Cheryl's POV
By
I can't believe my dad would do such a thing. Poison?
We've barely spoken for several years. He blames me for my brother Jerry's death. Myself and Ken, and Dave, too.
I was just trying to help Jerry get away from that drug dealer, away from the drugs themselves. I knew that Dave and Ken could help Jerry without getting his name involved. It was to protect Dad, not hurt him. To have his name – his son's name – in the papers, or bandied about the school, mentioned in conjunction with drugs and dealing…that would've killed Dad.
Of course, he probably wouldn't believe that either. He always was a little blind where Jerry was involved. Maybe that was part of Jerry's problems. Too much, too soon. A common enough story. One I see often, working in the police lab.
But even trying to help Jerry didn't work. He was so addicted that he tried to go for Ken's gun and ended up with a bullet in his chest instead. It was an accident; Ken didn't want to shoot him. The gun went off by mistake, but Dad refused to believe that.
I think that's when Dad went off the deep end. He was sure that it was all a set up by the police, together with some of his academic enemies. That Ken purposely shot Jerry to keep him – Dad – quiet about some theory he was working on.
And of course it was all my fault. I was the one who brought him the news of Jerry's shooting. I was the one who turned my brother in. According to Dad, I was a traitor.
He had little to nothing to do with me since Jerry's death. He refused my phone calls, wouldn't answer the door at home, ignored me at school.
But I never imagined he'd go as far as to poison Dave and Ken.
Even when I analyzed what I could of the compound from Dave's blood sample, it never occurred to me that my dad was the one who developed the poison. When Ken confronted him at home, there was another syringe all ready for him. In fact, Dad later rambled that Ken was supposed to die first, since he held Ken most responsible for Jerry's death. But the dealer he paid – the same dealer Jerry got his drugs from – messed up and injected Dave first.
His plans were to poison both Starsky and Hutch, then anonymously turn in the dealer, so he would go back to jail on murder charges. I don't think Dad even considered that the guy could turn on him, as the man who hired him to do the dirty work. I don't think Dad cared about what would happen to him.
Dave said they're gonna try to get Dad probation and forced retirement, rather than jail and firing, as long as he attended therapy regularly and let me move in to watch over him. Since Dave killed the dealer, and he pulled through, Dave thought a trial would only further my dad mentally and mar the reputation he earned through years of hard work and research.
Ken wasn't as forgiving, which is understandable. He's very protective of his partner. Anyone who hurts Dave is #1 on Ken's enemy list. He says it was more painful to watch his partner slowly die, than it would've been to have it be himself that was dying.
He kept begging me to give Dave something that would take away the pain, but I couldn't without knocking him completely out – which is something Dave himself didn't want. He wanted to be out there, figuring out who poisoned him; even if it was too late for him, he didn't want his partner to go through the same thing.
‘Best friends', is what they call each other. But it's so much more than that. They protect each other. Worry about each other. Help each other. And yes, they'd die for each other.
I'm just thankful that they stopped my Dad before it came to that.
