My Kind of Town
The Honolulu Soap Co.:
Sunday digest>> Queen's Medical Center
Walking back to his car in the ER parking lot, HPD Detective Sherlock Gomes spotted them. A girl, probably 6 or 7, was holding hands with two women, one apparently her mother, the other a local woman. The girl skipped happily between thewomen as they walked, obviously feeling loved and secure.Lucky girl, Gomes thought. So unlike Serena Kawainui, who he'd just questioned. She'd grown up in a series of foster homes, had been abandoned by parent figures more than once. So she ended up here today after crashing Sen. Donovan Matsuda-Yee-Dela Cruz-Bishop- Kamaka's car off the Keeaumoku Overpass -- drunk, loaded on ice and naked. All because the senator insisted that she have an abortion. Hurt and angry, she went for a drive. Cruel irony, it was the combination of drugs, alcohol and trauma from the crash that led her to have a miscarriage.
Gomes watched the two women and the little girl get into a taxi, and from this angle saw for the first time the Filipina woman had bandages on her face. Whatever had happened to her didn't seem to be affecting her daughter. A good support system will do that. Gomes learned that in the first-person when his father died suddenly of an aneurism when Sherlock was 14, and his wrestling coach and math teacher at Leilehua High, Mr. Vern Matsuda, became his mentor and father figure. That the late Mr. Matsuda happened to be the father of the senator complicated matters.
>> Royal Hawaiian Hotel
It wasn't until the taxi pulled into the port cochere and she'd paid the cabbie that Lily Ah Sun realized this was the first time she'd ever checked into a hotel without luggage. But this visit to the Royal wasn't exactly planned. They'd left Lily's home in an ambulance, rushing Rosalita to the ER at Queen's after the guy who broke into Lily's home attacked Rosalita.And it wasn't until they got to Queen's that Lily thought about the bloody mess that her bedroom had become when her cousin Quinn interrupted the attack. He'd taken a shot to the thigh, but shot the guy in the groin. Both had bled all over the bed and the carpet, and blood was splattered on the wall. No way she was sleeping there tonight.
"Ladies," Lily said, turning away from the check-in desk, "we're going shopping." And she led them down the hall to McInerny's.
>> Keeaumoku Street
Stopped for a red light at Beretania Street, Sherlock Gomes speed-dialed his sister Donna. Their father was a cop so she understood his work."Hey, sis, me," he said.
"What's up?"
"You had Vern Matsuda for math, right?"
Back at Leilehua High, Sherlock was four years ahead of Donna. "Sure. He was classic." Donna remembered what an important figure Mr. Matsuda was for her brother. "I heard what happened to his son's car today." And then it hit her. "That's why you're calling."
"We have to book the senator on a flight to Portland."
"Portland?" Donna knew what Portland meant. Her brother had sent a few other people he'd busted to a drug rehab center there.
>> 2002 Wilder
Dr. Laurie Tang had so many questions after three days of not hearing from her boyfriend, Sen. Donovan Matsuda-Yee-Dela Cruz-Bishop-Kamaka, and even more questions about the young woman who crashed Donovan's car. But the first one to escape her lips was "Donovan, where the hell have you been?!""Oh, uh, out of town."
"Where?"
And then the senator did what all great manipulators do. "Aren't you even going to ask how I'm doing?"
Laurie understood guilt. She'd been raised on it my her immigrant mother. But Laurie was a big girl now.
"To quote you from a moment ago, how ya doin'?"
"I've been better."
"That's two of us." And then: "Who's the little bitch who was driving your car?"
Donovan was ready with an answer for that one. "No idea."
"Oh really."
"Well, I've had this female admirer who was turning into more like a stalker..."
"Why didn't you tell me?!"
"I didn't want to worry you over nothing."
"So you've no idea how she got pregnant?"
The stunned silence was all the answer Laurie needed. "I know she's pregnant, Donovan, because of all the patients in the ER today, I got her..."
Laurie thought she heard a muffled gasp on the other end of the line.
"So, uh, how is..." He started to say Serena, but caught himself. "...the, ah, patient."
"The, ah, patient is going to be fine. I understand she spoke with a police detective this evening. By the way, I'm meeting with this detective tomorrow, a Sherlock Gomes."
In that moment he knew what he must do. The only person who had evidence that Donovan had been smoking ice was Gomes. The only person who could tell Laurie who fathered Serena's child was Gomes. The only person who could keep him out of Washington Place and make Donovan lose the best First Lady candidate he'd ever met was Gomes. And up through the mix of desperation and crystal meth, a plan came to Sen. Donovan Matsuda-Yee-Dela Cruz-Bishop-Kamaka. Sherlock Gomes had to go.
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