Rainy
Days and Mondays: conclusion
Chapter Sixteen
“What else did you find?” Sharman asked Stephanie, who was concentrating very hard on a particular file, pushing her glasses up to meet her friend’s eyes with her own.
“It looks like some sort of inheritance file. And from what I can tell,” she began as looked back down at the file, “he had quite a lot of inheritance taxes to pay. What do you know about his other wives?”
“Other wives?” Sharman’s voice grew hoarse.
“You just had to do it, didn’t you?!”
Sharman and Stephanie both spun around where they sat in the floor, looking up at none other that Edward Brannigan, standing a mere three feet away from them at the study’s entrance. His look was full of anger and disgust, complimented by the gun he held firmly beside him.
“Ed? What are you doing here?”
“Well, kiddo, it looks like I got out of jail. Having money has its advantages, like being able to have the best lawyers money can buy. And I’m hardly a flight risk. Oh, and certainly I’m not a threat to society.” He said, smiling as brought the 357 magnum into full view.
Sharman drew a panicky breath, and Stephanie whispered for her to stay calm.
Stephanie slowly moved her hand behind her, trying to reach into her purse without Ed noticing. Luckily, he was beginning to rant, and kept his eyes focussed on Sharman.
“You know, if you had just stayed put in New York, I wouldn’t have to do this now. Damnit, Sharman! You were like a daughter to me! Now all you are is a threat!” He aimed the gun in front of him.
“Why! Why are you doing this Ed? I don’t understand ….” Tears filled Sharman’s eyes, the stress and confusing ganging up on her thought processes, making her lose her composure.
Stephanie’s hand made contact with the gun inside her purse. At the same time she noticed Ed’s hand readying to fire at his stepdaughter. She quickly decided to distract him.
“He was only in it for the money,” Stephanie began, “Just like all the others, right Ed? Marry the rich, then they have some sort of accident, leaving you of course as the grieving widow and beneficiary to their bank accounts.” Suddenly, fire filled Ed’s eyes, and the gun turned towards Stephanie.
“You shut up! You shut your mouth!” Ed fired a shot above Stephanie’s head, making her jump suddenly from the shrill noise that passed over her.
“Ed! Killing her isn’t going to get you out of this! Think about it! I’m the one holding the estate money! I’m the one who could sign it all over to you and give you a chance at a new life, maybe out of the country!! Look at me Ed! You let her go, and I won’t press charges, and you can have the damned money!!”
Slowly the gun turned back towards Sharman, following Ed’s line of vision. He looked at her as if he were considering her offer, then suddenly broke out into a hearty, thick laughter.
“And why do you think I need you to do that? I can kill you both, hide the bodies so good that they won’t find you until I’m long gone, out of the country with a comfortable bank account. No stepdaughter’s taking away the money I worked so hard for! I don’t need your help! And for that matter, I_don’t_need_you.”
His eyes were filled with hatred and saw no more reasoning. He pulled the trigger.
Sharman clutched at her chest as the bullet stabbed into her. The look on her face was not so much pain as it was shock. Shock that this man who had helped to raise her so easily pulled that trigger.
Stephanie pulled her gun from her purse and fired at Ed as he turned his weapon on her. His gun discharged at the same time as hers.
Chapter Seventeen
Starsky and Hutch ran up the stairs, hearing the gunshots and fearing the worst. Their fears were as true as their instincts.
It was quiet. Too quiet. Covering each other as they flanked the doorway of the study, they silently nodded their understanding of what each other would do next.
Starsky dropped to the floor, peeking around the door frame as Hutch did the same from above. What they saw looked like a massacre cut from some horror film.
Lying on the floor directly in front of them was Ed Brannigan. Blood pooled beside his body, the life had obviously drained from it, although Hutch did check for a pulse, finding none. Further away, towards the desk, lay Sharman. Her white blouse had turned crimson from the bullet wound in her chest, and she lay unconscious, or dead. To her right was Stephanie. She was leaning against the wall with blood covering the side of her shirt, blood oozing through her fingers as she tried to put pressure on her wound.
Starsky ran to Sharman, hands shaking as he felt for a pulse; relief flushing his face when he found it. Hutch ran over to Stephanie as Starsky passed him to grab the phone, calling for an ambulance and coroner’s team. Once the call had been placed, he kicked the magnum from Ed’s dead hand as he ran back to Sharman.
Hutch knelt beside Stephanie, smiling as he removed the gun from her hand, gently prying it from her fingers as her stunned mind held on tight. He kept eye contact with her as he set her gun behind him. When he looked down at her wound, he gently pulled at her hand.
“Honey, let me take a look at that, okay? It’s all right now. It’s all over. We’re here and nothing else is going to happen to you. You’re safe. Stephanie?” Her eyes were open, but shock had taken over, making her less than coherent. He finally was able to remove her hand from the wound. He fought the urge to gasp, not wanting her to see the panic that rose within him. The bullet had torn her skin and penetrated at such an angle that he saw more of her than he’d ever wanted to. He grabbed the sweater that lay beside her and balled it up, using his own strength to apply pressure to the wound.
Hutch watched as Stephanie began focusing on him. As her eyes made contact, the pain of her injury became very evident. But her first thought was not about herself.
“Sharman?” she weakly asked, looking up at her lover.
“Starsky’s with her now.”
She nodded slightly, then raised a bloody hand to his cheek.
“I love you. I really love you, Ken,” she told him, letting her hand weakly fall from him as consciousness left her.
Starsky was visibly upset as he checked Sharman’s wound. The bleeding had slowed, but still managed to eke out in rhythm to her slowing heart rate.
“Come on baby. You’ve fought too hard now to let a little thing like this get you down. Stay with me. Sharman, are you listening to me? You gotta stay with me. Now fight this!” Starsky’s words choked out of him, fighting back tears as he looked down at the pale woman who lay before him. He was caught off guard by a sigh of relief as he heard the sirens approaching.
Chapter Eighteen
Captain Dobey joined his two finest detectives as they waited impatiently for any news on the women. Both were critical upon arrival to the hospital. They’d both lost so much blood. The news of Edward Brannigan’s death was hardly a comfort.
“The boys back at the station found out that his real name isn’t, I mean, wasn’t, even Edward Brannigan. It was Richard Garrettson, and he was wanted under that name for the mysterious deaths of his very first two wives. When the heat got too much for him, he changed over to this alias and started over again. There wasn’t ever enough evidence to convict him, and so he continued through a total of seven very wealthy and unfortunate wives.”
“So, Sharman was a threat to his bank account. All this because of greed.” Starsky began, losing his composure little by little as he continued. “Murder for a little dough. The cock-sucker didn’t even have a conscious!”
“Starsk. He had to feel something for Sharman and her mother. He was with them for years. That’s why I know she’ll pull through this. She’s come too far now not to.” Hutch’s words were hardly a comfort to him, but the tone in which he spoke them softened his anger a little.
He looked at Hutch, letting the fire in his eyes subside as he realized that being angry wasn’t going to help a damned thing. He knew that’s what Hutch was thinking. Anger was soon replaced with admiration; the strength his partner kept throughout this whole waiting process was a strength he could do nothing but be in awe of. Hutch stood there calm, knowing that the woman he had finally admitted to ‘love at first sight’ with was only a few yards away from him, fighting for her own life, yet he was offering strength to his best friend.
Starsky smiled half-heartedly at his friend through tear filled eyes.
“Stephanie will too. They’re both too tough to …”
“Detectives?”
All three men turned around, looking at a very tired looking man in blue-green hospital scrubs. There was blood on the front of them, and his attempt to cover it with the white over coat did not work.
“I’m Doctor Phelps, head of emergency medicine. You’re here for Sharman Crane and Stephanie White?”
Starsky and Hutch both nodded as they approached him, wanting to hear every word he had to say. The doctor took a deep, cleansing breath.
“Well, they both survived their surgeries. The next twelve hours will tell, but I think they’re going to pull through. Both ladies suffered from major blood loss, but each wound was clean enough to repair. I wish I had more promising news to deliver to you, but this is the best I can offer at this point.”
Chapter Nineteen
It had been four weeks since the shootings and the permanent downfall of one Richard Garrettson, AKA, Edward Brannigan. They were very hard weeks, Stephanie and Sharman both recovering from their injuries and the horrific circumstances surrounding them.
As Stephanie recovered with the help and loyal companionship she found dearly in Hutch, Sharman had a more difficult time, trying to deal with all of the realities that settled in. Refusing a semi-private room with Stephanie to have time alone, she became more despondent as her physical wounds healed.
Starsky tried to pull her out of the depression that tried to take her over, but found himself worried that he might lose the battle. None the less, he continued his efforts to cheer her each day, as he and Hutch visited the ladies each and every free moment they had available. Soon, Sharman began to regain herself, and her inner strength grew as well as her physical strength. She was smiling again. Though it sometimes seemed an effort to do so, it still was there.
<O><O><O><O><O><O>
Stephanie was released from the hospital 22 days after the shooting, and Hutch took some vacation time to be there for her during her first week back home.
Hutch cooked for her, cleaned house, and took care of her in every way her body would allow. Each day he still managed to go visit Sharman, trying to take up the slack for Starsky while he continued to go to work each day. His visits with Sharman were uneventful. He found that most times she feigned sleep to probably avoid talking to him. But he would talk to her encouragingly anyway, for her as well as Starsky, trying.
Using the key she had given him to her place, Hutch walked into Stephanie’s apartment, finding it dark. Thinking she must be resting, he eased himself inside, locking the door behind him. That’s when he heard it.
Soft violins played on the stereo as he walked towards the dining room. When he walked through the doorway, the aroma of a roast cooking in the oven, along with sweet, intoxicating perfume made him breath in deeply and enjoy the mixing smells.
“Steph?”
Stephanie walked out from the kitchen, smiling at the sound of his voice. Dressed in a very sexy long black negligée with slits up each thigh, he had to admire the picture before him. The negligée had a halter type top which revealed a very low back line as she swirled it in front of him, never spilling the full wine glasses that she brought in with her. She had really dolled herself up, fixing her hair with curls that flanked her bare shoulders, and make up that made her positively glow in the candle light. Hutch was speechless. As she walked over to him and handed him a wine glass, he accepted it, but only after grabbing the arm that extended towards him and kissing her from her wrist up to her ear, sending chills down her back.
“I thought it was time I did a little something for you for a change.”
“Oh, you wouldn’t believe what this is doing for me.” He answered seductively. “How long before that roast is done?” She looked at him as if to ask why he wanted to know, but answered him sweetly.
“It has a little more than an hour to go. Why?”
“Well, that’s a start.” he whispered, taking her wine glass and setting it down on the dining room table, then taking her beside it.
Chapter Twenty
Starsky arrived at the hospital a half an hour before Sharman’s release time, bringing with him some roses that he couldn’t resist buying for her on the way.
When he knocked on her door, he didn’t wait for a response before entering. Walking inside, he found the room to be empty and the hospital bed already made.
He rushed as he went to the nurse’s station, fearing what he knew had happened in the back of his head, but simply feeling a need for confirmation. When his suspicions were verified, he looked sadly down the corridor for a moment, then began walking to an elderly lady who sat quietly in her wheel chair by the visitor’s lounge. Stopping beside her, she looked up at him, and he smiled, handing her the roses. Never saying a word, he turned and headed for the elevators.
As Starsky walked out of the hospital main entrance, he smiled when he saw her sitting at a fountain in the middle of the circular drive.
“I couldn’t just leave. I wanted to. Really. I wanted to make this great escape and leave and spare myself from saying good-bye to you. But I couldn’t. Oh David ...” her voice wavered as her eyes looked up at him, and he sat down beside her, putting his arm around her in a warm embrace.
“It’s okay. I know. I knew it was gonna be this way. Shhh, it’s okay.”
Sharman cried into his shoulder.
“Dave, I don’t want to leave you, but I just can’t stay here. I can’t! I feel like if I don’t get away from here and start over somewhere that I will go back into the shell that I was in before when you found me the first time!” she gasped at her breaths, trying to control the emotional outburst that caught her off guard.
Starsky held her tightly, knowing it was for the last time.
“David, you could come with me. We could both start fresh, have a life all to ourselves …”
“Now Sharman, you know I can’t do that. My life is here. And I don’t want to change anything about it. Except for maybe you leaving it.”
Her eyes looked at him, and she saw the tears that he struggled to keep from falling.
“I know.”
She got up, then turned around to hold him tightly as he stood with her.
“I love you, David. You know that?”
“Yeah, shweetheart. I love ya too.” They released their hold on each other except for their hands, which clung to each other tightly for a moment.
“You know, you could stay here. I mean, with me. We could make a go of it. Start a life brand new right here,” Starsky offered hopefully.
“I can’t. Not that I don’t want to, because there’s nothing I want more than to be with you. But being so close to everything that happened, I, well, I just can’t. I’d just be reminded all the time of all the pain, like my mother’s murder, and I’m scared I can’t be strong enough here.”
Starsky nodded at her.
She let her hand fall from his, using it to wipe the tears that flowed down her cheeks.
“You’ll be okay?” Starsky asked sweetly, squinting in the sunlight that shone in his face.
“Yeah. I think I will.” She smiled as she turned away. She walked towards her car, never looking back until she got in it.
<O><O><O><O><O><O><O>
Two weeks later at the Pits, Starsky found himself still being bombarded by the affectionate concern of Huggy, Stephanie, and Hutch.
Ever since he had told them that Sharman had left, his friends could not see fit to let him have a little peace and quiet. Every night … ‘Let’s do this’ or ‘Let’s do that’. He was tired. But he was grateful to have such caring friends that were so concerned.
He sat in the booth and watched Hutch dancing with Stephanie, the slow music playing softly in the background as they held each other, entranced.
Sipping his beer, he thought back to Sharman. He hoped she was doing okay; he couldn’t help but worry about her. She was strong now. Capable. Boy, he sure did miss her, though.
By the time he got home, he found a letter in his mailbox from her. She had decided to open up a modeling school in Arizona. She wrote to tell him that even though she had moved away, she made sure she wasn’t so far away that he couldn’t come visit her some time. She told him that she loved him, and that the key was always under the mat, waiting for him.
He smiled, realizing that they were all going to be just fine.
The End.
Series 1
10/05/00
Many, many thanks to Lark… girl, I don’t know what I’d do without you!!!
(Other than show my ignorance with punctuation and everything else I overlook!!)