IN THE LINE OF DUTY

Chapter One

Starsky had just dropped Hutch off at the airport, it had been a tiring day filled with Hutch's emotional tension.

Starsky arrived at Hutch's place just in time to find that Mrs. Hutchinson had called to announce that his father had had a heart attack. Hutch's first reaction shocked Starsky, who had grown up sure of his parents' love even when he was the other side of the country from his mother. "First I've ever heard he's got a heart."

Mrs. Hutchinson wanted, needed, her son at her side. Her husband was dying; the doctors could do nothing for him except keep him comfortable until his heart finally gave up trying to beat.

Hutch stood shaking his head. Signaling despair and reluctance all at once.

"You have to go out there, Hutch."

"Why?" He said bitterly, "he didn't come out here when you thought I was dying."

"He didn't know You do. That's the difference."

"Starsky I ...."

"You'll only beat up on yourself for the rest of your life if you don't."

"It's easy for you to say." He regretted that the moment he said it.

"No it's not. I was there. It wasn't any easier."

"But you loved your father."

"So do you; if you would just let yourself. C'mon Hutch, there had to be some good times."

"I guess so."

"What about your mom; doesn't she have the right to your presence at this time?"

That stung. Hutch knew that Starsky had held his mother together when his father died. If Starsky could do that when he was thirteen, surely he could do it at thirty three. He nodded and bowed his head.

Starsky took the 'phone and dialed; he spoke quietly. "Mrs. Hutchinson, this is Dave Starsky."

He listened for a while, his eyes half closed, "I'll take him to the airport right now," Hutch shook his head. "No ma'am, he says he'll rent a car."

Hutch started to throw a few things into a bag but Starsky went over to the closet and dragged out a suitcase. He ran his hands along the clothes and pulled out Hutch's only suit (fortunately it was a dark color), he searched around the floor of the closet and pulled out a pair of black loafers. He finished packing as much of Hutch's wardrobe needs as he could find while his friend gathered his wash-bag and its contents. "Do you ever do your laundry?" Starsky said shaking his head at the sorry of Hutch's clothes. "Where's your black tie?"

"I don't have one."

Starsky grinned. "We'll stop at Penney's on the way to the airport."

Two hours later, Hutch was on a flight for Duluth and Starsky was planning an evening alone with a model.

Hutch spent the whole flight thinking about strange love-hate relationship he'd had with his father. As a small child he'd worshiped his dad from afar; he was the court room hero who played a four handicap game and outguessed Santa every year. On the other hand he was capable of meting out punishments if the grades on Ken's report card weren't up to the standards his father demanded. Groundings and spankings were a normal part of Hutch's young life; rites of passage like Confirmation and Graduation. Starsky's adoration of his father was a revelation to Hutch; it had never occurred to him that a boy could so love his father that he would burn to emulate him the way Starsky had.

The pilot announced that they were coming in to land; that a late snow storm had made things 'a little chilly out there folks' and that they should fasten their seat belts. Hutch clicked the buckle and stared out of the window at the white wasteland he no longer called home.

He picked up the car keys at the rental desk without bothering to look at the details and pulled his jacket around him as he walked out to the lot to find it. Car number HLX449 was a four-door Ford sedan; it took him a moment to notice the irony: it was a Torino. He adjusted the seat and mirrors and drove out of the airport and onto the road leading to his parents' house. The house he had grown up in; the house he had spent so long running away from. The snow was already lying in gray heaps by the side of the road. "Welcome home." Hutch said softly. He drove through the familiar streets and wondered briefly how his life would have turned out if he and his father had got on. Would he have gone to college, pledged his dad's Frat and followed the footsteps that led to the office suite in town, the expensive car and comfortable house? He shook his head. Maybe he would still be married to Van;she would be a scion of the Junior League and spending his money as fast as he could earn it. He grinned. She did anyway.

The houses along the street were getting bigger, the lawns neater, the cars newer. Like it or not, he was home. He turned up the driveway and parked his drab rented car next to his father's big silver German sedan. He felt like the prodigal son returning from afar; but he knew there would be no fatted calf - his mother's cooking skills didn't run to it.

Hutch took a deep breath and opened the car door. He grabbed his bag out of the trunk and shivered; he should have brought a coat. He walked to the front door and rang the bell.

His mother opened the door, red-eyed and anxious. "Oh Ken, I was worried that the plane wouldn't be able to land in the snow...."

"It landed mom. What do you want me to say, that I'm glad to be here?"

"Ken please."

"Mom, I'm sorry but I'm here for you, not for him."

"He wants to see you before he dies."

"Why? To tell me what a disappointment I am?"

"No; don't be so harsh, Ken, it doesn't suit you. He has something to tell you."

"I can't imagine what."

He went upstairs to his old room. Some things hadn't changed. His high school pennant was still on the wall alongside a poster for a movie he had wanted to see with all his heart - but missed because a 'B' in Math got him a grounding until the movie theater changed its program. He unpacked his bag; hung up the suit and placed the cellophane wrapped shirts that Starsky had selected for him on the shelf beside it.

When he returned downstairs his mother had already put on her coat. She looked at him with a sad smile. "Use one of your father's coats." He opened the hall closet and took out the heavy green Loden; it was warm and it fit him perfectly. He shrugged it onto his shoulders and avoided looking at his reflection in the mirror. His mother voiced what he feared seeing. "If you cut your hair a little you'd look just kike your father when he was your age."

"I'll take your word for it."

"Oh Ken."

He drove his father's car to the hospital; the Torino sedan was clunky in comparison. He drove carefully trying to ignore the tension in the air between him and his mother.

"Is he really dying?"

"Yes." Her voice caught in her throat. Hutch swallowed and concentrated on finding a spot in the hospital parking lot.

The hospital smelled like all hospitals do; antiseptic barely covering the odor or vomit, pain and death. His father was in a room on the fifth floor. The elevator was smooth and silent. No piped music to soften the blow of arriving in front of a notice announcing that this floor was dedicated to Intensive Care.

His father was propped up in the bed; he had a drip feeding clear liquid into one arm. His skin was waxy and yellow, stretched taut over the face that was reduced to the features of the skull beneath. It his Hutch that it wasn't the heart attack that was going to kill him.

"How long have you known?"

It was his father who answered. "The diagnosis was made a year ago."

He ignored his father and turned to his mother. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because I told her not to." The old man's voice was weakened by sickness and medication but the authority was still there.

"Your father was diagnosed with cancer last year, Ken."

"You always did smoke too much."

"It's not my mungs; it's my prostate." His smile was a grimace.

"And the heart attack?"

"A side effect of the chemotherapy. At least it brought you here."

Hutch resisted the temptation to walk out.

His mother slipped out of the room and Hutch sat down on the chair next to the bed. "I'm here."

"Thank you for coming."

"I'm here for mom."

"And for yourself?"

"You sound like Starsky."

"How is he?"

"Do you care? The only time you met him I had the impression that you could smell something bad."

"He's your friend; he's your business partner."

"My 'business partner'; that's an interesting way of putting it! Still can't accept that my kind of law work is as acceptable as yours, can you?"

"You could have done so much better, Kenneth. Are you still living in that rented house?"

"No; I moved to an apartment. I still rent. I don't want the responsibility of ownership.

"I never found it easy to be your father."

"It wasn't easy being your son either."

"I left you something."

His father started to cough and fight for his breath. Alarmed, Hutch rang the bell for the nurse who took one look at his father's face and ushered him out of the room. "I think you should go and find your mother."

"Kenneth...in my desk...photo...."

Back home they sat awkwardly, like bookends, at the dining table and picked at the chicken stew that his mother had left in the oven too long.

"I love him, Ken....I know he wasn't always easy to live with but he was a good man. And he loved you, I know he did."

"He had a strange way of showing it."

"He wanted you to succeed...to achieve...and you have, in your way. He was proud of you Ken. You uphold the law he loved so much.

Hutch felt tears sting behind his eyelids. "I wish just once or twice he could have told me; that's all."

"I know."

They followed the same pattern. Awkward, uncomfortable conversations; hospital visits that inevitably left his mother in tears and a sour taste in Hutch's mouth as he realized that his father was making some effort to patch up their life-long estrangement.

Finally, three days later, his father died. Hutch sat and watched his mother weep and stroke a dead hand. When she was finally ready to leave she leaned heavily on her son as they walked across the parking lot, picking their way round patches of ice that resisted the salt put down by the maintenance staff. Hutch reflected that if his mother fell some other lawyer would make a bundle out of it - instead of his father.

Back at the house Mrs. Hutchinson began to make lists. People to call; people to invite to the funeral; the funeral parlor; the minister; the caterer. It occurred to Hutch that she was following a time-honored ritual and running on some kind of automatic pilot that switched in with a certain kind of woman when a rite of passage demands her attention.

"I'll deal with the paperwork."

She looked at him blankly for a moment. "I mean the declaration; the Death Certificate, that kind of thing."

"Thank you dear."

She went back to her lists and Hutch began to understand that it was her avoidance, her method of pushing away the unpleasantness. She always did it when she was kid; while his father punished him, his mother organized a Bridge game or a charity drive at the Country Club.

"Am I disturbing anything?"

"Nothing that can't wait." Starsky said quietly.

He knows.

"I'm still here."

"He's..." To Hutch's embarrassment the words stuck in his mouth; he couldn't even stutter it out.

"That was quick." Starsky paused. "Are you Ok?"

"I th-think s-so."

"Doesn't sound like it from here. Have a drink."

"Mom and I did a pretty good job on his Armagnac."

Armagnac huh; best I could do was a bottle of Kosher wine."

Hutch missed a beat. "You did what?""

"I stole a bottle of Kosher wine from my grandmother's kitchen and sat under the fire escape and drank the lot!"

"You got drunk when your dad died? But Starsky you were only...."

"Thirteen in Brooklyn equaled twenty three in Duluth. Take my advice, get drunk! I'll call you tomorrow." He hung up.

Hutch took his advice.

Chapter Two

Starsky put down the phone and went back to cleaning his gun. He was meticulous about it and chewed Hutch out like a Drill Sergeant when he noticed that his partner wasn't as fastidious. He had the gun in pieces on the low table in front of him; like some kind of sinister jigsaw puzzle. He could take it apart and clean it and put it together blindfold if he'd wanted to. But Starsky had his reasons to hate being blindfold, so he didn't. When he had finished he checked that there was a clip in place and that the safety catch was locked then put the gun into his shoulder holster that was hanging on the coat rack by the door.

He'd cleaned other guns in his time. His last homage to his father was to clean the police revolver hanging in his closet. When they came to collect Mike Starsky's parade uniform to dress him for the last time, David handed the gleaming weapon t his father's ex-partner.

He wondered what Hutch's last homage to his father would be.

He leaned forward and killed his own bottle of wine. It was good wine from the Napa Valley where Starsky had spent a happy couple of months picking grapes and getting a tan after he finally got out of the Army. He had learned a lot in that time; like the fact that wine doesn't have to be sickly sweet. He lifted the glass and drank a toast to his absent friend.

Starsky slept soundly that night. Perhaps it was the knowledge that his alarm clock wasn't set for five thirty because eh wasn't on duty before six that evening; perhaps it was the booze. He woke with a headache - must have been the booze. A run would clear his head. He dressed in cut-offs and running shoes and set out.

He ran for an hour; alternating speed bursts with a steady jog. His head cleared and he turned for home. He spent five minutes under the shower, decided not to shave until he changed for work and pulled on a pair of jeans and his red zip-front sweatshirt. He didn't bother with shoes; he wasn't planning to go anywhere. He lade a pot of coffee and settled in the peacock chair with the phone on his lap.

"Hell?" Hutch sounded worn.

"How are you doing?"

"I think I have a hangover."

"Me too."

"Thanks."

"It was the least I could do." That got a soft, embarrassed laugh.

"How's your mom?"

"Shattered? They were together a long time." Hutch hesitated. "Sorry, that was tactless."

"No it wasn't. Did I ever tell you that my mom and dad met in second grade?"

"No."

"Of course I didn't - it isn't true. Feel better now?"

"Starsky I...."

"Hug your mom, Hutch. she needs you right now."

"Shouldn't you be working?"

"Not yet. We pulled night shift this week, remember?"

"Anything exciting?"

"Now let me see; I arrested a dog for peeing on a trash can...."

"Wow; will you get a medal?"

"Only if I bark loud enough. Seriously, that would be the highlight of the day. Maybe the bad guys are waiting for you to come home so they can have more fun being chased by both of us."

"Be careful Starsk."

"I can look after myself."

"I know but...."

"Just make sure you do the same"

Silence.

"When's the funeral?"

"Tomorrow; it'll be hell. All those nice people who look at me like a long-haired weirdo from California..."

"You are a long haired weirdo - cops are supposed to have short hair!"

Another little silence.

"I'll call you when it's over...what time?"

"About four o'clock our time."

"I'll call."

"Thanks."

"And Hutch...I'll be thinking of you when you hold your mom's hand."

"Yes."

Chapter three

The last time Hutch had seen a line-up of black limos like this was when a Mafia boss tried to impress him and Starsky outside a club. It didn't work.

The first car stopped in front of him and he stepped forward to open the door, but the chauffeur got there first. He stood to one side while his mother slid gracefully onto the seat.

I'll be thinking of you when you hold your mom's hand

His mother took a black lace-trimmed handkerchief out of her purse and dabbed her eyes.

"I brought your sunglasses."

"Thank you dear. I don't think that would be right; not with snow on the ground."

"No, I guess I'm too used to California."

To his surprise his mother laughed. "When I was a girl I thought that everyone out there . wore dark glasses all the time - even at night; even when they went to bed."

"We do, but only when we don't want anyone to see us. Starsky wears his indoors sometimes."

"Does he still drive that loud car?"

"Yes; but he has the blackest sunshades that no-one notices." Once again his mother managed to laugh.

The car pulled into the cemetery and came to a halt. The grave was ready. The other mourners were already in place and Hutch was impressed by how many of them there were; He led his mother to her place by the graveside and looked down at the coffin. His father was in that box.

I hate him. I tried to love him but he wouldn't let me.

I wish he was dead. I wished he would show some real interest in what I wanted to do.

I never want to see you again. I won't. I guess it's too late to try again.

The Minister's voice floated around him; he didn't listen or take much notice of what was being said.

The sound of the first handful of dirt hitting the wood jolted him back to the graveside. This was part of a rite of passage, after the service there would be the return to the house; the handshakes; the polite exchange of reminiscences over a glass of sherry for the ladies and whiskey for the men. The caterer's elegant array of sandwiches and canapés would disappear, but no-one in the room would show signs of having eaten anything. And then...when the last mourner and payer of respects had gone...he's be alone with his mother and the reality of his feelings. And wonder about hers.

Whet the last guest had gone and the caterers had cleared the tables and left discreetly, his mother went upstairs. "I need to be alone for a while Ken."

He opened the drawer in his father's desk and closed it again. He wasn't ready for this yet.

Starsky checked his watch; he had an hour before he had to be at work. He dialed the now familiar number. Hutch answered on the third ring.

"How did it go?"

"I missed most of it."

"Huh?"

"I was too busy thinking about..."

"Yeah, I know. You were thinking of all those moments you wished you could erase. Don't tell me, let me guess. The day you yelled 'I hate you'; the day you...."

"You did too?"

"Of course I did. My dad was human Hutch. You'll get over it."

You sound so sure."

"I know you, remember."

"I don't know when I'll be back. I have to deal with a lot of stuff."

"I know."

"Starsky?"

"Yeah?"

"Nothing...I....uh....I..."

"You'd have done the same for me."

"I didn't know you then."

"No...."

Hutch was up before his mother, he was used to getting up early. He showered and went to find coffee and something edible for breakfast. The coffee was instant; his mother bought the kind of sliced bread that steamed in the toaster and came out with the texture of flabby cardboard. He sighed and spread it with butter.

He took his coffee into the room that his father had always used as a study. As he walked in, his heart started to beat a little faster. He'd crossed this threshold with a degree of fair too often as a kid. His father's big leather chair was turned with its back to the door. He walked over to it and pulled it round to face him. He braced himself and sat down. The desk had five drawers. The two to the left contained files marked with titles that indicated that they were concerned with the day-to-day running of the house and its budget. He's deal with them later. The contents of the lower drawer on the right made him gasp: a half-empty bottle of whiskey and a gun. The gun wasn't loaded but the clip was and it was in the same drawer. It was a Luger, probably a war-time memento. Hutch wondered if his father thought he would ever have to use it, and if so, why? The top right hand drawer contained one file marked 'Last Will and Testament". Hutch opened the cover and learned that his father had named one of his associates as the executor. He assumed that Jim Bateman would have a copy; in fact he assumed that Jim was probably already working on the formalities of Probate. He started to close it, not wishing to read now what he was going to hear later.

There was a key Scotch taped to the inside of the file. Hutch knew instinctively that it would open the middle drawer.

He opened it carefully, half expecting a booby trap to explode in his face.

In my desk...a photo.

The photo was in one of those old-fashioned folding frames made of thick card. He opened the cover and found himself looking at a black and white photograph of himself; a second look told him that it couldn't be - the car in the background was too old...Hutch turned it over and read the caption written in ink that had faded brown with age. "June 1943."

A shadow on the desk made him look up. His mother was holding a teacup in both hands. "You found it."

"Yes. Who is it?"

"Come to the kitchen, I've defrosted some muffins and Kathy left some of her blueberry jelly."

"That sounds like an offer I can't refuse." He smiled and followed his mother to the kitchen.

She had aged in the past few days; or perhaps it was the unfamiliar sight of her without her careful, perfect, discreetly applied make-up. "You don't have to tell me now if you don't want to."

"I do. I mean I have to. Ken this isn't going to be easy, please dear, listen and don't interrupt me."

He nodded and started to apply blueberry jelly to a muffin.

"The photograph is of the first Kenneth Hutchinson. He was your father's older brother..."

She shook her head as Hutch started to speak. "Ken was four years older than your father, and your father worshiped him. He followed everything his brother did. Everything." Her voice faded for a moment and she sipped her tea.

He waited.

The sound of her cup breaking as she dropped it made Hutch jump. His mother stood up, "look at the time, and I'm still in my robe. We have to go and see Jim at eleven." She left the room.

Hutch finished his second breakfast and went upstairs to dress. At least today he could wear a sports jacket and slacks instead of the uncomfortable suit.

His mother was waiting for him in the hall; she had already put on her coat and was wearing a hat and dark kid gloves. Even now she was perfectly dressed for an appointment in town. He dragged on his father's coat and followed her out to the car.

Jim Bateman hadn't changed much; his hair was a little grayer and maybe the bags under his eyes were a little darker; but he was still the same as Hutch remembered him. In a way Jim was the Starsky to his father's Hutch. Jim had a sense of humor that could defuse and difficult situation ; he could charm a recalcitrant witness while his father would coolly explain the law to him and put him off appearing in the case. Hutch watched the way his mother exchanged greetings with Jim, an awkward peck on the cheek, before shaking hands with him and settling in the chair next to the one that Jim had moved slightly out of the way to allow his mother to sit without knocking her knees on the desk.

"I have Richard's Will here; I have read it and as his executor I have to comply with the letter that accompanies it. He left complete instructions about this. He wanted me to read it to you." Hutch leaned forward. "What exactly does all that mean? Are you telling us that there is a problem or did my father leave conditions to his Will?"

"No Ken, no there are no problems, but yes, in a way, there is a condition. The condition is that you listen to me read this letter." He smiled at Hutch's mother, "excuse me Sylvia, but Richard wanted Ken to hear this alone. I think you understand why." He stood up and ushered Hutch's mother to the door and confided her to his secretary who led her to coffee and a supply of magazines.

"I don't understand."

"I know, Ken, but believe me your father wanted it this way. He knew that what I have to tell you would be a shock and he didn't want you to have to hide your reactions - or show them - in front of your mother. The information I am going to give you is nothing she doesn't know. In fact she could have told you herself but your father didn't want it that way."

"OK. I'm listening."

'Kenneth. If Jim is reading this to you then at least you had the decency to return to Duluth to attend my funeral. But if you are reading it yourself, that doesn't matter. What matters is that you understand. I shall assume that you are in Duluth. If you returned home before my death and I had the chance to speak to you, you will already know that there is a photograph in my desk that I want you to see. Perhaps the photograph will shock you. You will maybe ask yourself when it was taken and wonder why you don't remember it. Then you will look again and understand that although the likeness is striking it is not a photograph of you. You will turn it and see that it couldn't be.

The young man in the picture was my hero all my life. He got the highest grades without any effort. He won his Letter in every sport that he chose to play. He had a golf handicap that I only managed after forty years of playing. Everyone loved him. He carried the hopes and ambitions of his family on his shoulders and it didn't seem to trouble him. All the girls we knew were in love with him.

I wanted to be like him. I wanted to achieve what he had without having to work hard all the time. I wanted my life to be as effortless as his and I emulated him as best I could. As you will understand from my comment about golf, I was never the sportsman that he was. But I understood that if I worked and studied hard I could get the grades that he had achieved. That is why I always put so much importance on working hard at school when you were a boy.'

Jim looked up at Hutch as he turned the page. "OK so far?"

"I guess he's trying to explain why he was so hard on me. Go on."

'If you have looked at the back of the photo (and as you are a police detective I'm sure you have done so) you know that the photo was taken in 1943. It was taken on the lake-shore near the house he grew up in. It was taken the day before he left to go to France to fight in the war. That was the last time I saw him. He didn't return. He left behind a young woman who was pregnant with his child.

The young man in the photograph was Kenneth Hutchinson. My brother. He was not your uncle, Kenneth, he was your father.'

Hutch gasped.

Jim looked up, "there's a little more. Can you handle it?"

"Of course."

'Kenneth, I tried to do the best I could for you. I wanted you to be like your father; but you were more like me. Although you showed a natural ability on the sports fields like my brother, like me, you had to work a little more in order to get the grades that I wanted from you - the grades that you perhaps now understand were the ones your father would have achieved. I was harsh with you with because I was always aware that I wasn't your father. I loved your mother deeply; I could say that she was one of the things my brother had that I would have liked to have too. When she told our parents that she was pregnant I proposed to her immediately. She accepted and we learned to love one another. We never had a child of our own. You were all we had to keep us together and we were bonded by the love we had for my brother.

If I was harsh with you when you were a boy, I regret it now. I regret never being able to tell you this when I was alive and I hope you will forgive me now that I am gone.

Look after your mother, Kenneth, she has lost two men who moved her and to whom she was ready to dedicate her life. Your mother was an Honors student at High School; if she hadn't been pregnant she might have gone to college and would have been a better lawyer than me, my brother or even Jim who is probably smiling as he reads this. She didn't. She sacrificed everything for you.'

When Jim looked up he saw that Hutch was weeping silently. He left the room quietly to bring Sylvia back into the room.

"Ken, I'm sorry. I wanted to tell you a long time ago but you...Richard..."

"As far as I'm concerned he was my father." He said it as evenly as he could. The emotion and the confusion were making it difficult. This man whom he loved and hated wasn't who he thought he was. He had been hard on the boy because he wanted him to replace his brother. Hutch stood up.

"Read the Will without me."

"Ken...please..." His mother was scrunching her handkerchief again. Jim nodded. "I can't do that Ken, I want you present when I explain what your father provided. But it can wait until tomorrow."

"OK." He held out his hand to his mother."Why don't we have lunch in town while we're here?"

Chapter four

Starsky hated it when Hutch was away. He figured that it was reciprocal Dobey didn't like his men to work solo and neither Starsky nor Hutch was capable of working for more than a couple of days with a stand-in partner. So he was catching up on paperwork and making sure that all the stuff the DA's office would need for two cases that were about to come to court was where it should be. He was collating paperwork on a numbers bust that had led to a call-girl ring that led to a drug bust that led to two dead cops...Starsky put his file down and sighed.

He could count the days and hours at any given time in his life. When he was younger, when he first arrived at Aunt Rosa's, he could even count the minutes and the seconds; but over the years they faded in his memory. He wondered whether one day he would forget the days and the weeks and maybe even the months, just get it down to the years. But he knew he would never be able to do that. It was burned in his memory.

He wondered whether Hutch would ever be able to forget the day his father died.

He placed the file in an envelope for internal use and dropped it in the DA's basket as he walked out of the door.

"Starsky."

It was Dobey.

"Are you OK?"

"Yeah sure I am. Why shouldn't I be?"

"You seem preoccupied."

Starsky banged the candy machine with the flat of his hand and offered Dobey a share of the booty. "Do I?"

"Starsky...if you ever need to talk about it."

"Yeah." He bit into the chocolate covered fudge bar and walked away.

Dobey watched him disappear out of the door.

Starsky didn't stop off at The Pits this evening; he drove straight home. He grabbed a beer out of the fridge and dialed.

"Mom."

"Davey."

"You OK?"

"Yes sweetheart. Is something wrong darling? It's not Friday."

"No, it's just...I needed...I....no never mind."

"Davey what's the matter?"

"Hutch's dad died and I...."

"Oh sweetheart, I know."

"I just needed to hear your voice I guess."

"It helps me to hear yours Davey. You sound so like him."

They talked for a few more minutes; about the girl his brother was seeing, about the way the store round the corner sold nearly as much Chinese stuff as Kosher these days. About what Aunt Rosa had told her about his last visit. The little things between mother and son. He replaced the phone on the hook and stood staring out of the window. He didn't miss Brooklyn - not really - but sometimes he missed his home.

Starsky spent the rest of the evening cleaning his house. He vacuumed and polished; he sorted laundry and did a little ironing. When he had finished he made himself a grilled cheese sandwich and settled with that and a beer to watch a movie on the TV. The white hats won and the black hats went to jail. He grinned as he switched it off.

When Hutch called the next morning the first thing Starsky asked was "how's your mom?"

"She's OK, I guess."

"And you?"

"I..I'll survive."

"Sure you will. When are you coming back?"

"I don't know. There's the Will to deal with. I guess probably another couple of days."

"OK."

"What's happening?"

"Nothing much. I had to shoot Godzilla before he ate the new ride at Universal...uh...."

"Another quiet day at the front huh?"

"Yeah, you could say that."

"And you; are you OK?"

Me? Why shouldn't I be?"

"I don't know; you sound kind of subdued, that's all."

"That's what being stuck at a desk does to me. I've been thinking, no way do I want to go on up the ladder, I'd rather die of a bullet on the streets than of boredom behind a desk."

Hutch laughed. "Me too."

"Look after your mom."

"I will."

Hutch put down the phone. It wasn't the Will he had to deal with but the revelation that had been sprung on him. It was having to talk to his mother about it. It was having to decided if it really mattered or not. He decided that the time would never be right for that, so he might as well do it now.

His mother was sitting at her antique escritoire leafing through an appointment book. "Mom, do you have a moment?"

She turned and he could see that she'd been crying.

"Yes Ken?"

"We need to talk about this."

"What do you want me to tell you? Richard loved you; he did his best to make you a credit to your father. He wanted..."

"Why didn't anyone tell me?"

"How? Think about it Ken. We are talking about the nineteen forties; in the Mid-West. This wasn't New York or Los Angeles where maybe these things were less shocking. We didn't have a 'bohemian' outlook here. We saw things in black and white. Young men and women got married in the church and after a decent period they had children. When Kenneth was called up I thought that I might be pregnant, he wanted to marry me but there wasn't time. he was reported MIA three weeks later. I didn't know what to do. there was no-one I could have turned to for help, not here. My mother was incapable of noticing anything; she hadn't even been able to explain to me how my body functioned. It was your grandmother who reassured me that I was not dying of some incurable disease when I bled for the fhirst time. And it was your grandmother who sensed that something was wrong. I told her that I thought I was pregnant and she took me for the tests. When they came back we sat down with your grandfather and Richard and talked about how Kenneth's child would be a Hutchinson with their support. That's when Richard asked me to marry him. Over the years I tried to love him; even when he was so hard on you. But Ken...when I looked at you I saw your father and I knew Richard did too. Richard couldn't have children; you were all he had. A constant reminder that his brother could do things he couldn't - even father a child.

He vowed to make you a credit to your father; he was determined that you would be everything that Kenneth was and he wasn't. He went too far and instead he drove you away from all those things. He loved you in his way Ken; he just didn't know how to show it."

"And you?"

"What do you mean?"

"Did you love me in your way? When you stood by and said nothing? When he punished me...for...for not being his child?"

He walked out of the room.

Hutch spent the rest of the day walking round the lake and trying to work out in his mind what he thought his mother should have done. He had been unkind to suggest that she didn't love hi; but the memory of her standing by while he was spanked for a grade that wasn't good enough, or for stuttering in public, or for all the other things that the man he still thought of as his father found as reasons to instill a rigorous discipline that just made the boy more and more determined to get away from all that was expected of him.

As the sun set he decided that it was time for him to return to his world and leave his mother to reconstruct hers. He stopped off at a travel agent and bought a ticket home.

After his mother had gone to bed he rang Starsky/

"My flight gets in at two thirty tomorrow."

"I'll be there."

He hung up. You always are.

He finished the whiskey in the bottle in his father's desk.

Chapter Five

Starsky was waiting at the gate. He took one look at Hutch's face and took his bag. They walked out to where the Torino was parked on a restricted area; with the red light flashing on its roof. An airport cop came over. "I wasn't aware of an emergency."

"Code three." Starsky said with a grin and jumped into the driver's seat.

"Code three?" the other man asked.

"Yeah, full radio silence. You haven't even seen us."

Hutch shook his head and grinned.

"Want to talk about it?"

"Yes."

"I thought you would; that's why I got in everything I need for spaghetti."

The spaghetti was good and the wine was perfect. Hutch started by talking about the days of hospital visits. "At least I didn't have to deal with that." Starsky said with a smile.

When Hutch told him about the funeral his eyes clouded for a moment; but Starsky said nothing and poured more wine.

Finally, when the second bottle was open, Hutch told him about the photo and the letter. He didn't realize he was crying until Starsky gently wiped a tear from his cheek with his thumb.

"You know Hutch, in the end it doesn't really matter. You didn't know he wasn't your father; and there were good times weren't there?"

"Yes...I guess you're right."

"And your mom was happy?"

"Yes."

"So?"

Starsky patted his hand. He closed his eyes and started to sway as he recited:

Glorified and sanctified be God's great name throughout the world which He has created according to His will. May He establish His kingdom in your lifetime and during your days, and within the life of the entire House of Israel, speedily and soon; and say Amen.

May His name be blessed forever and to all eternity.

Blessed and praised, glorified and exalted, extolled and honored, adored and lauded be the name of the Holy One, blessed be He, beyond all the blessings and hymns, praises and consolations that are ever spoken in the world; and say Amen.

May there be abundant peace from heaven, and life, for us and for all Israel, and say, Amen.

He who creates peace in His celestial heights, may He create peace for us and for Israel,and say Amen

"That was beautiful Starsky; what was it?"

"Kaddish; it's the prayer for the dead. I've been saying it for twenty years, six months, four weeks and one day. Believe me Hutch, it never gets any better."

Hutch nodded. Starsky's wisdom went unspoken.