My Kind of Town
Cause for alarm
>> Waimanalo
Sheets Ah Sun zig-zagged the Cadillac through the back roads of Waimanalo, retracing the route he'd driven 27 years ago after he left what was then a secret chemical dump site. As he drove, a sense of dread fell over him like a wet sleeping bag. Something told him that the site was the same one a news report said contaminated a Board of Water Supply well.
Sheets made the final turn. And there was the place. That's where it had happened. Yes, the jungle vegetation had grown, so physically the place had changed from what it looked like that night. But that was the place Sheets Ah Sun knew in his gut of guts.
Good thing he skipped breakfast because what Sheets saw as he cruised past the site made him sick to his stomach. Look how many guys they get working. Two dozen, maybe? And all of them in space suits. They get backhoe to dig, semi-truck to haul away, bulldozer to push stuff around or whatever.
Sheets slowed the Cadillac slightly, rubbernecking. And what he saw made him even more ill -- guys in space suits sifting through a big pile of soil. The chemicals should have liquified the evidence. Shouldn't they? Or altered them beyond recognition. Right? He really didn't have any cause for alarm.
Did he?
Of course he did. And all he could do was sweat it out and hope they didn't sift through evidence that proved either he or his brother Mits had been there on that night 27 years ago.
>> Hungry Lion Coffee Shop
It merited just one inch of type in the Star-Bulletin's police report. Which in the opinion of HPD Detective Sherlock Gomes was exactly what Mickey deserved. Gomes took a sip of his Kona brew, read the item again. Thanks to the victim's extensive police record, the medical examiner made a positive identification of a male who was found dead on a Portlock street. The cause of his injuries -- a knife slash to the forearm, broken ribs on both sides, a broken nose and a "gunshot to the groin" -- remained a mystery. A gunshot to the groin? Gomes knew what that meant. Ouch!
But he probably deserved it. Mickey K.K. Musclewhite was a punk. Like all punks, he thought manini. He was a nickel and dimer. Not to mention a doper.
Gomes had crossed paths with Mickey, and was always happy to get him off the street. Because what was nickel and dime overall was big potatoes to the person who had their jewelry stolen, their car broken into, their merchandise ripped off.
Then there was the "ring" Mickey organized to steal garbage cans. A real criminal mastermind. Gomes made a note to check on the funeral. Never know who might show up.
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