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My Kind of Town Don Chapman |
North Shore calling
>> Around Oahu
For the second morning in a row, when the elevator at 2002 Wilder stopped at her floor for parking, Dr. Laurie Tang kissed HPD Detective Sherlock Gomes, stepped outside and made goo-goo eyes until the door closed. She'd never, ever acted like this before in her life. What was there about that man?
Gomes rode the elevator down to guest parking and exited softly whistling "Oh What a Beautiful Morning."
Life was such a wonderful feeling now that love was coming his way. Unlocking his '71 Barracuda, Gomes was trying to put this giddy feeling away so he could concentrate on work, and was having a hard time finding a compartment in his head that could contain it. He'd just have to live with feeling ridiculously happy for a while.
Gomes headed down Wilder, turned right on Pensacola. Something was calling him toward the North Shore.
He was a man of logic and reason, but also of instinct and intuition. So while the known facts and clues added together did not lead to a logical conclusion that the North Shore would reveal Victor Primitivo and Shauny Nakamura, the sum of all he knew and sensed pointed north.
Waiting in the backed-up right lane for the light at Lunalilo, Gomes bought a Star-Bulletin from a street hawker and set it on the Naugahyde passenger seat while retrieving a little note from one of the myriad compartments in his head: Call Mrs. Victor Primitivo and ask which guns her husband took on his hunting trip. The home number was unlisted, 411 said, so he called Jake Peepers, P.I., who was in Mrs. Primitivo's employ.
"Yo, Sherlock! I was about to call you! What's up?"
"Your client, Mrs. Primitivo, how can I reach her?"
"You mean the church's newest saint?"
"What?!" Gomes was a sturdy Catholic and took his saints seriously.
"You didn't see the paper today?"
"Which one?"
"Star-Bulletin, front page."
Gomes flipped the paper over. Above the fold was a photo of Meg Choy Primitivo in a revealing swimsuit leaning over an unconscious surfer, with one elegant finger touching his toe, and you could see an aura around her head and waves of energy rippling over his body. "Is this for real?"
"I just talked to her. She and the surfer boy spent the night out at Turtle Bay. When they went down for breakfast, somebody recognized her from the paper and created a crowd and she healed all kinds of stuff."
Gomes doubted it. "Was that why you were calling me?"
"No. You ever talk to that paniolo, Lono Oka'aina?"
"Left a message only. Why?"
"When you talk to him, ask about the hunting club renting his place."
The North Shore it was. As he drove, Gomes whistled.
Don Chapman is editor of MidWeek.
His serialized novel runs daily in the Star-Bulletin
with weekly summaries on Sunday.
He can be e-mailed at dchapman@midweek.com