Immediately upon arriving back at the station, Chan and Kelso knocked on their boss’s door. Captain Delbert Kauhane could see that something major was up.
“Guys, what’s happening?”
Chan laid out a brief synopsis of how the fire and murder investigation was going, leading up to Richard Han’s belief that someone with HPD was behind the insurance scam.
“And,” said Chan, “it looks like this links all the way back to fires set by Wong in ’38 and ’39. Whoever was giving him orders back then is giving him orders now. And it seems David Han is –
was the middleman in job assignments.”
“And you believe Han?”
“I do,” said Chan. “Unfortunately, I do.”
“So you suspect who, David? Me?” Kauhane didn’t laugh when he said this.
“Of course not, Del,” said Chan. “But it’s got to be someone senior in the department.”
“Yeah,” Kelso added. “But it could be someone around Wong senior’s age or even a little younger.”
“What are we talking then?” asked Kauhane. “Maybe in the mid-50-ish range on up?”
“That sounds about right,” said Chan. “Which does narrow the search, but there are still plenty of candidates.”
“And,” said Kelso, “it’s someone smart enough to know better than to mess with anything the Yu syndicate controls. If they did elbow in, they’d-a been ma-ke long time ago.”
“Where do we start?” asked Kauhane. “It seems like there are too many suspects.”
Chan nodded. “To tell you the truth, boss, my head hurts so badly now, I can’t think straight about this.”
“Go home and rest up,” said Kauhane. “We’ll figure this out soon enough.”
Kelso drove Chan to his apartment “If you have a dream where the whole thing comes to you, make sure to let me know so I can slap the cuffs on the guy. I hope it’s Rupert over in Traffic. He’s always been a dick. Or that turd Hindermann in Records. Eh, you know what? A guy who’s always looking at old cases. Somehow that makes some sense.”
“Why?” Chan asked.
“Well, Records generates reinvestigations, right? So if they overlooked a cold case or two, the ones would draw attention to old cases where they’d been involved, that makes sense, huh?”
This did. Chan managed a laugh. “I’d hate to be on your s-list, Chin. If I knew you were coming after me, I’d be on the first plane out of here.”
“I’ll see you later tonight,” said Kelso. “Don’t worry about dinner stuff. I’ll bring something back.”
The first thing Chan did was call Kathy at the morgue to let her know what had been going on.
“So I’m staying with Kelso for the duration. I need to call my sister about my home insurance and the steps to getting my place fixed up.”
“Well,” said Kathy, “a more romantic option would be staying with me, don’t you think?”
“Uh-uh. No way. If someone’s after me, I wouldn’t want to put you at risk. The last thing we need is for your place to go up in flames. I don’t want to chance it.”
“So how does Chin feel about you having sleepovers?”
Chan chuckled. “I don’t know, but I’m going to be sleeping on his couch. Not enough room for you and me, I don’t think.”
“Man, David, I don’t know how long I’ll be able to stay away from you. I got you under my skin, dude.”
Chan didn’t know quite the best way to respond to this. Under her skin. An image of Elaine crossed his mind.
“Ah, well, I know what you mean. Me, uh, likewise, too.”
Now Kathy laughed. “Wow, that’s about the most romantic thing I’ve heard in the last hour. You uh, likewise, too, huh? I think I’m making some major progress.”
Chan’s next call was to his younger sister Denise. She’d started as a secretary and now was a partner in Island Insurance. Chan explained what had happened.
“Oh man, David, I’m so sorry to hear that. Thank God for your neighbor. Have you told mom?”
“Hah! No way. I’d never hear the end of it, and the last thing I want to do is cause her any worry or grief.”
“Well, she’s going to want to know why you’re not staying with her, for sure.”
“I’ll worry about that later, Dini. For now, what do you think about my chances of getting the place fixed?”
His sister assured Chan that she’d get over there to do an assessment the following day.
“Then I’ll see what I can do to expedite the claim. If the damage is not too bad, I can recommend some tradesmen friends to handle the various jobs. If it’s extensive, I can give you the names of some contractors.”
Chan’s head throbbed with the idea of the effort ahead to get this all done. “Okay, Sis. And thanks.”
He knew there’d be no beer, but Chan successfully located Kelso’s bottle of scotch. Helping himself to a several finger’s worth, Chan sat out on the small lānai overlooking a fairly quiet section of Date Street. The apartment buildings were springing up all around the area, however, and Chan wondered about the number of criminals who’d be housed in them.
Crime. It’s always on your mind, he thought. Buddy, you have to get your head into a different space. Once again he thought about retirement. He had more than the required 20 years. But . . .
“David!”
Chan came out of a drowse.
“David?”
Someone was calling up to him from the street below. Located on the third floor, Kelso’s apartment was in easy yelling distance.
Chan focused on the figure below. It was his godfather, Wilbur Apana.
But how did he know I was here? That was Chan’s first thought.
Lanning Lee 