My Kind of Town
>> Portlock Sunday digest
"Nothing? No outstandings? OK, thanks Gwen." HPD Officer Quinn Ah Sun clicked off the cell. He'd have bet money that the plates of the faded gray sedan would turn up something. Why was it parked two doors down from his cousin Lily's home? This was definitely the same car he'd seen following Lily onto the H-1 this morning.
"What's going on, Quinn?" Lily sounded concerned.
"Something about that car. Let's get those Popsicles inside for Elizabeth."
"You want to park in the driveway?"
"Naw, here's fine." If his worst fears were correct, Quinn didn't want to park in the driveway and announce too soon that Lily was coming home.
>> Makiki Heights
Sen. Donovan Matsuda-Yee-Dela Cruz-Bishop-Kamaka invited Detective Gomes in to escape Star-Bulletin photographer Johnny B. Goo and writer Cruz MacKenzie on his doorstep. Inside, Gomes spotted the glass pipe on the table. It had obvious drug residue. Anybody else, automatic bust.
But Gomes faced a moral dilemma. He was who he was because of one man, Vern Matsuda, his old math teacher and wrestling coach at Leilehua High. Mr. Matsuda was the one who had seen something in young Sherlock Gomes, a superior mind, and challenged and nurtured that mind. But of the many lessons he'd learned from him, the greatest was learning to believe in himself. The problem was that his teacher was also the late father of Sen. Donovan Matsuda-Yee-Dela Cruz-Bishop-Kamaka.
"I'm glad your father can't see you now," Gomes said. "But I know what he'd do, so I'm going to do it for him."
"Kick my ass?"
"I wish it was that easy. "I'm going to give you one more chance, senator. But only one."
Sen. Matsuda-Yee-Dela Cruz-Bishop-Kamaka let out a loud sigh. "Thank you."
"Not so fast. We're making a deal, senator, you and me."
>> Portlock
Three doors down from Lily Ah Sun's home, Tai, Seth and Wili watched from the black SUV as a muscular guy lifted a woman in a white suit down from the cab of a pickup truck.
"What I told you?!" Wili said from the back seat. "That's the woman in the teal BMW that creep Mickey was following."
They had started their traditional aufogo this morning, looking for Mickey, who had ripped off Seth's daughter Kimmee in a drug deal where the drugs never appeared. They found him at the Arco mini-mart, and Mickey was easy to tail because he was concentrating on following the woman who just now staggered a little and clutched the guy's arm.
"Somebody been drinking, Cuz," Seth said. They watched as the woman opened the door of the same house they had earlier seen Mickey enter. The big guy followed her inside.
"Things going get interesting, brah," Wili said. A regular soothsayer. Once again he would be right.
>> "Wow," Quinn Ah Sun whispered in awe when Lily opened the front door and led him in. Most of the furniture was made of koa. And a quilt on the wall was framed in koa. "You're really into Hawaiian things, eh?"
"Quinn, we are Hawaiian. And this is Hawaii."
Not many Hawaiians could afford this much koa, Quinn thought, and for sure not one on a cop's budget. But he knew from a recent story by Erika Engle in the Star-Bulletin business section that Lily and her phyto-cosmetic company were doing pretty well. That, apparently, was an understatement.
"Come on, let's get these Popsicles into the freezer." Lily led Quinn to the kitchen where she put five boxes of Popsicles into the restaurant-sized refrigerator. She kept one box and shut the door.
"Come, I'll introduce you to Rosalita and Elizabeth. They live in the cottage in back."
>> Rosalita Resurreccion fitted the sheet on Miss Lily's bed. That's when she saw the clue that signaled she was not alone. She had been missing clues all along. First the smell of batu in the back yard. Then the missing butcher knife in the kitchen. Then batu smoke in the hallway. Now, seeing the corkscrew on the nightstand, the one that Rosalita had placed on the kitchen counter -- Rosalita knew she was not alone. But it was too late.
Don Chapman is editor of MidWeek.
His serialized novel runs daily in the Star-Bulletin
with weekly summaries on Sunday.
He can be emailed at dchapman@midweek.com