Before heading to the coroner’s office, Chan had to see if Harvey Wong was home. The house on Algaroba was a brown two-story with a wrap-around lanāi on the second floor. An old woman sat in a chair on the lanāi under the eaves smoking a pipe. She looked to be in her 70s, maybe older.
“Excuse me?” said Chan, calling up to her.
“Eh, who, me?” the old woman said, standing and walking to the railing.
“Yes, hello, Ma’am, is this the residence of Harvey Wong?”
“Who like know?”
Chan took out his badge and held it up to her. “Lieutenant Chan, Ma’am, HPD. I’m looking for a Harvey Wong.”
The woman sucked on her pipe meditatively, studying him.
“What dat boy did?” she said.
Boy, thought Chan. He wondered how old Harvey might be. “Nothing, Ma’am. I just wanted to ask him a few questions.”
“Like what?”
“Oh, nothing to worry you about, Ma’am. He does live here then?”
“Well, yeah. He no own the place. That’s me. But he live downstairs. My renter. Right now, I think he at work, him.”
“Oh, okay. Could you please tell me where he works?”
The woman stared off into space. “Ah,” she said, looking back down at Chan. “He told me couple times, but you get to be one old lady like me, hard for remember, yeah? Da main thing is the boy pays his rent on time.”
“Ma’am,” said Chan, curious, “how old is Mr. Wong?”
“Geez, who knows? I don’t know. Maybe he 50s or something? Not old, not young.”
“I see,” said Chan. “And you can’t recall where he works?”
The woman puffed on her pipe and then shook her head. “I sorry, Son, but I don’t know.”
Chan pulled out a card and held it up to her. “Can I leave my card with you to give to him? Please tell him I need to talk to him, so could he please call me.”
“Sure, sure, Lieutenant. Try leave ‘um in the door. Bumbye I come down and pick ‘um up.”
Chan wedged his card in the door frame, then walked back out and looked up. “Thank you, Ma’am.”
And with that, he headed back to his car and off to Mapunapuna.
The old woman watched him drive off, and then, instead of sitting down again, she went inside. A few moments later, she opened the front door. Chan’s card fluttered to the ground.
Bending over with some effort, she picked it up and read over the information.
Back inside, she walked down the hall. “Eh boy!” she called out, knocking on her son’s bedroom door. “Eh boy, wake up, you slug.” She waited.
A balding man in his mid-50s opened the door. “What is it, Ma?”
“The cops was just here, Harvey. What you did?”
Harvey Wong gave his mother a startled look which he tried to cover poorly. “The cops? Gee, I don’t know why they’d want to see me.”
“Come on, you. You not one good actor, Harv. I can see you did something. What you did?”
“Nothing, Ma. You know me. I don’t get in trouble anymore.”
“Hah! You don’t get in trouble anymore. What? I’m supposed to believe you one angel all of a sudden?”
Wong tried to close the door, but his mother stuck her foot in the frame.
“Harvey, you tell me right now why the cops is after you, or I swear, I’m gonna call dis guy up and tell him you here.”
Wong’s face hardened. “No you won’t, Ma. You won’t call the cops because I didn’t do anything, you got it?”
The look on her son’s face froze Mrs. Wong. “Well,” she said, her tone softening, “here’s the cop’s card. He wants you to call him up.”
Wong’s expression softened as well. He hated being angry with the woman. She was his mother, and he loved her. Taking the card from her, he said calmly, “Sure, Ma, I’ll call him.”
Sitting down on his bed, Harvey Wong read over David Chan’s information. Thinking back over the last few days, he wondered what he might have done that had pointed the police to him. He thought he’d covered his tracks well. It was true, too, that, as he’d told his mother, he’d not done anything wrong for quite a while. Not until recently. What had caused the police to seek him out?
Lanning Lee 