Mahu Men by Neil Plakcy

Author:Neil Plakcy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: M/M Fiction - Erotica
Publisher: MLR Press, LLC
Published: 2010-03-02T16:00:00+00:00

THE WHOLE TEN MILLION

By the time Ray Donne became my partner, I’d gotten accustomed to working on my own. I paired up for the occasional case with different detectives as one or another was out on vacation or sick leave, but there was never anybody available to partner with me on a permanent basis. Being the only openly gay homicide detective on the force didn’t help; nobody was scrambling to be my best friend, either.

Ray didn’t have a choice. Newly hired, he took what was offered to him—and that was a spot in the Criminal Investigation Division, at police headquarters on South Beretania Street in downtown Honolulu. Lieutenant Sampson partnered him with me because I was the only detective working solo.

Sampson called me in to his office, where he introduced me to Ray, then dispatched us to interview Doc Takayama at the morgue about the suspicious death of an elderly man. I drove, Ray in the passenger seat, staring out the window like a tourist, marveling at the palm trees.

The medical examiner’s office is on Iwilei Road, just off Nimitz, in a two–story concrete building with a slight roof overhang. The paint on the exterior is peeling and the landscaping is overgrown–– after all, the dead don’t vote. Alice Kanamura, the laughing receptionist, buzzed us through to Doc’s office, where his diplomas from UH and its medical school shared space with gruesome photos of dismembered corpses Doc had managed to identify.

After I introduced Ray, we all sat and Doc ran the case for us. “Caucasian male, aged 82, discovered by his daughter bleeding from his mouth, rectum and ears, and rushed to The Queen’s Medical Center, where he was diagnosed with an intracranial hemorrhage. He died within twenty-four hours. My autopsy revealed a high level of warfarin, a blood thinner, in his body.”

I asked Doc to spell the medication. “Brand name is Coumadin,” Doc said, and he spelled that, too.

“He have a prescription for it?” Ray asked.

Doc nodded. “He had a heart valve replacement a couple of years ago. Coumadin thins the blood, allows it to flow more freely. Downside is, patient bleeds more easily, so the Coumadin level has to be monitored carefully.”

“Any chance this was accidental?” I asked.

Doc shrugged. “Old folks sometimes mix up their medications. And there have been cases where the pharmacy provided a higher strength than was called for. You’ll have to check with the physician.”

“Why call us?” I asked.

“Something smells fishy. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe it was just an innocent screwup. But I thought somebody ought to check it out.”

We took down all the information Doc could give us, including the name and phone number of the daughter who’d found him. On the way out of the office, I called her and arranged to meet her at her father’s home later that afternoon.

“ME’s kind of young, isn’t he?” Ray asked, as we were getting into my truck. “Looks like he barely graduated high school.”

“That’s why he became the medical examiner,” I said. “Doesn’t have to worry about instilling trust in his patients.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.