My Kind of Town
>> Queen's Medical Center The Honolulu Soap Co.:
Sunday digestGwen Roselovich was a good soldier. She did not give up classified information easily. She was holding up pretty good until Lily Ah Sun suggested having her charged with rape. Then Gwen started to cry.
"Quinn was knocked out from the painkillers they gave him, and you took advantage of him! When I came in here, you were half on the bed, your skirt hiked up over your fat ass, and you were kissing him, and your hand was where it shouldn't have been! Wasn't it, Gwen?!"
She nodded, sobbed something that Lily took as a yes.
"That's rape!"
Gwen looked hopefully at Quinn, between sobs said "How do you know he didn't want it?"
"We're colleagues, Gwen," he said softly. "That's all I want it to be. I'm committed to Lily."
Gwen was willing to move on. "O.K." She turned to leave.
"Not so fast," Lily said. "What about the papers?
"I don't have them any more."
"Where are they?"
"Oh, Quinn, I didn't mean to make trouble!" Gwen sobbed. "Your dad asked me to check on you. I guess I... I've wanted you for so long... I just..."
"The photocopies, Gwen? You gave them to my father?"
She nodded.
>> Kaimuki
Shaving in the shower, HPD Detective Sherlock Gomes had no idea that two people he was thinking about were also thinking of him.
>> 2002 Wilder
Blame it on the glass of Kendall-Jackson Riesling she'd sipped while picking up the living room. Now Dr. Laurie Tang found herself also putting fresh sheets on the bed. How silly! Sherlock Gomes was only coming for dinner. Laurie patted down the bed, took another sip.
Time to shower. Stripping down, her head was filled with images of Sherlock, so lean and muscular. She stood naked before the full-length mirror in the bathroom, wondered what Sherlock thought of her body.
>> Makiki Heights
Machiavelli Wang rattled off all that needed to be done to re-establish Sen. Donovan Matsuda-Yee-Dela Cruz-Bishop- Kamaka as the Democrats' best gubernatorial hope. But as Wang talked, the senator knew that none of it mattered.
"Shut up," he said.
Machiavelli did not like being told what to do. He was the boss, even if the senator had the title. "Excuse me?"
"We've got a bigger problem," the senator said. "And barely 14 hours to solve it."
"What are you talking about?"
He told Machiavelli about how Gomes busted him for possession of ice and pot. And that Gomes said the only way to avoid jail was to go to a drug rehab clinic in Portland.
"Thus the blowgun?"
The senator nodded sheepishly.
"There are some things, Donovan, that a man of your station should not attempt. That's why we have professionals."
>> Queen's Medical Center
Just by walking into his son Quinn's room, HPD Sgt. Mits Ah Sun walked into an ambush. He just didn't know it right away.
"Oh, Lily, hi," he said to his long-lost niece. What the heck was she doing here?
"How're you feeling, son?"
"To be honest, Pops, pretty much pissed off."
"Gwen just left," Lily said. "She told us everything."
"It was for your own good," Mits fired back. "My God, you're cousins!"
"Exactly," Quinn said. "We're ohana. What good came from keeping us apart for 21 years?"
That's where Mits' argument ran out of steam. The only people the contrived feud between Mits and his brother Sheets had helped was themselves -- and that was debatable.
"Gwen also mentioned," Lily said, "that she'd given you the photocopies. Where are they?"
"Circular-filed," Mits said.
"Looks like I'm going back to the State Library," Lily said.
"Unless," Quinn said, "you'd like to come clean about Bobo."
Now the only tactic left to Mits was a dangerous one.
"OK, so you kids are back together. Maybe it's time already to let the by-gones be by-gones. Maybe my brother and me..." His voice cracked. "So many years gone by."
"But I still want to know why you and Uncle Sheets quit talking," Quinn said. "And I want to know the truth about Bobo."
Mits had given up all the ground he could.
"Like I told you before, he's a cousin. We weren't that close."
"I found out he worked on cruise boats," Lily said, "as an entertainer."
Then she was suddenly hit with a new idea. "I only researched up through 1981. The last mention of him was an item in Donnelly's column.
"Where is he now?" Quinn said.
"Good question." No it wasn't.
"Maybe Donnelly knows," Quinn said.
"Couldn't hurt to ask," Lily said.
Yes it could. But there was nothing Mits could do about it.
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