Snow Falling on Cedars (31 page)

On Mill Run Road Mrs. Larsen of Skiff Point ran her husband’s De-Soto into a ditch. Arne Stolbaad overloaded his wood-burning stove and ended up with a chimney fire. The volunteer fire department was called out by a neighbor, but the pumper truck driver, Edgar Paulsen, lost traction on Indian Knob Hill and had to halt to put on tire chains. In the meantime Arne Stolbaad’s chimney fire expired; when the firemen showed up at last he expressed to them his delight at having burned clean the flue creosote.

At three o’clock five school buses left Amity Harbor with their windshield wipers batting ice from the windshields and their headlights casting into the snowfall. High school students walking home hurled snowballs at them; the South Beach bus
slid off the road shoulder just beyond Island Center. The schoolchildren climbed out and walked home in the snow-storm with Johnny Katayama, the bus driver, escorting them from behind. As each child turned off toward home, Johnny handed him or her a half stick of spearmint gum.

A boy on a sled that afternoon broke his ankle against the base of a cedar tree. He had not quite understood how to make the thing turn, and the tree had come up on him suddenly. He’d put his foot out to ward it off.

A retired dentist, old Doc Cable, slipped hard on the way to his firewood shed. Something in his tailbone twisted when he went down, so that Doc Cable winced and curled fetally in the snow. After a while he hauled himself up, lurched inside, and reported to his wife through clenched teeth that he’d injured himself. Sarah put him on the couch with a hot-water bottle, where he took two aspirins and fell asleep.

Two teenagers engaged in a snowball-throwing contest from the dock at Port Jefferson Harbor. The point was to hit a mooring buoy at first, then a piling on the next dock. One of the teenagers, Dan Daniels’s son Scott, took a three-step running start, threw out to sea, then pitched headlong into the salt water. He was out again in five seconds, steam rising off his clothes. Running home, racing through the snowfall, his hair froze into icy tufts.

The citizens of San Piedro made their run on Petersen’s and cleared the shelves of canned goods. They brought so much snow into the store on their boots that one of the box boys, Earl Camp, stayed busy all afternoon with a mop and a towel, cleaning up after them. Einar Petersen took a box of salt from his shelf and spread its contents outside the door, but two customers slipped despite this. Einar decided to offer free coffee to shoppers and asked one of his checkers, Jessica Porter – who was twenty-two and cheerful looking – to stand behind a folding table and serve.

At Fisk’s Hardware Center the citizens of San Piedro bought snow shovels, candles, kerosene, kitchen matches, lined gloves,
and flashlight batteries. The Torgerson brothers sold out their supply of tire chains by three o’clock, as well as most of their ice scrapers and antifreeze. Tom pulled ditched cars free with his freshly painted two-ton wrecker, Dave sold gasoline, batteries, and motor oil and advised his customers to go home and
stay
home. Dozens of islanders stopped in to listen while Dave pumped their gas or put on their tire chains and made grim predictions about the weather. ‘Three-day blow,’ he’d say. ‘Folks’d better be ready.’

By three o’clock the branches of the cedars were loaded down with snow. When the wind came up it blew right through them, whirling flurries to the ground. San Piedro’s strawberry fields became fields of white, as untouched and flawless as desert. The noise of living things was not so much muted as halted – even the seagulls were silenced. Instead there was the wind and the collapse of waves and the withdrawing of the water down the beaches.

Everywhere on San Piedro Island a grimness set in, accompanied by a strained anticipation. Who knew what might happen now that a December storm had started? The homes of these islanders might soon lie in drifts so that only the sloped roofs of the beach cabins would show and only the upper stories of the larger houses. The power might fizzle when the wind blew hard and leave them all in darkness. Their toilets might not flush, their well pumps might not draw, they would live close to their stoves and lanterns. Yet on the other hand the snowstorm might mean a respite, a happy wintertime vacation. Schools would shut down, roads would close, no one would go off to their jobs. Families would eat large breakfasts late, then dress for snow and go out in the knowledge that they’d return to warm, snug houses. Smoke would curl from chimneys; at dusk lights would come on. Lopsided snowmen would stand sentinel in yards. There would be enough to eat, no reason for worry.

Still, those who had lived on the island a long time knew that the storm’s outcome was beyond their control. This storm might well be like others past that had caused them to suffer,
had
killed
even – or perhaps it might dwindle beneath tonight’s stars and give their children snowbound happiness. Who knew? Who could predict? If disaster, so be it, they said to themselves. There was nothing to be done except what could be done. The rest – like the salt water around them, which swallowed the snow without any effort, remaining what it was implacably – was out of their hands, beyond.

When the afternoon recess was over that day, Alvin Hooks called Art Moran again. The sheriff had left the courtroom for two and a half hours in order to contact the volunteer fire department and to call out his volunteer deputies, men who could be counted on in times of trouble. Generally their role was to keep order at the Strawberry Festival and other public occasions; now they would divide up the island terrain according to the locations of their homes and businesses and assist those stranded on the roads.

Art fidgeted in the witness stand for the second time that day. The snowstorm, just now, preoccupied him. He understood that Alvin’s case necessitated his appearing twice at the trial, but on the other hand he wasn’t glad about it. He’d eaten a sandwich during the fifteen-minute recess, sat in Alvin’s office with a piece of wax paper laid across his knees and an apple on the edge of the desk. Hooks had reminded him to tell his story methodically, to pay attention to those minor details that might seem to him irrelevant. Now, on the witness stand, pinching the knot of his tie together and checking the corners of his lips for crumbs, Art waited impatiently while Alvin asked the judge to admit four pieces of rope into evidence. ‘Sheriff Moran,’ Hooks said at last. ‘I have in my hand four lengths of rope of the sort fishermen use for mooring lines. May I ask you to inspect them, please?’

Art took the pieces of rope in his hand and made a show of looking at them carefully. ‘Okay,’ he said after a moment.

‘Do you recognize them?’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘Did you refer to these pieces of mooring line in your report,
Sheriff Moran? Are they the same four referred to in your report?’

‘Yes, they are. They’re the ones I wrote about in my report, Mr. Hooks. These are them.’

The judge admitted the lines as evidence, and Ed Soames put a tag on each. Alvin Hooks put them back in Art’s hands and asked him to explain where he’d found them.

‘Well,’ said the sheriff. ‘This one here, marked with an A, came from the defendant’s boat. It came off the port side cleat, to be exact,
third
cleat up from the stern. It matches all his other mooring lines, you see? Matches ’em all except the one on the port side cleat
second
up from the stern. That’s this one here, the one marked B – that one was new, Mr. Hooks, but the rest were worn. They were all three-strand manila lines with a bowline knotted into one end, pretty well worn down, too. That’s how Mr. Miyamoto kept his mooring lines – bowlined and pretty well worn out, except the one. It was brand-new but had the bowline in it.’

‘And the other two?’ asked Alvin Hooks. “Where did you find them, sheriff?’

‘I found them on Carl Heine’s boat, Mr. Hooks. This one here – the one marked C’ – the sheriff held the line up for the benefit of the jury – ‘is exactly the same as every other line I found on Mr. Heine’s, the deceased’s, boat. You see here? It’s a three-strand manila rope in new condition with a fancy eye braided in at one end – braided in by hand, Mr. Hooks, the way Carl Heine was known to do them. All his lines were braided up in loops, none of them had bowlines.’

‘The fourth line you have there,’ Alvin Hooks pushed on. ‘Where did you find it, sheriff?’

‘Found it on Carl Heine’s boat, too, but it doesn’t match up with the rest of them. Found it on the starboard side, second cleat back from the stern. Peculiar thing is, it
does
match up with the lines I found on board the defendant’s boat. It’s pretty well worn, and it’s got the bowline in it just like the other one I showed you, just like
all
his mooring lines except the new one.
It looks so much like all the others, it’s clear it came from the same set. Worn down just the same.’

‘This line looks like the ones on the defendant’s boat?’

‘Exactly.’

‘But you found it on the deceased’s boat?’

‘That’s right.’

‘On the starboard side, second cleat from the stern?’

‘Yes.’

‘And the defendant’s boat – do I understand this right? – had a new line on the port side, sheriff – again the second cleat from the stem?’

‘That’s right, Mr. Hooks. There was a new line there.’

‘Sheriff,’ Alvin Hooks said. ‘If the defendant had tied up to Carl Heine’s boat would these two cleats in question line up?’

‘You bet they’d line up. And if he – Miyamoto there – had gotten in a hurry to cast off from the deceased’s boat, he could have left a line behind tied off to that second cleat.’

‘I see,’ said Alvin Hooks. ‘Your inference is that he left a line behind, then replaced it with that new one – exhibit B, right there in your hand – replaced it when he got back to the docks.’

‘It is,’ said Art Moran. ‘Exactly. He tied up to Carl’s boat and left a line on it. That seems to me pretty clear.’

‘But sheriff,’ said Alvin Hooks. ‘What led you to investigate the defendant in the first place? Why did you think to look around his boat and to notice something like a new mooring line?’

Art pointed out that his investigation into the death of Carl Heine had led him, quite naturally, to ask questions of Carl’s relatives. He’d gone to see Etta Heine, he said, and explained to her that even in the case of a fishing accident there was a formal investigation to proceed with. Did Carl have any enemies?

After Etta, he said, the path to Ole Jurgensen was clear, and from Ole to Judge Lew Fielding’s chambers: Art had needed a search warrant. He intended to search Kabuo Miyamoto’s boat, the
Islander
, before it left that night for the salmon grounds.

It had been the judge’s bailiff, Ed Soames, who’d answered the door when Art Moran knocked at five after five on the evening of the sixteenth and asked to see Lew Fielding. The bailiff wore his coat and held his lunchbox in his hand; he’d been on his way out, he explained; the judge was still working at his desk.

‘This about Carl Heine?’ inquired Ed.

‘I guess you heard,’ the sheriff answered. ‘But, no, this isn’t about him. And if you go down to the cafe and say it is, you know what? You’ll be wrong, Ed.’

‘I’m not that way,’ said the bailiff. ‘Maybe others are, but I’m not.’

‘’Course you’re not,’ said Art Moran.

The bailiff knocked at the door to the judge’s chambers, then opened it and said that the sheriff was present on business he wished to keep private. ‘All right,’ answered the judge. ‘Send him in.’

The bailiff held the door open for Art Moran and stood aside to let him pass. ‘Good night, judge,’ he said. ‘See you in the morning.’

‘Good night, Ed,’ the judge replied. ‘Could you lock up on your way out, please? The sheriff here is my last visitor.’

‘Will do,’ said Ed Soames, and shut the door.

The sheriff sat and adjusted his legs. He set his hat on the floor. The judge waited patiently until he heard the lock click. Then he looked the sheriff in the eye for the first time. ‘Carl Heine,’ he said.

‘Carl Heine,’ the sheriff answered.

Lew Fielding put his pen down. ‘A man with kids, with a wife,’ he said.

‘I know,’ Art answered. ‘I went out this morning and told Susan Marie about it. Christ,’ he added bitterly.

Lew Fielding nodded. He sat morosely with his elbows on his desk, cradling his chin in his hands. As always he looked to be on the verge of sleep; his eyes were those of a basset hound. His cheeks were creviced, his forehead furrowed, his silver eyebrows grew in fat tufts. Art remembered when he had been more spry, remembered him pitching horseshoes at the Strawberry Festival. The judge in his suspenders with his sleeves rolled up, squinting and half bent over.

‘How is she?’ the judge asked. ‘Susan Marie?’

‘Not good,’ Art Moran replied.

Lew Fielding looked at him and waited. Art picked his hat up, set it in his lap, and began fiddling with its brim. ‘Anyway, I came down to get you to sign a warrant. I want to search Kabuo Miyamoto’s boat, maybe his house, too – I’m not sure yet.’

‘Kabuo Miyamoto,’ the judge said. ‘What are you looking for?’

‘Well,’ the sheriff answered, leaning forward. ‘I’ve got these
concerns
, judge. Five of ’em altogether. Number one, I’ve got men telling me Miyamoto worked the same waters Carl did last night when this thing happened. Number two, I’ve got Etta Heine saying Miyamoto and her son were enemies from way back – an old dispute over land. Three, I’ve got a piece of mooring line somebody left on Carl’s boat wrapped around one of the cleats; seems like he could have been boarded, maybe, and I want to take a look at Miyamoto’s mooring lines. Four, I’ve got Ole Jurgensen claiming both Carl and Miyamoto were out to see him recently ’bout buying his property, which Ole sold to Carl.’ Cording to Ole, Miyamoto went away hopping mad. Said he was going to have a talk with Carl. And, well, maybe he did. At sea. And things … got out of hand.’

‘And what’s the fifth?’ asked Lew Fielding.

‘Fifth?’

‘You claimed to have five categories of cause. I’ve heard four. What’s the fifth?’

‘Oh,’ said Art Moran. ‘Horace did a … pretty thorough autopsy. There’s a bad wound in the side of Carl’s head. And Horace said something interesting about it that fits in with what I’m hearing from Ole. And from Etta, too, for that matter. Said he’d seen wounds like this one during the war. Said the Japs made ’em with their gun butts. Said they were trained to fight with sticks from the time they were kids. They were trained in
kendo
, Horace called it. And one of these
kendo
blows, I guess, would leave the kind of wound Carl has. Now at the time I didn’t make nothing of it. I didn’t even think of it when some of the guys down at the docks said Miyamoto’d been out on Ship Channel Bank last night – same place as Carl. Didn’t even occur to me then. But I did think of it this afternoon when Etta told ’bout all the problems she’d had with Miyamoto, and I thought about it even more after Ole Jurgensen said his piece. And I decided I’d better follow this lead through and search Miyamoto’s boat, Judge. Just in case. See what signs there are, if any.’