Out of the Mists
Chapter
Five
The morning light streamed into the district attorney’s office window, warming the room. DA Richardson didn’t look up from the report he’d been reading until he finished it, ignoring the federal agent seated in front of him.
“It appears that Detective Starsky’s kept busy. While he’s out searching for his partner, he’s actually managed to shore up the case against Vic Monte. It wouldn’t surprise me if he breaks the Singapore connection in the process as well.”
McMillian exhaled through his nose, partly in disgust for the headway a mere city detective was making beyond what he and his partner had made in the past week. “Yeah, well, we’ll see. He’s also ticking off a lot of people. It wouldn’t surprise me if he winds up dead.”
The DA raised an eyebrow. “Unfortunate, to be sure, but of no real consequence to the case. All I care about is putting Vic Monte away. The governor’s counting on me, and I’m counting on you, McMillian. You understand?”
McMillian nodded, a hard glint in his eye. “Oh, yes, sir. I understand perfectly.”
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Starsky’s hands shook as he reached for the coffeepot. He turned at the sound of voices coming down the hall, recognizing the group as the four detectives heading up Hutch’s case. The group entered the squadroom engrossed in their heated discussion, their voices low and tense. As soon as they saw Starsky, their conversation abruptly stopped, their expressions fading from frustration to guilt.
Starsky’s eyes burned through them. “What?”
When no one spoke up, his face turned red with anger, instinctively knowing something was wrong. “What is it? Have you found something?”
Jacobson, the oldest of the four detectives, put his hands up in a placating gesture. “Nothing, Starsky. We got nothing. It’s just that...”
When he trailed off, one of the younger men¾a new detective named Becker¾pressed the point he’d been trying to make with them earlier. “That’s just it, you see? It’s almost as if Detective Hutchinson doesn’t want to be found. These kinds of things happen all¾”
The throwing of the coffeepot
from across the room was sudden and violent.
While Starsky purposefully missed the junior officer, lukewarm coffee
splashed near enough to stain Becker’s shirt and cause him to duck
reflexively. When the pot struck the
plate glass window, it shattered the pane, sending shards into the
hallway.
Officers came running down the corridor, and Captain Dobey came out of his office in a rush. “What the¾? What happened to the window?”
Becker opened his mouth to respond, but his partner spoke up first. “It was the damnedest thing, Captain. As we were coming in, one of us must have hit the doorframe pretty hard. All of a sudden, the window just...shattered. Isn’t that right, Becker?”
The junior partner swallowed hard, Jacobson’s intent clear. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s what must have happened.”
Dobey snorted. “Well, somebody call a janitor to get this mess cleaned up and take care of that window.” The captain glanced at Starsky, as the brunet’s glare continued to bore a hole into the youngest of the group. Knowing full well what had happened, but choosing to ignore it, he returned to his office and slammed the door.
Jacobson nudged his partner toward a phone, then turned his focus back to Starsky. “Listen, we haven’t come up with anything. None of the men arrested with Hutch know anything about his disappearance, or else they’re just too scared to talk. We’re in contact with everybody we know on the streets, Starsky. Just hang in there. Something’s bound to turn up.”
Starsky nodded mutely, pulling his jacket off the back of his chair. Without a backward glance, he stepped across the broken glass and out of the squadroom.
˜ ™
The dispatcher checked the call sheet. “The caller indicated that the body was in the Angeles National Forest, about forty feet down the embankment, south-southwest of mile marker twelve. Body was male, blond, approximately thirty years old.”
“Uh-huh,” the patrolman grunted. “And was this a legit call, or some whack-job?”
There was a grin in the dispatch operator’s voice. “Got me, Ace. I’m just the messenger.”
“Gee, thanks for the tip.” The patrolman looked sourly at his partner before returning his attention to the microphone. “All right, we’ll be out of the vehicle for a while. If you don’t hear back in thirty, call Smokey the Bear. Baker Four, out.”
The two CHP officers climbed out of their car and over the guardrail, cautiously picking the safest trail through the brush of the steep embankment. A quick glance above them at the squad car assured them they were indeed moving southwest of the mile marker. When they descended to what they estimated to be forty feet, they spread out, kicking up brush.
When the older of the two officers leaned against a tree to mop his brow, something caught his eye.
“Oh, good Lord...”
˜ ™
In desperation, Starsky drove to Hutch’s house again, having lost track of the number of times he’d been there over the course of the last several days. He had the constant feeling he was missing something, and, if he just looked close enough, thought hard enough, he would find it.
Much of the cottage looked just as it had after the forensics team had partitioned it off as a crime scene. Starsky was careful not to disturb anything as he wandered about the familiar space like a ghost, aimlessly moving from memory to memory.
The burning in his eyes had nothing to do with the lingering smell of smoke that permeated the cottage. Blindly, Starsky staggered into the bedroom and sank down onto the side of the bed. Without realizing he had moved, he found himself clutching a pillow tightly to his chest, his face buried in it as the tears finally came.
The release lasted only a moment, pushed aside by his refusal to give up or lose hope. Just as Starsky surged unsteadily to his feet, the bedside telephone rang, and he snatched up the receiver. “Yeah?”
“Starsky? I...when you didn’t answer on the radio...I...”
“What is it, Cap’n?” Starsky felt a chill in his stomach at Dobey’s stammering.
“Starsky...”
“Cap’n, what is it?” His voice rose further when no answer was forthcoming. “Captain?”
“Detective Starsky?” The new voice was McMillian’s. “We need you to come back downtown. There’s been a John Doe found by the CHP, and...well, we need you to come down to the morgue, Detective.”
Starsky sank back onto the bed when his knees could no longer support him. “No...”
“Why don’t you just wait there, Sergeant, and I’ll send a car to pick you up? Detective Starsky?”
The sound of the receiver dropping and Starsky’s feet running across the floor were the only replies to the agent’s questions.
˜ ™
Starsky’s heart threatened to leap out of his chest as he tore down the stairwell leading to the city morgue. The drive across town had a nightmarish quality he was never able to describe afterwards.
As he stumbled down the steps, he tried to draw breath to clear his head, but the tightness in his chest wouldn’t allow it. His thoughts were incoherent¾a jumble of denial and fear warring against the numbness that tried to smother his panic.
As he hit the last step, he lost his balance out of fear and fatigue. He leaned against the wall, gripping the handrail to steady himself. It was then that he could hear fragments of conversation and the anguish in his captain’s voice.
“We have to stop him...he doesn’t need to see...I can verify...”
Faltering steps took Starsky to the open door of the morgue, and he slowly entered. Dobey and McMillian were talking to the coroner, Jameson, and the captain was signing a form on a clipboard. Starsky’s eyes traveled across the room to the rows of drawers containing the bodies of the dead.
One slab was pulled out, the still form covered by a protective sheet. The crown of the person’s head was exposed, blond hair dull in the fluorescent lights. Starsky began to tremble. “Cap’n?”
Dobey thrust the clipboard toward Jameson and quickly crossed to block the detective’s view. “Starsky...you don’t...” The larger man’s voice broke.
“Captain?” A whisper.
“Dave...son, it’s¾”
“No.” Starsky’s voice was matter-of-fact, but the look in his eyes belied the fear ripping at his heart. “No.”
“You don’t have to do this.”
“It’s not him. It’s not Hutch. I’d know it. I’d know it if he were...” Starsky shook his head violently and stared past the larger man to the still body.
When Dobey reached out, Starsky stepped around him and walked purposefully to the corpse laid out before him. As he reached to draw back the sheet, he stopped, his hand trembling.
Starsky closed his eyes and swallowed, then steeled himself against the inevitable—he had to know. He would never forget the feel of that sheet under his quaking hand as he drew it back to reveal the victim’s face.
Hutch’s face.
“Oh, God...” was all Starsky could manage past the enormous pain ripping through him. Pulling the sheet back until his hand rested above his partner’s heart, Starsky could feel the coldness of Hutch’s skin, the absence of breath and heartbeat emitted from the once strong chest. His other hand came up to cradle his partner’s head, the flesh beneath his questing fingers chilled under his touch. The side of Hutch’s face had second-degree burns, most likely gained from the apartment fire, and his lips and eyelids had the bluish cast of death. His nose appeared to have taken a significant blow at some point, and Hutch’s torso was battered—a patchwork of faded bruises and bloodless scrapes.
“Oh, Hutch...no...no...” Starsky dropped his head to his partner’s chest and silently cried, voiceless tears shaking his frame.
Two strong hands pulled him up, and if he’d been less grief-stricken, Starsky would have been surprised to find it was McMillian, rather than Dobey, who led him away from Hutch’s body. The captain followed, then took Starsky by the arm and led him out of the room, intending to drive him home. But when they stepped out into the hallway, Starsky slumped against the wall and slowly slid to the floor. Drawing his knees up to his chest, he folded his arms over them and lowered his head. He began crying in earnest and without shame, his heartbreaking grief reverberating throughout the stairwell.
His own tears sliding down rough cheeks, Dobey lowered himself to the floor beside his friend and sat quietly next to him, an arm across Starsky’s shoulders to remind him he wasn’t alone.
˜ ™