My Kind of Town
>> Queen's Medical Center Gomeshoe
It occurred to HPD Sgt. Mits Ah Sun that he ought to let Quinn's mother up in Las Vegas know that her son had been shot. Well, he could leave a message for her. At this hour, Flo would be at the casinos. It was still hard to believe that after all those years of marriage she had left him to become a professional gambler. It had been a blow to his pride, and in some ways still was. But if Flo was still here, Mits would not have married the lovely Wanphen, half his age, who he'd met during a boys-will-be-boys tour of Thailand after the divorce. Wanphen was the best thing that ever happened to him. In bed, he was like a young man again. And 24/7 she made him happy. Mits was reaching for his cell phone to call Flo when it rang.
"H'lo ... Eh, Sheila, how are you?"
Mits had met Sheila Fernandez years ago when he was helping to start up the Neighborhood Watch in Pearl City. She'd been with the program ever since.
"Sergeant, something terrible has happened. Someone broke into the house through the kitchen door and stole all of the family pictures off the bookshelf!"
Mits had been in her Leomele Street home several times for Neighborhood Watch meetings. Sheila had a bunch of framed photos of her two kids starting from when they were little, Pop Warner and hula photos, prom and graduation photos, wedding and grandchildren photos, as well as a wedding photo of Sheila and her late husband Joseph. "What else is missing?" Mits said, frowning.
"Nothing. I checked the whole house."
"Strange," Mits said. "I've never heard of anything like this."
"Who could have done such a terrible thing?" she pleaded. "And why? What value could such personal photographs be to anyone else?"
"Boy, you got me, Sheila. But I'll tell you what. Call 911, get the crime scene guys out there. And then I want you to call this number" -- he gave her the seven-digit number from memory -- "and talk to Detective Sherlock Gomes. He's the best. Tell him I gave you the number. And keep me posted, eh."
Punching the end call button, Mits smiled. He'd known Gomes since he was a rookie. "Sherlock Gomes, Ace Detective," he used to tease him.
"Gomeshoe," was another nickname in jest for the young detective.
But for Mits, like most cops, giving a guy a hard time was a sign of admiration and respect. You didn't bother with a guy you didn't like. If anybody could find Sheila's pictures and the perp or perps who took them, Sherlock Gomes could.
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