My Kind of Town
>> 2002 Wilder Who’s solly now?
When Dr. Laurie Tang at last returned her mother's call the first question did not involve the health or whereabouts of Sen. Donovan Matsuda-Yee-Dela Cruz-Bishop-Kamaka. Instead, it was a motherly "How are you?"
"Fine, really."
But then. "Where is Donovan?"
"No idea, Mom."
"You have not heard from him?"
She said from as flum, among other mispronunciations that even after all these years gave her away as an immigrant. Laurie could hear her mother's astonishment and disappointment.
"No. Really, Mom, I'm totally in the dark. If it's about Donovan, I don't know anything."
"I'm sorry, Laurie."
"Thanks." Lolly was solly too. Once again she wondered why her mother gave her a name she couldn't pronounce.
>> Makiki Heights
The last thing HPD Detective Sherlock Gomes was looking for when he came up here to where the lights of the city sparkled so lovely was a moral dilemma. But there it was, in the form of Sen. Donovan Matsuda-Yee-Dela Cruz-Bishop-Kamaka and the glass pipe on a corner table of his hillside home.
"OK, senator, we'll deal with the drugs later. I have another question. What is your relationship with a Dr. Laurie Tang?"
"We've been dating for awhile."
"Awhile? Which while?"
"Since October. I met her during the campaign, and we hit it off," the senator said, wanting to talk about anything but the incriminating pipe. "I like her. She's smart, very attractive, nice personality, and people are drawn to her. She'd make a great First Lady. She's the one my secretary wants me to marry. But she's Chinese, and my PR guy says if I'm going to add another name, I already have a Yee, so it needs to be Portuguese or something."
"Mm. Like Gomes," Sherlock Gomes said. These freakin' politicians, I tell you. "When was the last time you saw her?"
He'd lost track of time. "A week or so, I guess."
Dr. Tang, the detective figured, would have a better recollection when he spoke with her. "Now, senator, I only came up here because this was the address listed for Serena Kawainui, who drove your car off the Keeaumoku Overpass this morning. I didn't know who or what to expect. You're the last guy I would expect to see here, like this ... You've given me a problem, senator."
In that, Sherlock Gomes was not alone.
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