==============================================================
“O Hamlet! What a falling-off was there.” - Act I, Scene v
On Thursday, about half the cast gathered at the theatre to polish the scenes Drake had designated after the matinee. In sad contrast to their opening night giddiness, the actors’ mood was understandably subdued, even melancholy, and Drake found himself struggling to get a spark of life out of them. Ken in particular seemed distracted and edgy; he was blowing lines he had known cold for two weeks, and was just that crucial beat behind on numerous cues.
After two hours, the weary and frustrated director was just about to call it a day when the house doors burst open. He whirled, indignant, wondering who had the gall to so blatantly interrupt his rehearsal without permission or warning.
Two uniformed police officers were striding down the aisle toward the stage, Lowell Abbott practically running behind them. “I told you, you can’t go in there!” he panted, his breath cut short by panic and the unaccustomed pace. “They’re in the middle of a rehearsal...”
“You the director?” one of the officers asked Drake, having arrived at the front of the house.
“Yes, I am,” Drake said stiffly. “May I ask the meaning of this intrusion?”
“You have someone here by the name of Ken Hyde?”
Drake’s eyes shot up to Hutch, who was standing near the stage left proscenium. Startled, Hutch turned his attention from the script he was perusing to the two officers. His forehead puckered in a frown.
“Yes,” Drake repeated. “Why?”
“We have a warrant for his arrest.”
“What?”
The assembled actors broke into murmurs, exclamations, and questions...and suddenly, _everyone_’s eyes were on Hutch. He met their collective gaze with a shocked expression...and then he ducked his head, as if he couldn’t bear to look any of them in the face. He swallowed, cleared his throat, and said quietly, “That’s me.”
Instantly, the two officers drew their guns and aimed them straight at Hutch, who promptly raised his hands and prayed neither of them had a nervous trigger finger. They split up, their eyes never leaving him, and approached from each side of the stage. The crowd of actors shied back as the officers passed them and bracketed the blond man. One then holstered his weapon and spun Hutch against the wall, briskly patting him down while the other rattled off his rights. Finding nothing dangerous on him, they snapped handcuffs around his wrists and began to hustle him down the steps back to the house.
“Wait...wait a minute,” Drake said in disbelief. “What on earth...what possible reason could there be for you to arrest this man?”
“I don’t write the warrants, sir,” one of the officers said. “I just bring ‘em in.” He grasped Hutch’s arm and the small procession started back up the aisle toward the lobby. Drake followed, unable to comprehend what was happening here.
“But I don’t understand...” He finally came up with the appropriate word for what he wanted to know, though he had a sinking suspicion. “What’s the charge?”
The officer with the death grip on Hutch’s arm turned abruptly, practically knocking the blond detective off his feet. “Murder,” he snapped. “Now, if you’ll excuse us, we’ve got to get this man to the station.”
“Murder,” Drake echoed, stunned. He watched as the three men, two of them in painfully new uniforms and one with his hands shackled behind him, hurried up the aisle and banged out the lobby doors. A moment later, there was an answering slam from the street doors, and the theatre was silent. Dead silent.
Drake turned back toward the stage. His actors were staring at him. Roz’s face was chalk white, her mouth poised in a “oh” of surprise and pain. Drake began to speak, but found he had no voice and nothing to say. He turned with a helpless gesture to Lowell, who was shrewd enough to understand the director’s mute request.
“All right, everybody, that’ll do it for today,” he said quietly. “Let’s go home and let this settle down.”
“Are you crazy?” Jim blurted, taking a step away from the huddled group. “They just arrested Ken for _murder_. Are you telling me we’re supposed to go home as if nothing has happened?”
“Jim, please...calm down,” Drake managed to say, but Jim plowed right over him.
“Look, Wayne, I think we have gutted out a helluva lot on this show, but this...” He threw up a hand, unable to express himself in words. “What now?”
Drake sighed. “I honestly don’t know,” he said wearily. “Why don’t you do as Lowell suggested and go home. I will go down to the station and see if I can find out what’s going on. One of us will call you and let you know where we stand. I’m sorry,” he broke in as the actors began to protest. “I don’t know any more than that, so I can’t give you any other reassurances!”
They stared at him for a moment or two, then began to disperse.
Drake shook his head in a gesture of astonishment and pain. The stunning news had struck too quickly to be absorbed at first, but now he was beginning to comprehend it. His problem child, this show that seemed to be cursed, probably had sustained its fatal blow. They literally had survived death and disappearance, but in the irony of theatre, those events paled in comparison to the loss of the leading actor in mid-run. It would take a miracle to get the show back on its feet by tomorrow without Ken.
And added to that was the fact that the man they had arrested for murder was someone he had come to know, trust, and like...and a police officer, no less. How could he possibly - - ?
He turned to Lowell. “Will you be so kind as to lock up, Lowell,” he whispered. “I am going to go to the police station and see - - what there is to see.”
Lowell nodded, his eyes full of sympathy for the director. “You oughta go home, Wayne,” he began awkwardly; he wasn’t exactly practiced at offering comfort.
“And so I shall, Lowell,” Wayne assured him, heading toward the stage door and picking up his jacket along the way. “But first I must make one last attempt to piece these shards together.” He slipped into the jacket and disappeared into the shadows of the wings.
*******************
Evening was waning into night by the time a tired, disheveled, and disgruntled Hutch unlocked the door to his apartment. Muttering under his breath, he returned the key to its place above the door sill, nudged the door closed with his elbow, and headed for the bathroom, tossing his jacket toward the couch along the way.
“Hey!” Starsky, who was sitting on the floor surrounded by a sea of papers, protested as the garment landed in the middle of his “organization.”
For the moment, Hutch ignored him, as he scrubbed the ink from his fingertips. “You know somethin’, Starsk?” he said at length, wiping his hands on a towel as he emerged from the bathroom.
“No, what,” Starsky responded automatically as he moved Hutch’s jacket to an otherwise uncovered chair and rearranged his neat piles.
“If our booking system is as inefficient as the one I just left...” Hutch’s voice trailed off as he went back to the bathroom to dispose of the towel. “It would bring a whole new meaning to the term ‘cruel and unusual punishment’.”
He, Dobey, and Starsky had come up with the bright idea of Hutch’s being arrested at the rehearsal that day. To confuse whoever the insider was, and help maintain his cover with the rest of the cast and crew, Hutch had insisted that everything be handled as if it were the real thing. The officers had been handed the warrant and told nothing more than to bring him in. He had been taken to another precinct, to minimize the chances of his being recognized, and had gone through the normal booking and interrogation procedure like any other murder suspect. By the time everything had been completed, the morning and much of the afternoon was gone, and when Dobey had come down to “bail” him out, he had been cooling his heels in a stuffy and pungent jail cell for several hours. He had had nothing to eat since that morning. He was hot and hungry, he felt dirty and disgusting, and as a result, he was cranky.
“And you know what else?” he continued, as he went from the bathroom to the kitchen and popped open the refrigerator.
Starsky sighed. Hutch was on a roll and there was no use trying to put on the brakes. Nothing to do but let him vent, and sing along with the chorus. “No, what,” he repeated, only half listening as he squinted at his stacks and continued to sort.
Hutch grabbed two bottles of beer from the fridge, popped both open with two practiced flicks of the bottle opener, and returned to the living room, lowering his long limbs to the floor in front of the couch. He handed one beer to his partner and took a long swig out of the other one, then gestured with it as his litany continued:
“I swear, they gave these rookies - - these raw rookies - - the biggest guns I ever saw.”
Starsky snorted. “This from the great white hunter who straps on an elephant gun every morning.”
“Well, okay,” Hutch conceded. “Maybe they just _look_ bigger when you’re on the other side.” He took another sip of the ice-cold beer, and felt somewhat better as the liquid cooled his parched throat and the alcohol began to settle his ruffled nerves. He picked up the stack of papers nearest him and began to look through it. “So...whatcha got?”
“Will you please - -“ Starsky grabbed the papers from his hand and returned them to their spot on the floor. “Just give me a minute,” he requested. “I’ll explain when I’m done.”
Hutch couldn’t restrain a grin, but he left Starsky to his task. He set down the beer and massaged his chafed wrists, then pulled back the sleeves of his shirt to examine the new bruises on his fore and upper arms. The two officers who had been sent to arrest him were the rawest rookies in the precinct, so fresh from the academy that their uniforms were barely creased. Under normal circumstances, they never would have been sent to handle a murder suspect without a senior officer present, and Dobey had expressed some concerns for Hutch’s safety should they get too nervous.
Hutch had to admit, they had been a little zealous. Heady with their new power, they had been a bit brisk with their cuffs; inwardly anxious at the thought of confronting their first “murderer,” they had been a little firm with their grip as they escorted him to the car and, later, into the station. He had been very, _very_ careful not to make any sudden moves, but had gotten somewhat banged around nonetheless.
His stomach growled. He looked over at Starsky, who was again absorbed in his sorting task and only looked to be half done. He got somewhat gingerly to his feet - - jail cell benches were not the most comfortable in the world, and his leg still bothered him sometimes, after the accident earlier that year - - and took his beer into the kitchen, to see if he had enough food to rustle up some dinner.
Forty-five minutes later, Starsky became aware of a delicious smell emanating from the kitchen. He raised his head from the final set of papers and realized that his mouth was watering.
“Hey,” he called over the back of the couch.
“Hey yourself,” Hutch responded from the kitchen, where he was just ladling an odds-and-ends stew into two bowls. “You hungry?”
“Starved.” Starsky got up from the floor and stretched muscles that were stiff and aching from hours bent over the paperwork. He came around the couch to the kitchen and eyed the two bowls warily. His nose hinted that this was definitely edible, but Hutch had fooled him before with concoctions that smelled terrific but tasted like dragon piss. “What is it?”
“What do you mean, what is it?” In the process of slicing a loaf of bread he’d warmed in the oven, Hutch glanced up at Starsky with an indignantly raised eyebrow. “It’s stew, you moron. Go eat it.”
“Yeah? What’s in it?” Starsky insisted, leaning over one bowl and examining the contents closely. He was somewhat relieved to find that he seemed to recognize all the ingredients, but still suspicious.
“A little beef, a bunch of vegetables, and some spices,” Hutch rattled off, placing the bread in a basket and handing it to his partner. “Now go on. Eat it. You look lousy.”
Starsky snorted again, but his nose had told his stomach the meal looked more than adequate and that indiscriminate organ was rumbling painfully. He took the bread, and one of the bowls, and seated himself at Hutch’s kitchen table. Hutch brought over silverware, napkins, and fresh beers for the two of them, then turned the heat down under the remaining stew and took his own seat.
For several minutes, both men concentrated on their dinner. When Hutch chose to, he prepared excellent home style meals that were another legacy from his grandfather, who had been as at home in the kitchen as at the piano. He had taught a lanky blond teenager recipes that had been in the Hutchinson family for generations, then shown him how to experiment with different ingredients to spice them up and make them new again. Hutch enjoyed cooking, and he had found it relaxing after the frustrating and somewhat humiliating day.
Starsky devoured his stew rapidly, and went through a second bowl practically as fast. Hutch didn’t need his comment of, “Hey, this is good!” to know that his partner was enjoying it, which also helped soothe his rumpled spirit. He emptied his own bowl as Starsky explained how he had sorted and organized the paperwork from the theatre. Hutch was just starting on the dishes when there was a knock at the door.
Starsky swallowed the last of his beer as he glanced at his watch. “Right on time,” he said approvingly, swinging to his feet and crossing the small dwelling to open the door. “Evening, Wayne,” he greeted the director. “Come on in, and have a seat.”
“If you can find one,” Hutch added from the kitchen.
Drake entered the room somewhat tentatively, his eyes taking in the piles of paperwork on the floor, Starsky’s very casual salutation, and the tall blond man who was, at the moment, transferring stew from the pot to a refrigerator container. His mouth dropped open, his eyebrows rushed together, and he looked from Starsky to Hutch with an expression of utter bewilderment.
“But...” he stammered, gesturing somewhat feebly. “You...I thought...” He ran out of stutters and fell silent, simply waiting for someone to tell him what was going on.
Starsky and Hutch exchanged a glance. Hutch raised one eyebrow, inclined his head slightly, and turned back to the dishes, whistling softly under his breath. Starsky turned back to Wayne, put a reassuring smile on his face, and rapidly explained the whole scenario.
“Of course,” Wayne said with enormous relief when the dark-haired detective completed his narrative. “I knew there was no way that you truly could be involved in those murders, Ken...but why is someone trying to frame you?”
His kitchen clean, Hutch had returned to the living room, and propped himself on the arm of the couch. “Obviously someone knows I’m a cop,” he replied, his gaze steady on the older man. “You didn’t tell anybody, did you?”
Drake shook his head emphatically. “Heavens, no,” he insisted. “Though there was that one time at rehearsal...” He trailed off, somewhat embarrassed at the memory of his faux pas. Hutch shook his head.
“Don’t do that to yourself,” he said reassuringly. “I don’t think anyone was around to hear...it must have been that blasted phone call.”
“Don’t you do that to _yourself_,” Starsky admonished him, then turned back to the director. “Okay, Wayne. We got all the paperwork here, from your files and ours. Let’s put our heads to it and see if we can’t figure out what the hell’s goin’ on.”
“Here’s what we have so far,” Hutch said, picking up the beat so naturally that Drake barely realized that the other detective was speaking. “We know that Gretchen Talbot, Troy Melbourne, and Carl Windsor were all founding members of the company. We know that Troy and Carl were definitely murdered, and I’m beginning to think that Gretchen’s death wasn’t the result of a drinking binge. But we can’t seem to find a connection that works for all three of them...one is always the odd man out.”
“Wayne,” Starsky said, picking up the ball. “You said Gretchen played Gertrude in the original production, and Troy was Claudius. What about Carl? What did he do the first time around?”
“Was he an actor too?” Hutch chimed in.
“Oh, no,” Wayne said immediately.
The two detectives slumped back in their seats. The thread was still eluding them, and it was frustrating as hell. Hutch ran a hand through his hair, and Starsky let out a breath of exasperation.
“At least not in a manner of speaking,” Drake added reflectively.
Both men rebounded with a rapidity that was almost comic, every sense alive. “What do you mean?” Hutch asked intently.
“Well, the first Hamlet was Carl’s debut performance as a lighting designer, and he really pulled out all the stops,” Wayne began. “Even then, we had access to sophisticated equipment, because the founding members of the company had a great deal of money and were willing to invest whatever was necessary to make the show a success.”
“And...” Starsky prompted.
“And so we developed a sort of crude film system to project the ghost of Hamlet’s father onto the stage, rather than having a live actor play the role,” Wayne said, making a long story short with admirable aplomb. “And Carl played the ghost himself.”
Ding.
The bell went off in Hutch’s head; the connection was so complete and so astounding that he was amazed it didn’t knock him right off the couch. He got up and fairly ran to his jacket to find his script.
“That’s it, that’s gotta be it,” he said excitedly to himself as he yanked the worn and battered binder from his packet and began to thumb through it.
“What?” Starsky said in confusion.
“Give me a sec,” Hutch ordered, his eyes glued to the pages. He ran his hand down the printed lines and written notes, and jabbed his finger at one passage. Then he flipped pages rapidly until he was nearly at the end, tapped another passage...and finally, a third. Then he shut it, and slapped it on the back of the couch with a gratified look. “That is it,” he said, again more to himself than anyone else in the room. “Now we just have to figure out who...”
“Hutch?” Starsky waved a hand in front of his partner’s face, reminding him that the others in the room were still an exit or two behind.
“What?” Hutch returned to the present with a start. “Oh. Okay...this is what I figure. Troy’s the most obvious...he was Claudius in the original production, and we found him backstage with a sword in his chest. Murdered just like the character he played the first time.” He got up and began to pace.
Light dawned on Starsky, too, though Wayne still looked mystified. Snapping his fingers, the dark-haired detective pointed at his partner.
“Gretchen Talbot,” he said. “How did Gertrude die?”
“Poisoned during the final fencing match,” Hutch said, tapping the front of the script. “We didn’t see it, because they got cute and just filled her up with enough booze to do her in.”
“But what about Carl?” Wayne broke in. “Where does the shooting fit in...” The realization struck him, too, as the two pairs of blue eyes turned toward him. “Shot through the ears,” he murmured pensively, then he gave a deep sigh. “Well, it’s not as elegant as poison, but the parallel is unmistakable.”
“That’s it, that’s got to be the pattern,” Hutch said, and Starsky nodded in agreement. “Now, like I said, we just gotta figure out who.” He began to pace, then again stopped dead. “My money’s on Caldwell - - Starsk, where are those reviews again?”
“Wait…wait a minute,” Starsky said, holding up a hand to keep Hutch’s growing excitement at bay. “Refresh my memory...who else dies in this thing?”
“Polonius,” Hutch said immediately, thinking soberly about Jack Perry and what a nice guy he was...and how it would be a true shame if somebody wasted him.
“But Jack’s not a founder,” Wayne jumped in. “So far all the victims have been founding members of the company...doesn’t that make a difference?”
Hutch and Starsky’s eyes met again, and they agreed without a word that this was probably an extremely relevant fact. “Ophelia,” Hutch murmured, relieved to know that Roz was safe by virtue of her very age.
“Laertes,” Drake put in. “And...” He stopped short. Starsky looked at him, then at Hutch, and in response to their stricken faces, inquired,
“What? Who?”
“Hamlet,” Hutch said quietly, then waved a hand dismissively. “But he’s already come after me with this frame-up...and I’m certainly not part of the master plan, just something to throw us off scent, so we have less time and energy to find the real murderer.”
“It certainly worked for me,” Drake murmured, to no one in particular.
“Okay, so we know how the three deaths are connected,” Starsky said, returning to Hutch’s original question. “But the question now is who? And if Caldwell is ordering the killings, whose strings is he pulling at the theatre?”
Drake looked horrified, and both detectives realized this was the first he had heard of this suspected wrinkle in the case.
“Sorry, Wayne, didn’t mean to spring it on you like that,” Hutch said apologetically. “But someone in the company has to be in on this; it’s the only way...”
He was interrupted by the telephone.
“Damn,” he swore mildly. “Here, Starsk, you explain it to him. I’ll be right back.” He grabbed the phone off the coffee table and swept up the receiver as he walked into the bedroom. “Hello?”
“Ken?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s Barry Wilcox,” the voice at the other end greeted him. Hutch frowned for a moment, then the name emerged from his memory even as the voice continued, “From the Duluth police?”
Jesus. Hutch sank down on his bed, unable to believe himself. In all the excitement of the final week of rehearsal and the newest murder, he had completely forgotten about his parents, and the call he had made to an old friend who worked on the Duluth police force. Yeah, what a great son you are, Hutchinson...always were, weren’t you?
“Ken?”
“Yeah, I’m here, Barry,” Hutch said. “What’d you find out?”
“Well, nothing really,” Barry said regretfully. “It’s kind of a good news, bad news scenario, if you ask me.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I went by the house, and there’s no one there,” Barry told him, and Hutch heard him flipping pages in a notebook. “No newspapers, no mail piled up...but everything’s neat as a pin, and there’s no sign of any foul play.”
“Did you talk to the neighbors?”
“The Coopers don’t have any idea where they might be,” Barry replied. “And the Gordons appear to be out of town. Their houseservant said they had gone on a cruise - - won’t be back for another two weeks.”
“Right,” Hutch said, somehow managing to nod and shake his head at the same time. “I didn’t expect the Coopers to know much...my folks don’t get along too well with them. If anyone would have known where they are, it would have been Barbara and Jim...figures, they’re gone.” He sighed and passed one hand over his face, suddenly feeling the effects of his day. “Well...thanks, Barry. Keep me posted if you hear anything, huh?”
“Sure, Ken...no problem.”
Hutch cradled the phone with a thoughtful expression and tapped his fingers on it for a few seconds. Then he lifted the receiver, started to dial...then hung up again. It rang under his hand.
“Hello?”
“Kenneth James Hutchinson, have you completely lost your mind?”
“What?” The greeting - if that’s what it could be called - was so unexpected that it took a while for the appropriate synapses to fire, then it dawned on Hutch that the voice ranting on the other end was his sister’s. “Kimberly? What the - I was just about to call you...”
“Oh, really? And were you going to tell me that you had asked the _police_ to go over to Mother and Father’s and ask all kinds of questions of their neighbors?”
“Well, yeah, I guess I probably would have told you that...” Hutch began, but he was cut off by the nearly physical impact of Kimberly’s clipped and furious tones. He was astounded; he hadn’t heard her this angry since they had been teenagers.
“I cannot _believe_ you, Ken. Of all the humiliating, unnecessary, ridiculous acts - - I suppose this is how you behave there in - California” - her voice dripped contempt - “but I will not have the police investigating our parents as if they were common criminals!”
“Oh, Christ, Kimberly,” Hutch said wearily. How did she always know the exact moment when he least needed to hear from her?
“Don’t you use that kind of language with me,” she ordered, sounding spookily like his father. “And while you’re at it, just don’t interfere in this matter any further. I told you, Mother and Father are adults. They would be appalled if they knew the stunt you pulled.”
“I would hope they would appreciate my concern for them,” Hutch snapped, losing his temper at last. “Which is more than I can say for you. All you give a good goddamned about is your precious reputation around town, and not being bothered any more than you have to be. For God’s sake, Kimberly, they’ve been gone for a month and no one has heard shit from them! Doesn’t that worry you, just a little bit?”
“No,” she said coldly and firmly. “You’ve been doing that - police - work” - and again she managed to make it sound like something that smelled unbearably bad - “for too long, and you have developed these ridiculous suspicions with absolutely no information. You listen to me, Ken: _I_ will handle this. Don’t call me about it again, and don’t you dare call the police another time. Now, I have to go. Goodbye.”
“Kimberly...” he began, but she was long gone.
He stared at the phone in his hand for several seconds, then replaced the receiver just as an ugly bleeping sound began. “Damn,” he repeated, softly. He sat there for a moment, collecting his wits, then picked up the phone and returned to the living room. Starsky looked up at him inquiringly, and Hutch shook his head with a shudder that was only slightly exaggerated.
“Still no word on your folks?” Starsky asked.
“Nope,” Hutch confirmed. “But the Duluth police don’t seem to think there’s anything suspicious at the house. And my _sister_ just wants me to keep out of it.”
“Nice,” Starsky commented. “You sure the two of you are related?”
“I’m beginning to wonder,” Hutch said with a sigh, dropping into a chair. “Well,” he went on, putting the situation with his parents out of his mind for the time being. “Where are we?”
“David and I were just going through the information on the cast and crew members of the previous production,” Drake said. “We’re trying to decide whom the next...” His voice trailed off, and he bent his head, blinking rapidly.
“Hey.” Hutch leaned forward, hands on his knees, his own worries forgotten. “That’s why we’re doing this, Wayne...to make sure there _is_ no next.”
“Of course,” Drake murmured to the hands clasped in his lap. “It’s just - - very difficult. It’s been hard enough to accept the loss of dear friends, but add to that the fact that someone in the company would be a part of this tragedy...”
Starsky and Hutch exchanged empathic looks; both had encountered enough dirty cops to understand the man’s sense of betrayal. Starsky put a hand on the man’s shoulder, and they both just let him have a minute.
At length, Drake raised his head, and the look on his face was determined. “All right, gentlemen,” he said in a purposeful voice. “Where do we go from here?”