Work Text:
Foreign Soil
by TLR
Plot: Something goes very wrong while Starsky vacations with a young lady in Mexico.
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Part 1
Three years into detective work, Starsky and Hutch took four days off and drove south into Mexico because Hutch said they needed sun, food, and a place where no one knew their names.
Starsky said, “I don’t trust any vacation that starts with you behind the wheel and me needing a passport.”
But he went.
By the second day, the coast had turned bright and dry around them, with salt in the air, white heat on stucco walls, and children kicking a ball in the shade of a church. Fishing boats rocked in a crooked little harbor and they had a room over a cantina in a town too small for tourists most of the year.
The woman came into it on the second night.
Her name was Elena Marquez. Twenty-three maybe, dark hair twisted up carelessly, eyes that seemed wiser than the rest of her. She worked evenings in the cantina carrying trays and ignoring men who took too much for granted. Her English was better than Starsky’s Spanish, so Hutch acted as part-time translator.
Starsky noticed her first. Hutch noticed the way she kept looking at the door.
By midnight Elena was sitting with them for a minute between tables, drinking mineral water and smiling at one of Starsky’s stories even while her attention stayed split somewhere else.
“You don’t relax much, do you?” Starsky asked.
She gave him a tired little smile. “Maybe I'll relax tomorrow.”
“Bad town?”
She glanced toward the bar, where two local policemen were drinking with a butcher from across the street and laughing loud.
“Some parts.”
Hutch caught the look and filed it away.
“Hey,” Starsky asked her. “You got a guitar around here somewhere? My friend here plays some mean Spanish songs?”
“Mean?” she asked. “I don't like mean.”
“I mean nice.”
She glanced around nervously again.
Hutch took Starsky's arm and stood up. “Come on, amigo. Maybe tomorrow.” To Elena Hutch asked, “Is there something about those guys bothering you?”
When she moved her head no, Hutch guided Starsky on out, while Starsky waved at her and blew her a goodbye kiss.
::
The next day Elena showed Starsky where to get decent coffee and enchiladas, and by that evening they were walking the edge of town together while Hutch sat on the balcony outside their room, reading and pretending not to watch for them.
Starsky liked her quickly. Not all at once, but enough to want more time. She had romantic eyes and a soft voice, and loved holding his hand while they walked.
When he kissed her outside the cantina the third night, she kissed him back with both hands on his cheeks and then stepped away quick.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Oh it's something.”
She looked down the street again. “This town... men here think they own what they can frighten.”
Starsky studied her. “You telling me somebody’s scaring you?”
She almost answered, then she shook her head.
“Walk me home?”
“Yeah.”
He took her as far as a narrow house with a courtyard wall and bougainvillea spilling red over the top. She kissed him once more, even softer this time.
“Mañana,” she said. Tomorrow.
Starsky smiled. “Yeah. Tomorrow.”
He never got tomorrow.
::
The shot came from halfway down the lane behind her house.
Starsky heard Elena gasp first, not loud, just enough to turn him around.
Then the whole back of her dress darkened and she stumbled against the wall and slid down it before he could get both hands under her.
“Elena!”
Her eyes were wide with shock, not understanding yet. He got her to the ground, his hands already slippery with blood.
“No. Stay with me. Come on. Stay with me.”
She tried to say something, but words were only sounds.
Another voice shouted from the far end of the lane--Spanish, male, sharp with authority.
Starsky looked up and saw two uniformed municipal police running toward him with revolvers out.
“Policía! Suéltala! Ahora!” Let her go. Now.
He didn’t let go because she was dying in his arms.
The second shot hit him high in the left shoulder and spun him half sideways into the wall. He reached for a gun he wasn't even carrying, and for one blank white second he knew only heat and impact.
Then he was on one knee in the dirt, Elena crumpled beside him, blood running down his arm and into his palm, and boots were on him from both directions.
A gun muzzle hit the back of his head.
Somebody was shouting at him to stay down.
In pain and shock, he didn't understand enough Spanish to sort one order from another. He raised his good hand once, trying to say he was an unarmed cop from Bay City, California, but one of the policemen drove a knee into his back hard enough to flatten him across the stones.
He turned his head enough to see Elena not moving anymore, and it hurt him more than the gunfire had.
Part 2
Hutch knew something was wrong before the desk clerk said it.
He had gone looking for Starsky after midnight, mildly amused at first, then irritated, then uneasy. Elena wasn’t at the cantina. The owner said she had left in a hurry. The house with the bougainvillea had a dark doorway and no answer at the gate.
Then a boy in a soccer jersey pointed toward the police station and said something fast that Hutch caught only a part of.
“Americano. Policía. Disparo.” American. Police. Shot.
By the time Hutch reached the station, his shirt was damp along his spine and tension was rising.
The desk sergeant looked bored and deeply offended by the interruption.
Hutch put both hands flat on the scarred wood and said in clean Spanish, “I want to see my partner. Now.” Quiero ver a mi novio. ¡Ahora mismo!
That got a blink.
The sergeant looked him over again. Closer this time.
“Your partner killed a woman.”
“No.” Hutch’s voice stayed level. “You have the wrong guy. We're police officers from--”
“Too bad.” The man shrugged. “He was found with her body.”
“After someone else shot her, obviously.”
The shrug again. “He confessed.”
That stopped Hutch cold for half a second.
Then anger came up.
“Let me see him,” he said, “or I start making noise with the consulate, the federales, and every newspaper on both sides of the border.”
The sergeant smirked. “You do that tomorrow.”
Hutch leaned in. “No. I do it now.”
The man held his eyes a second too long, then jerked his chin toward the back corridor.
Hutch followed a young officer down a concrete hall with bad lighting.
The cell was small. One bulb. One cot. No window.
Starsky sat on the floor curled in a corner. His shirt served as a bandage for his left shoulder, which was bleeding through. His lip was split, one cheek was purple, and his eyes were half open and barely looking.
“Hutch?”
Hutch dropped to one knee at the bars.
“Yeah, buddy. I’m here.”
Starsky 'e eyes tried to find him, but he was too weak to move except for his hands.
“I didn’t,” he mumbled faintly. “I didn’t do it.”
“I know.”
“They shot me.”
“I know.”
Starsky swallowed and winced. “Gave me somethin'. I think I... I think I confessed. Hell.”
That sharpened Hutch all over.
“What?”
“I don’t know. Needle. Then questions. Then...” He shut his eyes once. “Hurts.”
There were bruises on his ribs, wrists, and along his jaw. Hutch had been around long enough to know what a forced confession looked like.
“Did you sign anything?”
Starsky’s eyes opened again, frightened now in a way Hutch almost never saw in him.
“I think so. Paper. Spanish. Couldn't understand it all. Tired.”
Hutch put one hand through the bars as far as it would go. Starsky hooked a finger into Hutch's and held on for dear life.
“All right,” Hutch said softly. “Listen to me. Don’t say another word to them. Nothing. Not in English, or Spanish, or anything. You got me?”
Starsky nodded once.
“I have to let go now. Don't give up. I'll see you around.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
Hutch reluctantly released Starsky's finger, then stood as a young officer approached him.
Hutch said in Spanish, quiet and deadly, “Get me your comandante. Right now.”
::
The comandante’s name was Ruiz, and he wore pressed khaki and a polished sidearm.
He also wore the expression of a man who had already decided how the story ended.
Ruiz listened to Hutch’s objections with his hands folded on the desk, then said, “The woman is dead. Your friend was found with her. There is a recorded confession.”
“There is a drugged, beaten signature on a statement he couldn’t read.”
Ruiz spread his hands. “He admitted killing her.”
Hutch leaned forward. “No. You needed a killer and you had a foreigner bleeding in your custody. No matter what it looks like, he didn't kill her. You have the wrong man. Now I suggest you put your focus on finding the right killer.”
Ruiz’s face cooled by degrees.
“You speak Spanish very well.”
“We need your help. We're just here on vacation.”
Hutch thought of Starsky on the cell floor trying to keep his eyes open and hooking fingers with him like children.
“She was afraid of someone,” Hutch said. “You need to find out who. It could lead to the real murderer.”
Though it looked like Hutch had struck a nerve with Ruiz, the man said nothing.
Hutch continued with, “Yes. She knew something, or saw something she shouldn't have.”
For the first time, Ruiz reacted like a human being. “Go. See what you can find. And bring it to me.”
::
The doctor at the little clinic two streets over was a widow in her fifties with tired eyes and a conscience that was still intact.
Hutch found her through the parish priest, who found her because he disliked the local police and liked lies even less.
She was the one who told Hutch the shot in Elena’s back had been downward and clean. Not fired from close range in a struggle. Fired by someone standing above and behind.
She was the one who confirmed Starsky had been injected with a sedative before questioning.
And she was the one who hesitated before saying, “Elena came to me twice in the last month.”
“For what?”
“She was frightened.”
“I knew it. Of who?”
The doctor looked toward the church door before answering.
“One of Ruiz’s men. A patrolman named Salazar. He wanted her. She refused him. After that, she said he followed her.”
Hutch felt a surge of hope take shape inside him.
“Did she tell anyone else?”
“She told her brother. But her brother is in Ensenada working boats.”
Hutch nodded.
“Thank you, doctora.”
“No.” She looked at him steadily. “Find the truth. Then thank me.”
::
By dawn, Hutch had enough.
Not enough for a court in California. Enough for a rough town that had gotten lazy with power and thought it had its story settled.
He brought Ruiz the doctor. The priest. Elena’s landlord, who admitted hearing her argue in the street two nights earlier with Officer Salazar. And finally the thing that broke it open all the way--a boy from the lane who had seen the shooting and run because he knew better than to involve himself with the police.
Hutch knelt to speak to him in the church courtyard.
“You saw who fired?”
The boy nodded.
“You tell the truth, no one hurts you.”
A longer hesitation.
Then: “El policía.”
“Which one?”
The boy pointed with his thumb toward the station.
Salazar.
Ruiz sent for him at once, too angry now to hide it. Salazar came in offended, then dismissive, then nervous when the boy spoke in front of him. He tried denial first. Then outrage. Then a story about Elena reaching for Starsky’s gun, which might almost have worked if Starsky had been carrying one.
Hutch stood in the doorway while Ruiz slapped Salazar hard enough to rock him.
Not a moment Hutch admired, but not one he interrupted either.
Under pressure, Salazar gave up the rest quickly. Elena had threatened to go to the federal police after he and two others had been skimming from confiscated shipments and running girls through the port for cash. He had followed her that night, seen Starsky with her, panicked, and fired. Afterward, finding an American detective with blood on him had been too easy.
Ruiz turned slowly toward Hutch.
“You were right, senor Hutchinson.”
Hutch looked at him without satisfaction.
“Yes. I was. Now give me my partner.”
Ruiz held the stare for one beat longer, then said, “in time.”
Hutch’s face changed very little, but inside him something let go. “Get him a doctor.”
Ruiz started to object, but Hutch cut him off. “No more injections. No more questions. No more touching him unless a doctor is present. Do you understand me?”
Ruiz nodded that he did.
::
Starsky was barely conscious when Hutch got back to the cell.
The door opened and Hutch stepped in. For a second Starsky didn’t seem to believe it. Then he tried to push himself up on one elbow and failed halfway.
“Hey,” Hutch said softly, crossing to him at once.
Starsky’s voice came out dry and frayed. “Hey partner.”
Hutch got him sitting against the wall, then crouched beside him and put a hand to the back of his neck. Feverish, weak, and still trembling under the skin.
“They know now?” Starsky asked. “That I didn't kill her?”
Hutch drew him into a careful hug. “Yeah, they know. We'll be going home before you know it.”
::
The clinic patched Starsky’s shoulder correctly, gave him fluids, and let him sleep under supervision for twelve solid hours while Hutch sat nearby in a wooden chair and answered questions from the priest, the doctor, and finally a federal officer from up the coast who had come down once Ruiz realized this mess needed somebody cleaner than his own department.
When Starsky woke after dark, Hutch was still there.
The room was dim. A fan turned overhead. Somewhere down the corridor a radio played a love song too softly to make out.
Starsky looked at the ceiling first, then at the bandage on his shoulder, then at Hutch.
“Please tell me we're outa that jail.”
Hutch leaned back in the chair.
“We are. Upgrade to medicine and interesting architecture.”
Starsky let out a breath, then after a minute lay an arm across his eyes. “She's really gone? Doesn't seem real.”
Hutch didn’t lie. “I'm sorry, but yeah Starsk, she's gone.”
Starsky turned his face toward the wall, and Hutch let the silence have its say.
Finally Starsky said, “She knew something was wrong. I coulda helped her.”
“It's not your fault she wouldn't tell you.”
Starsky closed his eyes again, not asleep now, just lying there. After a while he said, “You saved my life, Blintz.”
Hutch folded his arms. “Looks that way.”
Starsky turned his head to look at him. “Buy you dinner.”
“In Mexico?”
“Soon as I can stand up.”
Hutch looked at him a second, sorry his partner had lost a lovely lady, but glad he was on the mend. “You have a deal.”
::
They left four days later.
The town looked smaller in daylight on the way out. Dusty, and a little harsher than it had before.
Starsky sat in the passenger seat of the rented car with his shoulder in a sling and his face still marked yellow and purple where the beatings had flowered.
At the edge of town, he looked back once.
“Think Ruiz'll do some soul-searching and replace some of his men?”
Hutch drove with both hands on the wheel. “Maybe. But Salazar won’t be shooting anyone else.”
Starsky nodded. That was something.
They crossed back north by late afternoon. Different roads, different uniforms, familiar rules. Starsky watched the border station fall behind them and only then let his head tip back against the seat.
Hutch glanced over.
“You okay?”
“Yeah.” It took a minute, then Starsky added, “Thanks.”
Hutch kept his eyes on the road. “Anytime, partner.”
The road stretched north. The light softened. And with the worst of it behind them and Bay City ahead of them, they were happy to just keep going forward.
The end