My Kind of Town
My Kind of Town
>> Queen's Medical Center Kona-weather eyes
The sultry kona-weather way Lily looked at him, then the way she kissed him, Quinn Ah Sun knew he was going to enjoy every sticky, sweaty moment of blessed Mister-and-Missusness.
They were still kissing there in his bed when they heard a rap on the door and a familiar voice calling "I just wanted to say so-long" and then "Oh my God!"
"Hey, Laird," Lily said, casually sitting up, catching her breath.
"I cant believe it!" her younger brother said with disgust, frozen in the doorway. "You two are cousins!"
"Didn't you hear? You and Quinn are cousins, but not me."
Was that the sound of an old reality shattering? Or just a train wreck?
"Wha ... what the hell are you talking about?"
"Sit down, cousin," Quinn said calmly. "Have a chair."
"So I guess the blood techs didn't get a chance to talk with you?"
"About what?" Laird said suspiciously.
"After we gave blood for Quinn, they did several tests, including DNA. Laird, it turns out I'm really your half-sister. Lance's too."
"Huh? But how? Who?"
And so Lily and Quinn told him of what they'd learned about the feud between their fathers, which apparently started one night 21 years ago when they were supposed to play poker in Waimanalo with their hanai brother Bobo, but Quinn's dad said Bobo never showed, and he was never heard from again except for a postcard saying he was alive and well, written by what appeared to be their father's hand. And that night, according to Quinn's mom, his dad got totally hammered at the Pearl City Tavern, and actually seemed relieved to find out his trunk had been broken into and his HPD .45 was gone.
And six years earlier, on the night of their mother's bachelorette party, she was apparently raped by Bobo, which resulted in Lily. At least that was Quinn's mother's educated guess.
This was too much for Laird, who did not deal well with emotions that went much deeper than fourth-and-goal-with-two-ticks-left-on-the-clock.
"This is ridiculous!" he blustered. "What you two are saying is that either our father or Uncle Mits killed Bobo Ah Sun!"
"They would seem to be," said Quinn, "what we cops call 'of interest.'"
"No body, no crime."
"Nobody's talking about judges and lawyers, Laird," Lily said.
"Well, it's really not my problem. I just stopped by to say good-bye."
"You're going to leave your father when he needs you most?"
"Lily, Christian X.O. St. James just helped me realize what's most important in life, and it's me!"
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