Chan woke up with a single purpose in mind. “Chin, I need my car.”
“No worries, boss. I’m your vehicle, baby,” Kelso half sang. “I’ll take you anywhere you wanna go.”
“For real, Chin, I have to have my wheels. There’s something I need to do on my own, and the fire didn’t touch the garage.”
Kelso could see this would be an argument he’d lose. “Sure, David, we’ll get it right now.”
Chan dragged himself through a shower. Helping himself to coffee brewed by his partner, he sat down by the phone and thumbed through the directory to find his godfather’s number. There was no answer, which, given what that dream might have meant, Chan felt his foreboding doubling.
Knowing that the old man hung around the squad room frequently, Chan called his Captain.
“Del, by any chance, is Wilber in the office right now?”
“No, David. You know, I haven’t seen him for a couple of days, actually. I was wondering about that. Is something up with him?”
“Oh, no, no. I was just wondering.”
“And by the way, David, just so you have one less worry on your plate, that hit and run case, the one Kalani was investigating as a possible targeting rather than a mere accident, it turned out to be nothing. The guy turned himself in, admitted the whole thing. Harmless.”
A targeting. That rang a bell. “Del, is Rupert in?”
“Sure. You want to talk to him?”
Chan was connected to Kalani, the detective assigned to traffic investigations.
“Rupert, Del was just telling me about a case you were working on. Something about possible targeting of a woman in a collision. That worked out as nothing big?”
“Yeah yeah, David. It was just coincidence. His insurance is going to pay the damage. And Komine wasn’t injured, so it’s all pau now.”
That was it. “Komine? What’s Komine’s first name?”
“Jasmine. Why?”
“Jasmine Komine? Dr. Jasmine Komine?”
“Yup. That’s her. How come you’re so interested?”
“When did that happen? The collision?”
“Three weeks ago. Remember?”
“And why did you ask me for help on that?”
“Because, like I said, if someone were trying to get her, I wanted to give you a heads-up you might need to jump in.”
So that was where he’d hear the name. The conversation had been in passing, but it stuck.
“Rupert, I think that case was a wrap last week. She’s dead.”
“Dead? You mean Komine?”
“Yes, I’m on a case right now she was involved in. She was murdered last week.”
“Oh man, David. That I didn’t know. I’ll check the report.”
After he hung up, Chan took his coffee to the lānai and sat staring out at nothing in particular. So he had heard the name before. But that still didn’t answer the question about why he’d dreamt of her. Targeting. Well, she’d ended up a target. But this case had turned out to be a simple hit-and-run. Was it? Was the guy who came in just some chance driver who’d hit her car?
Chan looked at the rising condominiums. He thought about what his godfather had said in the dream. The days before statehood were more black and white. Now the gray areas were setting in. Settling in. Oppressive, both physically and mentally, in their thickening blanket.
Here Chan sat, in the middle of Honolulu, and at the same time he missed Honolulu so much. It was the same feeling he had when he was anywhere that meant something to him in his youth. A beach, a park, a store, driving the new H1 Freeway. You’re there missing what was there. What used to be. It wasn’t nostalgia. It was a longing, a yearning.
The dream of Wilbur Apana’s murder, like the others associated with the case, had been vivid. Vivid in the extreme. Chan needed to know he was okay.
Kelso joined him on the lānai. “Your chariot awaits, boss.”
“Thanks, Chin, I’ll be taking off now.”
“You sure I can’t go with you? You kinda wobbly looking.”
“No, no, Chin. I need to do this on my own. It could take all day. I don’t want to drag you all over town when you have your own work to do.”
Kelso nodded his agreement, but he was skeptical about his partner’s endurance.
“Oh,” said Chan, “I found out why I knew Janice Komine’s name.”
He explained the case to Kelso.
“Oh, okay, got it, David, I guess, but . . . I still think you must be little bit psychic. It’s a long way from hearing about a traffic accident to dreaming about a victim you never seen, huh?”
Chan nodded. “Right, I know. But it’s something.”
“Yeah yeah.”
Skepticism was written all over Kelso’s face.
“Chin, no way.”
As he headed out the door, he pictured the bullet hitting Apana in the forehead. Chan paused, then turned to Kelso. “I hope I’m not.”
Chan settled into his car. The stitches seemed to be behaving. Surveying his body, he noted that there was no throbbing pain anywhere. Just a general dull ache.
Starting up the engine of his blue Chevy sedan, he drove out of the parking lot toward Wilhelmina Rise.
Lanning Lee 