Snow Falling on Cedars (46 page)

‘Bah,’ said Josiah. ‘We’re good men through and through. Don’t matter what sort of scrap there’s been, we help each other, that’s the way we do things – why, a man’ll even help
his enemy. We all know that someday we could need a hand, too; we all know we’re subject to grief, see. Much as you get fried with someone else, much as he gets under your skin, you don’t just let him drift away – that’d be plain sour, wouldn’t it? We help each other in an emergency, it don’t matter what else is going on.’

‘Well then,’ said Alvin Hooks. ‘We’ll take you at your word, Mr. Gillanders, and move on to other matters. We’ll take you at your word that even enemies help each other in an emergency at sea. Now, did I understand you to say earlier that a forced boarding at sea was impossible? That conditions prevent a gill-netting man from boarding the boat of another gill-netter unless there is mutual consent? Unless the two of them agree and work together? Is that, sir, also correct? Did I understand you clearly on this?’

‘You got me plain,’ said Josiah Gillanders. ‘That’s exactly what I said – you won’t see no forced boardings.’

‘Well,’ said Alvin Hooks. ‘Mr. Gudmundsson here, my esteemed colleague for the defense, asked you earlier to imagine a scenario at sea in which one man seeks to kill another in a premeditated fashion. He asked you to imagine a forced boarding, a leap, a thrust of a fishing gaff. You, sir, said it wasn’t possible. You said such a murder couldn’t happen.’

‘It’s a sea yarn if it includes a forced boarding, and that’s that. It’s a pirate story and that’s all.’

‘All right, then,’ said Alvin Hooks. ‘I’ll ask you to imagine another scenario – you tell me if it sounds plausible. If this sort of thing could have happened, sir, or if it’s just another sea yarn.’

Alvin Hooks began to pace again, and as he paced he looked at each juror. ‘Number one,’ he began. ‘The defendant here, Mr. Miyamoto, decides he wishes to kill Carl Heine. Is that part plausible – so far?’

‘Sure,’ Josiah answered. ‘If you say so.’

‘Number two,’ said Alvin Hooks. ‘He goes out to fish on September 15. There’s a bit of mist but no real fog yet, so he has no trouble motoring out within sight distance of his intended
victim, Carl Heine. He follows him out to Ship Channel Bank – how’s all of that, so far?’

‘I guess,’ said Josiah Gillanders.

‘Number three then,’ continued Alvin Hooks. ‘He watches Carl Heine set his net. He sets his own not too far off, deliberately up current, and fishes until late in the evening. Now the fog comes in thick and strong, a big fog, obscuring everything from sight. He can’t see anything or anybody, but he knows where Carl Heine is, two hundred yards off, down current in the fog. It’s late now, two
A.M.
The water is very quiet. He has listened over his radio while other men have motored off to fish at Elliot Head. He is not sure how many are still in the area, but he knows it can’t be more than a handful. And so Mr. Miyamoto at last makes his move. He hauls in his net, cuts his motor, makes sure his trusty fishing gaff is handy, and drifts down current toward Carl Heine, perhaps even blowing his foghorn. He drifts nearly right into Carl, it seems, and lies to him, says his engine is dead. Now you tell me – you told us earlier – wouldn’t Carl Heine feel bound to help him?’

‘Sea yarn,’ Josiah Gillanders spat. ‘But a ripping good one. Go ahead.’

‘Wouldn’t Carl Heine feel bound to help him? As you said earlier – men help their enemies? Wouldn’t Carl Heine have helped?’

‘Yes, he’d have helped. Go ahead.’

‘Wouldn’t the two men have tied their boats together? Wouldn’t you have the mutual consent necessary – an emergency situation, even if feigned – for a successful tie-up at sea? Wouldn’t you, Mr. Gillanders?’

Josiah nodded. ‘You would,’ he answered. ‘Yes.’

‘And at this point, sir, in the scenario, could the defendant not – a trained
kendo
master, remember, a man proficient at killing with a stick, lethal and experienced at stick fighting – could the defendant not have leapt aboard and killed Carl Heine with a hard blow to the skull, hard enough to crack it open? As
opposed to doing the job with a gunshot? Which potentially – which might – be heard across the water by somebody else out there fishing? Am I, sir, still plausible? Does my scenario sound plausible to a man of your expertise? Is all of that, sir, plausible?’

‘It could have happened,’ said Josiah Gillanders. ‘But I don’t much think it did.’

‘You don’t much think it did,’ said Alvin Hooks. ‘Your opinion is otherwise, it appears. But on what do you base your opinion, sir? You have not denied that my scenario is plausible. You have not denied that this premeditated murder might have happened in precisely the fashion I have just described, have you, Mr. Gillanders –
have
you?’

‘No, I haven’t,’ Josiah said. ‘But – ’

‘No further questions,’ said Alvin Hooks. ‘The witness can sit down. The witness can sit in the pleasant warmth of the gallery. I have no further questions.’

‘Bah,’ said Josiah Gillanders. But the judge held his hand up, and Josiah, seeing this, left the stand carrying his hat between his fingers.

The storm winds battered the courtroom windows and rattled them in their casements so vigorously it seemed the glass would break. For three days and nights the citizens in the gallery had listened to the wind beat against their houses and echo violently inside their ears as they struggled against it to make their way to and from the courthouse. They had not at all grown accustomed to it. They were habituated to the sea winds that blew across the island each spring when the mud was up and the rain fell steadily, but a wind of this magnitude, so frigid and elemental, remained foreign to them. It seemed improbable that a wind should blow so consistently for days on end. It made them irritable and impatient. The snow was one thing, falling as it did, but the whine of the storm, the stinging force of it against their faces – everyone wished unconsciously that it would come to an end and grant them peace. They were tired of listening to it.

Kabuo Miyamoto, the accused man, had not heard the wind at all from his cell, not even a murmur of it. He had no inkling of the storm outside except when Abel Martinson led him up the stairs – handcuffed for his journey to Judge Fielding’s courtroom – so that emerging into the twilight of the courthouse’s ground floor he felt the wind shaking the building. And he saw through the windows in each of the stairwells how the snow fell hard out of a glowering sky and boiled, borne by the wind. The cold, cottony light of a winter storm was something he gave thanks for after living without windows for seventy-seven days. Kabuo had passed the preceding night wrapped in blankets – his concrete cell was especially cold – and pacing and shivering endlessly. The deputy appointed to
watch him through the dark hours – a retired sawyer named William Stenesen – had shone a flashlight on him just before midnight and inquired if he was faring well. Kabuo had asked for extra blankets and a glass of tea, if possible. ‘I’ll see about that,’ William Stenesen had answered. ‘But Jesus, man, if you hadn’t gotten yourself into this mess, neither of us would be here in the first place.’

And so Kabuo had pondered the mess he’d indeed gotten himself into. For when Nels Gudmundsson had asked for his side of the story after their chess game two and a half months ago he’d stuck with the lie he’d told Sheriff Moran: he didn’t know anything about it, he’d insisted, and this had deepened his problems. Yes, he’d spoken with Carl about the seven acres, yes, he’d had an argument with Etta Heine, yes, he’d gone to see Ole. No, he hadn’t seen Carl out at Ship Channel Bank on the night of September 15. He had no idea what had happened to Carl and could offer no explanation to anyone, no information about Carl’s drowning. He, Kabuo, had fished through the night, then gone home and gone to bed, that was all there was to it. That was all he’d had to say.

Nels Gudmundsson, in the beginning, had been satisfied with this and seemed to take him at his word. But then he came again on the following morning with a yellow legal pad tucked beneath his arm and, a cigar between his teeth, settled down on Kabuo’s bed. The cigar ashes fell into the lap of his pants, but he did not seem to mind or notice, and Kabuo felt sorry for him. His back was bent and his hands trembled. ‘The sheriff’s report,’ he said with a sigh. ‘I read it, Kabuo. The whole thing.’

‘What does it say?’ Kabuo asked.

‘It contains a few facts I’m concerned about,’ said Nels, pulling a pen from his coat pocket. ‘I hope you won’t mind if I ask you, once more, to give me your side of the story. Can you do that for me, Kabuo? Tell me everything all over again? Your story about the seven acres, et cetera? Everything that happened?’

Kabuo moved to the door of his cell and put his eye to the
opening. ‘You don’t believe what I’ve told you,’ he said softly. ‘You think I’m lying, don’t you.’

‘The blood on your fishing gaff,’ Nels Gudmundsson replied. ‘They had it tested in Anacortes. It matches Carl Heine’s blood type.’

‘I don’t know anything about it,’ said Kabuo. ‘I told that to the sheriff and I’m telling it to you. I don’t know anything about it.’

‘Another thing,’ insisted Nels, pointing his pen at Kabuo. ‘They found one of your mooring lines on Carl’s boat. Wrapped around a cleat on the
Susan Marie.
One of your lines, clearly, they say. Matched all your other lines with the exception of a new one. That’s in the report, too.’

‘Oh,’ said Kabuo, but nothing more.

‘Look,’ said Nels Gudmundsson. ‘I can’t help you with this unless I know the truth. I can’t build a case around an answer like “oh” when I’ve brought to your attention such damning evidence as your mooring line being found by the sheriff of Island County on the boat of a suspiciously dead fisherman. What good can I do you if all I get is “oh”? How am I going to help you, Kabuo? You’ve got to level with me, that’s all there is to it. Otherwise, I can’t help you.’

‘I’ve told you the truth,’ said Kabuo. He turned around and faced his attorney, an old man with one eye and trembling hands, appointed to his case because he, Kabuo, had refused to honor the prosecutor’s point of view by purchasing his own defense. ‘We talked about my family’s land, I argued with his mother years ago, I went to see Ole, I went to see Carl, and that was the end of it. I’ve said what I have to say.’

‘The mooring line,’ Nels Gudmundsson repeated. ‘The mooring line and the blood on the fishing gaff. I – ’

‘I can’t explain those things,’ insisted Kabuo. ‘I don’t know anything about them.’

Nels nodded and stared at him, and Kabuo held his gaze. ‘You could hang, you know,’ Nels said bluntly. ‘There’s no attorney
in the world who can help you with this if you’re not going to tell the truth.’

And the next morning Nels had come yet again, carrying a manila folder. He smoked his cigar and paced the length of the cell with the folder tucked beneath his arm. ‘I’ve brought you the sheriffs report,’ he said, ‘so you can see exactly what we’re up against. Problem is, once you read the thing, you may decide to concoct a
new
story – you may pretend you want to level with me by concocting a more defensible lie. Once you’ve read this report, Kabuo, you can make something up that’s consistent with it and I’ll go ahead and work with that, mainly because I’ll have no choice. I don’t like that. I’d rather it didn’t turn out that way. I’d rather know I can trust you. So before you read what’s in that thing, tell me a story that squares with its details and exonerate yourself in my eyes. Tell me the story you should have told the sheriff right off the bat, when it wasn’t too late, when the truth might still have given you your freedom. When the truth might have done you some good.’

Kabuo, at first, said nothing. But then Nels dropped the manila folder on the mattress, dropped it and stood directly over him. ‘It’s because you’re from Japanese folks,’ he said softly; it was more a question than a statement. ‘You figure because you’re from Japanese folks nobody will believe you anyway.’

‘I’ve got a right to think that way. Or maybe you’ve forgotten that a few years back the government decided it couldn’t trust any of us and shipped us out of here.’

‘That’s true,’ said Nels. ‘But – ’

‘We’re sly and treacherous,’ Kabuo said. ‘You can’t trust a Jap, can you? This island’s full of strong feelings, Mr. Gudmundsson, people who don’t often speak their minds but hate on the inside all the same. They don’t buy their berries from our farms, they won’t do business with us. You remember when somebody pitched rocks through all the windows at Sumida’s greenhouses last summer? Well, now there’s a fisherman everybody liked well enough who’s dead and drowned in his net. They’re going
to figure it makes sense a Jap killed him. They’re going to want to see me hang no matter what the truth is.’

‘There are laws,’ said Nels. ‘They apply equally to everyone. You’re entitled to a fair trial.’

‘There are men,’ said Kabuo, ‘who hate me. They hate anyone who looks like the soldiers they fought. That’s what I’m doing here.’

‘Tell the truth,’ Nels said. ‘Decide to tell the truth before it’s too late.’

Kabuo lay down on his bed with a sigh and twined his fingers behind his head. ‘The truth,’ he said. ‘The truth isn’t easy.’

‘Just the same,’ Nels said. ‘I understand how you feel. There are the things that happened, though, and the things that did not happen. That’s all we’re talking about.’

It seemed to Kabuo a lushly textured dream, fogbound, still, and silent. He thought about it often in his darkened cell, and the smallest details were large for him and every word was audible.

On the night in question he’d checked the
Islander’s
engine oil and quickly greased the net drum’s reel drive before putting out for Ship Channel Bank in the hour just before dusk. Ship Channel, he’d understood, had been fished hard and happily on two consecutive evenings. He’d spoken to Lars Hansen and Jan Sorensen about it and made the decision to fish at Ship Channel on account of their information. The silvers were running in immense schools, they said, mostly on the flood tide. There were fish to be had on the ebb tide, too, though nowhere near as many. It would be possible to take two hundred or more working the flood alone, Kabuo hoped, and perhaps a hundred more on the ebb if he was lucky – and luck, he knew, was what he needed. Elliot Head, on the previous night, had barely covered his costs. He’d come away with eighteen fish and had furthermore set his net in the dark beside a large and labyrinthine kelp island. The tide drift had taken him down into the kelp, and he’d wasted four hours extricating himself so as not to rip his gill
net. Now, tonight, he would have to do better. He would need to have fortune on his side.