For Audrey

Callie's Boy

By Susan

December 24, 1975. Late yesterday afternoon, a woman peacefully surrendered the two year old boy she had been holding at gunpoint for five hours in a home at 212 Walker Street. The woman, identified by police as 26 year old Calliope Miller, was arrested on charges of forcible confinement, kidnapping and armed assault. The child, whom police have not identified, was later placed in the care of Bay City Social Services. Detective Kenneth Hutchinson, whom sources say was instrumental in negotiating the child's release, was not available for comment.

That was how the newspaper told it. The facts were right, more or less. The truth, as always, was a bit harder to pin down.

*****

"No." Starsky's voice was cold. "No way." He leaned back against the Torino, arms folded.

"Starsk, we've been standing out here for an hour." "Here" was in front of a small stucco cottage on Walker. Faded paint, patchy grass, gravel drive. Not the best part of town, but probably not the worst. Social worker from County had called it in when she got chased from the house with a gun. Now the woman was refusing to come out. With or without the kid.

"We got a report about possible child neglect. I had to investigate," she'd told them when they first showed up. She seemed more annoyed than frightened. "You get her and the kid out of the house. They don't pay me enough for this."

"Ain't none of us getting rich here, lady," Starsky muttered.

"Anyone know who she is?" Hutch asked.

"Neighbor says her name is Callie Miller. There's a kid — a boy, she thinks, about two or three — and a boyfriend apparently, but she didn't know their names. She only knows Callie's because she got some of her mail by mistake. She said the boyfriend looks like a real winner. Her words, not mine. Look, can I go now?" she asked impatiently. "I have six other cases to get to today. Goddamn Christmas brings out the crazy in people."

"What are we supposed to do with the kid?" Starsky asked.

"Call my office." She reached in her purse for a business card. "They'll send someone. I'll phone ahead and let them know we'll need a place for the boy tonight."

That was an hour ago.

"Someone needs to go in there, Starsk. Make sure the kid's okay. I'm only going to talk to her." He'd already made up his mind, so getting Starsky to agree was more politeness than protocol.

"No."

"You're beginning to sound like my ex-wife." Hutch waited for a smile but didn't get one. "Anyway, I'm not asking for permission." He was already taking off his jacket, unbuckling his shoulder holster.

Starsky let out a long breath and rested a hand on Hutch's shoulder. "Just be careful, okay? And don't expect me to explain it to the captain for you."

"I'll be fine. Better me in there than some trigger happy rookie out here." Hutch wondered if that sounded as lame to Starsky as it did to him.

"Moron," Starsky called after him.

Hutch didn't disagree.

Merry fucking Christmas.

He knocked. Explained who he was, told her he was unarmed. Left out the part about how he was breaking every rule in the police handbook. A dirty curtain moved in the window, so he kept talking. "See all those police cars out there? They're not just going to go away. And they're not nearly as patient as I am."

"Leave me alone."

"Too late for that. But maybe I can help you figure a way out of this… situation, Callie."

She didn't answer for so long he began to think she wouldn't. Maybe using her name so soon had been a mistake. "Okay, you can come in," she said. "Back up from the door."

She held a gun in one shaky hand and a little boy in a diaper and stained t-shirt in the other. She took a step backward from the front door and nodded toward the kitchen.

"Sit down in there," she said. "Away from the window. And keep your hands where I can see them." She'd obviously seen enough cop shows to pick up some pointers.

He lowered himself onto the dirty kitchen floor, his back pressed up hard against a cabinet door, the metal handle digging into his skin. She sat opposite him, and pulled the boy down onto her lap. Her long, straight hair fell forward and the little boy laughed and grabbed a handful and put it in his mouth.

"Go on," she said. "Start talking."

For a long minute, he could think of nothing to say that wouldn't sound like the bullshit it was. He suspected they both knew there was only one way out of this that didn't end up with her spending Christmas in jail. Any chance she had at keeping the kid with her disappeared the minute she pulled the gun on the social worker.

"I promise nothing bad will happen to you or the boy if you just give me the gun."

She released a flare of laughter. "Christ. You men — you're all the same. You sound like Jamie — 'stay with me, baby, and I'll take care of you.' Last time I saw him, he was walking out the door with the rent money and all my shit… he probably called Social Services before he left. Bastard took everything else, no way he's getting the kid. Only reason I had the gun was because I thought it was Jamie at the door come back to get him. Then the bitch starts screaming and I get pissed and tell her to get the fuck out, and next thing you know I got a hundred cops parked in front of the house. Who pissed in her corn flakes?"

As she talked, Hutch imagined the girl she used to be, blonde and the kind of pretty that peaks at sixteen. She wore her disappointment — in men, in life — like a six point star sewn onto the sleeve of her India cotton shirt. She told him it was Jamie who got her pregnant, convinced her to have the baby. "I didn't want a kid, all I wanted was the three hundred bucks to get rid of it. But he said this guy he met promised him a job at a garage down on Freemont, he was going to make enough money to pay for everything." She patted the boy's thin, blond hair absently. "He promised to take care of me." She laughed bitterly. "Know what my grandma calls those?"

Hutch shook his head.

"Piecrust promises. Easily made. Easily broken."

He wanted to tell her to stop talking about the boy like he wasn't there. He wanted to tell her to grow the fuck up. Instead he said, "Do you have any family that can help out? It must be hard to be alone at Christmas."

"I got a mother, if that's what you mean. She lives over in Barstow with her boyfriend."

"Maybe you should call her, Callie. See if she can help. My partner and I could drive you out there later if you wanted."

She rolled her eyes. "Gee, Ken, she'd love that — finally give her the chance to say 'I told you so.' Thanks, but no thanks."

"How old are you?" he asked.

"Twenty-one," she said after a moment's hesitation and he almost believed her. That had always been his weakness, he knew, believing the lies that women told him.

The boy whined and squirmed to get away. He pointed at the empty bottle on the kitchen table and repeated something that sounded like "bah-bah."

"Sit the fuck down," she swore and pulled him back down, never taking her eyes off Hutch.

"Let me get him what he wants," he offered when the boy began to whimper.

She hesitated. "He wants milk, but I don't got any left. There's apple juice on the counter beside the fridge. You can fill his bottle with that."

Hutch stood in front of the window and filled the bottle with apple juice from the half-empty can. He caught a glimpse of Starsky standing beside one of the SWAT team surrounding the house, and Hutch mouthed "I'm fine" at him quickly before he turned back and handed the boy the bottle and sat down.

He tried to keep her talking, but she was distracted and kept looking at the clock over the stove.

"Can I get you something?" he asked eventually. He wished he was like Starsky, a candy bar always tucked away into a shirt pocket like insurance against an unexpected famine.

She shrugged. "How about a white Christmas? Why don't you call up one of your cop friends outside and order me one of those?"

"Come on, Callie. You know I can't."

"I had one once, you know… a white Christmas, I mean. My father took us to Lake Tahoe one year when I was a kid. First time I ever saw snow… last time too." She kissed the boy quickly on his cheek and said, "This whole thing," she waved the gun around the room, "ain't going nowhere, is it? You can't do nothing except to wait until I get all sad and sorry and hand over the gun and the kid." Her tone had shifted, the coy self-pity, replaced by something harder, needier. "Bet you're not used to someone else calling the shots, are you?"

"I just want to help, that's all. Make sure no one gets hurt."

"Can you promise me that if I give you the gun, everyone out there's going to go home and forget what I done?"

"I'm sure I can get them to go easy, realize it was all just a misunderstanding." It was the sorriest excuse for a lie he'd ever told.

"I can't decide if you're a liar or just stupid. And I'm tired of trying to figure it out." She looked down at the gun like she just remembered she'd had it all along.

"C'mon, Callie. We can still work this out." For the first time since it started, he heard the fear bleed through his words. And he knew she'd heard it too.

"I should just fucking get this over with." She pushed the boy off her lap, stood up, and walked over to Hutch and pressed the gun against his temple. The plastic bottle fell to the floor and rolled out of reach and the boy whimpered.

All Hutch could think was how pissed Starsky would be if she actually killed him. At her, of course, but mostly at him, for the stupid Boy Scout way he always thought he could fix things.

"Put the gun down. Please." He wanted to warn her about the SWAT team. About how they could only get a clean shot if she were standing. But he was tired now, his legs cramped and his back sore, and he wanted it to end. For an instant, he wished someone would take the shot. Take her out. Take control.

The boy wailed, great gulping sobs that left him breathless. "Please," Hutch said. "He's scared." Maybe he should've grabbed the gun then, in the moment she turned away from him to look at the boy. But the boy held out his arms to him, and he leaned forward to pick him up without thinking. She leaped at them, hitting Hutch with the barrel of the gun, hard, against the side of his head, and he twisted away from the boy. He felt the blood in his hair, hot and sticky.

"Don't you fucking touch him," she shouted, pulling the boy into her arms and sinking to the floor.

She was crying now too, and Hutch watched the gun clatter to the floor beside them. He kicked it out of reach, but didn't make a move to stand.

It was over.

She rocked the boy, singing Desperado like a lullaby, and it worked to calm them both. She didn't protest when Hutch stood, wiped his bloody hand on his jeans, and picked up the gun off the floor. He held out his arms for the boy. "It's time."

She nodded and pushed him towards Hutch. "I'll get him back, I swear, I'll get him back. I'm his mother."

The boy was heavier than he imagined. "What's his name, Callie? I want to know his name."

"Jamie. Like his father. Probably why I never use it." She smiled a small broken smile, wiped her face with the sleeve of her shirt, and stood. She kissed Jamie's small blond head, took a deep breath and walked out with her hands above her head.

Hutch sat in the front seat of the Torino and cradled the sleeping boy on his lap until a tired social worker held out impatient arms and took him away.

Starsky slid into the seat beside him, reached up and fingered the matted blood on the side of Hutch's head. "Stitches, you think?"

He flinched but didn't pull away. "Aspirin and scotch should do it. Where is she?"

"McElroy and Dodds took her in." He glanced at his watch. "Our shift ended three hours ago. Captain said you can write it up in the morning. Judge won't hear it before then anyway."

"So I can go home?" He yawned and rubbed at the back of his neck.

"Unless you want to talk to some reporters first. They'd love a good Christmas sob story." Hutch shook his head and Starsky turned the key in the ignition. "You did good in there, you know."

"Did I?" He leaned his head back against the seat and blinked slowly, thinking about all the ways it could have gone wrong.

"Kid's safe and you're more or less in one piece."

"His name's Jamie."

"OK. Jamie's safe. Plus I've just about forgiven you for going in alone. You want to talk about what happened?"

"Not now."

Starsky pulled away from the curb. He drove Hutch home, one hand on the steering wheel, the other on the faded, worn denim of Hutch's jeans.

Starsky fed him scrambled eggs, a tumbler of scotch, and a lie about how the kid was better off in a foster home anyway.

"I suppose." Hutch was too tired to argue. He swirled the scotch in the glass and wondered how many it would take to let him sleep. More than Starsky would let him have, he guessed.

"You can't save everyone," Starsky said. It's what he always said.

"I suppose," Hutch repeated. It was what he always said.

Starsky had pointed Hutch toward the couch after dinner, threw a blanket at him and told him to get comfortable. Then he'd stood at the sink humming Christmas songs while he washed dishes, singing louder every time he turned around and saw Hutch's eyes closing.

"No sleep, remember? She whacked you pretty hard and you might have a concussion. Not that I'd ever know of course, Mr. Suffers-in-Silence."

"Who gets to suffer in silence with you around?" Truth was, his head hurt like hell and he probably should have gone to the ER. But given a choice between three hours in Emergency and sitting here, listening to Starsky's off-key version of White Christmas — "Do you miss it? A white Christmas, I mean?"

"The movie? Never saw it."

"No, I mean snow. You know, like the song?"

Starsky dried his hands on a dishtowel. "God, no. I shoveled enough snow when I was a kid. I swear my mother had some racket going — every time it snowed, she 'volunteered' my services to everyone in the neighborhood. I must have shoveled enough driveways to get me to California and back. And it's not exactly like Christmas was a big thing in the Starsky house. Jews don't get a hard-on for sleigh bells in the snow like you people do."

Hutch would've laughed if he didn't think it would make his head hurt ten times worse than it already did.

Starsky sat in the armchair opposite him and leaned forward. "You gonna tell me what went on in that house today? Or are we going to have a long talk about snow instead?"

Hutch smiled. "Something Callie said made me think of it, that's all." Then he added, "My mother's name is Callie. Did I ever tell you that?"

"So how come I call her Catherine?"

"Catherine is what my father calls her. Her grown-up name, she always says. But she's still Callie to her family."

"What's really bugging you, Hutch? Last time I'm going to ask."

"It's all luck, isn't it? Someone tossed the dice and I got my mother and Jamie got his." When Starsky looked confused, he said, "I have good parents, Starsk, and it never occurred to me when I was a kid that it could be any other way. He's two years old and he's already fucked. And the worst part of it is, Callie's not evil, she's just not good enough. Like her parents weren't good enough."

Starsky rested a hand on Hutch's knee. "So do something about it."

"How? There's too many kids. Too many screwed up parents."

"Then pick one and help that one." Starsky said it like it was the simplest thing in the world. Maybe it was. "I'm staying over tonight," he added.

"You may regret it. White Christmas is on at ten."

"You know the song was originally called White Hanukkah, right? Sold ten copies. Then Irving Berlin gets the bright idea to change it to White Christmas…"

*****

That night, Hutch dreamed of the ocean. He saw the boy running into the Pacific, arms flying, laughing and singing, his blond hair bleached white by the sun. He watched him for a moment, smiling, but when he lifted his camera to take the picture, the boy was gone. He followed him into the water, calling his name, diving under the waves, his heart beating like a trapped bird against his chest. He never found the boy, and when he woke, he wiped the ocean from his eyes.

fin
December 2008