Starsky sat watching the news.  It was late.  He had spoken to Hutch at least three times during the evening.  He vowed to let the phone ring the next time he called.  He simply couldn’t share what he was thinking.  He had seen two dead girls who looked like Morgan in the last few days.  He had dreamed about their deaths on the same night they died.  His mind rejected the notion that he had somehow become psychic.  He may believe in ghost and goblins, but psychic powers were in another sphere.  He still believed in the logic of the universe.  One in which, a cop, sleeping safely in his bed, did not witness the death of a young woman, especially a cop who was afraid of the dark. No way would he leave his apartment in the middle of the night.  Still, there were the blackouts.  Starsky couldn’t describe them any other way.  Whole sections of his life were missing.  He hadn’t slept over twelve hours.  He knew it in his heart.  Somehow he had killed two women and couldn’t recall doing it.  It was the only explanation.

Starsky went to the kitchen and removed the leftover chicken from the refrigerator.  He sat down and ate it hungrily.  Finishing the plate of kitchen, he pushed the plate to the side.  Hutch would call and he would not answer.  He could always tell him that he was on a date.  He couldn’t give his friend answers anyway. 

***                                                                                                                          ***

Their lovemaking was passionate.  They had been at it for hours now.  Starsky felt like he was consuming her essence as he made love to her.  He’d met her at a disco.  She had been nursing a drink at the bar when he approached.  The attraction was immediate, almost animalistic in nature.  She lived only a few blocks away so he took her home. They almost hadn’t made it inside before he ripped her flimsy red, dress off and started kissing her deeply, his hands exploring her body, her hands running down the length of his body.  Now they were in bed and he was inside her.  Her brown eyes met his as he thrust.  They came at the same time as his hand reached under the pillow and grasped the cold edge of the knife.

***                                                                                                                          ***

Starsky awoke to the sound of water dripping.  His mind rejected the unfamiliarity of the sound as he snuggled deeper under the covers.  He tried to go back to sleep.  He was tired, but the constant drip of the water became irritating.  Rolling onto his back, he opened his eyes to the sight of a single, bare bulb directly above the bed and the comforting sight of the sun streaming in through the open window.  A wave of dizziness overcame him as he suddenly sat up and took in the unfamiliar surroundings.  The room was simple with white walls, and a single dresser covered with cosmetics of various colors.   He was stunned.  The last thing he remembered was sitting in his kitchen eating left-over fried chicken, yet now he was in the bedroom of someone he didn’t know. 

Starsky looked around the room and saw his clothes lying in a heap on the floor.  He stood as the room started to whirl again. He held onto the side of the bed until the room stopped moving then staggered across the floor.  He picked up his clothes and turned back to the bed.  It was then that he saw the dead eyes of a blonde woman lying on the floor next to the bed.  Her body was covered with blood.  Starsky looked down at himself and saw the blood covering his body.  It was like the color of the blood was seeping into his pores.  All he could see was red, the red of blood, the red that he had created.

***                                                                                                                                 ***

His head hurt.  That was the first thing Starsky was aware of as he stretched his body.  It hurt like someone was pounding him with a hammer.  He was sitting at his table, the empty plate sitting nearby.  Confusingly he looked around the room.  It was his kitchen yet only moments ago he had awakened to find himself in an unfamiliar bedroom and the body of a woman, covered with blood was lying on the floor.  Now he was just sitting at his table--not lying down as if he had been asleep, but sitting straight up, staring out the window. 

Starsky looked out the window and saw the yellow-orange color of the sun.  It looked like the sun was going down.  He stood confused by the site of the sun.  Why was the sun going down?  He remembered closing the shades the minute he got home.  It had been dark.  Now the sun was going down and the shades were up.  He looked at his watch and was startled to discover that almost twenty-four hours had passed since he sat at the table.  It was ten o’clock when he sat down.  Now it was seven o’clock.  Had he been sitting here all this time staring out the window?

***                                                                                                                          ***

Hutch looked at the body.  It was another young, blonde woman in her thirties.  Her name was Lois Kendal and she had been found by her best friend only a few hours ago.  Hutch turned from the body and returned to the room where Jennifer sat comforting a very distraught young woman.  He watched as a team of cops headed for the bedroom to gather more evidence.

Lois had been Kathryn Howell’s best friend since grade school.  Kathryn was thirty-three with large brown eyes and thin, determined lips. 

Hutch again wished that his partner could be here, but Starsky had called him this morning saying that he had put in a late night with a very attractive brunette and would not be in.  Hutch had covered for Starsky telling Dobey that his partner was not feeling well.  The captain had harrumphed and then assigned Jennifer to accompany him in questioning a few witnesses from the last murder.  They had spent the day questioning witness and were on their way home when the call came in--another body had been found.  Now Hutch listened as Jennifer questioned the witness about the previous night. 

“Kathryn, you said that you and Lois frequented this club almost every night?”           

“Yes.  Lois likes it there.  I mean liked it there.  I don’t care for it much.  The guys there are just too pretentious.”

“So you said she left with this guy?”

“Yeah, she use to do that a lot.  She said if men could do it, why not women?”

“What did the guy look like?”  Hutch asked.

“Real attractive.  He had curly hair, dark blue eyes.  Real tight abs. Kinda tall, but not real tall.”

Hutch suppressed a shudder and avoided looking at Jennifer.

“You seem like you really looked at the guy,” Jennifer said.

“Yeah, he was real cute.” She said smiling at the memory, and then the seriousness of the moment came back.  Her friend was lying dead in the other room and the man she had described was most likely her murderer. 

“What else do you remember about him?” Jennifer probed.

“The walk.  He swaggered.  Real confident, like he knew how he affected women.”

Jennifer locked eyes with Hutch.  For an instant, it was like he was reading her mind.  The woman was describing Starsky, his best friend, the man he trusted with his life.  But Starsky had been home in the arms of a brunette.  And Starsky would never kill anyone.

“Would you recognize him if you saw him again?” Jennifer asked.

Kathryn took a deep breath.  Hutch found himself holding his breath as he waited for the reply. 

“I will never forget his face as long as I live.”

The answer hung in the air.  Jennifer once again looked at Hutch, the statement in her eyes as clear as words in a book.

“Think you can describe him to a sketch artist?”

“I can go one better,” Kathryn said.  “Give me a piece of paper and I can draw him myself.  I’m an artist.”

The coroner entered the room along with more cops.  Hutch looked at Jennifer and then turned, quickly exiting the room.

      ***                                                                                                                          ***

Hutch raced through the streets.  He stopped at a telephone and made arrangements with Huggy for a car, than quickly got back in the car and headed towards Starsky’s.   He had to get to Starsky’s house before Jennifer could get a positive identification.  He couldn’t believe what he was thinking.  He believed his best friend was a murderer simply because he had asked a question in the ally.    “My god.  What have I done?”  The words haunted him, clung to him, seeping into his body like the icy claw of death. 

Hutch wondered what he would do when he got to Starsky’s apartment.  Would he sit down and drink a cold beer and casually ask if he had murdered girls who looked like Morgan?  Would he crash through the door and handcuff him and commit him to a life in prison?  Or would he give his life to protect him?

Hutch placed the mars light on the car.  Speed was essential. 

***                                                                                                                          ***

Starsky was still sitting at the kitchen table when Hutch rushed it.  “Get a few things, throw them in a suitcase.  We gotta get out of here.”

Starsky stood and looked confusingly at his friend.  “What are ya talking, about Hutch?”

Hutch quickly walked to Starsky’s bedroom, went to his closet and pulled some clothes out.  Then he grabbed a suitcase and shoved them inside. 

“Come on buddy.  No time to waste.  Jennifer knows.”

“Knows what?”  Starsky demanded.

“Tell you on the way to the cabin.”

“What…What…”  Starsky started.  But Hutch grabbed his arm and ushered him out the door.  In minutes flat they were racing down the streets.  Starsky still trying to find out what was happening.  Soon the answer became apparent as the dispatcher announced the man hunt for the serial killer, David Starsky who was considered armed and dangerous.  The dispatcher went on to announce that the murderer was most likely in the company of detective Kenneth Hutchinson.

Starsky looked dumbfounded at Hutch. “Then it’s true.  I really did kill those girls.  Oh god, I killed them.”

Hutch spared a glance at Starsky who sat trembling, his hands covering his eyes as the tears fell.

“No time for that.  I called Huggy after I found out.  He’s got a car waiting for us.  We just have to go up a few blocks.  The car is in the alley.”

Starsky looked up.  “Stop the car, Hutch.  You gotta take me in.   I killed….I killed two girls.”

“Three.  We found the body of another girl…”

“In a bedroom,” Starsky continued.  “She was lying on the floor next to her bed, a knife sticking out of her stomach.  She’d been stabbed.”

Hutch took a deep breath as he concentrated on the road. He spared a glance at the rear view mirror and pulled to the side. 

“Come on, Starsky.  Get out of the car. We gotta ditch this car.”

“No, Hutch.  You’ve gotta let me go.  You’ve got to…”

Hutch grabbed Starsky’s arm.  Tears were starting to rush down his face.  “I’ll never let you go.  You’re my best friend, my brother…god Starsky, how could you even think….”

Starsky grabbed Hutch’s arm.  Starsky was crying now, the tears running freely down his face.  He didn’t try to hide them. “I killed three women who looked like Morgan.  I deserve to be punished for it.  I can’t, can’t go on.  You can’t ask me that.  You’ve got to let me go.”

“But you didn’t kill them Starsky.  You wouldn’t.  It’s not in you.”

“But it is.  Don’t forget that I tried to kill you once.”

“You mean that night you almost shot me.  That was an accident.”

“No, the time that voodoo priest put a spell on me.  Only falling off a cliff prevented me from killing you.”

Hutch remembered.  The voodoo priest had somehow given Starsky a drug that made him attack him on the cliff.  Hutch had fought desperately for his life, knocking his friend away.  Finally both of them fell off the cliff into the water beneath.  It was then that the spell was broken.

“If I could try and kill you, a man that means more to me than life it self, what would I do to someone I don’t know?”

The question hung in the silence of the car.  In the background Hutch could hear the sounds of sirens as they moved closer to them.  He had to make a decision now if he hoped to save his friend.  He wiped his face, he felt the familiar hands touch his shoulder, he saw Starsky reach for the door and his decision was made in that instant.  He slammed his fist into the side of Starsky’s face.  He watched as Starsky crumbled into unconsciousness.  There had to be an explanation.  He would not sit idly while his friend faced a possible death sentence. 

Hutch drove the car into the alley and saw the blue chevy that would take them to an uncertain future.  He pulled Starsky’s unconscious body from the car and put him in the back seat.  He looked around.  The streets were filled with people.  The smell of the city permeated the air.  Hutch looked up as the sun began its decent.  They should be at the cabin by nightfall.