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My Kind of Town

by Don Chapman

Friday, December 21, 2001


Let sleeping grass lie

>> Waimanalo

Half-blind with dread, Sheets Ah Sun swerved the Cadillac to the side of the road, lurched out of the car and puked on a patch of sleeping grass, which cringed more than usual.

Sheets had gotten sick to his stomach before from things he'd eaten, even from things he'd smelled. This was the first time he'd gotten sick to his stomach from something he'd seen. Fifty yards back down the road, a bunch of guys in space suits, aided by other guys in space suits operating backhoe and bulldozer, were digging in what had until yesterday been a secret illegal chemical dump site. It had contaminated a new Board of Water Supply well nearby, and thus the official investigation. Sheets suddenly hated that word. Investigation. It sounded so threatening. And personal. He puked again, and more sleeping grass ducked too late.

His hands, Sheets noticed, were trembling. He had to get ahold of himself. Surely all the chemicals that had been dumped there over the years would erode, even liquidate any evidence that Sheets and his brother were at the dump site one night 27 years ago. Sheets breathed a prayer that it would.

Does God answer prayers to destroy criminal evidence? Sheets puked again.

>> Hungry Lion Coffee Shop

HPD Detective Sherlock Gomes left a tip for his favorite waiter Lee, paid the bill for his oatmeal, fruit plate and Kona brew. Gomes had a full day ahead of him and the incident with Dr. Laurie Tang and the WWII Japanese mini-sub at Ala Moana Beach Park had him running late. Gomes was there -- to ask her about her boyfriend, Sen. Donovan Matsuda-Yee-Dela Cruz-Bishop-Kamaka -- when the sub surfaced. Gomes glanced at his watch as he unlocked the door of his Barracuda, which was painted a hue that a CID colleague had generously called "metallic stomach-flu green." Gomes was a man of logic, and he quickly planned the rest of his day.

First things first: Arrange the senator's trip to a drug rehab clinic in Portland. That was the or-else deal he'd made after finding a drug pipe and traces of crystal methamphetamine in the senator's Makiki Heights hideaway last night. Then he was going to visit the senator's secret girlfriend Serena Kawainui at Queen's. She was there after crashing his car off the Keeaumoku Overpass yesterday. And then he'd call Sheila Fernandez about the oddest case he'd come across in months -- someone was stealing family portraits out of homes, taking nothing else.

Gomes was also planning at least an hour and a half to get showered, pressed and dressed for dinner at Dr. Laurie Tang's condo.




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



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