Chapter Text
It is about six o’clock in the evening, and it’s still too damn hot. Starsky slings his jacket over his shoulder as he gets out of the Torino, noting that bringing it at all today was too damn optimistic. It’s times like this that he misses New York, with her blistering frosts and violent snowstorms. Of course, he can’t recall them ever happening in July, but he’s sure it must be cooler than this over there.
The day has been, for the most part, an unproductive one. They’ve been chasing leads on a dead-end fraud case, turning up a fat lot of nothing. There’d been one call to a robbery in progress, which turned out to be a kid shoplifting food from the grocery store. Hutch had bought the kid a sandwich and they’d dropped her home. The most serious aspect of it is that the call had interrupted their lunch, and now, running on a half-packet of chips, Starsky is starving.
“You hungry?” he asks Hutch as they bound up the steps into Metro.
“I could eat,” Hutch replies. “You got something in mind?”
He grins. “I know this great new place just around the corner,” he says, the suggestion both a genuine interest and an opportunity to indulge in one of his favourite hobbies – winding Hutch up. “It’s fusion.”
“Fusion?” he questions as he opens the door, and throwing Starsky a grim look as he holds it open for him. “What do you mean fusion?”
“You know, fusion.”
“Fusion between what?”
Starsky isn’t too sure. “Between- between different foods. You know, like refried beans on pizza.”
“You want to go for beans on pizza?” Hutch sounds perturbed.
He waves him off. “That’s just an example,” he says. “Come on, this comes recommended by Dmitri Goldberg.”
“Where have you seen Dmitri Goldberg?” he asks.
“Same as before,” he replies, “the bowling league.”
“The bowling league,” he repeats, like it’s an impossibility.
“I went with Nancy. Couple of nights ago.”
“Nancy?” He sounds- shocked, almost. “You still see Nancy?”
“I don’t see Nancy, I go bowling with Nancy,” Starsky corrects. It isn’t anything serious – or wasn’t, seeing as she called it quits the other night – just a bit of fun between friends. Starsky likes Nancy, she makes him laugh and she’s safe in that she hadn’t been under any illusions of a serious relationship. He hasn’t been looking for anything serious since Terry. There was Rosey, of course, but he hadn’t been looking. It seems to him that he only ever gets his heart broken. The best relationship in his life is his and Hutch’s, and it’s not like he can date Hutch.
Hutch scoffs. “Some team you two’d make.”
“Hey, she’s quite good at it now,” he replies, because she is. Nancy has gotten quite into it over the last year or so. “She’s a regular Patty Costello.”
“Who?”
“Patty Costello, the bowler,” he replies like it’s obvious, knowing it annoys Hutch when he knows something he doesn’t.
“Starsk, I don’t follow professional bowling,” Hutch says as they head down the corridor towards the bullpen. “Didn’t know you did.”
“I don’t. Nancy does.”
“Oh, Nancy does,” his voice has this familiar snide, passive-aggressive tone in it. Starsky could roll his eyes.
He grabs his arm, pausing his walk. “What’s got you in a snit?”
“Snit?” his brows knit together into a frown.
“Yeah, snit.” No other word for it. He spies the vending machine behind Hutch, and passes him closely, casually. “Hey, you got change?”
Snit or not, Hutch palms him the contents of his pocket and shrugs. “Just didn’t know you were still seeing Nancy, is all. ‘Specially after…” He cuts himself off then, like he regrets mentioning it. He looks away from Starsky, and Starsky knows the look- the Terry look.
He sighs, feeling a bit more serious. It’s a scarring wound, but still a sore one. “It’s a casual thing, Hutch, didn’t think it mattered,” he says. He counts the change. “Besides, she dumped me at the bowling league anyway.”
“Oh.”
He hits the machine with the heel of his palm, a method he both invented and perfected, and is rewarded by a candy bar tumbling out. “She’s met someone,” he says, pocketing Hutch’s change. “Paul Peist.”
If Hutch notices the petty theft, he doesn’t comment. Instead, his face contorts a little in that way it does when he’s trying not to smile. Starsky feels ten tons lighter. “What kind of name is Paul Peist?”
“Paul Peist’s,” he replies. “Sounds like he makes beer.”
“What does he do?”
“He bowls.” He opens the candy bar, splits it in half to offer Hutch, secure in the knowledge he won’t take it.
Hutch declines and Starsky takes a bite. “Thought you wanted to go out for food.”
“Consider it an apertif,” he says, mouth full.
“It’s aperitif,” he corrects, “and you mean appetiser.”
Starsky just shrugs and chews his food.
“You hear they found another one?” some rookie chatters just around the corner.
They slow immediately, in sync even in their eavesdropping.
“’Nother what?” someone else says, voice not quite as young, not quite as jockish.
“Another queer,” he replies, and Starsky feels an angry sort of sadness. He’s aware of the case, even if it hasn’t hit the papers yet. Perhaps this one will tip it over the edge. Two bodies is a coincidence. Three is a sensation. “Early this morning. Pete Westley was there. Said it was gruesome, just like the last two.”
It isn’t the sort of case for idle gossip. Two – three, now, Starsky notes – stabbed at least thirty times and dumped in various alleyways along and around Redcliff Street. Drugged, restrained and raped. Frequent patrons of Bay City gay bars, too.
“They catch the guy who did it yet?” the other guy asks.
“Nah,” he says, “but what’s the rush, huh? Man, this city’s gone to the dogs.”
A flush of ire rushes through him. He’s about ready to storm around the corner and give the pair of them hell.
Hutch, all righteous wrath and flashing eyes, beats him to it, stepping out from where they stand in two long strides. “You wanna repeat that?”
Starsky watches as the rookie’s shoulders sink, exasperated like a teenage boy under the attention of the principal. Starsky hates the kid on sight.
The other guy, he knows – Doug Roberts, a decent cop with a quiet record who really should know better by Starsky’s standards. “Aw, come on, Hutch,” Roberts protests. “Give the kid a break. He’s just kiddin’ around.”
“I don’t think it’s funny, Doug,” Hutch replies. “Three men murdered. Butchered. You think that’s funny, Starsk?”
“Nope,” he says, popping the ‘p’.
“What’s your name?” Hutch asks.
“Ed Josephson,” the rookie replies.
“Well, Josephson,” he says, “I’ll be sure to let the Captain know your brilliant joke. Real knee-slapper like that, I’m sure it’ll brighten his day. Come on, Starsky.” Hutch heads off then, not looking back.
Starsky grins at Josephson, all bite. “See ya around, Eddie.”
As they leave them, Starsky hears Josephson mutter. “’Course it’d be those two. Fags.” It rolls off Starsky, like it always does, but Hutch winces a little.
“Lay off, Eds,” Roberts replies in hushed tones.
“Assholes,” Starsky surmises as they head into the bullpen. “No wonder there are no witnesses. Why would anyone bother reporting anything to cops like that?”
Hutch doesn’t bother replying, and Starsky watches as his partner’s jaw works in frustration. It isn’t anything they haven’t heard before, but it seems to weigh more strongly on Hutch’s shoulders today.
They settle at their desks, and Starsky eyes the mound of paperwork spread haphazardly across his own desk, then at Hutch’s neatly stacked piles – a rarity for his partner, Hutch keeps his desk like he keeps his car – and sighs. “Whose case is it anyway?” he says after a few moments silence.
“Huh?”
“The killings.”
“Oh,” he says, like his mind had been elsewhere. “Miller and Powell’s, right?”
“Hm,” he muses. It’s not like Miller and Powell have ever run a sloppy investigation, and their career has been long enough that Starsky doubts they would let their own prejudices put them off catching the killer, but he can’t help but feel he and Hutch would do a better job on this one. “You think we should have a read of the file?”
Hutch arches an eyebrow. “Not our case. Miller and Powell might think we don’t trust them to solve it.” He’s pretending to disapprove, Starsky can tell. “Then again, Redcliff Street is only three blocks from Kid Casey’s apartment.” Kid Casey is a young punk they pulled in for rape last week. The case is pretty solid, they already have enough to prosecute, but Starsky follows Hutch’s line of thinking.
A smile tugs at his lips. “Ah,” he says. “Of course.” He picks up the phone, starts to call records. “Can never be too careful.”
Starsky sees Hutch glance upwards a second before a hand presses on the receiver. He follows it up the arm to its owner. Detective Miller.
“No need for that, Starsky,” he says with a false smile. “Step into Dobey’s office with me, you guys can take a look. Been needing to talk to you two, anyway.”
Leonard Miller has about fifteen years on Starsky, and at least fifteen pounds too. His hair is mostly grey, he smokes like a chimney, and Starsky has never liked him. He’s got a folksy sort of demeanour about him that’s entirely flat, and, once you’ve gotten to know him a little, entirely false.
Starsky doesn’t rise from his seat. “What’s this about, Miller?”
“Follow me and you’ll see,” he replies, and doesn’t wait for a response before turning to enter the captain’s office.
“What’s that about, you think?” he asks Hutch as they both get up.
“Can’t be good,” he shrugs as they follow him into Dobey’s office.
They sit, exchange useless pleasantries, and Starsky tries to ignore the grim look on Captain Dobey’s face.
“I’ll let Detective Miller lead,” he says.
Miller starts strong. “So those homo killings.” he begins.
He watches Hutch restrain his eye-roll.
Starsky sighs. “Your case, right?”
“Right,” Miller says. “Mine and Joe Powell’s. But Joe’s heading back to Austin tomorrow. Mother’s sick. Death’s door, I hear.”
“Sorry to hear that,” Starsky says, mostly out of courtesy. He barely knows Powell.
“I got a call from the mayor’s office earlier today,” Dobey interrupts. Impatient, tense. Starsky doesn’t need to be a detective to know he’s nervous about something, and that something concerns him and Hutch. “They’re breathing down our necks on this one, say the city needs to see that we won’t stand for this.”
“We won’t?” Hutch questions. “Seems to me half this department couldn’t care less whether we catch the guy or not.”
“If you have an allegation to make, Hutch, you better make it good,” Dobey replies sternly.
“Save the civil rights schtick, Hutchinson,” Miller interrupts. “We aren’t gonna stand for a serial murderer in this city. I don’t give a rat’s ass whether the victims get porked six ways to Sunday—”
Starsky feels himself pull a face.
“—we aren’t letting some wannabe Son of Sam walk around this city scot-free. Four men are dead already.”
“Four?” Hutch questions.
He huffs as if in exasperation, and hands a copy of the file to him. Starsky leans over his shoulder as he flicks through, beginning to spread the reports and photographs out onto Dobey’s desk. Bodies, wounds, locations.
Miller points a nicotine-stained finger at an image that looks like a scan of a licence photo. The man is dark-haired and dark-eyed, with a heavy-set jaw. “Luca Mendez,” he says, “found in an alley on Redcliff two months prior to the so-called ‘first’ body. Suspected mugging at the time, guy had no personal belongings on him. Nine stab wounds to the abdomen. No evidence of sexual assault like the others, but coroner’s report shows the knife was the same shape and size, and the killer was likely right-handed.”
“He gay?” Hutch asks, frowning at the images.
“Semen found in the stomach,” Miller replies. “Blood at scene indicates he was killed there, not moved there like the others. So we know he was on Redcliff Street after midnight.” Redcliff is, as far as Starsky can tell, a sort of hub for those on the outskirts of society, whether there by choice or force. Two gay clubs, the Bunker and Twilight, are on it, as well as various sex shops, an adult movie theatre, cheap hotels. The Green Parrot is only a couple of blocks away. Miller lets the implication sit.
“Practice?” Starsky asks.
“Can’t rule it out,” he says. He indicates to the three other men in turn. “Philip Stafford was an artist, Freddie O’Sullivan was a doorman. The latest – Charles Walter – was an English professor at Chamberson College. It’ll hit the press tomorrow morning.”
Dobey clears his throat. “Mayor’s office think it might make the front page, given Walter’s standing. We need to be moving faster on this, and with Powell on leave—”
“You want us on it,” Starsky surmises.
“I’m not reassigning it,” Dobey says, “but yes.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve done enough work on this case, I’m not having you two take it on and take credit for all mine and Joe’s hard work,” Miller replies. “But I can’t do it on my own, and we need to take a different angle.”
It doesn’t sound especially appealing, working with Miller on this. Then again, he would like the case. “We don’t do threesomes, Miller.” The innuendo is heavy-handed, and he makes it to make Miller uncomfortable. He can see Hutch shoot him a glare out of the corner of his eye and is immediately bolstered by it.
Miller grins, a sort of tight and almost predacious thing. “I have no intention of being your third wheel.”
“How do you feel about going undercover, Starsky?” Dobey asks.
“Me?” he says, a little higher-pitched than he’d have liked. It feels—well, not out of nowhere, he had considered the distinct possibility when he’d thought they were taking the case, but him? Not Hutch?
Dobey sighs. “You must be…aware of the attitude of some of the detectives in this department. I know you,” he says, looking between the pair of them. “You don’t let personal hang-ups get in the way of an investigation.”
“He going under alone?” Hutch asks, and Starsky can hear a familiar anxiety in his voice even if he’s trying to hide it. He doubts either Dobey or Miller can hear it – Hutch has always been good at covering up his feelings. To everyone except Starsky, that is.
“Yeah. All the victims have been unattached, probably went to a club or park alone, left with the killer,” Miller says. “I need a temporary partner, too. Joe won’t be back for a while.”
“I don’t mind going under, Captain,” Hutch says.
Starsky doesn’t feel good about that. “Hey—”
“Starsky’s a better fit.” The captain looks a little flustered. “The victims have all been sort of- well, forgive me for saying this, Hutch, but hyper-masculine.”
He can’t hold back a short bark of laughter. Hutch seems torn between blushing and protesting, and Dobey looks profoundly uncomfortable. Starsky supposes the assessment is correct, looking at the victims – all fairly well-built, not lithe and athletic like Hutch, with dark and obvious body hair. Hutch is- well, it hasn’t escaped his notice – he’s straight, not blind – a very handsome man, but he has a certain gentleness to him in his soft hair and long legs, in the smoothness of his skin and his quieter demeanour, at least in comparison to Starsky.
“You want it?” Miller asks them, but looking only at Starsky.
“We want it,” Starsky says. He can feel Hutch’s eyes boring a hole in the side of his face. “What’s the angle?”
Miller leans forward on his knees, suddenly all business. He lays it out – the biggest problem they’ve been having with the investigation is that nobody seems to have seen anything. Miller and Powell went around the clubs – all three of them – and neither the patrons nor staff were especially forthcoming. No one trusted them enough to make a report. They needed someone on the inside—to get to know the scene, make himself a familiar face so that people open up to him, and, eventually, attempt to attract the guy. They expect it to take some time, and in the meantime, Miller and Hutch will keep working the case. A two-pronged approach. Timeline indefinite.
“There’s a place for you, 112 Pacific Avenue, Apartment 9. About ten minutes from Redcliff Street, on foot,” Dobey says. “You don’t talk about this with anyone in the station but me, Hutch or Detective Miller. No badge, no gun. If it takes that long, you get paid every two weeks; you’ll get a phone call where to pick up the money. Report in weekly, we’ll give you a location. You have something important, you call one of us directly, and don’t share anything over the phone.”
“Got it, Captain.”
“What if he does lure him out, huh?” Hutch asks. “Then what? We let him go with that psycho alone?”
Starsky is torn between being flattered or frustrated by Hutch’s protectiveness. “I can hold my own,” he says.
“If you think you’ve got him, if we haven’t planned a move already,” Miller says, “you call it in. From the bar, from his place, from a payphone – we will be there.”
They hash out the rest of it, little things like details on his cover, next moves, and Dobey hands Starsky the case file and tells them to take the rest of the evening off to get acquainted with it. He’ll move into the apartment the day after next.
Starsky leads the way out of the office, eager to get home, or at least to the restaurant. One last meal with Hutch before it all, he notes. The whole time they had discussed the job, Starsky hadn’t felt too great a sense of foreboding or worry, despite what it entails. Now, out of the office, he thinks – he’ll be on his own indefinitely. No Hutch at his side. The thought sits heavily in his chest.
It might show on his face.
“You okay with this?” Hutch asks.
“I’m not as backwards as you like to think, partner,” he says, trying to cover, and because he isn’t. So he has some hang-ups, who doesn’t? He’s a product of his upbringing. But he’s never let it get in the way of his job, in the way of caring about people. He’s been more aware of them since John died, and more able to get over them. Besides, he plays a good part. By Starsky’s reckoning, every man has a sort of aesthetic interest in other men, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to play it up. The only thing he isn’t sure about – as ever, when cases like this come up – is being separated from his partner. “You don’t seem to like it,” he points out.
Hutch’s mouth forms an unhappy line. “It’s not a bigotry thing.”
Starsky pouts. “Dobey not think you’re macho enough?”
“Starsky,” he protests. “I don’t like that it’s you, alone.”
It feels nice to hear that he isn’t the only one. Of course. “You worried about my virtue?” he jokes all the same.
“No,” he emphasises, and he realises quite suddenly that Hutch is deathly serious, and unhappier on a much deeper level than Starsky’s ribbing is appropriate for. “I’m worried about finding you stabbed to death in an alleyway.”
“Gee,” he says, spirits dampened, and he tries not to think about that too much. “Well, hopefully it won’t come to that.”
Hutch looks upwards. “Hopefully, he says.”