My Kind of Town
My Kind of Town
Getting the message
>> Around Oahu
At the Honolulu Soap Co., Lily Ah Sun was calling home to check messages. She was hoping maybe her cousin Quinn -- no, that wasn't right any more, but it was so hard to quit thinking of him that way -- had called from Queen's.
The doctors were talking about letting him come home today. To her home in Hawaii Kai. Just one message, and caller ID said it was from her co-best friend Shauny's cell. Uh-oh. The last thing Lily told Shauny this morning was to program her cell for Lily's number and to speed-dial if this blind date guy Victor got goofy on her.
Playing the message, at first Lily heard just scratching noises, and turned up the volume. Then more scratchy sounds and a metallic clink, like the phone was getting rustled around inside a purse. Then the distinctive clacking of a seat belt being opened. More scuffling sounds, then a baritone voice saying, "Let me get your bag." Then a loud thump, as if the purse had been tossed aside.
"She's a beauty." A second voice, Japanese accent, came from further away. Closer now, "Excellent muscle tone. Should be a good one."
"Spirited is the word," the baritone replied. "Where do we put her?"
"With the others."
A car door slammed. Silence then. Lily saved the message.
And then there was only one thing to do. She fished a business card out of her own purse, called the number. HPD Detective Sherlock Gomes answered on the third ring. It's good to know a cop.
At Waimea Bay for The Eddie, Lono Oka'aina zig-zagged along the crowded beach, keeping an eye on the tourist guy he'd seen earlier at Turtle Bay. He wasn't wearing the floppy blue hat with the names of the Hawaiian islands on it, but it was the same guy, same aloha shirt, same wrap-around Oakleys. He was sitting on a towel beside a middle-age beauty who appeared to be Chinese, showing her something on the screen of a laptop computer. On second thought, without the hat, he didn't look like a tourist after all.
" 'Scuse me, sir," he said, standing over the couple. Then, squatting beside the guy, "I saw you at Turtle Bay a while ago, watching a couple. She looked pretty drunk."
"Hiya, cowboy," Jake Peepers, P.I., replied. He recognized the tall Hawaiian who wore boots, a western-cut palaka shirt and a white Stetson. "What got you interested in the love birds? And what can I do for you?"
"I was having lunch, and they were there ..."
"At the Palm Terrace?"
Lono grunted his assent. "She wasn't just drunk. I think ..."
The woman reached across Peepers, clutched Lono's wrist. "I'm his wife. What did you see?"
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