HEROES: Missing Scene

By Katherine Atkins

NOTE: This scene takes place between the last act (when Starsk & Hutch save Christine on the roof of Rizzo's apartment building) and the tag, when they read her second column about them.

I was working late, trying to finish the story. The column wasn't due for a couple of days, but I was having trouble with it. I kept thinking about almost being killed. That kind of thing has a tendency to interrupt my train of thought.

The phone rang. I picked it up, warily. "Christine Phelps."

"Miss Phelps, this is Harold Dobey."

"Captain. You're up late."

He snorted. "Part of the job. Just ask my wife."

"I'm sure you aren't calling to tell me about your family problems, Captain." I thought I knew why he was calling, but I wanted to hear what he had to say.

"I...I wanted to discuss your article on my detectives..."

Okay, that was it. I wasn't about to listen to him try to censor my story. "Now wait a minute, Captain..."

He interrupted, his voice rising. But he wasn't yelling. I'd heard him yell. This wasn't it; not yet at least. "Miss Phelps, I just want to give you some information. What you do with it is your affair."

I took a deep breath. "All right, Captain. I'm listening."

"I just want to point out an error in your previous article."

.

I stiffened. "What error?"

"You stated that Starsky & Hutch took it on themselves to ignore calls while you were riding with them. I just wanted you to know that I ordered them to concentrate on the poisoned heroin case, and to disregard any other calls."

Sure. Sure you did. These cops really stick together.

Dobey knew what my silence meant. "Miss Phelps, if you don't believe me, and apparently you don't, you can check out the police logs for that day. You'll find that I officially logged that order and signed it so there would be no question."

I sniffed, but then I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt.

"Thank you, captain. I'll take note of that."

To my surprise, he just said, "Thank you. That's all I ask. Good night." And he was gone.

I sat staring into space, trying to figure out why he called. The phone rang again.

"Christine Phelps."

"Uh...Christine...this is Dave Starsky." I recognized the voice, but the tone was a little unsure. I couldn't imagine the cocky cop I had met as being unsure about anything.

"Hello, Dave. How are you?" I asked, sweetly.

"Listen, Christine. I'd like to talk to you. I was...I was wondering if you could meet me tomorrow?"

"I don't think we have anything to say to each other, Detective Starsky."

"Well, I have something to say to you. Please, Christine. It's important to me. I'm not asking for myself. But, I think you may have gotten the wrong idea about...about some things. I just want to talk. Honest." He sounded nervous, almost desperate.

"All right. I have a story to finish, but I could probably meet you tomorrow morning."

"Could we make it later in the day? I got somethin' to do..."

"Sorry, Detective... It's either tomorrow morning, or not at all." I wasn't about to wait around until he could find time for me. If he wanted to talk to me, he could do it on my schedule.

He sighed. He sounded even more desperate. "Okay. Can you meet me at Webster's mortuary at about 10, no make that 10:30. Okay?"

"Webster's mortuary?"

"Yeah, it's two blocks north of the precinct. Just park in the lot, I'll find you. 10:30. Okay?

Mystified, I agreed. "Okay." Now I was curious. What was he up to?

I didn't get much work done after that. I kept thinking about Starsky and his blond partner, Ken Hutchinson. I rode with them for a few days, watching them operate. It was all my editor's idea, to write a story about the new generation of cops. Personally, I think he's been watching too much Police Story for his own good, but it was an assignment.

I can't help it if the first part of my article was a little rough. I wrote what I saw. So maybe calling them, "Mutt and Jeff" was a little harsh. I was trying to add a little humor. I can't help it if they were embarrassed. And maybe I was wrong to assume that they were just cavalierly ignoring calls. But how was I to know? A little voice kept whispering, "You could have asked." I tried to ignore it.

I didn't sleep much that night. I remembered what happened on the roof, when Paul Rizzo almost killed me. Remembered Starsky and Hutch taking him down without a shot, calming me down when I got hysterical, telling me that shooting him "wasn't necessary". And wondered why Starsky called me. What did he want?

I went to the mortuary a little early. I was curious about what was going on. I recognized Starsky's car, the red Torino with the white stripe. A white Cadillac was also parked in the mortuary's lot, but they were the only two cars there.

I started to get out of the car, but I closed the door quickly when I saw the mortuary door open. Three men came out, Starsky, his partner, Ken Hutchinson and their friend, Huggy. The three men stood on the porch for a moment, talking.

Then they walked to the parking lot. I thought that Starsky looked a little tired, but Hutchinson looked exhausted. He was pale, his eyes were red and he walked very slowly. When they reached the parking lot, Huggy took his arm and led him to the Cadillac. Starsky followed, and helped guide Hutch into the passenger seat after Huggy unlocked the door. Dave patted his partner's shoulder and closed the door. He watched the Cadillac drive away before he turned and came over to my car.

I rolled down the window and he leaned on the doorframe "Hi. Thanks for comin'."

"So now what?" I asked.

"How about we go for a drive?" he suggested. When I nodded, he said, "We'll take my car."

I shrugged, and opened my door.

It seemed odd to be in Starsky's car without Hutchinson. I guess I just got used to seeing them in that car together, Starsky driving and Hutchinson watching the streets they patrolled. Starsky seemed incomplete, somehow, without his partner beside him. I felt a little uncomfortable sitting in Hutch's seat, if you want to know the truth. Somehow, it just seemed wrong.

"What do you want to talk about, Detective? I have a deadline," I said abruptly. I did have a deadline, but it wasn't until the next day. I just didn't want him to think he was in control of the situation.

He didn't say anything, and I shrugged. "Okay, then, tell me what was going on at the mortuary. And is your partner all right? He looked upset."

He was quiet for awhile, then he finally said, "We were at a funeral."

"A funeral? Just the three of you?"

He nodded. "Yeah."

"Anybody I know?"

He glanced at me. "Yeah. It was Roxie."

"Roxie. The hooker?"

"Yep, that's her."

I just looked at him. I couldn't believe it. "You went to a funeral for a hooker? But, you're a cop."

"I'm also a person, and so was she."

"But...but a hooker? And a drug user at that? Why would you care about her?" I thought about Roxie, and what happened I met her. The two detectives went to see her to see if she had information on where a murdered drug user might have gotten his drugs, and of course I went too. She'd been entertaining a "guest", but she got rid of him quickly. She had been pretty once, before the drugs and her lifestyle ruined her looks. I remembered how nervous she was, trying to hard to act as if having policemen and newspaper reporters visit her was a routine thing. She tried to be sociable and, even offered us something to drink from her nonexistent beverage selection.

And I remembered how Hutch had gotten close to her, speaking softly, asking his questions and listening to her answers. When we were leaving, she stopped Hutch. Starsky tried to pull me out of the room but I wouldn't go, so I witnessed Hutchinson giving her some money. She said business hadn't been so good, and he told her to buy herself "something pretty." I knew what she'd buy with it, and so did he.

She did buy herself a fix, but the drugs were laced with strychnine and she died from it. Starsky and Hutch were called to the scene, and I was with them. Hutch seemed upset about her death. And well he should be. I told Hutch, then, that if he had brought her in instead of giving her money, she wouldn't be dead. But she was. And suddenly I knew why they'd been at the mortuary.

"What was Hutch trying to do, get some kind of absolution for letting her die?"

Starsky swerved the car into a parking lot and squealed to a stop. He turned to me. He was furious and I was a little afraid. This was the man who refused to shoot Paul Rizzo because it "wasn't necessary." Well, it looked like he thought shooting me would be a real pleasure.

He took my hand. "Hutch didn't let her die. Hutch was one of the few people in this world who treated her with respect and courtesy. He treated her like she was a person, not a 'hooker', or an 'addict'."

"So he respected her so much he gave her money for a fix? If he respected her so much, why didn't he take her in so she could get clean?" I jerked my hand away.

He took a deep breath. "Have you ever seen anyone try to kick heroin? Trying to do it cold turkey?" I would have sworn he had tears in his eyes.

I shook my head.

He turned away, looking through the windshield at the dingy windows of the store in front of us. "If we had taken her in, do you know what would have happened?"

"She would have been safe," I told him, softly.

"She would have been in torment," he shot back. "She couldn't afford bail, so she'd have had to stay in jail, alone. She'd have been in pain, her muscles cramping, unable to keep anything down if she was even given anything. She'd have sweated and cried for a couple of days, then been as weak as a kitten for weeks while her body recovered from the trauma. And then she'd have gone back to the same life as before, because that's all she had, that's all she knew."

"There are treatments, places she could go."

"Treatments cost money," he argued. "Where was she supposed to get money for that? The City certainly isn't going to pay for a prisoner's drug rehab. I can just hear the taxpayers screaming now. She'd have been lucky to get a blanket when the chills got so bad her bones were rattling."

"But there are shelters, half-way houses."

He nodded, turning toward me again. "Those places are voluntary. You have to want to get clean, really want it. One thing I've learned in the last six years is that you can't help anyone who doesn't want to be helped. And Roxie didn't. She might have in time, but she wasn't ready yet."

"So why did Hutch give her the money?" I asked.

He sighed. "Hutch is Hutch. I've known him since the academy; we spend most of duty time and a lot of our free time together. He can still surprise me, but most of the time I know where he's coming from." He looked down, avoiding my eyes.

"So where was he coming from, then?"

He looked up. His eyes were bright again. "Hutch can't stand to see anything or anyone suffer if there's something he can do. He really meant it when he told her to buy herself 'something pretty'. Like I said when we went back to her room after they found her, she had a tough life. Hutch just wanted to make it better for her if he could."

"Yeah, right," I muttered. Now it was my turn to look away. "By giving her the money to get herself killed."

"Hutch didn't give her enough money for a fix. Remember, her pusher said she didn't have the money. That's why he didn't sell her any stuff, and why she was so desperate."

He was right. I remembered the pusher whining that he didn't give her any drugs. And the bartender had said she'd had her hands in his cash register because she needed money for a fix.

"You saw how shaky she was. She was already starting withdrawal. Hutch and I both knew what she was facin'..." His voice faded, and suddenly I realized that he wasn't with me anymore. His thoughts had led him somewhere else. His eyes had taken on a faraway look, and his hands clenched around the steering wheel so hard, his knuckles were white.

I shook his shoulder. "Starsky? Dave, what is it?"

He shook his head, getting rid of whatever thoughts had held him, and looked at me. "Are we on or off the record, here?" He was still squeezing the steering wheel with white-knuckled fingers.

I shrugged. "I haven't decided yet."

He nodded.

"What were you thinking about?" I tried to keep my voice gentle, but the curiosity was killing me.

He looked up, as if he were asking for help. Then he sighed and looked at me. "Are you gonna put what Hutch did in your article?"

"You mean, giving Roxie the money?"

"Yeah," he whispered. "Are you?" He sounded like a little kid, worried about being told on. Except it was his partner I would be telling on, not him. Somehow, I knew it didn't make any difference. What affected Hutch would affect Starsky, too.

I really hadn't decided about how to handle that incident between Roxie and Hutch. I'd just about finished my first column when we got the call about her, and I didn't have time to change it before deadline. So I just put the finishing touches on it and turned it in. But I was still debating about putting it in the second article. I knew it could cause trouble for Hutch, but it had happened. Facts are facts. As I considered his question, I realized the purpose of Starsky's request to talk to me. He was worried about Hutchinson, what would happen if I reported his actions with Roxie.

"I have to report the facts as I see them," I hedged. As I said, I really hadn't decided. But I was curious to see what he would do if he thought I had.

To my surprise, he put the car in gear and drove out of the parking lot. He drove to a nearby park and stopped at the curb, turning off the engine.

"Let's walk."

I couldn't decide if he wanted some fresh air, or he just wanted to make sure we weren't overheard, but either way, I was glad to get out of that car. The atmosphere had suddenly become very tense, and I had no idea why.

We walked in silence for a few minutes. Starsky was thinking hard, trying to come to a decision about something. Finally, he said, "I hope you'll keep this off the record, but there's nothin' I can do about that. There's somethin' I think you should know... "

At last we'd gotten to whatever it was he wanted to talk about. Finally. I tried to sound encouraging and keep the eagerness and curiosity out of my voice. "Okay, go ahead."

He shoved his hands into his worn jeans and walked with his head down. "Hutch...Hutch and me have a friend, a cop. He's a real good cop, one of the best..." He looked at me. "I ain't givin' ya any names. And don't write anything down," he warned. "You don't have that tape recorder runnin' do ya? If ya do, turn it off."

I nodded. "Okay, no notes, and I don't have the tape recorder with em." I figured I could get any information I needed elsewhere, if I decided to follow up. And I have an excellent memory, especially for a good story.

"Anyway, this cop got involved with a woman. He was tryin' to help her get away from a guy, a real sweetheart of a guy. Our...uh...this cop found her a place to hide. Some thugs who worked for this guy kidnapped the cop and beat him up, tryin' to make him tell where she was. He...he wouldn't so they drugged him, got him hooked on the stuff and then strung him out, tryin' to make him talk. He did, but only after days of abuse and torture. He got away from them, before...before they could kill him..." He paused, taking a deep breath. He shuddered.

I didn't say anything, giving him time to calm down. I could see how hard this was for him, but he apparently thought it was something he had to do.

"I...we found him. He was a mess, beaten and dirty and so disoriented he barely knew who he was, much less...who...we were. All he knew was pain. We had to watch him go through withdrawal, cold turkey. We couldn't tell anyone; Internal Affairs would have roasted him in nothing flat. Even though he was a victim, an addicted cop doesn't have much of a future on the force.

"You can't know what it's like, knowing that somebody you care about has to endure what he endured. All...we...could do was hold him while he begged for help, begged for someone to get him some stuff so he get some relief from his misery.

"It took a couple of days for the worst to be over, but it was a long time before he really got over it. And sometimes he still has nightmares about it. He's never forgotten and neither have...we."

He stopped and looked at me. His eyes were reddened, and bright with unshed tears. He swallowed hard. "Hutch knows how it feels to go through withdrawal. He's...been through it...seen it when it happened to our friend. He wouldn't wish that on anyone. So when he saw Roxie, somebody he cares about, startin' to hurt, he had to do somethin'. He's not a person who'll stand by and let people suffer if there's somethin' he can do about it. That's why he's a cop. And that's why he gave Roxie the money."

He turned and headed back to the car. I followed, thinking about everything he'd said. He had put himself as well and Hutch into my hands, and now he was letting me think about what to do. If I wanted, I could follow up on this story. I didn't think it would be too hard to find out who the cop was, and the story behind what Starsky had told me. If you want to know the truth, I thought I knew who the cop was. But did I want to do that? I just wasn't sure. I had to think about it.

To his credit, Starsky didn't say anything else, and he didn't ask me not to hold back on my story. He just let me off at Webster's so I could get my car.

I was opening my car door when he rolled down his window and said, "Thanks for listenin'."

I smiled. "Where are you off to now?"

He grinned. "I'm meetin' Hutch at Huggy's place. We're gonna have lunch. Wanna come?"

I laughed. "No, thanks. I have a column to write."

He opened his mouth, but he closed it without saying anything. He rolled up the window and the car left without the usual roaring of the engine and squealing of tires.

And I drove to the office, to think about friends and partners and cops who care about the people they protect. About a hooker who knew that someone cared about her. About two cops who put themselves on the line for a reporter who refused to listen to them and got herself in a world of trouble because of it. About a man who cared enough for his friend to reveal events that could put both of them in jeopardy of losing everything, and about what kind of friend you have to be to earn that kind of loyalty.

Yes, I had a lot to think about.

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