one. Do you think you could eat something?” I was worried about this dizziness.

“Yeah, maybe we should try that,” he replied. I think he was willing to try anything to feel better.

We pulled in to a rest stop with a restaurant that advertised, “Pancakes” across the entire length of the roof. There were lots of tractor-trailers parked in the lot, so we figured we could get something decent to eat there. Truck drivers always know the best places to eat.

Starsky had stayed awake for the drive to the rest stop, but still seemed to be fighting the dizziness. He walked without help to the restaurant, albeit with decidedly less Starsky strut than usual. I hoped that getting some food in him would help; it had been almost four hours since those donuts he downed for breakfast. And Starsky was used to a mid-morning snack, so I’m sure his body clock was telling him it was time to eat, even if his head and stomach were fighting against it.

“You think they serve breakfast all day here?” he asked. I had no doubt that they did.

“Sure. You thinking about pancakes?” I nodded up to the overly huge sign on the roof.

“Nah. Maybe some eggs and toast. My stomach’s doin’ somersaults right now. Don’t think I could keep anything too sweet or too spicy down right now.” He took his hand and wiped the sweat from his forehead.

“Okay. Grab a seat, I’m gonna head to the john,” I told my partner. I grabbed Starsky’s neck and rubbed a little, noticing that he seemed pretty warm and the muscles in the back of his neck were stiff, a clear sign that his head was really bothering him. But being the stoic that he is, he preferred to keep that knowledge to himself.

As I finished in the men’s room I came out and noticed my partner staring intently my way, and then saw the slight nod he made to his right. I looked left and saw two men with stockings covering their faces. One had a gun pointed at the waitress covering the register. The other was hovering nearby, glancing about at the people in the restaurant. The place was about half full, probably a normal sized crowd for one in the afternoon.

A split second faster reaction could have gotten me out of their eyesight, but timing was against me and the one with the gun saw me and immediately turned the gun in my direction. The gunman said, “Hey, you. Get over here with the rest of ’em.” I started to put my hands up, to project that I would do what he said. Apparently he read it wrong and fired, the bullet piercing through my jacket and slicing through my left arm.

The impact propelled me back against the wall, just next to the door to the rest rooms. I felt a hot, burning pain in my arm, but could tell that it was only a flesh wound. But Starsky didn’t know that. He jumped from his seat, the movement causing him to lose his balance a little. The punk standing behind the gunman must have thought that Starsky was coming for him, my partner’s unsteadiness looking more like lurching their way. He double fisted a punch to Starsky’s stomach, and when that made my partner fall forward, the bastard gave him a hard chop to the back of the neck. And that movement knocked him down; I wasn’t sure if the hit knocked him out.

“Hey, what are you doing?” I yelled as I headed toward Starsky to check his condition.

“Stop right there or I’ll shoot you, and I promise my aim will be better this time.” I decided to just wait this out a few minutes. I didn’t think these guys were here to kill anybody. Nobody was hurt too badly so far, I hoped, as I looked at my partner on the floor. He appeared to be breathing okay, but was otherwise disturbingly still. I thought maybe these guys would just take the money and run. The gunman yelled for the waitress to empty the cash in the register into a canvas bag, and then instructed all the customers to cough up their wallets and jewelry. People began slowly moving again, pulling out wallets and purses and placing them on the dining tables. Rings and watches also were placed out for the gunman’s friend to collect. The guy who punched Starsky went to pull out his wallet, but found his shield and ID instead.

“Hey, this guy’s a cop. He’s a cop. What’re we gonna do?” The man with the gun headed over, apparently realizing the possibility that Starsky would be armed. Just as he leaned down to check for my partner’s weapon, Starsky had his gun pulled and aimed directly at the gunman’s head. We were all fortunate this particular afternoon for several things. One, that these guys were not very swift, two, that the gunman had pretty slow reflexes, three, that Starsky had forgotten to stow his weapon in the trunk and four, that Starsky had perfected playing possum.

As my partner struggled to keep his aim and his gaze steady, the gunman decided it might be worth a try to raise his gun, but Starsky was having none of that. He nimbly kicked the guy in the groin, the gun at that point flying out of the bad guy’s hand. His partner in crime tried to grab it as it skidded on the floor, but the distraction of my partner in control of the situation allowed a busboy to take a chair and crash it over the punk’s head. That earned him a well deserved round of applause from the patrons.

I hurried over to Starsky. All this activity, the punches he had taken and the short-lived adrenaline high had sapped all of the energy he gained from all that good rest today.

“Hey, partner, are you okay?” He looked bad. He looked like he was ready to hurl. He looked up at me pleadingly and said, “Can ya get me to the john?” I pulled him up and told the waitress to call the police, and then grabbed my handcuffs and told the busboy to handcuff the two robbers together through one of the stools at the counter. He looked at me incredulously.

“We’re cops. But we’re out of our jurisdiction and we’re on vacation. I’ll be right back.”

I took my partner to the restroom, where he heaved in to the toilet. I rubbed his neck, knowing this activity had to be hurting him; especially with the extra hit he took to the back of his head. But again, he finished pretty fast. I handed him a wet paper towel and he wiped his face and got up shakily, heading to the sink to rinse his mouth. He looked in the mirror and spotted the blood on my jacket.

“Hutch how’s your arm? I forgot about it, tryin’ to get those guys. Here, come lean against the sink and let me look.” He grabbed my arm and started to pull my jacket off gently. I stopped him, as he didn’t look like he would be standing too much longer.

“Hey, buddy, I’m okay. It’s just a graze. The bullet went straight through.” I pulled the jacket off the rest of the way and then the shirt to show him. That seemed to ease his mind, but it also seemed to take away his last reserves as he leaned up against the wall and started to fall to the floor. I held him up and took him out to a table to sit.

I asked the waitress for some coffee and scrambled eggs and toast for each of us. She left for the coffee right away, and delivered it quickly, explaining that the police were on their way. “Are you guys okay?” She asked worriedly. Starsky wasn’t looking good, and it didn’t help that his face was still covered in various shades of green, purple and yellow from that punch Wednesday night.

“We could use a doctor, but we need to eat first. And we’ll have to make a statement to the police. Is there a hospital nearby?” I would just need the wound cleaned and bandaged and an antibiotic, maybe some stitches. I wasn’t sure yet whether Starsky had been seriously hurt again, but he was going to see a doctor either way.

“Oh, my dad’s a doctor and I called him. He said to send you right over as soon as you finished here.” She smiled. She was a nice girl. “I’ll go get your order.”

“Thanks.” I looked at Starsky across the table. Damn. He couldn’t catch a break this week. He looked like he needed a month’s worth of sleep to get back to fighting shape. I think he was avoiding direct eye contact with me on purpose, knowing that if he looked me in the eye I’d be able to read how much he was really hurting. But I didn’t need eye contact for that. We’ve known each other a long time; I could tell how he felt just from watching him, how he was sitting, slouched in the chair, jaw and neck muscles tense, and not saying anything unless prompted. But before I could broach that subject, the police showed up. I got up to meet them, stopping briefly next to my partner.

“Be right back.” I grasped his shoulder firmly and bent down so only he could hear and said, “I’ll try to get us out of here as soon as possible.” Starsky nodded, but didn’t look up.

I went to speak with the highway patrol officers. The rest stop, it turned out, was their jurisdiction. I spoke with one of the troopers while the other took a look at the two perps. He proceeded to call for more back up and I walked to the other officer and pulled him aside.

“Look,” I said, “I hate to call professional courtesy here, but my partner and I need to get a move on. We’re on vacation, and we both need to see a doctor before heading out of the area. Can you take our statements here so we can get going?”

“I… I’m not sure, Sergeant Hutchinson. I’m going to have to check on that for you.” He was young and inexperienced and wouldn’t have the authority to make that call. But it started him checking, which was all I wanted. I went back to eat my lunch, which had just been delivered to our table. As I sat down, I noticed Starsky had taken a couple of bites.

“How’s the food?” I asked, smiling at him. He looked up with a forced grin and said, “I’d like to come back and try it some other day. You know, when I cared.” He took another bite, but looked like he still had more to say.

“What is it, Starsk?” My question was meant to get some reaction from my partner so I could gauge any additional injury he may have sustained.

He looked at me, shook his head and said, “What exactly is it about us and vacations? How come we can’t manage one vacation without runnin’ into criminals? Huh? I mean, I understand that we’re gonna run into ’em on the job, I mean, that’s our job. But on vacation? We can go a whole weekend without dealing with criminals. Why not on vacation? Hm? Can you explain that to me?”

I didn’t know what to say. He was obviously upset about this and I couldn’t blame him. We hadn’t had good luck in the getting away to relax department for what seemed like years.

“It’s not every vacation, Starsk. It just seems that way because, well, it has been the last three or four. I don’t know, I guess we’d have to call it an extremely unlucky streak. Good thing we weren’t going to Vegas, huh?” I thought the humor might help the tension, but in the end it was just Starsky’s weariness that did in the conversation. His response to the Vegas comment was another simple nod of the head, and then he took another bite of his eggs. I wolfed mine down pretty quickly and headed outside to find the officers who had responded, who had since taken the two suspects out to a couple of cruisers.

I walked up to the most senior looking officer. “Hey, what’s going on? I’m Detective Sergeant Hutchinson. My partner and I were involved with the incident here. We’d like to get going over to the doctor to have my arm and my partner looked at. Can we go?” I knew that wouldn’t go over very well, but this was taking a little too long for my taste.

“Sergeant Hutchinson, I’m Officer John Downey. I just got off the horn with HQ. They said we could take you and your partner’s statements out here in the field. Do you want to head inside and get this over with?” Finally, some action.

We went inside and I gave my statement to Officer Downey while Starsky gave his to one of the other officers. In about twenty-five minutes we were headed out the door, having stopped to get the waitress to give us directions to her father’s office.

I was getting tired and we still had about two hours of driving to get us to the lodge. I pulled in to the doctor’s parking lot and got out of the car. I noticed my partner was not attempting to follow. I’m sure he was just sick of the thought of seeing another doctor. I walked to his side of the car and opened the door.

“Come on, Starsk. Out. You have to be checked out, and I need my arm treated. I’m sure we’ll be in and out in no time.” And I actually was pretty sure about that. Starsky hadn’t seemed too much the worse for the two hits he took today. But it was better that we were sure about that before heading out to the far reaches of the Sierra Nevadas.

My partner dragged himself out of the car and walked in to the doctor’s office with me. It was a small general practice office and I think that made Starsky feel a little more at ease. It wasn’t as antiseptic as hospitals can be.

Dr. Martin looked at Starsky first, checking his stomach and chest area first and finding nothing to be too worried about. Just some light bruising. He asked about the bruises on Starsky’s face. We explained our encounter with King a couple of nights ago. It was a case that was regionally well known; if we hadn’t caught King it might shortly have made its way to national attention.

The doctor then spent a fair amount of time doing a neurological exam on Starsky. After about twenty minutes he came away satisfied that Starsky would continue recovering well from the concussion previously sustained and that he didn’t show any further evidence of injury other than having one more ache that needed rest. The doctor gave him a prescription for a light sedative for sleeping, as the aches he was recovering from might keep him from falling asleep and he explained for what seemed like the thousandth time in our lives that rest was the best cure for his current list of ailments. But he also re-emphasized the symptoms to watch for after a concussion, a list that I’m sure we both had memorized.

It was then my turn for Dr. Martin’s ministrations. He cleaned and stitched the wound, and then put on a topical antibiotic followed by a clean dressing. He said as gunshot wounds go, this was the most pleasant one he’d ever had to deal with. Apparently, most of the gunshot wounds in this area are from hunting accidents and end up fairly messy. He gave me a shot of antibiotics and a prescription for more and told both of us to use Tylenol for pain when we needed it.

We were on the road and heading for the cabin forty-five minutes after entering the doctor’s office and picking up the prescriptions. The short and relatively painless visit seemed to lift my partner’s spirits more than I could have hoped, and despite the fact that he had to be tired as hell, he stayed awake and kept the conversation lively as we finished our drive to the cabin.

* * * *

Despite how our weekend started, it turned out to be a satisfying time away for both of us. I hadn’t seen Starsky so enthusiastic at the end of a vacation in a long time.

“Hutch, that was the best vacation we’ve had in years.” My partner’s recuperative powers were a sight to behold. He had helped me with the last trip up to my place with stuff from his car and was heading over to the refrigerator for some beer. We were expected in at eight o’clock sharp the next morning, and the weekend seemed to be just the ticket to get us both ready to go back to work.

“Glad to hear it, Gordo. Grab me one, too.” Except for the barely visible bruise on his face there would be no way to tell how beaten up he’d been at the end of last week.

“Hey, so what do you think Dobey will have us working on first this week? Getting more witnesses to tighten up the King case for the D.A. or what?” It was barely seven o’clock Monday night, and I really wasn’t interested in discussing work yet.

“Look, Starsk, I promised myself when we left Friday for this trip that I wouldn’t think about work again until Tuesday. How about helping me out here?” I pleaded, getting a smile from my partner.

“Well, I don’t know Blintz, whaddya call our little side trip for lunch on Friday?”

“I would call it the beginning of the end of our bad luck. But it wasn’t really work. We were just in the wrong place at the wrong time and I’d just as soon forget about it.” And just as I said that, the phone rang. I grabbed for it from the couch.

“Yeah, Hutchinson.” It was Dobey. This couldn’t be good; after all, he was going to see us in about twelve hours. As I listened to what Dobey had to say, I could tell that I was projecting negative vibes, as my intuitive partner began to sense that something bad was going down.

“What?” His eyes questioned, not requiring words. I nodded, letting him know that he would soon be aware of the bad news.

“Do you want us in now?” I asked, knowing the answer even before asking the question. Starsky saw the answer on my face; he was just waiting patiently for me to verbalize it. I hung up the phone and looked at my partner.

“What’s up? What’d Dobey say? He’s callin’ us in, right?” He looked as upset as I felt. I didn’t know any other way to say it, so I just said it.

“King escaped.”

* * * *

“Thanks for coming in tonight. I know you two had probably planned to relax on your last night of vacation. Starsky, how’re you feeling?” We were lucky to have a boss like Captain Dobey. He was always concerned for our welfare, even though he usually wouldn’t show it. I hoped he knew how much Hutch and I appreciated it.

“I’m good, Cap’n. We had a good weekend, huh Hutch?”

“Well, for a change you behaved yourself.” I don’t know why he says things like that. I gave him my best hurt look. But I could see that he really didn’t seem to be kidding.

“I hear you two ran in to some trouble on your way to the mountains.” Hutch had asked the officers who responded to the restaurant fiasco to forward their report to Dobey. He had also left him a message about what happened. Dobey wasn’t around when my partner called, most likely consumed with work concerning the King case.

I looked at Hutch and let him provide Dobey with the details. We got that wrapped up pretty fast and then Dobey gave us the story on King’s escape.

“He’d spent Wednesday through Sunday night in the city lock-up. That was probably our first mistake, not moving him sooner. But after the hearing before the judge on Friday morning, it was decided to transfer him to county on Monday, the regular transfer day.” Dobey paused and shook his head.

“So how’d he get away?” I knew the rest of the story was coming, but I was finding myself unable to keep my agitation and disgust out of my question. And I’d gotten out of my seat, which just managed to piss Dobey off more.

“Starsky, sit down and I’ll tell you what happened!” The captain was not in a good mood, but having King in custody and then losing him probably had the whole BCPD on edge.

“Sorry. Go ahead.” I sat back down and Hutch gave me one of his disapproving glares. Thanks buddy. That’s just what I needed.

“We know there was somebody on the inside at county. A processor by the name of Mary Furness was riding in the car King was seen speeding off in. There were two others involved in the escape, both white males. They stormed the county truck carrying King, forced it off the road by blowing out its tires. They also came at it head-on, causing the squad car in front to swerve out of the way and into a telephone pole. The cruiser behind saw what was happening, but the truck slowed down real fast to avoid the accident and the cruiser rammed the back, sending both vehicles down in to a ditch on the side of the road.

“All three accomplices were armed. The officers in the lead cruiser were out of position and out of commission. The driver of the jail truck was knocked out in the crash and the guard in the truck was thrown from the vehicle and died instantly. The two officers in the rear squad car attempted to apprehend the suspects, but were both shot. They both made it to surgery. Dick Brown is in grave condition and not expected to make it. Marty Conover is in serious but stable condition. He’s given us the most information.”

It was quite a story. An ambush that was quickly planned and efficiently executed. Hutch and I needed to get started on finding known acquaintances and accomplices of Henry King. And if we thought we were feeling the pressure last week to catch this creep, we were about to find ourselves in a whole new level of stress.

“Captain, when did this all happen?” Hutch was wondering what kind of head start this guy had.

“About three o’clock. We immediately had all airports, bus terminals and trains secured. Roadblocks on all major freeways and intersections leaving the city. We used emergency evacuation procedures to get people in place. It was a quick lock-down of the city, but there’s no guarantee that they didn’t slip through.” It sounded like Dobey had done everything he could. But he was right—King might be well away from Bay City by now.

“What about federal mobilization?” Hutch asked. “With all these law enforcement officers injured or dead, and the danger King is to the public, are we securing all transportation hubs in surrounding cities and states?” Hutch figured this was at least started, if not yet fully in effect.

“Yes, and all airports in the country will have King’s and Furness’ pictures within the next half hour.” Dobey checked his watch; it was almost nine at night. “You’ve got two detective units and three uniformed teams to help for now. They’re waiting for you in roll call.”

“Okay,” my partner said to me as he rose from his chair, “let’s get started.”

“One more thing,” Dobey said. “You’re running this investigation while it remains a BCPD case. But this could end up a joint effort with the feds, and I know how you two feel about our federal partners. I want you to be professional and show them all due courtesy when the time comes. Understood?”

“Sure, Cap, we always play nice with the guys in suits, you know that.” Apparently Dobey did not find my comment all that funny.

“Get out of my office!” It felt good to hear Dobey yell and not feel like my head was going to split in two.

Hutch and I headed to the squad room. “Where should we start?” I asked.

“You might want to start by not irritating Dobey when he’s in a mood.” Hutch had obviously made a successful transition out of vacation-mode. I still wasn’t really feeling quite back in to the swing of work just yet.

“Yeah, I guess,” I said, not really wanting to get in to it just then. But I got the feeling, between that comment and the earlier look he gave me that he wanted to say something. I started to ask him what was wrong, but he got back to business before I had a chance.

“Starsk, I think we need to pull all the cases on King and see if they provide more leads on friends and associates. And we need to see if this Mary Furness has any record. We’ve got five teams waiting to get going on this investigation. Dobey said they’re waiting in roll call. Let’s get R&I started and then we’ll go talk to the team.”

Hutch called R&I while I put a call in to Huggy. We were going to need all the help we could get on this one, and fast.

“Hey, m’man. What can I do for ya, Starsky? How’s your head?”

“I’m good, Hug. Listen, you heard about King’s escape, right?” There was no doubt he had, either through the news or from his own information network.

“Yeah, bad news, bro.”

“Yeah. Listen, can you see if there’s any word on where he is? This guy’s a danger to anyone who runs into him. The sooner we can get him back, the safer for everyone.” Huggy was a good guy and a good friend; even though cops weren’t his favorite people, I’m sure he felt bad about the officer who died.

“I’ll do what I can. You think he’s still in the city?” In a different time and place, Huggy could have been a cop. He had good instincts. That was part of what made him so valuable to us.

“We hope so. See if you can find out what the story is on the street.” The word on the street had helped us solve any number of cases, and Huggy had been our number one guy on the street for many years. We owed him a lot. Huggy rarely let a chance of telling us that go by, but he did this time. He knew this was serious business.

“You got it. Later bro.”

“Thanks, Hug.” My partner pulled a chair up beside me. “R&I at it?” I asked.

“Yep. Huggy?” he asked.

“Yeah.” Hutch looked at me and sensed I was holding back. “What?” I asked, trying to distract him.

“Don’t ‘What?’ me, buddy. What’s wrong?” He always does that. Well, I guess I’ve done it to him enough, too. We have a really special partnership. I guess lots of people in the department chalk it up to our many years working together, over ten years now. And others figure that the years, combined with our close friendship, just reinforces the partnership.

But Hutch and I know it’s something more. So does Dobey. And the other detective teams know there is something else, because they feel they have to look somewhere to figure out how we’ve been so successful.

Hutch and I have, by far, the highest rate of solved cases of any current or former detective unit in the history of the force. Now, we don’t really care about those numbers, although we care about doing a good job. Some of those numbers are probably due to the large number of cases we’ve worked. The law of large numbers will always work in our favor.

But we have a couple of things going for us that we know contribute to those statistics. It’s been discussed before, but we do have this unusual communication shorthand. It gets us through questions and problems, and tough situations faster and safer than if we didn’t have it. We both know that it has saved his life or mine more than once.

We kid about this, and we get busted on by the guys at work because of the result of feeling this way, but “me and thee” is not just a phrase we use, or even a mantra. It IS our lives, when we’re faced with danger, or faced with just a tough situation with a relationship, or even when one of us is sick. Hutch is my best friend and my partner. He’s the most important person in my life. He’s the reason I’m still doing police work. And he’s really the only person, except for Terry, whom I have ever felt this close to. He’s the reason I was really able to get close to Terry, because after my dad died and my mom sent me away, I didn’t think I would ever have the courage to get that close to another human being.

Anyway, I’m getting way off topic here, because what I’m trying to explain is that Hutch and my connection is not normal, and we recognize that. But the way we feel about each other, although it may be perceived as being not normal, is the most normal thing in my life, and it definitely is a major factor in why we work so good together.

So, when Hutch asked me, ‘What’s wrong?’ even though I wanted to not tell him, I knew that I’d have to tell him. I knew it bothered him when I did this; he’s a bit of a worrier, my partner.

“I got a real bad feeling about this one, Hutch.” There, I said it. And then I waited for the reaction I hated, because the look on Hutch’s face changed immediately to one of severe concern. And that look was aimed at me. I mean, I know some of it was for other innocent people who might get hurt or killed by Henry King. But mostly he had that look that he always has a hard time dropping once we found ourselves in danger. Post Gunther. He has struggled real hard with his emotions and concern for me since I got shot up by Gunther’s hit men. It had gotten so bad for a while that I considered retiring from the force just so Hutch could avoid that pain and confusion. But we eventually talked it out and worked it out and he’s been pretty good for a long time now. But I could sense that I was going to see that look this time, and I was right. I hated that look on Blondie.

“Hutch, look, I’m just sayin’ that I feel like there’s gonna be more people hurt before we get King back. He’s runnin’ scared. He’s killed three people now. He has nothing to lose by continuing to evade the police. That’s all I’m sayin’.” He was listening to me, I could tell. It seemed to dawn on him that I was forced to give this little speech because of his reaction. The frown lines started to ease up a bit, and he reached out and touched my arm—I think that touch helped him through that moment of fear.

He smiled and said, “Yeah, okay. Let’s head over and talk to the troops.”

By the time we reached the roll call room, R&I had delivered the files. There was a huge stack of files to sift through; Henry King had made an indelible impression with the Bay City Police Department over the years. It looked like it would take us weeks to get through these files, and we really needed to get some leads from all this information in more like hours.

Hutch asked everyone to introduce himself and enlighten us about how long he’d been with the force. We knew the detectives. We were real lucky to have Tom Martinson and Dan Roberts with us. They were a good, experienced team. We also had Steve Grant and Mark Mathews. They were new to the precinct, but had been detectives now with the BCPD for about four years.

The uniforms all averaged between one and seven years on the force. If we could have had our choice, we would have gone with a more experienced group, but we knew we were lucky to have this many bodies to work this case.

Once everyone had given us a brief biography, Hutch began. “As you know, we have a dangerous murderer on the loose. We think, but do not know for sure, that he is still here in the city. We need to act fast and we need to act smart to get this guy. As you are all aware, Henry King knows how to lay low. Our job is to smoke him out and grab him.”

The uniforms were transfixed by my partner. I’m sure they had heard many stories about cases we worked, and Hutch’s command of the room was something to witness. I hoped that they could learn something about partnership from us; I know ours is unique, but there are still lessons to be learned from achieving just a small amount of the camaraderie, respect and friendship that we share. It wouldn’t hurt for them to throw in some love, too, but you take what you can get.

“Well, then let’s go to it,” Tom Martinson said.

“Right. Here’s where we start. You guys with snitches get crackin’ on ’em. We need everyone working this case with us. I’m pretty sure by now everyone in Bay City is aware that we have a dangerous and deadly felon out there. You won’t need to impress upon anyone how important it is for us to get information fast.” I knew we wouldn’t need to give the detective teams much guidance. They knew their jobs.

“No piece of information is unimportant. Anything you hear, bring it back to us. We’ll review it and decide whether it is or is not valuable. Remember, Hutch and I have been tracking this guy for a while. We know his patterns. Anything could be important.” I looked to Hutch, and he continued, directing his comments to the uniforms.

“You guys will be sifting through these files. See if anything jumps out at you. I know, you may think it’s a waste of time, that these files have been gone over many times before. But believe me, you would be surprised what a fresh set of eyes will pick up.” Hutch was right. It was amazing what little things that got missed by the original investigators in some cases ended up being the key piece of evidence in a conviction. The guys seemed to recognize the importance of their roles in this investigation. They looked eager to get started.

“My partner and I will be working the Mary Furness angle.” I concluded. “You know how to reach us. Remember, you find anything at all related, call it in to us. Let’s meet back here in,” I looked at my watch, “two hours.” I recognized agreement in their faces as Hutch and I left the room.

Hutch had a file in his hand as he walked out of the room. “Whaddya got there?” I asked as we walked down the hall to the squad room.

“Personnel file on Mary Furness. Could give us something to go on.” Hutch opened the file as he sat down at his desk. I left him to look at the file and reached to pick up the phone.

“What are you doing?” Hutch asked with irritation.

“Hutch, what is your problem? You’ve had an attitude with me all day today and I don’t like it, and I don’t think I deserve it. So, do you wanna tell me what’s up?” He looked at me and I could tell he was still not willing to provide any insight on why he was acting the way he was. I looked back at him, silently asking the question again. He shook his head and said, “I’m sorry, I’m just in a bad mood and I’m taking it out on you, like always. Sorry.”

The ‘sorry’ was heartfelt, I know. But it bothered me that Hutch wasn’t being completely upfront about what was bothering him. I figured I didn’t have much choice but to put it on the back burner; we really didn’t have the time right now to talk it out anyway.

I had placed the phone back on its cradle, so I picked it up again and dialed Huggy’s.

“The Pits. Proprietor Huggy Bear at your service.” Huggy could always be counted on for colorful telephone skills.

“Hey, Huggy, d’ya hear anything yet?” I knew it was early, but if anyone could get information from the streets quickly, it was Huggy.

“Actually, yeah, I was just gettin’ ready to phone you. Word on the street is that King is still here. His regular ‘associates’ have all gone under, too. But apparently, some of them are as afraid of him as the general public is. I got someone who says they have information, but they don’t wanna talk to The Bear. Said they gotta talk direct to the police.”

“Really?” I said. My partner looked up at me at that and raised his eyebrows, asking what I had. I nodded my head, signaling that he’d know shortly, and continued listening to Hug.

“Yeah. Wants to meet you at the Roxy Theater, the uh, that’s the ‘adult’ Roxy theater at Fourth and Cutler. At midnight. Says he’ll be wearing an orange baseball cap, says it kinda glows in the dark. Says you couldn’t miss him.” Huggy didn’t sound quite himself while he was describing the meet.

“What’s wrong, Hug?” It was quiet on the other end of the phone. I wondered what he wasn’t saying. He didn’t make me wait long to find out.

“Starsky, I don’t know this guy. I can’t guarantee that it ain’t fishy. It smells bad to me.” I couldn’t blame him for feeling that way. It didn’t smell like roses to me either.

“Thanks for the info, Hug. We’ll be there.” I hung up the phone and found my partner staring me down.

“Well, are you gonna to tell me what’s going down or do I have to guess?” I’m sure Hutch was trying to rein in his bad mood, but he wasn’t succeeding very well. I gave him a stare that usually works with the bad guys; Hutch knew it wasn’t for real when I leveled it his way.

“Huggy says there’s a guy who has some information on King. No details. Just the place and time for the meet. Huggy doesn’t know ‘im and doesn’t feel good about this tip. But he figured he should still pass it along.”

“You’re thinking we should go meet this person anyway, even though Huggy couldn’t give you any more than that?” Hutch looked a lot like he looked when we were talking earlier about my bad feelings about this case.

“What did we just say a little while ago, Hutch? That every piece of information could be important. That doesn’t change just because we don’t know this guy from Adam.” He knew that, and so did I, and we were just wasting time talking about it rather than working our angle on Mary Furness.

“Okay, you’re right. You’re right.” Hutch was clearly still bothered about it, and I wished we had the time to deal with his problem right then, but we had work to do. I just hoped that whatever was really bothering him wasn’t going to be a continuing distraction during this case.

“Anything on Mary Furness?” I asked him. He had been ruffling through the file while I was on the phone with Huggy, intently eyeing some papers. I hoped that he’d found something there.

“Maybe. She used to work at the district attorney’s office. She might have had access to a lot of information there that we don’t have in our files. We might want to get Dobey to alert them, and try to send over one of our teams to go through anything they have on King. And Dobey will have to press that; you know how sometimes the DA holds out on us. I don’t think they would now with this current situation, but…” Hutch didn’t need to finish. We had been burned more than once on a case that the DA’s office decided to let go because of some piece of evidence that we weren’t privy to.

“Okay. Let’s go see Dobey. We’ll let him know about our midnight meeting, too. We’ve only got an hour ’til we have to be there.” We were going to be pressed to get there on time, needing to get Dobey started on calling the DA’s office and The Roxy was across town.

“Let me talk to Dobey. Why don’t you check in with the uniforms, see where they stand, and let them know we’ll not be meeting at the scheduled time due to our newly scheduled rendezvous? I’ll meet you at your car in five minutes.” Hutch headed to Dobey’s office as I shot down the hall to check on the progress in the roll call room.

The guys had made quite a mess of the files. Files were strewn all over the room, sitting on tables and chairs, and on the floor when necessary. It looked like a cyclone had hit, and I was a little afraid that what I saw could never be put back together again.

“Believe me, Sergeant, it’s not as bad as it looks.” It was Tom James who spoke, the youngest, least experienced officer on the team. He continued to explain what their method was, and I felt a little better about what I was seeing. He seemed to speak for a whole two minutes without taking a breath, so I asked a question, just to give him a chance to grab a lungful of air so that he wouldn’t pass out.

“So, what’s your next step?” Even though he was the youngest, the team seemed willing to let him take the lead on telling me the plan. I figured it must have been his idea, and everyone else was holding back to see my reaction. I liked Tom James more as every second passed.

“You know, you would think that there would be a complete, comprehensive list of King’s known friends and associates and known aliases. But there’s not. So that’s what Mikey’s doing, putting together that list. Then we thought we’d get it typed up and alphabetized by first name, last name, and alias. Getting the list to everybody might help us link someone from one case that hadn’t been noticed, to another case.” That was good thinking. Dobey was going to have to pay someone some overtime to get the list typed up fast enough for it to do any good.

“Where are you now with the list?” I asked.

“Almost done,” Mike said from the middle of the room. “Got about twenty more files to go through, maybe another five or so minutes work.” Mike Dawson was Tom’s partner, on the force about five years, and it appeared that at least Mike thought the effort worthwhile, since he was willing to do all the grunt work.

“Okay, well keep at it, remember to look real closely at the files. Anything that you think might be important, have dispatch contact me and Hutch. And let Dobey know. We have to go meet with someone who might have a possible lead for us. We won’t be having our meeting—Hutch and I will be on our way by then. We’ll re-group when we get back. It’s gonna be a long night, fellas.”

I was waiting for Hutch in my car. “What happened?” I asked. “We’re gonna be late.”

Hutch looked pretty pissed. “Dobey wouldn’t authorize us going tonight without back-up. He’s got Grant and Mathews heading over there to back us up.”

“Hey, better safe than sorry, I always say.” I tried to lighten the mood in the car. But my partner was insisting on keeping it tense.

“That’s just what Dobey said. Since when do you tow the company line, partner?” As soon as he said it, I could tell he regretted it. “Ah, Starsk, I’m sorry. I can’t seem to say anything right today. I didn’t mean that. Just forget it. Let’s get movin’ or we are gonna be late.” He was way too on edge, but we had to get moving, he was right.

I reached my hand over and grabbed his shoulder firmly. “Hutch, it’s okay. It’s just a meeting, there’s no reason to think it’s a set up, and we have back up, it’ll be fine.” He patted my hand with his, and I drew comfort knowing that his touch in return said that he agreed and that he would take my lead on this one.

We raced the rest of the drive there, using the siren and the Mars light until we were just a few blocks away from the Roxy. We parked around the corner and bought tickets for the XXX feature already started. Hutch walked in to the theater first, opening the curtain and holding it for me to enter just behind him. We found out that Huggy was right; there was no mistaking the brilliant glow-in-the-dark orange cap the guy was wearing. I walked across an aisle in the back, so that we could approach him from both sides of the theater to prevent any attempted escape. He may not have the information we needed, but he knew something about King, and any piece of information could be the key to catching this murderer.

My partner started quietly, “We’re Sergeants Hutchinson and Starsky from BCPD. You have information for us on Henry King?” The guy stared straight ahead, didn’t flinch and didn’t make a sound. Hutch tried again, this time taking out his shield to show it to the guy seated between us. As he did this, he knocked the guy’s arm, which caused his body to fall forward quickly. His head hit the seat in from of him, hard, and the popcorn in his lap fell to the floor. Hutch grabbed him and pulled him back in his seat. His head lolled in my direction, and with the light from the projection of the movie, all I could see was death in his eyes.

“Hutch, he’s dead,” I whispered to my partner.

“Yeah, and not for long. Go out to the lobby, see if you can find Mathews and Grant, and get the manager to clear the theater.” Hutch stayed with the body while I gathered Mathews, Grant, and the manager and started evacuating the theatre. I also called in for a coroner’s wagon, the crime lab team, and then got a hold of Dobey.

“Our snitch is dead. Dead before we got anything out of him. We’re clearing the theater.” This was not a step in the right direction.

“Okay, make sure the situation’s under control, but leave Mathews and Grant to finish up. Then get back here.”

“Yep, we’ll be on our way soon.” I walked back into the theater. The house lights were on, although they were pretty dim, and I saw Hutch leaning over, grabbing what looked like a piece of paper with his fingertips.

“Whatcha got?” I asked. He jumped a little, but only enough that I would notice it.

“I’ll let ya know in a second.” He peered at the paper in the badly lit theater. “Well, well, looks like our pal King is still in town. He left us a little love letter.”

“Let’s go out to the lobby to get a better look at it.” I said, as we walked to the back of the theater. As we walked through the curtain, the crime lab team walked into the lobby.

“That way.” My partner pointed. “See Mathews and Grant. And we’ll need to get this checked for prints.” He waved the paper at them and watched them as they walked through the curtain. I looked over Hutch’s shoulder as he read the note.

Dearest Detectives Starsky and Hutchinson,

Let me first congratulate you on apprehending me last week. Good job. I don’t know how you did it, but good job. Oh, and Detective Starsky, sorry about the beating I gave you. Believe me when I tell you it was nothing personal.

Of course I know that you are after me again. The Bay City Police Department would have to put you back in charge of my capture.

I fully expect to give you a run for your money. And think of Mr. Watson here as a warning. People who cross me will suffer the consequences. I cannot afford to allow anyone to get close to me and then do what Mr. Watson had planned.

No, you will have to earn your kudos this time. Yes, I saw your captain and the mayor and the commissioner on television last week. It was embarrassing to experience and revolting to watch. I will not be captured without a fight, and if that fight includes hurting or killing innocent people to assure my freedom, then so be it.

I am, as always, your adversary,

Henry King

“Terrific. He says it ain’t personal, but this letter just made it personal.” Hutch nodded in agreement, and grabbed my forearm in a show of understanding.

“Let’s give this to the crime lab boys and get back to the precinct.” Hutch said as he headed back into the theater. “The fact is that having the letter doesn’t really give us any more of a clue about where to find him, and that’s what we need to be concentrating on.”

“Yeah.” We gave the note to the crime team, then headed to the Torino and drove in silence back to the station. I’m sure Hutch was doing the same thing I was; racking his brain to see if there was something that we’d seen or experienced while tracking King that we overlooked.

We walked in to the roll call room to check on the team’s progress. We hadn’t heard anything, so we assumed there had been no progress. But apparently within just the last few minutes, Martinson and Roberts had returned and huddled with Dawson and James with the ‘comprehensive’ list of accomplices that the two had compiled.

“What’s goin’ on?” I asked. Tom Martinson and Dan Roberts looked up, big grins on their faces. They’d come up with something.

“First, you lucked out with getting these guys assigned to the team.” Roberts nodded over to Dawson and James. “Did you see this list they put together? I don’t know how we thought we’d get anywhere without it. Take a seat and we’ll tell ya what we got.” Hutch dropped into a chair while I perched on the end of the table.

“Tommy and I called all our contacts, and then we joined these guys to go through some of the files. While going through an early case against King we found the name Mary Alice Horton on a scrap of paper. Nothing more. Then we noticed on young Tom’s list a William Horton. Seemed there had to be some connection, so Tommy called the Hall of Records and found out that Furness is our accomplice’s married name. Her maiden name is Mary Alice Horton.” Dan seemed pleased with what they’d found, but Hutch and I looked at each other and couldn’t see how this got us anywhere. There had to be more.

“There’s more, right?” Hutch asked.

“Oh yeah,” Tom Martinson continued. “We got more. We had R&I check the local property rolls for some of the prime accomplices. Oh, I forgot to tell ya that while young Tom here was compiling his list, he also kept track of how many times each accomplice had been mentioned during each case, and then had the list sorted by most mentions to come up with his own ‘prime suspects’ list.” We looked with increasing admiration at Tom James. He may have only been on the force for a year, but he was showing all the signs of a future BCPD detective.

Martinson continued, “So, R&I came up with a large farm on the outskirts of town owned by Mary Alice Horton. I think it’s the best lead we’ve had. What do you guys think?”

“I think we better put our posse together and head out of town,” Hutch said as he got up and led us all out to Dobey’s office. I let Hutch, Martinson, and Roberts go ahead to Dobey’s office while I stayed to speak with the other officers.

“Look, this is a lead like any other lead. Hopefully it’s a good one, but we need you guys to stick with it and keep sifting through these files.” I turned to James. “Tom, you and your partner, come with me.” If this lead turned into something, these guys had earned the right to be in on the collar.

As we walked into Dobey’s office, we heard him agree with Hutch that this was our best lead yet and that Martinson and Roberts would work the bust. “Captain, we could probably use more firepower; these people are obviously not afraid to use their weapons. Okay if we take James and Dawson along with us?” I asked as the three of us got settled in Dobey’s office.

Dobey looked at the two young uniformed officers. I don’t know if Hutch had told him where the lead came from, but I think he had already made the decision that the team had earned their right to be in on the bust.

“Fine. You know that you’ll need to go in quietly if you don’t want to scare them away. Have you come up with a plan?” Dobey looked to Hutch and me for an answer. I know I’d thought about the right direction to take, but we did not know the exact location of the farm in question, and I didn’t feel prepared to define a plan just yet. Hutch let me off the hook.

“We’ll need to know where the farm is exactly, but I think it’s safe to say that we may need to send a team in on foot to check the place out. I think it’s safe to assume that King has lookouts on any road access into the place. Can we get our hands on any night-vision glasses? It’s still going to be dark while we check out the area. We’ll be able to move faster and maybe even make our move while it’s still dark; the night-vision glasses will help us move a little faster. It would give us an advantage to attack in the dark.” Hutch had given this more thought than I figured he’d really had time for. Maybe his heightened state of agitation today was actually working to our advantage, finally.

“I’ll get in touch with the SWAT team. They’ve got ’em, just need to see how quickly we can get them here.” Dobey picked up the phone to make the call.

“Grant and Mathews are joining us too, right?” I asked Hutch. James, Dawson and I had come in at the tail end of the conversation; I figured we should all be on the same page, just in case we missed part of the discussion.

Hutch jumped all over the question. “Starsky, weren’t you paying attention? This is important stuff going down here, partner. Where’ve you been?” James and Dawson looked shocked at the reaction, and although it was doubtful Dobey heard what was said, it was obviously said loud enough to disrupt his conversation with the SWAT team captain.

“Hutchinson!” Dobey growled, and shot Blondie a look that Hutch wisely recognized. He looked a little stunned, realizing that he’d probably overreacted, and in front of the two uniforms, which didn’t look good for him; it didn’t look or feel too good to me, either. I locked a firm grip on my partner’s elbow and ushered him into another room for a little privacy.

“Okay. This ain’t gonna continue tonight, Hutch. You’re actin’ like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. What the hell is going on?”

“Starsky, why would I have to repeat something that had just been said? Because you didn’t hear something, I’m the one with the problem?” I gave him a quizzical look. I was beginning to worry whether his head was really in the right place to be leading this effort.

“What?” he asked.

“Hutch, James, Dawson and I walked into Dobey’s office in the middle of the conversation. We weren’t there for any discussion about Grant and Mathews. They could still be wrapping up the dead body at the theater for all I know. Where is your head? And I’m serious here, buddy, I need to know this because you’re not exactly giving me a warm and comfy feeling here.” I didn’t like to say it, and I hoped Hutch wouldn’t make me, but I didn’t think Hutch was in the right frame of mind to participate in tonight’s activities. At least not if he couldn’t provide a good explanation for his actions.

Hutch stared at me with that look that he gets—the one where the determination in his stance exudes his all-knowing correctness in his actions. It’s scary when he gets that way, because he’s usually justified and once he’s in that place, there’s no moving him from his course of action. It’s a terrific trait to have for a police officer and an even better one when he’s using it to cover my back. Or to support his friends, something that I’ve been blessed to feel more than once and that was the backbone of my recovery from Gunther’s assassination attempt.

But I stared him down, too. The standoff couldn’t last; we didn’t have time for it. He finally gave in and said, “What do you want from me, Starsk?” He was going to make me say it. Damn.

“Hutch, you’ve been all over me today, the outburst in there just now is just the most severe manifestation of it. Your state of mind is not exactly where I’d like it to be on a bust as important as this. If your head isn’t where it needs to be, then maybe you shouldn’t be in on this bust.”

He looked me square in the eyes, and I knew he was ready to explain himself. But to say that his explanation took me completely off guard would be an understatement.

“Starsk, do you ever think about what it’s like to back you up?” What? I didn’t see where he was going with this question.

“What do you mean? And what does that have to do with what’s been goin’ on today?”

Hutch dropped his head and shook it back and forth. He looked back up and said, “How am I supposed to back you up? You go out there and toss a Hail Mary and you think I can back you up when you do that? Or you think you can handle it yourself. You know, l…like that day in the garage, o…or when King got you the l…last time.” He was stuttering, and he was getting frustrated with himself for doing it. But he was nowhere near as frustrated with me as I was becoming with him.

“Hutch, please, please don’t tell me that this is what this behavior is all about. Please. Please!” I was getting mad. I wanted to throttle him. We’d been over this so much after Gunther, and he really seemed so much better about over-reacting. I couldn’t believe it was coming down to this again.

“Hutch, are you tellin’ me that you’re acting this way because you’re afraid I’m gonna get hurt? Hm?” I could see from the way he was struggling to come up with an explanation that this was exactly the problem. I waited patiently. I really couldn’t speak anymore without saying something that I might regret, and I knew that we had to get past this right then. But Blondie was taking an awfully long time to respond.

Finally, he said, “Yes. I’m sorry.” He didn’t shy away from the answer, didn’t hang his head as he had earlier. I was glad for that. Well, mad and glad at the same time. I looked at him and knew that later we would have to talk it over some more. It would definitely do Hutch some good to see a therapist; I think I’d have to push that after this case was over. But for now I just shook my head and chuckled. He looked at me, a little surprised, and said, “What?”

“Well, to be honest Hutch, passive/aggressive just isn’t your style. Do you think we could just stick to straight forward from now on so that I don’t have to feel so confused all the time?”

“Um, sorry about that, partner. You’re not mad?” What was he, nuts?

“Of course I’m mad. I’m furious, I’m pissed, and I’m willing to put all of that in my back pocket for now. We’ll come back to that later. And believe me, I won’t forget to come back to it.” I reached over and grabbed his neck affectionately and said, “But we got a job to do. Let’s go get this turkey and show James and Dawson how it’s done.”

Hutch smiled and said, “You got it, buddy. And thanks.”

“Don’t thank me, Hutch. I ain’t finished with ya.” I smiled at him and we headed out the door and back to Dobey’s office.

* * * *

After reviewing the maps of the area of Mary Furness’ farm, we determined that the best access would be from the woods on the east side of the property. Her house was at the end of a dirt road, the only exits being back down the dirt road or through the woods. Chances were pretty good that there were lookouts up the road and in the woods, both east and north of the property. The road came in from the west, and the south side of the property fell off in to a deep gorge, which provided a dangerous option for escape, and only by foot. And you would have to be a pretty good rock climber to even attempt it.

So we took the long way around, but found an access from the east that allowed us to get within two miles of the property. That meant that whoever made the attempt to case the area would have to hike those two miles with the night-vision glasses, which although they allowed for sight in the dark, had terrible peripheral vision, a possible opening for anyone lying in wait.

It was not my choice, and certainly not my preference, but it had been decided that Hutch and Dawson would go in to do the initial surveillance of the property. Dawson was the only one among us with any recent experience with the glasses, and Hutch had done a fair amount of hiking in the general area, and they were both joggers, so Dobey had agreed that it seemed a good fit. Any protests from me were met with the Hutchinson evil eye, so I stifled them, which gave me an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of my stomach. I had told Hutch that I had a bad feeling about this, and being separated from my partner was not going to help ease that feeling.

Hutch and Dawson headed out. It was agreed that they would take a half an hour to jog to the general area, a half an hour to take a look at the surroundings and a half an hour to get back to our site. That was a fairly aggressive schedule, but we wanted the advantage of a nighttime attack for a better chance of surprising the group. We knew there was the probability that they would be less on guard tonight because they wouldn’t believe there was any real likelihood of us finding them this quickly.

I watched Hutch’s back as he headed into the woods. I shivered a little, the bad feeling overwhelming me momentarily. I told myself it was just the cold dampness of the chilled early morning air.

Dobey knew what our schedule was, and he called in around three-thirty in the morning to see how we were progressing. Hutch and Dawson were due back any minute.

“How’s it going, Starsky?” Dobey was surely approaching being awake for twenty-four hours. The weariness was definitely showing in his voice.

“Hutch and Dawson should be back any minute. We’re ready to head out as soon as we get the lowdown from them. We’ll call you as soon as…” I was interrupted by an out of breath Dawson.

“Hold on Cap.” I grabbed Dawson and said, “Where’s Hutch?”

The kid looked like he thought I would kill him if he answered. I tried to sound calm and asked again, “Dawson, where is Hutch?”

“He… he got caught in a trap. They had booby traps set. Sergeant Hutchinson s…saved me from falling into a pit. They also h…had a couple of animal traps set that we saw. We didn’t set them off because the noise might have drawn attention to us. But then we had gotten as close as two hundred feet from the main house. We…we could see through the binoculars King, Furness, Horton and another guy. We figured that there was at least one lookout up the road. There could have been one in the woods, but we didn’t come across anyone, so we thought it would be safe to try to get a li…little closer. That’s when Sergeant Hutchinson shot up into a tree upside down. He was hanging from a rope upside down. We heard a loud snap, loud enough for it to be heard by the people inside the house. Sergeant Hutchinson told me to run back here and bring in reinforcements. I tried to cl…climb the tree to cut him down, but we could hear people approaching from the house. He ordered me to leave. I didn’t want to, but he ordered me to.”

“Okay, Dawson, okay. Hold tight a minute.” I had to give Dobey an update. He wasn’t going to like it.

“Cap, they got Hutch. At least I’m pretty sure they got Hutch. We’re gonna have to go in there as a rescue instead of a bust.” That would make it harder, we would have to try to avoid hitting Hutch if there was gunfire, and there was every expectation that they would position him as best they could to use as a shield.

“Right. Did Grant and Mathews show up with the extra glasses?” Grant and Mathews had been sidetracked by Dobey to pick up some extra night-vision glasses from a neighboring SWAT team. We had four sets, there were seven of us who would be storming the house to try to capture King and his crew and rescue my partner. We would have to team up, but I would definitely be getting one of those pairs of glasses.

Before signing off with Dobey, he told me that he was sending more backup. I turned to Mike Dawson. “Okay, tell us everything you saw.” Dawson proceeded to give us a pretty thorough description of the house and surrounding buildings, as well as the terrain leading up to the property. There was nothing to be too worried about from the description so far. The biggest concern we had was time. Would finding Hutch have spurred King and his crew to move out fast, or had Hutch been able to talk them in to staying put—if Hutch was in any shape to speak at all?

We decided one of us would stay behind in case King made for a quick getaway; I felt that was the least likely scenario at this point. If they were going to high tail it out of the area, they wouldn’t do it by the most likely watched path.

Grant stayed behind to watch the road, and to wait for the backup that Dobey had ordered earlier. The rest of us—Martinson, Roberts, Mathews, Dawson, James and I—headed into the woods toward the Furness farm. Roberts and James went without glasses, sticking tight to their partners as we made our way closer to our target.

We remained pretty much single file, jogging the initial distance and only slowed our pace when Dawson indicated that we were approaching the house. We separated, Dawson and James heading to the rear of the house to watch the far side, Martinson and Roberts covering the rear and Mathews holding down this side of the house. I headed toward the front, stopping with Mathews to see what we could through the window. We had not run into anyone during the approach, nor had we seen anybody watching the outside of the house.

I was beginning to think that they had already moved out of the house. I peered in over Mathews’ shoulder, and just as I did I saw something move up to the window from the inside. I moved to the side, and pulled Mathews with me just before the window shattered. The bullet that made its way through the window just missed killing Mark. He was looking a little stunned, but we didn’t have time to dwell on it. We had to get inside and get Hutch out of there.

“I’m goin’ in!” I shouted, loud enough for everyone outside to hear, and probably inside, too. And they were probably expecting me to come in through the door. I mean, who would be crazy enough to fly in through a window that just disintegrated by a bullet?

As I dove through the window, I heard Mark shout, “Storm the place.” I heard glass shattering as I stopped rolling and raised to aim my weapon. I looked around and found Roberts and Martinson in the house, guns aimed at three of King’s accomplices. And then I saw Hutch, who was looking bloody and beat up. Mary Furness and William Horton were on the far side of the room, dead, obviously having crossed King in some way. The third accomplice, the one that must have shot at Mathews, was still holding his gun, but threw it down on the floor once he saw the manpower overwhelming the house, Dawson and James having finally made their way in to the house as well.

I threw the two-way over to Roberts and said, “Call it in. And once this guy is cuffed, see if you can find King anywhere. There’s other rooms in this house and buildings on this farm. He may not have gotten far.” I headed to my too quiet partner.

“Hutch?” I asked as I quickly approached him. He was sitting in a chair; his face had cuts and was beginning to bruise. I checked his head for any serious injury, and then started feeling the rest of his body, checking for bullet entries and exits, or any other indication of wounds on his body. He had a pretty large bump on the back of the head, near his neck. They probably whacked him from behind. He seemed generally to be in pretty good shape, but he was still out of it and hadn’t answered me.

“Hutch, do you hear me, buddy? Come on, I need you to tell me how you’re feeling.” He looked up at me and smiled. My partner knows I get pretty unsettled when he’s hurt; I’m sure he was trying to make me feel better, even when he was obviously feeling pretty lousy. Blondie will never change, that was something I knew I could always count on.

“Hey, nice to see those pearly whites Blintz; how about talkin’ to me, huh?” I had my hand on the back of his neck, massaging softly. I didn’t want to hurt him more, and this easy rubbing seemed to be soothing to him, so I kept it up as he said, “I’m okay. Just got knocked out for a bit when they let me down from the tree.” I didn’t like the sound of that.

“You were knocked out? How long were you out?” It seemed like he might have been out for a while, at least fifteen minutes judging from his current woozy state. Just about an hour had passed since Dawson left him hanging from that tree.

“Don’t know. Not too long. I’m feeling better, really. Don’t worry.” He grabbed for my arm, grasping it warmly. It comforted me enough to be able to let him sit there a minute while I evaluated what was going on.

I looked around the room and noted that the one living accomplice was cuffed to the radiator. I looked back at my partner, who seemed tired and was lying back in the chair. I walked over to him and tapped his arm.

“Hutch, let me help you over to the couch. You can rest there until the ambulance gets here.” He got up. He seemed a little unsteady, so I helped him over to the couch where he plopped down tiredly.

“Don’t need an ambulance.” I laughed and he gave me a dirty look and then I said, “Come on, legs up, lean back on this pillow and rest your eyes. I’ll be right back.”

I headed over to the front door, where I was greeted by the huge presence that was Henry King.

“Hello, Detective Starsky.” I heard, followed by a quick left hook to the chin. I was fast enough to avoid the full brunt of the hit, but he got a good lick in and I was seeing stars, when suddenly Hutch lurched forward and took a lamp and slammed it over King’s head. King turned and grabbed for Hutch. He was in no shape to take another blow to the head. I quickly blinked a couple of times to try and focus my eyes. King was trying to squeeze the life out of my partner, and he was a huge guy and probably could have done just that. This was the reason King never used a knife or a gun—his body was a lethal weapon.

I pulled my Smith and Wesson and yelled, “King, let him go or I’ll shoot.” Hutch was looking pretty limp, but King’s hold on him eased up just enough for Blondie to open his arms wide and he was able to throw King off of him. Apparently I wasn’t the only one who had perfected playing possum. King was taken by surprise by Hutch’s successful escape and he made a leap toward my gun. I fired, catching him in the shoulder. He weaved to my right, heading for the door. He was running pretty fast, considering his size. I turned and saw Dawson and James out of the corner of my eye and knew they would be tackled full on from King barreling through the door.

I yelled to Dawson and James, “Get up and go after him. He’s unarmed, but dangerous. Be careful.” Martinson, Roberts and Mathews followed, and King knew his chance for escape had been lost. He headed for the gorge anyway, the team following in pursuit.

Hutch wasn’t looking so good. I walked over to him. There were plenty of men in pursuit of King; I decided I’d look after my partner. He looked at me as I reached him; he made no attempt to sit, even though he was teetering pretty badly. “Hey, Blintz, you wanna sit down?”

“Yeah, maybe I should sit.” He didn’t move, so I took his elbow and directed him back to the couch. He eased back in to the pillow. I put his feet up on the couch and was grateful to hear the sirens that heralded the arrival of the ambulance and more backup. It had been a long first day back from vacation.

* * * *

EPILOGUE

They found King’s body about an hour later, just after sunrise, at the bottom of the gorge. It seemed that being followed by the team and hearing the emergency vehicles approach convinced him that his only option was to try the most dangerous escape route. It appeared like he lost his footing right away and never had a chance once he went over the edge.

Hutch was being looked at by the EMTs. He was giving them a hard time about going to the hospital to be checked out. He had definitely rallied, though, so I decided to go give him a hand to get clearance to go home. It had been a long night.

“Hey, Pete,” I said. Pete Kowalski was one of the regular guys in the emergency squad. I could tell by the look on his face that he knew what I was about to say.

“I know what you’re gonna say, Starsky. Fine. Go ahead. Take your partner, you know the risks.” He wasn’t going to make this easy. Thanks, Pete.

“Hey, I don’t wanna make your life difficult, but Hutch’s gonna be okay, right? Does he need to go to the hospital?” Going to the hospital when we didn’t need to was just not in the cards, especially after this long, stressful night.

“Yeah, yeah. It’s just a mild concussion. You know what to do, and you know the signs to look for. Get him outta here. And get some sleep. You both look like hell.”

“Thanks, Pete. See ya.” I slapped his back and Pete and his partner started packing up their gear.

The coroner and the crime lab team were doing their thing, Dobey having taken charge of the scene. I didn’t know where he was getting the energy. I was feeling drained and Hutch had to be feeling worse.

“Good job, men. I want you and your team out of here now. Get some rest. I’ll see you around two this afternoon to get the reports done. By the way, did you hear James and Dawson caught the last accomplice? He was trying to hide out in one of the out buildings, hoping to not be found and make his escape once we cleared the area.” Sometimes criminals could be amazingly stupid.

I drove my partner home. Hutch was drowsy, but seemed okay. I was having a hard time keeping my eyes open, too. We’d been awake for over twenty-four hours, a lot of that time on the move, either driving back from the mountains or tracking King. We got up the steps at Venice Place and that was as far as I was going to make it. I plopped on the couch.

“Mind if I rent your couch for a few hours?” I asked. I didn’t get an answer, so I picked my head up and saw that Hutch was leaning on the bathroom door, just about asleep. He was going to fall and really hurt himself if I didn’t get up and move him. I struggled to my feet and went to lead him to his bed.

“Blintz?” I asked softly. I didn’t want to startle him; that bathroom door might not have been latched quite tight and a sudden move might have seen him fall backwards into the bathroom. All that porcelain would definitely have hurt his head.

He opened his eyes and smiled. “Fell asleep standin’ up, huh?” I laughed.

“Yeah, well I’m right behind ya, buddy. Come on, let’s get you in bed.” He walked sluggishly ahead of me toward the bedroom alcove. I moved ahead of him to pull the covers back so that he wouldn’t just fall uncomfortably in the bed. We had a solid six hours of quality sleep time ahead of us, and Hutch needed to get comfortable and positioned right so that he could fall asleep, although I doubted it would take more than a minute no matter what.

Just as I crossed in front of him, my partner seemed to lose his balance and he sort of fell, knocking me on to the bed, his body landing hard on my left side.

“Oops,” he said softly, and seemed immediately to be falling asleep right on top of me.

“Hutch, Hutch, wake up a minute, huh?” Well, that wasn’t going to happen. He was out like a light. I moved a little, trying to reposition him so that his elbow wasn’t digging in to my ribs. As I shifted, he shifted too, facing me, his arm falling on my chest and his head cuddling into the crook of my neck. I laughed again, knowing we were down for the count. I patted his hand that was resting on my chest, and knew that we would both escape into a well-earned sleep.

The End