Untouchable

Starsky was hiding something terrible and Hutch was afraid he knew what it was.

*Warning: discussion of child abuse.

Originally published in Dangerous Lives, Dangerous Visions 3.

God, please… I’ll do anything… just let me be wrong…

He stopped himself. It was a traitorous prayer. He loved Dave Starsky more than life itself. He believed and honored and trusted this man.

But there had never been a day like today for them. Today was different. Today put a stop to a long, long nightmare. There would never be closure to it all and there would certainly be others, but today everyone involved gave thanks that this particular nightmare was done. Everyone but Hutch. Because Starsky was hiding some terrible truth and Hutch was afraid he knew what it was.

Ohmygod, Starsk… ohmygod…

His distress bled into the exhausted man he cradled. Starsky didn’t waken, but he snuggled closer, murmuring nonsense from deep in his dreams. The normalcy of it comforted Hutch until he remembered about the fight last night and that when he woke this morning, Starsky was gone.

It shouldn’t have mattered. But today was different and Starsky hadn’t been at his place either when Hutch stopped by to pick him up. He’d stumbled in, wild-eyed and disheveled and too closed-mouthed about where he’d been. He’d spurned Hutch completely, locking himself away in the bathroom to shower and shave and shower again while Hutch fixed coffee and brooded about why. They’d drunk it together in careful silence and got to work late. Nobody noticed. Nobody cared. Because Tony Quinlan was found dead today.

Not just dead. Spectacularly dead. In a way that the press would only label “gruesome” and the public would applaud when it finally knew how.

Hutch knew—and wished he didn’t. Because he was glad. They all were. Quinlan deserved it. He was smug and arrogant and the worst kind of monster. A sexual predator who preyed on kids and got away with it because he was very careful and the ravaged bodies told no tales.

An anonymous tip led the task force to Quinlan, but that’s where it ended. No one got close. The man was an enigma with too much money, powerful friends, and a walled estate. It frustrated the task force. They knew he was connected and they couldn’t touch him. Their evidence was circumstantial and his alibis the best that his money could buy.

So it continued. Each time was the same: a child as young as four, as old as seven, disappeared from crowded places. Gender didn’t matter but coloring did. Each was Caucasian, with pale blue eyes and hair so blonde it was nearly white. There’d be a frantic, futile, very public search, but no ransom demands, no calls, no clues, no suspects beyond the “usual” ones. Then weeks or months—or in one case, a year later—what was left of a broken, battered body was found, dumped like garbage in a lonely place. None of the children had died right away. None had died quickly. The killer had taken his time, done unspeakable things…

…and unspeakable things had been done to Quinlan.

He didn’t do it. He couldn’t have done it. No way. Not Starsky. No way in hell…

But he wondered. And he wondered why. And he thought about his own ordeal, never forgotten but seldom discussed.

It had little in common with the cases today. He was the fair-haired son of well-to-do parents, snatched on an outing when he was five. A shadow had grabbed him and locked him in a room. Had fed him and watched him but left him alone. Twenty hours later, a ransom was paid. The shadow man slipped away with the money and young Kenneth Hutchinson was quietly recovered. A battery of doctors pronounced him whole and his grateful parents took him home.

A tremor stiffened the restless sleeper. Hutch felt rather than heard the faint moan that escaped. He knew this dream, knew what would happen and he bitterly resented this intruder in their bed. Hutch tightened his grip and did his best to soothe Starsky, but the dream already had a tighter hold. It would turn on him soon and Starsky would struggle, fighting his way out, choking on screams.

He could see the toll etched in Starsky’s face. Three years of this nightmare. Three years of stolen children. Nine funerals so far and every one of them a media event—six murdered children, a grandfather dead of a broken heart, the big sister runaway after her little sister was taken; she was found first, but they died the same way—raped and beaten and discarded by strangers.

But it was Tom Chisholm who really got to Starsky. Tom, whose whole damn life was tragic. Orphaned at five, widowed at twenty, the shy young man had struggled hard to raise his little son alone. He adored the boy and the boy loved clowns and a birthday at the circus had seemed the perfect gift…

A moment’s inattention and his son had been the first. It was a hideous year before Kenny Chisholm was buried; parts of the four-year-old were never found. Tom endured it in quiet dignity, but when it was over, he simply gave up.

His lover took it hard when Tom was found dead, huddled on Kenny’s grave with a note of apology in his pocket. There was no one to notify. No family. No friends. His funeral was a sad affair, attended only by police officers who paid for it themselves.

Afterward, Starsky’s free time was spent following leads. He obsessed over cases and couldn’t explain why. Against the task force’s wishes, he became an expert on Antonio Quinlan, shadowing his comings and goings and delving into his past. Getting a little crazier when a child went missing.

Yesterday, Danny Turner went missing. Starsky went berserk and disappeared. Today…

Today, after what was left of Quinlan was found, the task force finally got past the walls. Into his mansion, ransacked and abandoned. Into rooms full of depravity it would take days to haul away. And into his study, where an exotic, carved panel hung open, leading to a chamber of horrors deep underground.

Danny Turner was there, drugged but alive, naked but unharmed. Carefully covered. His rescue set off today’s celebrations and no one was happier about it than Hutch.

So why did Starsky’s disappearance bother him? It wasn’t unusual for him to sulk after a fight, to even keep to himself for a day or two. The old habit was the reason they hung onto separate places, although that would change soon when the leases ran out.

A sudden shudder and a long drawn-out sigh drew Hutch’s attention to his recalcitrant love. Clouded blue eyes met his own and love shown through before pain took hold. It surprised him when Starsky slipped from his embrace and scooted over to the edge of the bed.

“Starsk?”

Starsky got to his feet and stumbled away. He heard the bathroom door close and sounds of sickness, then another shower—the third today. It pulled Hutch out of bed, determined to get answers.

But he didn’t want a confrontation and Starsky always responded to food. So instead of storming the bathroom door, he detoured to see what he could find in the kitchen. Coffee and scrambled eggs didn’t take long.

The shower was still going. Hutch frowned. There couldn’t possibly be hot water left. Starsky was probably blue by now, but he was still reluctant to beat down the door. He needed an excuse— Sweats. A robe. Something clean to wear. There was nothing in the bathroom this morning but towels. Hutch crossed to the closet and pulled open the door.

Starsky’s gym bag was tucked in the corner. Perfect. The sweats in it were bound to be clean—Starsky hadn’t worked out in weeks. Hutch pulled it out and reached inside…

Under the neatly folded sweats was an evidence bag that had no business being there. He gaped at it, suddenly afraid, then pulled it out with trembling fingers. Inside was an old envelope labeled “Kenny” that contained a single negative and one much-handled, grainy color photo. Officially, the evidence didn’t exist. There was no catalogue number, but there was a tag. The photo came from Quinlan’s estate, from a small, private cache carefully secreted in the study.

It was both mesmerizing and disturbing—an ash-blond, blue-eyed, white male child about 4 or 5 years old. He was nude, his innocence demurely arranged on rumpled pastel bedding. Beautiful. Dreamy-eyed with kiss-swollen lips that evoked a latent wantonness awaiting proper handling…

Hutch was stunned. This wasn’t Kenny Chisholm. He was the child in the photo he held. It had to have been taken during his own kidnapping, but he had no memory of when or how. The photo was an utter shock. The implications inescapable.

Ohmygod, Starsk, not for me. Tell me you didn’t do it for me…

He didn’t know how long it was before Starsky found him slumped on the floor. He could only blink in wet-eyed bewilderment as Starsky enfolded him in a gentle hug and kissed his cheek with tenderness.

Then Starsky took away the bag and its contents and burned everything in silence.

Ohmygod, Starsk… ohmygod…

End