Spelling it out

>> Waikiki

HPD Detective Sherlock Gomes had brought printouts of the secret digital images Bodhicita Guzman e-mailed to the FBI the previous night, spread them out on the table beside the tea and pastries.

"That's the one, name's Lu Wi," Bodhicita said. "He was the house boy, cooked all the meals. Real quiet. Hard to believe he'd want to hurt Jey."

"He's already told a female acquaintance of his plans," Gomes said. "She tipped us. You are not the only one at risk, Lama Jey. There's also a child, a girl."

"Elizabeth!" Bodhicita gasped. "But she's just an innocent kid!"

"And quite adept at such an early age, especially considering she was raised Catholic before realizing her Buddhahood," the second Lama Jey Tsong Khapa said, pouring more tea for the detective.

It was one thing, Gomes the stout Catholic thought, for Bodhicita, former mistress of the chief Te-Wu spook in Hawaii, to shave her head and become the second Lama Jey Tsong Khapa's consort. It was something else to be taking a child from St. Peter's flock.

"Mind if I ask how you know that?"

"It was a matter of her realizing her own true identity. It happened when my brother Joe was showing her his virtual reality program, and she -- as Joe put it -- 'plugged into' a meditation sequence of mine."

"OK," Gomes said, thinking, oh man, I gotta get caught up on this high-tech stuff. "And then?"

"Elizabeth," the lama said, "announced that she was, in fact, the first reincarnation of Sam-yung Kunzang Dechen, who was not part of the meditation."

"Come again? How do you spell that?"

The lama spelled it, then explained, "Sam-yung Kunzang Dechen was the wife of Kyabje Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche ... " -- he spelled that too -- "... an incarnate master whose lineage goes back to Padasambhava, who established Buddhism in Tibet in the 9th Century. In exile in India because of the Chinese occupation of Tibet, Sam-yung Kunzang Dechen built many temples and retreat centers. She was herself a master of the way known as Cho, and was known for encouraging women to involve themselves in spiritual practice."

"Ah, nuns," Gomes said, grateful for a concept he understood, and could spell. "And where is this, um, Elizabeth?"

"As a matter of fact, we've been invited to visit her today," the lama said. "I'm sure you'd be welcome. And Mrs. Ah Sun, the woman she and her mother live with, said to bring swimming shorts!" For a kid raised in the Himalayas, a pool was a big deal.

"Ah Sun? As in ... "

"Her husband Quinn is a police officer who is part of the motorcycle escort the city has so generously given me. You must know him."

"I do," Gomes said. "I'm starting to like our odds."