Patience

54

Starsky is feeling impatient.

---

Starsky punched the horn to attract Hutch’s attention, making the elderly lady Hutch was talking to jump. His partner looked at him enquiringly over the top of his aviators. Starsky waved an apology at the lady but tapped his watch at Hutch. His partner rolled his eyes and went back to talking.

Starsky’s stomach growled in protest. He groaned and punched the horn again, but less ferociously. Hutch finished his conversation, closed his notebook and sauntered over.

“Did we get another call?” Hutch asked, knowing the answer was no because Starsky would have yelled at him if they had.

Starsky started the engine. “Nope but I’m hungry. We haven’t had lunch yet.”

“All that noise because of your stomach?” Hutch tutted. “You made poor Mrs Vincent jump out of her skin.”

“Thought uniforms got her statement.”

“They did, but I had one more question and…I wanted to check she was feeling okay now.”

“And?”

“She is.”

“Great. Now get in so we can go get some food!”

Hutch rolled his eyes but walked around the car and climbed in. Starsky pulled away with a screech of tyres.

“Slow down, Gordo! You can’t eat lunch if we’re dead!”

Starsky snorted but did steady his speed. He drove to the nearest food truck and stopped. He leapt out of the car and hurried up to the window. Hutch followed reluctantly.

Starsky placed his order then asked, “What d’ya want?

“I want to see a licence.”

“Ssh. You’ll upset Sammy.”

“Why does everything have to be so spicy?”

“Ssh.” Starsky looked at man waiting to take Hutch’s order. “He’ll have the veggie burrito but hold everything except the mayo.”

Sammy looked horrified. “Mayo?”

“I know. I know. I apologise for my partner.”

“Hey,” Hutch protested.

“We’ll take two waters too,” Starsky added, ignoring his partner.

Hutch sighed and went and sat on a bench that was now free. A couple of minutes later, Starsky joined him, carrying their food and two bottles of water on a tray. They ate in companionable silence.

Starsky finished first. He wiped his mouth and sat back with a satisfied sigh. Reaching for the bottle of water, he asked, “What was the question?”

“What?”

“What was the question you had for Mrs Vincent?”

“Oh.” Hutch wiped his mouth before saying, “I just wondered if she thought she’d seen the car before.”

“And had she?”

“Yes, she thought she saw it last Friday. She remembered because she was about to cross the street and she said it was coming around the corner too fast.”

Hutch looked at his partner expectantly. Starsky started to look enthusiastic.

“And around the corner there’s that small shopping mall and a pharmacy that may have security cameras.”

Hutch nodded.

“Guess we’re heading to the pharmacy,” Starsky said as he stood up.

The two of them headed over to Starsky’s car and climbed in. As Starsky reversed the Torino, he thought it was a good job that Hutch was always thorough and took his time with shocked witnesses. He wondered how many times, other detectives missed opportunities that could help break a case because they were in a rush.

They arrived at the pharmacy and found it did indeed have a camera on the left of the front wall. Very soon, they were looking at footage from Friday morning and within half an hour they had a registration plate for a light green sedan. They asked Detective Services to find out the name of the owner, while they secured a warrant. Two hours later, they were arresting Frankie Hudson and recovering the jewellery he’d stolen from Mrs Vincent’s neighbour.

They wrote up the report and placed it on Dobey’s desk before going off shift. As Starsky drove to Hutch’s apartment, he said, “Well done, partner.”

Hutch looked at him with surprise.

Starsky elaborated: “If you hadn’t gone back to talk to Mrs Vincent again, we wouldn’t have closed that case today.”

“Oh, we’d have got there eventually.”

“Yeah, but not today. You did good.”

Hutch shrugged but coloured up slightly with pleasure at his partner’s praise. “Thanks.”

“I promise to be more patient in future,” Starsky added.

Hutch snorted. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep, especially if you’re hungry!”

Starsky went to protest and then conceded, “Okay, I’ll try to be more patient with witnesses from now on…but you’d better let me have regular meal breaks.”

Hutch just laughed and shook his head.