A Question of Perspective

Starsky and Hutch try to tease out the details of the operation at the castle and find plausible reasons for Durniak’s murder. Too many clues and not enough concrete facts. Or even plastic ones.

Hutch poured a cup of coffee, wishing he could wipe the last week from his life. He glanced over at Starsky knocking back an entire bottle of root beer in one swallow. He didn’t want to dredge up fragile memories but there were so many questions, so many avenues to go down. “Who do you think put out the hit on Durniak?”

Starsky lifted his head with a mixture of fear and consternation. “Those whippos who brainwashed Terry or whatever the hell his name is.” Starsky flapped a hand vaguely in the direction of the window to encompass all the covert operatives who’d been at the castle.

“But who had that kind of power?” Hutch took Starsky’s hand to fill it with something warm and solid. Starsky gave him courage even when he was obviously worried. “Who could have orchestrated such a massive operation?” He squeezed Starsky’s fingers, wanting to kiss him, hug the stuffing out of him, but this was too urgent. Linked, they sat at the table in tandem. “This took money, coordination, huge amounts of man power…”

“Where do we start?” Starsky finished the soda and burped.

Hutch half-chuckled at the normalcy in the midst of discussing such abnormality.

“Who could have controlled them?” Starsky asked, tracing his finger through the condensation on the soda bottle. “Even if we start at the castle…”

“Follow the money,” Hutch said, glancing around for something to record their thoughts. “A pen?”

“Typical.” Starsky dug into his leather jacket pocket for a gnawed pencil without an eraser.

Reaching over on his kitchen counter, Hutch snagged a pad of paper advertising the local grocery. He tapped the pencil on the pad, coloring in the grocer’s toothy grin, “Follow the money.”

“Who owns the castle?” Starsky prompted. “Who bought all the stuff that was there?”

“Who paid for Terry’s apartment?” Hutch nodded, jotting it all down.

“Is there any way to find out where that blond girl who bombed my car is from?”

“Debra,” Hutch reminded, shuddering at their close call, all because they were trying to be gentlemen. And she was pretty. Obviously their own blind spot.

“My car!” Starsky growled in frustration.

“Not the only Torino in Bay City,” Hutch consoled with a twinge of guilt since he had always hated that car.

“Red ones?” Starsky countered, jutting out his chin in defiance. “With a white stripe?”

“Merle will fix you right up,” Hutch said briskly. “Those are much easier issues to solve than what we have here.”

“The zombie on the bed staring at the redhead Terry claims is his wife,” Starsky held up a finger as if counting. “Where’d he come from? They just kidnap innocent schmucks off the street in small town US of A, ship ‘em to the castle, bleach their brains with fabrications of somebody else’s lives—“

“And turn them into assassins,” Hutch finished, the idea horrific. He clicked his fingers, belatedly dredging up a name. “Her name was Patty.”

Starsky scowled at him, brows drawn down over his blue eyes.

“Terry’s so called wife. The redhead.”

“Yeah—fairly certain she’s not really a Patricia. And none of the victims of this plot can recall a thing.” Starsky got up to prowl the room.

“We don’t know that for sure,” Hutch argued to be devil’s advocate. “Terry has no past memories. The zombie apparently has no personality left.” He and Terry had been the first removed from the castle once the FBI had descended in their unmarked sedans. They’d hustled the two men away and never disclosed where they were taking them.

Starsky snagged a wedge of cheese from the fridge and half a loaf French bread from the breadbasket.

“That’s pretty stale.”

“Aren’t toast points stale bread?” Starsky sliced off several pieces and added cheese on top, doling them out on a single plate for both of them to nosh.

“They’re toasted,” Hutch corrected, giving up after the single attempt. Starsky actually had a valid point. He wolfed down his portion with a swallow of coffee, surprised at how hungry he was. Been hours, if not most of twenty-four hours since they’d eaten. “These shadow kidnappers need to feed their marks, need audiovisual equipment, guns and ammo.”

“Actors for that movie Terry said he watched.” Starsky chewed his snack thoughtfully. “Skeet shooting. Patty… he said he’d seen her killed in a car.”

“So a film studio,” Hutch trailed off, his head swimming. It was like diving blindfolded into a bottomless pit.

“Or the back of a old building like Janos Martini.” Starsky popped another morsel of cheese into his mouth.

“Has to be someone with scads of disposable income—but why?” Hutch exhaled in frustration. This made his brain hurt. Maybe a beer would work better than coffee?

“To be able to murder whoever he wants,” Starsky mused. “What was it Durniak said?”

“That what he was going to say on the witness stand might upset you,” Hutch paraphrased.

“Who else would it have riled up enough to kill him?” Starsky stood up restlessly, wandering over to the piano to plink a couple keys. “Another mob boss?”

“His lawyer—I mean, not that he’d would want to kill Durniak, but he would know specifics.” Hutch latched onto a tangible fact. “Wouldn’t he know the gist of Durniak’s testimony?”

“Maybe not all of it, if they were tryin’ to keep a lid on a bombshell.” Starsky sighed, hitting a high G on the piano until Hutch glared at him. Starsky shoved his hand in his pocket. “Or he’d be on the hit list, too.”

“Who’s to say he isn’t?” Hutch drew a series of triangles around the grocer on the pad. “Do we know his name?”

“Dobey could find out whoever was defending him easily enough.” Starsky leaned against the piano, one leg crossed over the other. “The Bay City D.A.?”

The provocative pose was enough to distract Hutch from the task at hand, and he had to force himself back to their investigation. “It’s a federal case, so more like a US attorney, not local. I’d like to stick to what we know, who we know, before pulling Dobey into it any more than he already is.” He wrote Debra, zombie, Dr. George, Patty the mystery woman, and Thistleman on the list. A very incomplete record but it was a starting point.

“Fake Fed Oliver.” Starsky said around a yawn. He rubbed his eyes blearily. “The voice who told Thistleman what to do.”

The yawn was contagious, Hutch immediately succumbing, too. He covered his mouth, the stress of the last few days with Terry, the violent attack yesterday, and the long debriefing with the Feds today all taking their toll. He was exhausted. Too tired even to write the last two items. “We’d need a task force working five days a week, full time, to get to the bottom of this operation.”

“Like peeling an onion.” Starsky stroked his thumb down Hutch’s cheek, cupping his jaw. “We started the ball rolling, ate something, now it’s sleep. Together.” He kissed Hutch gently on the forehead and then on his mouth.

Hutch sucked on Starsky’s bottom lip to extend the kiss longer, but his whole body was begging for rest. Neither of them had the energy for anything more than life sustaining caresses.

“Where do we go from here?” Starsky muttered, leaning against him as they staggered to Hutch’s bed. “It’s like a maniacal prism, too many angles, too many sides. We don’t know the players, the motives, the sources…”

“Then we find a different perspective and keep digging,” Hutch vowed, falling asleep with his partner in his arms. The first time he’d felt safe in over a week.

FIN