Snow Falling on Cedars (45 page)

Josiah worked on his mustache again; it was a habit of his when he was thinking. ‘’Thout going into too much detail, I guess it was always some fellow was broke down. Some fellow had engine problems or couldn’t run and needed help. Or – all right now – there was one fellow needed a hand with things on account of he’d broke his hip, I believe it was. I tied up and boarded on that one, too. Helped him out, got things squared away. But ’thout going into too much detail, you board, see, in an emergency. You board if a fellow needs a hand.’

‘You board if a fellow needs a hand,’ said Nels. ‘In your thirty years of gill-netting, Mr. Gillanders, have you ever boarded another man’s boat for some reason other than an emergency? For some reason other than the fact that the fellow on the other boat, as you say, needs a hand?’

‘Never,’ said Josiah. ‘Fishing’s fishing. Let ’em fish and don’t bother me neither. We all got work to do.’

‘Yes,’ said Nels. ‘And in your thirty years of gill-netting, sir, and in your capacity as president of the association – as a man who reviews, I would presume, various incidents between gill-netters at sea – have you ever heard of a boarding for a reason other than an emergency? Can you recall any such thing?’

‘Doesn’t happen,’ said Josiah. ‘Unwritten rule of the sea, Mr. Gudmundsson. Code of honor among fishermen. You keep to yourself and I’ll keep to myself. We got nothing to say to one another out there. We’re busy working, got no time for jawing, can’t sit on the deck drinking rum and telling stories while someone else hauls fish. No, you don’t board for no other reason than a good one – other guy’s in need, he’s got an emergency, his engine ain’t running, his leg’s broke. Then, go on ahead and board.’

‘You don’t suppose, then,’ Nels asked, ‘that the defendant here, Mr. Miyamoto, would have boarded Carl Heine’s boat on September 16 for any reason other than to help him in an emergency? Does that make sense to you?’

‘I never heard of no boarding for no other reason, if that’s what you’re asking, Mr. Gudmundsson. Only kind I know about is what I said – a man’s got engine problems, his leg’s broke.’

Nels set himself down precariously against the edge of the defendant’s table. With a forefinger he attempted to check the erratic movement of his bad eye, but to no avail; it continued. ‘Mr. Gillanders,’ he said. ‘Isn’t it tricky to tie up at sea? Even in calm weather, in good light?’

‘A bit,’ said Josiah. ‘It can be.’

‘A night tie-up on open water? Can this be done speedily, in the manner of an attack? Could a man who wanted to
make a boarding against another’s will even do so? Is it possible?’

‘Never heard of it,’ replied Josiah, throwing up his hands. ‘Two willing skippers helps mightily, yes. Takes a bit of maneuvering, you see. Tying up against another man’s will – I’d think that impossible, Mr. Gudmundsson. I never heard of no such thing.’

‘You’ve never heard of one gill-netter boarding another’s boat against his will, sir? You see such an act as physically impossible? Is that an accurate summary of what you’ve told us? Am I getting all of this right?’

‘You’re getting it right,’ Josiah Gillanders said. ‘Can’t be done. The other man’d throw you off. Wouldn’t let you line up, tie off.’

‘Only in an emergency,’ said Nels. ‘There’d be no other logical reason for boarding. Is that correct, Mr. Gillanders?’

‘That’s correct. Emergency boardings. I never heard of no other kind.’

‘Supposing you wanted to kill a man,’ Nels said emphatically. ‘Do you think you’d try boarding his boat against his will and hitting him with your fishing gaff? You’re a man with many years of experience at sea, so I’m asking you to imagine this. Would that plan be a sensible one, a good one, in your estimation, sir? Would you think it workable to tie up to his boat and board him for the purpose of committing murder? Or would you try something else, some other approach, something other than a forced boarding in the fog on the open sea, in the middle of the night, against the other man’s will – what do you think, Mr. Gillanders?’

‘You couldn’t board him if he didn’t want you to,’ Josiah answered. ‘I just don’t see that happening. Carl Heine in particular. He wouldn’t be an easy man to board against – darn tough, big, and strong. There’s just no way, Mr. Gudmundsson, that Miyamoto here could have made a forced boarding. It just isn’t possible. He didn’t do that.’

‘It isn’t possible,’ Nels said. ‘In your estimation, as a veteran
gillnetter, as president of the San Piedro Gill – Netters Association, it isn’t possible that the defendant boarded Carl Heine’s boat for the purpose of committing murder? The problem of a forced boarding precludes that – makes it impossible?’

‘Miyamoto there didn’t board Carl Heine against his will,’ Josiah Gillanders said. ‘Tie-up’s too tricky, and Carl was no slouch. Had to be, if he boarded at all, some kind of emergency, engine problem or something. Battery, that’s what his missus said. Carl had battery problems.’

‘All right,’ said Nels. ‘Battery problems. Let’s say you had a battery problem. You couldn’t run. No lights. You’re dead in the water. What would you do about it, Mr. Gillanders? Would you, say, put a spare in?’

‘Don’t carry a spare,’ Josiah answered. ‘Be like carrying a spare in your car. Just doesn’t happen much, does it?’

‘But, Mr. Gillanders,’ said Nels Gudmundsson. ‘If you will recall from the county sheriff’s testimony, as well as from his written report, there was, in fact, a spare on board Carl Heine’s boat when it was found adrift in White Sand Bay. There was a D-8 and a D-6 in his battery well, in use, and a D-8 sitting on the floor of his cabin – a third battery, albeit dead, which might presumably be thought of as a spare.’

‘Well,’ said Josiah. ‘All of that’s mighty strange. Three batteries – that’s mighty strange. A dead spare – that’s mighty strange, too. Everybody I know runs off two batteries, a main and the other, an auxiliary. One goes bad you can run off the other ’til you get to the docks again. And something else here, a D-8 and a D-6 side by side in the well – I never heard of that before neither, in all my time on the water. I never heard of no such arrangement – a guy ’d use just one size battery – and I don’t think Carl Heine would’ve run that way, you see, so irregular and all. I think Mrs. Miyamoto there had it true – Carl had battery problems, probably pulled his D-8, set it on his cabin floor dead, and borrowed a D-6 from Miyamoto, who ran off his other the rest of the night – that’s the most likely explanation.’

‘I see,’ said Nels. ‘Say you’re dead in the water and in need of help. What would be your next move?’

‘I’d get on the radio,’ said Josiah. ‘Or I’d hail somebody in sight distance. Or if my net was set and I was doing all right I’d wait for somebody to come into sight distance and hail them at that point.’

‘Your first choice would be the radio?’ Nels asked. ‘You’d call for help on your radio? But if your battery’s dead do you even
have
a radio? What’s powering it, Mr. Gillanders, sir, what’s powering your radio if you have no battery? Can you really put a call out on your radio?’

‘You’re right,’ said Josiah Gillanders. ‘Radio’s dead. I can’t call. You’re dead to rights.’

‘So what do you do?’ Nels asked. ‘You hail someone, if it isn’t too foggy. But if it is foggy, as it was on the night Carl Heine drowned – sometime on the morning of September 16, a very foggy morning, you might recall – well then, you have to hope – don’t you? – that someone passes closely by, and you have to hail whoever it is, because the chances of your seeing another boat are not too good, are they? You have to take whatever help comes along because otherwise you’re in big trouble.’

‘You’re straight all the way,’ said Josiah Gillanders. ‘Spot like that, you’d better get some help, drifting along in the fog and all, right up next to the shipping lanes out there at Ship Channel Bank. Dangerous spot to be dead in the water. Big freighters come right through all the time. You’d better get yourself some help if you can – whoever, like you say, shows up out of the fog when you start blowing on your horn. All right, I’m ahead of you on this one,’ Josiah added. ‘Carl’d have aboard a compressed-air horn, see. He didn’t need no battery to give his emergency blow. He’d be out there with his hand horn blowing away. He didn’t need no battery to blow his horn.’

‘Well,’ said Nels. ‘All right then. He’s drifting in the fog near the shipping lanes, no engine, no lights, no radio, no spare battery – do you think he would welcome it if help came along?
Do you think he’d be thankful if another gill-netter came along and offered to tie up to him, help him out?’

‘Of course,’ said Josiah. ‘Sure he’d welcome it. He’s stranded at sea, he can’t get under way, he can’t even bring his net in, pick fish. He’d better be pretty damn thankful, you bet. If he isn’t, he’s off his rocker.’

‘Mr. Gillanders.’ Nels coughed into his hand. ‘I want you to think back to a question I asked you just a few moments ago, sir. I want you to ponder this matter of murder – of first-degree murder, premeditated. Of planning to kill someone in advance of the fact, then executing the following strategy: approaching your victim while he fished at sea, tying up to his boat against his will, leaping aboard, and hitting him in the head with the butt of a fishing gaff. I want to ask you – I’m asking you again – from the perspective of a man who has been fishing for thirty years, from the perspective of the gill-netters association president – a man who presumably hears about almost everything that happens out there on the sea at night – would you, sir, consider this a good plan? Is this the plan a fisherman would make if he wanted to kill someone?’

Josiah Gillanders shook his head as if offended. ‘That, Mr. Gudmundsson,’ he said emphatically, ‘would be the most cockeyed procedure imaginable. Absolutely the most cockeyed, see. If one fellow wanted to kill another he could find a way less foolhardy and dangerous, I guess you’d have to say. Boardin’ another man’s boat against his will – that, I’ve told you, isn’t possible. Leapin’ at him with a fishing gaff? That’s just laughable, sir. That’s pirates and stories and such like. I guess if you could get close enough to tie up – you couldn’t – you’d also be close enough to shoot him, wouldn’t you? Just shoot him, you see, then tie up to him real easy, then toss him overboard and wash your hands. He’s going down hard to the bottom of the sea and twon’t be seen again. I’d shoot him, I would, and skip being the first gill-netter in the history of the profession to make a successful forced boarding. No, sir, if there’s anyone in this court thinks Kabuo Miyamoto there boarded Carl Heine’s
boat against his will, bashed him in the head with a fishing gaff, and tossed him over-board – well, they’re just daft, that’s all. You’d have to be daft to believe that.’

‘All right, then,’ Nels said. ‘I have no further questions for you, Mr. Gillanders. I thank you, however, for coming down here this morning. It’s snowing hard outside.’

‘It’s snowing hard, yes,’ said Josiah. ‘But it sure is warm in here, Mr. Gudmundsson. It’s mighty warm for Mr. Hooks there, in fact. It – ’

‘Your witness,’ interrupted Nels Gudmundsson. He sat down next to Kabuo Miyamoto and put his hand on Kabuo’s shoulder. ‘I’m all through, Mr. Hooks,’ he said.

‘Well then, I suppose it’s my turn,’ Alvin Hooks answered calmly. ‘I have just a few questions, Mr. Gillanders. Just a few things we need to turn about in all this heat – is that all right with you sir?’

Josiah shrugged and clasped his hands over his belly.’ Turn ’em then,’ he advised. ‘I’m all ears, cap’n.’

Alvin Hooks stood and strolled casually to the witness box with his hands deep in his trousers pockets. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘Mr. Gillanders. You’ve been fishing for thirty years.’

‘That’s right, sir. Thirty. Count ’em.’

‘Thirty years is a long time,’ said Alvin Hooks. ‘A lot of lonely nights at sea, yes? Plenty of time to think.’

‘Landlubber might see it as lonely, I s’pose. A man like you might get lonely out there – a man who talks for a living. I – ’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Alvin Hooks. ‘I’m a landlubber, Mr. Gillanders. I’m the sort of man who would feel lonely at sea – all of that’s true, yes. Fine, fine, perfectly fine – my personal life is out of the way, then. So let’s talk about the case instead and skip these other matters for just right now – would that be all right with you, sir?’

‘You’re calling the shots here,’ said Josiah Gillanders. ‘Ask me whatever you want to ask me and let’s be done with it.’

Alvin Hooks passed in front of the jurors with his hands clasped at the small of his back neatly. ‘Mr. Gillanders,’ he
said. ‘I understood you to say earlier that no gill-netter would board another’s boat except in the case of an emergency. Is this correct, sir? Did I hear you right?’

‘Correct,’ said Josiah Gillanders. ‘You got me.’

‘Is it a matter of principle among gill-netters, then, to help out another in distress? That is, Mr. Gillanders, would you consider yourself duty bound to assist a fellow fisherman in an emergency at sea of some sort? Is that about the size of it?’

‘We’re men of honor,’ said Josiah Gillanders. ‘We fish alone but we work together. There’s times at sea when we need each other, see? Any man worth his salt out there is going to come to the aid of his neighbor. It’s the law of the sea – you bet it is – to put away whatever you’re doin’ and answer any distress call. I can’t think of a single fisherman on this island who wouldn’t make it his business to help another man in an emergency out there on the water. It’s a law, see – not written anywhere exactly, but just as good as something written. Gill-netters help each other.’

‘But Mr. Gillanders,’ said Alvin Hooks. ‘We’ve heard here in previous testimony, sir, that gill-netters don’t always get along very well, they’re silent men who fish alone, they argue about the placement of their boats at sea, about who is stealing fish from who, and so forth, et cetera, et cetera. They’re not known to be particularly friendly men, and they prefer to fish alone, keep their distance. Now, sir, even with all of this – with this atmosphere of isolation, of competition, of disregard for the company of others – is it fair to say that a gill-netting man will always help another in an emergency? Even if he doesn’t like the other man, even if they have argued in the past, even if they are enemies? Does all of that get pushed aside, become suddenly irrelevant, in the face of distress at sea? Or do men harbor grudges and ignore one another, even take pleasure in the difficulties of a stranded enemy – illuminate us, sir.’