Chapter 9

Steve thought that the five day continuing education seminar in Hawaii was interesting and worth attending. The various topics discussed resulted in Steve being brought current in a number of important areas. The food and the facilities of the five star resort Steve was booked into made for a pleasant stay.

Steve had extend his stay here two more days after the seminar ended as Pat Staley only telling Steve he had a daughter still bothered him. He didn’t know why Pat would tell him something that wasn’t true and Steve was going to make one last effort to see if he could confirm what Pat had said.

Steve tried to remember all the things Pat told him about this daughter. Pat had said her name was Lennie and she was married to a Hawaiian Airline pilot who was originally from the mid-west and at one time was a partner in a helicopter sightseeing service. Further that they had adopted two Asian-American children and they lived on Oahu and were pretty well to do. It wasn’t much to go on but that was all the information Steve had.

He started by calling Hawaiian Airlines to see if they could be of help. They were nice and polite but said the privacy laws would prohibit them giving out information on an employee. Further they said they have no way of indexing their employee records by the employee’s spouse’s first name.

Steve then tore out of the yellow pages the listings for the helicopter services on the island and started visiting them. He spoke with a number of the people at these numerous helicopter operations telling them of the information he had and why he was trying to contact Lennie. No one could offer any information as to where Steve could find Lennie.

At the last listing he talked to a young pilot who didn’t know of a Lennie but he suggested to Steve that he try to talk to Cal Rimari who was a retired helicopter mechanic. He said that Cal knew everyone and that he could usually be found at Beachside which was a tavern on the coast about one mile away.

Steven went there and found Cal and bought him a beer. Steve told Cal who he was and who he was looking for. Cal seemed a little wary at first of Steve but when Steve told him that he wanted to find the daughter to tell her that her father had died, Cal warmed to Steve.

Cal said that there was a Craig Davis who once was a partner in a helicopter service and was a pilot for Hawaiian Airlines full time. Cal had heard that Craig had adopted two children but he didn’t know the name of Craig’s wife and was sorry he couldn’t be of more help. He did say that he thought they lived in the Kailua area. Steve bought Cal another beer before he left and thanked him.

As luck would have it there was a listing and an address for Craig Davis in the phone book.

Steve drove to the address and pressed the doorbell button. A lady a few years younger than Steve opened the door. With some nervousness Steve said, ‘Lennie?” and broke into a smile when he saw her nodding her head. He then told her who he was and why he was there.

She invited him in and they had coffee and he told her about Pat and the things he knew about him. Steve told her about Alice and her family and he gave Lennie the contact information. With Lennie’s permission he said he would tell Alice about her.

Lennie said Pat never talked about relatives but their oldest son was graduating from UCLA this spring and when they went to California for the graduation they would make an effort to meet Alice and all the relatives. Lennie thanked Steve for making the effort to find and tell her the sad news of Pat’s passing.

On the flight back home Steve felt good about finding Lennie and about himself for having made the effort.

When he was back from Hawaii he received a phone call from Veronica inviting him to come over for dinner. He could hear in her voice that there was more than just dinner involved and that was fine with him. He could hear also in a remark that she made that she was bothered that he didn’t tell her about the continuing education seminar as she said she would have gone with him to Hawaii. She did say that there still was talk at the hospital about Steve getting Glen Waters to do an operation there and more speculation about what other celebrities Steve knew.