by TibbieB
Starsky squinted his tired eyes, and peered through
the windshield, straining to see past the torrent of raindrops pelting the
glass. Coming down with a vehemence,
they seemed more like tiny torpedoes than rain.
“Starsk, look out!”
Reacting to Hutch’s warning, he jerked the wheel of
the jeep sharply to the right, barely missing the sheet of mangled tin that
blew across the road, directly in their path.
“That was close,” he hissed, his heart in his throat as he brought the
vehicle to a screeching halt on the soggy shoulder of the road.
“So much for your ‘plum’ assignment, partner,” Hutch
complained.
“Don’t start, Hutch. I didn’t hear you objecting when Dobey first brought it up. Besides, when we flew outta Bay City, nobody
knew this hurricane was gonna double back and hit the Keys.”
“True,” Hutch conceded, reaching up to rub the deep
ridge between his eyes. The jeep
shimmied as another particularly brutal gust of wind plowed over them. “And Copeland was our case. I don’t know
why I said that. Just par for the
course though, huh?”
Starsky gave him a crooked smile. “Yeah.
Only you and me could fall in a vat of chocolate and come out covered in
slime.”
This graphic description of their usual bad luck for
pulling rotten assignments elicited a laugh from Hutch. Leave it to Starsky to find the humor in
such a lousy situation.
“This should’ve been a simple case of
extradition. But thanks to Hurricane
Debbie, so far it's been a disaster.
First, our plane’s diverted, we have to use our clout as cops to get
priority to rent the last jeep at Avis, and then we set out like a couple of
fools on this desolate stretch to Podunk, USA in the middle of 100 mile per
hour gale force winds. Not my idea of a
good time, Starsk.” Buffeted by the
storm, the vehicle rocked from side to side, as if to punctuate Hutch's
dissertation.
Starsky watched the wind-ridden palms bending almost
to the ground, their fronds sweeping back and forth across the sky like huge
paddle fans. “I won’t argue that point
with you. I guess we’ll just have to
make the best of it. Once we get to
Islamorada, I’m sure the police chief will put us up. Maybe this thing’ll blow over tonight.” Starsky turned the starter on the stalled-out jeep, and waited
for the engine to sputter to life before pulling back out onto the litter
strewn blacktop.
“Right,” Hutch agreed. “I’ll check the map again and see how much further.” Bracing the flashlight under his chin, Hutch
wrangled the map open to the right location, and Starsky continued inching the
jeep along US 1, while dodging an odd assortment of unidentified objects being
blown into their path by Debbie’s treacherous winds. Twenty minutes seemed like sixty as the two cops drove in
silence, each nervous and uncertain what waited around the next curve in the
road.
“Are you sure we’re on the right road?” Starsky
finally asked.
“Yeah, positive.”
Hutch held up the map.
“According to this, we should be coming up on Islamorada about now.”
Like a spooky psychic prediction, a light appeared
in the distance ahead of them. “There
you go,” Hutch said, pointing toward the lit building.
“It’s about time.”
Starsky steered the car into the parking lot in front of the Islamorada
Police Department. In preparation for
the hurricane barreling down on them, the windows that spanned the front of the
building had been hurriedly boarded, giving the structure a deserted look. The wide wooden sign, dangling at the end of
two chains mounted to the soffit of the front porch, swung wildly in the wind
like a trapeze, threatening to crash to the floor with each gust.
Zipping his jacket against the weather, Starsky
prepared to make the short jaunt to the door.
“Ready?”
“Let’s do it.”
Hutch hopped out on his side and raced up the steps of the wooden
structure, bumping shoulders with Starsky as they both tried to sprint up the
steps at the same time. Pummeled by the ever-increasing wind, they burst
through the door without preamble. A
red-headed, pencil-thin, young man looked up with a start from behind the
counter to greet them.
“I sure hope you’re Detectives Starsky and
Hutchinson,” he said, standing up and coming forward, extending his hand.
“That’s us,” Starsky answered, shaking his
shoulders, allowing the rain to drip off the leather jacket and puddle on the
floor at his feet.
“I’m Jackson.
Glad to meet you.” Though slight in frame, he had a sturdy handshake,
more in keeping with a man fifty pounds heavier. “Everyone’s evacuated but the prisoner and me,” the young man
said. “I didn’t want you fellows to show up here and find us all gone. Debbie’s
been working overtime in this district. "
"I hope this isn't your idea of a welcoming
party," Hutch said, tongue in cheek.
"Oh, no, sir," the young cop hastened to
assure him. "You just have really
bad timing. We haven't had a gale this
strong in over four years. Usually, this is a nice, sleepy little town—the kind
most people like to vacation in. But
with this mess, I wasn't even sure you could get through. If I were you guys, I’d take this jerk, get
as far north as I could, and hunker down in one of the shelters to wait her
out.”
"Mind if we take a look at the prisoner, and
maybe grab a cup of hot coffee before we go back out into that nightmare?"
Hutch asked.
"Well, sure…I mean, no…I mean, take your
time. I've got to stick around here a
little longer anyway. There’re still a
few calls coming in.” The young man
shook his head in amazement. “Anybody
with a lick of sense is already gone, but you always have a few die-hards who
wait until it’s too late to leave, then expect someone to come bail ‘em
out. Believe you me, I’m heading north
as soon as I can."
Jackson picked up the keys to the back area and led
Starsky and Hutch to the cellblock.
“You must want this guy pretty bad to come down here in the middle of
this hurricane.”
“Yeah, well, you know how it is,” Starsky said. “You can’t let turkeys go around knockin’
off Superior Court Judges and get away with it. We already put him away once, but he seems to be a regular
Houdini.”
Copeland lay stretched out on a cot, smoking a
cigarette. When they entered, he turned
toward them without rising, a lazy, arrogant smile on his face. “Well, well. Look who’s here...the dynamic duo.”
“Did you really think we wouldn’t come?” Starsky
answered.
Copeland smirked back, “Not really. You guys are nuts if you think I’m going out
in this storm, though.”
“Not your choice,” Hutch said, stepping up to the
cell. “We’re leaving in thirty
minutes. It’s not up for
discussion. So I suggest you do
whatever you need to do before then, because we won’t be stopping until we put
some distance between us and this hurricane.”
Copeland snorted derisively before sitting up and
crushing the cigarette beneath his shoe.
He was silent as the police officers left the cellblock and returned to
the front office. “Have some coffee,”
Jackson offered. “I’ve got a few stale
donuts left. It’s not much, but maybe
it’ll get you through till you reach the shelter. There’s one about forty miles north of here—just stay on A1. You don’t want to get caught on one of the
causeways. If the waves build up enough
to come up over the road, they’ll sweep you right off into the ocean.”
Starsky turned a grim face toward his partner. “He’d be a terrific spokesman for the local
tourist trade."
“I don’t mean to scare you, Detective, but back in
’35, when The Labor Day Hurricane hit this area, over four hundred people were
killed—most of them trying to get back to the mainland by train. A fifteen foot wall of water washed the
whole train right off the tracks and drowned them.”
Hutch made eye contact with Starsky just in time to
see him swallow hard, his Adam’s Apple bobbing. He turned back to Jackson and smiled nervously. “Well, thanks for the advice. I think we’ll take you up on the coffee and
donuts. We haven’t eaten anything for
hours, and it sounds like things could get pretty hairy before our next meal.”
cc
dd
With a feeling of dejavu, Starsky steered the
Cherokee through the unrelenting rain and wind, concentrating just to keep it
on the road. In the back, Copeland
glared at them defiantly and silently contemplated ways to get rid of the
handcuffs that shackled him to the handgrip on the door. Even if he could break free of the cuffs,
he’d have to take the car and a gun from the two cops in order to make his
getaway; and he knew enough about Starsky and Hutchinson to realize that that
would be a monumental task. They
weren’t stupid, and there were two of
them, and only one of him. Copeland had
a score to settle with these two pigs, so if he had to burn them, he
would. But he needed a weapon, and
right at the moment, didn’t have a plan for getting one. Somehow, this storm should work to his
advantage—he just had to figure out how.
“Maybe we should've stayed there a little longer,”
Hutch said, watching Starsky fight the steering wheel. The strain on his partner’s face was growing
more evident with each hard-earned mile, and Hutch considered offering to drive. But he knew Starsky was, without argument,
the more skilled driver. Hutch still
hadn’t heard the end of Starsky’s bellyaching about how he’d handled the dune
buggy while they were chasing down Joey Fortune and his gang on the islands.
Starsky glanced at Hutch then quickly returned his
eyes to the road. “You heard what
Jackson said—it isn't gonna get any better tonight. Said to put as much distance between us and Debbie as possible. We’ll stop when we get to that storm
shelter. I just hope that’s soon, cause
now that it’s dark, I ain’t gonna be able to see how to drive much
further—" Before Starsky could finish the sentence, a loud crack—more like
an explosion—drowned out his voice.
Without warning, one of the ancient white pines that had been battered
by the wind all day gave up the battle.
The two hundred year old majestic pine splintered and split in two
gigantic pieces, one crashing across the front of the jeep, plunging its long
branches through the windshield. There
was no time for warnings, no time for escape.
The last thing Starsky saw was glass spraying across the front seat,
like sharp pellets of ice.