SOMETIMES THERE’S NO SILVER LINING

By

Amye

The hot August breeze picked up the dirt from the cracked asphalt pavement of Stoker Street and tossed it around the two little boys riding their tricycles up and down the little traveled street. It was nearing 7:30 p.m. and the temperature was still hovering around a muggy 88 degrees. Few families in this area could afford air-conditioning; so most residents were outside sitting in lawn chairs on their properties or porches, gossiping with one another.

The two boys, Alexander Weisberg and Toby Junior, both age 3, were best friends. They were two of only three boys the same age on this tiny, poor street. The other boy was in the bathtub, where Alexander and Toby would be headed shortly. As the boys rode their trikes down a driveway, into the street, and back up a different driveway, Amelia Murad, the neighborhood gossip watched them from the front steps of her single-family box frame house.

Alexander’s chipped blue painted tricycle hit a divit in the street, which tipped him over onto the asphalt on his left side. Mrs. Murad jumped up from her stoop to collect the scraped up young boy. Lifting the trike in one hand and pulling at his arm with the other, she led him back to his parent’s four-family frame home two doors down.

“Yetta! Come get your boy!” Yelled the busybody through the screen door as she made her way up the front steps.

Yetta Weisberg, a mousy brown-haired woman of 45, came to the front of her apartment to check on the commotion while wiping her hands on the apron draped over her abdomen. “Vat’s all dis bout?”

“Your little harridan was playing in the street with that Toby and he fell and scraped himself.” Mrs. Murad shook the little boys arm lightly to show the mother the scrapes down Alexander’s forearm. “You know you should keep a closer eye on the young ones. Where are your daughters?” She tried to peer through the screen and into the small living room.

“Dora and Hanna help me make pie.”

“Watch over this one. He’s a handful; gonna get in some trouble some day.” Amelia wagged her finger at Alexander’s mother and left.

Yetta laughs at the retreating woman and gathered her son in her apron, leading him toward the kitchen. She wiped his tears with the edge of her apron, and his scrapes with a wet cloth. Handing him a piece of homemade apple cake and a glass of milk, she scooted him outside. “Sit, eat, be good ‘till prva* come home.”

Looking at the clock half an hour later, Yetta realized her husband would soon be home and he enjoyed giving Alexander his bath before bedtime. Removing her apron and going to the front screen door, she opened it calling for her youngest. “Alexander, time for bath.” She waited a few seconds, then not seeing him, called Alexander by his pet name. “Dvojchek*!”

She stepped off the porch, knocking the nearly empty cup of milk, and looked up and down the small street of closely built frame houses. But nowhere did she see Alexander. Knowing that Mrs. Murad would’ve seen which way her son went, she went to ask the all-seeing woman, who informed her with a click of her tongue that she saw the young boy get off the porch and run down the street to his friend Toby, who was still outside, but now in his yard.

Yetta walked over to Toby. “Tobias, where is Alexander?”

The little boy pointed his finger toward the corner of the street, two houses down. “He went there.” But there was no sign of the boy.

Going back to their flat, Yetta thought perhaps the boy had slipped under her nose and gone home. Once there, she looked in the room he shared with his parents, in the bathroom, the kitchen, the basement they shared with the other occupants, the tiny backyard, and even his sister’s room. They hadn’t seen him either. Alexander was definitely not at home.

Just as Yetta was beginning to panic, her husband, David came home and took control. Since it was Friday, their little deli store closed early and he rushed to get home before sundown. Hearing that little Alexander was missing, he went outside and gathered the neighbors to begin a sweep of the street.

Searching the small street and its framed occupants with their dirty, patchy backyards, and gravel & blacktop driveways, the residents were unable to find a trace of Alexander Weisberg.

Two hours later, Amelia Murad finally convinced the Weisberg’s to call the police.

Officers Hayes and Atkins responded to the call and dutifully took down a description of Alexander, spoke to all the neighbors, M/M Weisberg, the sisters of the missing boy, and most importantly Toby – who, it turned out – was the last one to see Alexander.

They called in for more back-up and lots of flashlights so that anyone who was willing could join in the search.

After midnight, with still no sign of the missing boy, a doctor arrived with some Valium to help Mrs. Weisberg get some sleep. Their rabbi had already come and gone, promising to stop by the next evening.

With nowhere else to search and night in full bloom, the officers left one of their own parked outside the Weisberg flat and went back to Metro to formulate a plan of action. Mr. Weisberg gave them a picture of Alexander taken six months prior, which would be used in the search and forwarded to the media.

All weekend, no clue of what happened to little Alexander Weisberg was found.

*****

The past two weeks had been slow for Detectives Starsky and Hutchinson. The above normal temperatures making even the shadiest of characters too miserable to engage in any criminal activities.

As soon as they got in Monday morning, Dobey had the file on the missing boy in their box.

“What’s this?” Asked Starsky removing it, before he sat down.

Dobey was at the coffee machine, and knew to what Starsky was referring. “Your new assignment. You two don’t have much on your plate, so you can work that one.”

Starsky tipped his head back to see his Captain. “This is missing persons.”

“Correction Detective Starsky, missing kid.”

Hutch leaned across the desk and grabbed the file from his partner’s hands. “What do we got so far?”

“Missing three year old boy. No sign of foul play, no ransom. Not that one would make any sense anyways. The family’s poor and lives in a rundown multi-ethnic neighborhood.”

Flipping over the initial police report, Hutch found himself staring at an instant Polaroid picture of a dark, curly-haired urchin. The boy had a mole next to his left nostril and round deep blue eyes framed by thick dark lashes that by rights should only belong on a girl. The picture was taken at a playground and one corner of his little mouth was raised upward in an impish grin.

Hutch’s mouth dropped open.

The look of surprise on his partner’s face didn’t get past Starsky. “Hey buddy, you find something?”

Raising stunned eyes, Hutch passed the picture over. “Is there something you wanna tell me Gordo?”

“What?” Starsky looked at the picture of Alexander Weisberg. “Little boy; he’s kinda cute.”

“Starsky – he looks exactly like you!”

Starsky looked closer at the picture and turned it around while studying it. “I guess.” He tossed the picture back to Hutch. “I told you he was cute.” He grinned impishly across the table.

“That’s it! Right there!”

“Huh?”

“The same grin that’s in this picture!”

“Hutch, you’re losing it.”

“Alright, enough!” Dobey interrupted. “The boy is missing. It’s your job to get out there and find him and who took him. Not debate about whether Starsky fathered a child. Though with your reputation, I’m surprised there aren’t more out there.”

“Cap’n, you don’t for one moment believe that this is my kid do you?”

“Of course not. But well, you can’t deny that he bares a remarkable resemblance Starsky.”

“Cap’n, come on. Besides, what does that have to do with the case?”

“Exactly!” Dobey thundered. “So get your butts out there and find this kid!”

Hutch stood up and pushed back his chair. “Yes sir.”

“Aye, aye Captain!” Starsky saluted his superior.

**********

David Weisberg didn’t open his deli Sunday or Monday. Instead he was fielding calls from friends and cranks. The former wanting to help, the latter giving misleading information. A black and white had been stationed outside their house since Friday evening.

Detectives Starsky and Hutch walked into the small ground floor flat shortly after leaving the station. Their first priority would be to talk to the family and neighbors again, to get some background on Alexander, and to try to determine if there was anyone who held a grudge against Mr. or Mrs. Weisberg.

Mrs. Weisberg welcomed the two with a bud’te vítaný* and made them feel comfortable in the small, warm home, even though she was distraught.

Reviewing the reports they already had, and after talking both the adult Weisberg’s and their daughters, Dora and Hanna, plus several of the neighbors, the detectives came to the conclusion that cases didn’t get much harder than this one. Alexander was a delightful boy, the light of his parent’s life – an unexpected miracle as his parents were 53 and 42 respectively when he was born. He was unusually well behaved, but very vivacious. Everyone in the neighborhood agreed that there was no way the young boy would’ve walked away and gotten lost as his parents had always given him strict boundaries. Even at such a young age he seemed to understand how risky disobeying his parents could be.

Mr. Weisberg had given them a few leads to run down when he told the detectives about a couple of problems he had recently. One was a fruit supplier who was angry about delayed payments; another was a man who had come by offering ‘protection’, which Mr. Weisberg refused.

Though both detectives doubted that either instance had anything to do with the missing boy, nonetheless they had to check them out.

After several days of interviewing the fruit supplier, the mobster, and a lot of ‘witnesses’ who claimed they either saw Alexander after Friday or knew something about his disappearance, the detectives were at a loss. They had given the name of the mobster who was leaning on several grocers in the area to the organized crime unit.

Hayes and Atkins, the initial officers on the scene who were working with Starsky and Hutch, felt that Mr. and Mrs. Weisberg must know something else and needed to be questioned again. The street cops had the couple brought in to the station without the knowledge of Starsky and Hutch.

The two were taken into separate interrogation rooms- Hayes with Mr. Weisberg, Atkins took Mrs. Weisberg.

“Now Mrs. Weisberg, you know that Alex wasn’t your husband’s son. He looks nothing like either one of you. Why don’t you admit that you had him removed from your home before his father realized you cheated and divorced you?”

Atkins got off the end of the table where he had been sitting and stooped down to face Yetta directly. “I can understand how you fell prey to another man. Your husband’s not exactly the type a woman falls for. Skinny little body, thinning hair, no career.”

He laid his own thin hand. “It’s okay to admit you married your husband to stay in the United States. I’ll protect you. I’ll make sure you aren’t prosecuted.”

Yetta sputter several sentences in her native Slovenian, she was so flustered.

“You’re in the U.S. now – speak English. I know you have a good command of the language.”

In the adjoining interrogation room, a similar scene was taking place:

“Mr. Weisberg, isn’t it true that you had your son spirited away because you were afraid that your wife or her relatives would turn him into a little Arab? And you wanted to make sure he was raised a good Jewish boy?” Hayes was referring to the fact that Yetta Weisberg was raised Muslim in her native Slovenia, and converted to Judaism prior to her marriage.

“What? How did….What makes you think that?”

Hayes shifted his sagging pants up to cover his protruding stomach. “Come on, Mr. Weisberg. I would do the same. Hell, I wouldn’t want my kid raised by a bunch of thieving camel traders.”

The door to the room where Atkins and Mrs. Weisberg was opened with a crash as Starsky sent it sailing into the opposite wall. “What the hell are you doing Atkins?!”

The tall, lanky man stood up. “Just asking Mrs. Weisberg a few more questions.” He pointed toward the dark, angry detective. “Detective Starsky, you’re more apt to be Alexander’s father than the scrawny little man she’s married to.” Atkins flung his hand back towards the seated woman.

At this point, unused to being hassled like this, Yetta Weisberg’s face drained of it’s blood and she fainted, her head landing on the back of the stiff wooden chair.

WHOMP! One small fist with a lot of muscle behind it, struck the angular jaw of the interrogating Atkins. “How dare you; accusing a victim…” Starsky, in his anger, couldn’t continue. Instead he rushed over to the stricken woman. “What’s the point of this?!”

“Just doing my job sir. I was trying to see if I could break her; to get more information.”

Dark curls bounced angrily as Starsky whipped his head back to the officer. “We don’t treat victims as if they were dog meat – putting them through the wringer! Both the Weisbergs already took lie detector tests, as a precaution. You know that!”

“Lie detector tests don’t always work.” Sniffed Officer Atkins; he wasn’t in the least bit remorseful.

“Where the hell’s Hayes?”

“He’s in with David Weisberg – next door.”

“Putting him through the same sweating.” Hutch remarked sarcastically from the doorway. His arms were crossed in front of his chest and he was leaning against the doorframe. He looked as if he was just relaxing, but anyone knowing him could see that his arms were crossed because he was tense and looking for an outlet.

“We weren’t sweating them.”

“Yeah, and what would you call it? Sweating a victim or a material witness not involved in the crime was outlawed at the turn of the century.”

Starsky turned to his partner. “Where’s Hayes?”

“Cooling down somewhere if he knows what’s good for him.”

Starsky pointed his finger at Atkins, doing a good imitation of the Hutchinson point. “I’m gonna have you both written up with Dobey for this.” He gently lifted Mrs. Weisberg from the chair, waking her, and led her out to the hallway, where her husband was seated on a bench.

The dark-haired detective kneeled in front of both of them. “I’m sorry for this. If you want to press charges against the officers, we’ll make sure it’s done properly and we’ll testify what happened.”

David Weisberg shook his head. “No, no. We just want our son to be found. Anything that helps…..” His voice drifted off. “Can we go home now?”

“Do you have a way home? I’ll drive you.” Hutch offered, knowing that the two would be more comfortable riding in his inconspicuous vehicle.

**********

Thursday morning was a wet, dreary one. Elzbieta Svordko woke at 5:30 to ready the butcher shop she and her husband ran out of their house on Stoker, for it’s 7:00 a.m. opening. Her husband had already been awake for at least ½ an hour and let her sleep longer. She hadn’t sleep well the previous night as she heard someone walking around outside the alley behind their house, in the pre-dawn hours. Once even getting up and looking out the window. She saw two shadows, but since there were no streetlights, she was too nervous to explore any further. Besides, she thought to herself, if someone could take such a sweet little boy as their neighbor, who knows what would happen to a female.

Then the cats started. Most of the night the stray neighborhood cats were mewling, just right outside her window it seemed.

After dressing in a pair of light slacks, a long cotton shirt, and thick soled tennis shoes, she went downstairs to put on her apron and begin the job of cleaning the trays that would hold the beef and pork that would soon be arriving at their attached butcher shop.

Putting on her apron that hung by the back door, Elzbieta grabbed the wrapped remnants of yesterday’s trimmings to set out for the strays. Her husband was always trying to get her to stop feeding the cats- that was the reason they hung around, but she had a soft spot for helpless creatures. Which brought her thoughts back to the missing Alexander. She hoped that whoever had taken him (there was no way the little one left on his own), was taking good care of him and would return him to his parents soon.

She didn’t know she was about to become the focal point for the second part of that wish and that it was to come true.

Opening the door to their sparse backyard, Elzbieta noticed several of the cats pawing at the thin metal dented garbage cans near the back fence. Taking the styrofoam tray over to the cans, she laid it down and pushed the cats away from the cans with her feet.

Rather than diving into the bits of meat she provided them, they jumped over her feet back to the cans and began mewling and pawing again; their thin nails scraping down the cans, making a slight scratching sound.

As she bent down to shove the cats away from the garbage again, Elzbieta bumped into the nearest one, knocking the lid off slightly. As the lid sat tilted away from the rim, a tiny dirty white clad heel revealed itself.

**********

By the time Starsky & Hutch arrived 20 minutes later, the scene was overrun with by-standers and gawkers, making for impossible clue gathering.

The coroner’s team hadn’t arrived yet, so poor little Alexander was subjected to onlookers and busybodies, which made his parents even more upset. A doctor was called to tranquilize both parents as his mother fainted and his father began a rampage of the neighborhood in his grief.

Seeing the crowd of people and Officer Hayes’ lame attempt at crowd control, angered the two detectives. Hutch pulled him aside, while Starsky directed the crowd to disburse.

“What the hell’s going on Hayes? Can’t you control a crime scene?” Hutch demanded of the overweight, lazy officer.

“They wouldn’t listen to me. Hey, at least I covered the body.”

“Damn it Hayes! Now we’ll be lucky to find anything, and if we do, it could be contaminated or dropped by the crowd. Any judge would dismiss any evidence found here.” Hutch rubbed his hand over his face in frustration. “Not to mention the treatment of the deceased. How would you like it if your son’s body was in the middle of a public arena for anyone to view?!”

Officer Hayes muttered a few excuses about being only one man against a mob when Starsky came up and gave him a dirty look behind his darkened sunglasses. “Let’s go to talk to Mrs. Svordko while we’re waiting for the coroner’s team, unless of course, you actually did your job and got a report from her.” Both detectives gave a scathing look at the officer and bade him to cordon off the area and to stand guard by the fence in the alley to make sure no one attempted to get into the yard.

Re-grouping after talking with Mrs. Svordko and the crime team, Starsky and Hutch went off into the corner of the small backyard to discuss the basics of the case while the coroner’s team removed little Alexander’s body from its degrading resting place.

“What’cha got?”

“Well, it appears he died from suffocation, according to Diane.” Hutch replied, referring to the female medical examiner. “But an official cause of death will have to wait until after the autopsy. She couldn’t tell if it was an accident or someone helped him to cease breathing.”

Starsky looked dubious that this could possibly be an accident. “Come on, Hutch, he was three years old. He just climbed into this trash can after being missing several days and suffocated?”

“If it was an accident, and someone found his body, they may have been scared enough to try and dispose of it, rather than own up to finding him and face a bunch of questions. It’s up to the coroner to officially determine how and why he died.”

“Anything else?”

“Unfortunately no. Too many people trampling around. The can and its lid, as well as the fence, are being dusted for fingerprints. But there’s no other physical evidence around the perimeter that can’t be explained away. All those people around didn’t help. There was a scrap of torn material in one of the ridges on the fence next to the trashcan, but who knows where it came from? It can be explained away by any good defense attorney.” Hutch looked down at his notepad, “he was dressed in the same clothes his mother said he was wearing when he disappeared. His clothes, body, and hair are dirty. And get this…the tiny mole by his nose was cut off, crudely according to Diane.”

Starsky grimaced and self-consciously touched the one on his left cheek. “Why would anyone want to do somethin’ like that?”

“To disguise him? One of his identifying marks was that mole. What about you? Any luck with the woman who found him?”

“Well, it wasn’t easy, but basically I got the same information she told Hayes: she awoke around 5:30 to get ready for her day, went out to feed the local stray cats who were trying to climb the trashcan and when she went to see what had them so riled up, that’s when she found the body.” He paused. “Oh, yeah, she said she didn’t sleep well because the cats were meowing outside all night long, and she thought she heard someone walking around in their backyard and alley early in the morning, maybe around 2, but she couldn’t be positive.”

“How did all these people find out and gain access to the yard?”

“After finding the body, she told her husband and ran to tell Officer Hayes down the street. From what I can figure out, her husband called an employee, uh…Billy Miller, to tell him not to come in since Hayes did cordon off the area, and the kid spread the word to his friends, and…

“And so on and so forth.” Finished Hutch for him. “Geez, what a mess.” He rubbed his hands over his face, then looked back at his partner. “A baby Starsk. He was just a baby.” There was nothing Starsky could say to console his partner as he too, felt the loss of the little boy’s life deeply. Hutch walked away from the scene and into the building that housed the butcher shop and the Svordko’s residence.

The ride back to the precinct was quiet and solemn, neither detective saying much of anything; letting their thoughts run to the young life cut way too short and the parents who would undoubtedly grow older in the face of the tragedy they were facing.

Back at the precinct, the two grabbed a cup of coffee from the pot in the corner and settled in for what appeared to be a long evening. Captain Dobey walked out, and nodded at the two men once, the sorrow of a father showing in his deep brown eyes.

With a heavy sigh, Hutch opened the manila file and made several notations pertaining to the death of little Alexander Weisberg, the circumstances he was found in, the preliminary findings of the medical examiners officer, and the fact that no definitive clues could be found. He sighed again as he turned to the front inside cover to look at the picture of the diminutive face smiling up at him with an impish grin, long dark lashes, and a head full of almost shoulder-length curls.

“Hutch?” Starsky looked across at his partner. “Did you even think if I’d have a kid, that maybe he’d look like Alexander?” He asked plaintively.

“I know Starsk.” Came the quiet whisper back, “When I look at him I see you.”

“This is gonna be a tough one Hutch.”

Whether Starsky meant tough to solve, or tough because of the young victim, Hutch didn’t know, but he silently agreed; not needing to say anything aloud in order for his partner to hear him.

**********

At the funeral the next day – held before sundown in accordance with Jewish laws - the aged mother of David Weisberg collapsed on the small white casket that was donated by the members of the Mendel Jewish Community Center. Both detectives had turned up to offer their condolences, but stayed in the background. The collapse of the elderly woman brought tears to both sets of blue eyes that were hidden behind sunglasses.

And just as they thought, the investigation into the kidnapping and death of Alexander Weisberg ground to a standstill with no motive and few clues. Who would want to harm an energetic, loveable boy whose family had no money or connections? That was the biggest obstacle confronting the investigators, including Starsky and Hutch.

The meager list of suspects were the Svordko’s and their two employees; a mid-20s mentally ill black man who lived in the alleys of the neighborhood; and a self-proclaimed white female psychic who stopped into Dora Weisberg’s classroom the day before Alexander was found and said he would be returned by the next morning.

None of them had any reason or motive to harm the little one.

The department wasn’t even positive they had a murder or kidnapping and accidental death on their hands.

Dobey called them into his office two weeks later for an update on the case.

“There’s been little progress on the Weisberg case.” The superior officer stated bluntly the moment the two walked into his office.

Two sets of blue eyes met across the doorway. “That’s putting it mildly.”

“Enough with the sarcasm Hutchinson! What I want to know is why you’re continuing to pursue this when there are other cases out there with better clues and suspects.”

“Because this case is unsolved Cap’n. And ain’t that our job? To solve these things? Or are we just pullin’ in a paycheck for the reports we do?”

“Can it Starsky! We don’t know that we actually have a murder on our hands. It could be a case of a missing boy and improper disposal of a corpse. The coroner couldn’t be clear if his suffocation was purposeful.”

Starsky opened the file and pointed to the report. “How do explain the food in the boy’s stomach? His mother gave him an apple and a glass on milk on Saturday. That boy was not undernourished after five days missing. He had chicken and vegetables undigested in his stomach. Somebody had to feed him. If anything we’ve definitely got a kidnapping on our hands.”

Hutch had sat down in one of the chairs. “Look Captain, maybe his death was accidental, maybe it wasn’t. But somebody took him or found him lost and didn’t return him home. A family lost their little boy permanently because of that. No matter how it happened, it led to the end of Alexander Weisberg’s life. Now how can you tell me you, as a father, aren’t bothered by that?”

The large man sighed heavily. “Starsky, if I let every murder of every innocent get to me I wouldn’t have made it through 26 years on the force. I’m not saying to harden your heart or hide your emotions– God knows you can’t help but feel guilt or anger occasionally – but we’re only human. We can’t do everything. There just isn’t enough here to allow me to let you two follow this full time. There are other, more solvable cases I need you on.” He held up his hand at Starsky’s protest. “I’m not saying give up completely. But recognize that even you two have limits and use your time in a better manner. You can always follow up with any leads or theories when a break comes in or when your case load isn’t as heavy.”

He pulled a manila folder from his top, side drawer. “Here’s a new case for you. Jewelry store heist early this morning. The clerk was shot in the upper leg – bullet hit the main artery and he’s critical. I’m putting you guys on it ‘cause the owner of the store is the council president’s cousin. Make this a priority.”

Starsky fingered it and looked at his partner. “What makes the clerk of the owner of the cousin of whatever more important than Mr. and Mrs. Weisberg?”

“The Weisberg’s are no-body’s partner.” Hutch quietly said. Starsky stiffened and glared at his partner. “At least that the way the politicos see it Starsk,” eyes trying to placate his about-to-explode partner. “We can’t always fight the system. And Dobey’s right. We don’t have anything.”

“That’s your final word Cap’n?” The curly-haired man turned to his boss, who nodded once. Dobey didn’t like the situation either, but he had to be realistic.

The two got up and walked silently out of Dobey’s office. Dark, sad eyes followed them. He knew why this case had gotten to the two more than most. It wasn’t just the fact that the victim was a child, a baby really, that got to them; but also the fact of the uncanny resemblance to the dark-haired man that just left.

Closing the door behind him Starsky stood at his desk for a few moments, lost in thought. “It’s not fair Hutch.”

A large tanned hand met a red shirted shoulder. “I know buddy, I know. Life isn’t always fair.”

“Life…what a word. Little Alexander Weisberg didn’t have much of a life.”

“You can’t look at it that way Starsk, or you’ll never get over it. Look at how loving his life was during the short time he was here. That’s the only way you’ll get through it.”

It took Starsky several months to get over the fact that he couldn’t do everything for “Sunny”, as he called the young victim – due to his disposition. The darker detective worked on the case in his spare time, but got no further. Even the boy’s parents told him that he needed to stop brooding and get on with lie. Eventually they moved to Detroit to begin their life anew, and leave behind the awful reminders of California and it’s sunny skies that so reminded them of their little boy’s smile.

Standing at the little boy’s gravesite one Saturday morning, apologizing again for letting him down, Starsky felt a warm hand on his shoulder. Without looking up, he knew it was his partner.

“Thought I’d find you here buddy. It’s your day off, let’s go get some lunch.”

“Okay. I just…”

“Starsky, please. Let it go. You can’t be all to everyone.”

“I know Hutch. It’s just now that his grandmother’s dead, and his parents have moved…it’s like he has no one.”

“It’s okay to stop by once in awhile, but you need to…” Hutch ran his right hand through his long hair. “I dunno, maybe you should talk to the department psychiatrist.”

Starsky looked up at his partner, bright blue eyes shining clear. “No. I’m okay. I realized something today Hutch.”

“What?”

“That we can only be the best cops we can be. That we can’t do everything, and there’s gonna be times we can’t solve cases.” A slight grin lit his face. “No matter how good we are.”

The blonde at his side relaxed. His partner would be okay; would never forget this case, but would be okay and be able to handle any other unsolved cases that they happened to come across. Because his best friend was right…

Starsky and Hutch could only be the best cops they could be – nothing more, nothing less.

*Slovenian dictionary - prva – father
- dvojchek – term of endearment for child
- bud’te vítaný – welcome