Toward Night's End (12 page)

“And you saw it? You were a witness?”

“No,” Tsuneko replied, taken aback. “I was at market that morning.”

“Who was here? Who saw the accident happen?” Johnstone asked anxiously. He looked at George. “You?”

George shrugged. “No one. We weren’t open yet.”

“What happened? When he cut it off? He go to a hospital?”

George didn’t respond, but his sister did, saying, “He went to Dr. Nakashima.”

“A doctor right here?”

“Two blocks over,” Tsuneko said. “It was just an accident.”

Suddenly the older woman spoke up, in rapid Japanese. Not comprehending, Johnstone looked to Tsuneko.

Tsuneko hesitated, then said, “My aunt, she say Sean good chef. Sushi chef. We no understand how he make mistake.”

“Cutting his finger, you mean?”

She nodded. “He so good with knife. How he have such accident? Strange.”

Yes, it is, thought Johnstone. Very strange, indeed.

The wind and rain were unrelenting as the trawler continued to take on water at a rapid pace. The stern had begun to submerge below the surface during the last hour, and now it was all but gone. Matthew was at the helm holding onto the large steering wheel not to navigate the boat, but simply to keep his footing on the sloped deck. The day had turned dark, almost like night, and all he could see was rising ocean swells in every direction. He tried to estimate how far from land he was, but he knew it was just a guess. What he also knew was that it was time to abandon ship

He left the wheelhouse and went below deck to gather what he could. The angle of the deck seemed even more pitched below deck, than above, but he knew that was probably his imagination. The main cabin had at least 15 inches of water now as he sloshed his way up the incline to the galley. He was able to retrieve a gallon of drinking water. There was only a quarter pound of cured meat available, but he pocketed it, then went topside.

Fighting the blustering wind, he managed to get to the bow where the small dinghy lay on its side, lashed to the starboard side rails. He put down the gallon jug and went about unfastening the dinghy. But as the wind, rain, and seawater slapped over the deck, Matthew found it extremely difficult to untie the lines. He soon gave up and just took out a small knife from his rain slicker pocket and cut the lines free.

He realized that he had never lowered the dinghy before. There had never been a reason to. A gust of wind forced him back a few steps, but he quickly came back. He placed the water jug securely under the wood plank that served as a seat and tied it in place with a cut mooring line. He checked that the old rowing paddles were securely fastened to the side clamps and looped two more mooring lines through the dinghy’s bow and stern cleats so he could lower it over the side.

Taking a last look around, he saw that the two five-gallon diesel drums the fisherman had helped him lash to the starboard rear rail couldn’t even be seen now. He thought about his father and how sad he would be to see his beloved trawler foundering.

Using all his strength, he grabbed the inside rails of the dinghy and lifted it overhead. The old wooden boat was heavy. He staggered under its weight and made it to the rail. Suddenly a blustering gust of wind pulled it from his grasp as if it were no more than a matchstick. He could only watch as the dinghy cartwheeled across the water, end over end, until a rogue wave slapped it down.

Once again, he looked toward the wheelhouse and stern. The trawler would be at the bottom in a matter of minutes. There was no point in staying on board. He tried to spot the dinghy through the driving rain, but the soaring swells obscured his view. He knew he had no choice. He scrambled over the starboard rail and dove into the freezing water.

Chet Mortenson was a man ahead of his time. Like the chief medical examiners that would come after him, he knew that the dead could still tell you something about how their deaths occurred. It was simply a matter of analyzing the evidence. He and Johnstone now stood on either side of a metal table where Tom Bollgen’s body lay naked, face up. Mortenson held up Tom’s hands, showing them to Johnstone. “Skin is broken on both wrists, both in the same area,” Mortenson said.

“What does it mean?” the detective asked.

“He was bound. Hands tied together.” Mortenson moved down to the end of the table. He raised Tom’s right leg. “Hard to see, but there are signs that he was similarly bound just above the ankles. His socks and pants make it hard to say for sure, but that’s my guess.”

“So he was tied up?”

“He didn’t take it without a fight,” Mortenson explained, moving back to the middle of the table. Holding up the right hand, he said, “He fought someone. Scraped knuckles, bruising.”

He put the hand down and pointed to Tom’s nose with a pencil. “Nasal bones were broken in three different places.”

“Geez,” Johnstone said.

“Yeah, someone probably pretty powerful. Or, it is possible he got into a car accident. I’ve seen this type of injury from a car accident. Hitting the steering wheel with blunt force,” Dr. Mortenson explained.

“But the hand wounds mean he was fighting back, which rules out an accident,” Johnstone said. “Plus, you think he was tied up.”

“Right,” the doctor replied, his face close to Tom’s, inspecting the damage. “This nose would have needed extensive surgery, if possible. Many people would just put ice on it, but in this case the cartilage even broke.”

“That typical of a broken nose?”

“Not really,” the doctor explained. “The cartilage is like celery, it will bend quite a bit, but if it is bent with tremendous force, it will snap and break. Both his upper and lower lateral cartilages were snapped.”

“Which tells you?” Johnstone asked.

“He didn’t win the fight,” Mortenson replied. Johnstone knew the medical examiner wasn’t trying to be funny. Just honest. Mortenson continued, saying, “Tried to fight off his attacker, but no luck. Also, this is just a guess, but I’d say the attacker was standing over him. Either this guy was on the ground, or the attacker was on some elevated platform.”

“Why do you say that?”

“As I said, it’s a guess. But the way the lateral cartilage was broken, it looks like the angle had to be from above. He could’ve been on the ground, just got pummeled. As for the eye, I doubt he even could see much out of it. Had partial retinal detachment.”

“But then the attacker decides to shoot him,” Johnstone pointed out.

“Not at the same time, of that I’m sure.” He went to a nearby side table and picked up a tiny fragment with tweezers, showing it to Johnstone. “When I looked into the eye injury, I found this.”

Johnstone looked at the minuscule particle. “What is it?”

“Wood. Probably cedar.”

This got Johnstone’s attention. “He was found on Bainbridge Island.”

“Where they have cedar trees, I know. But here’s what’s interesting. In the chest wound, I found some other fragments.” Moving to another table, he picked up a small, thin stalk with the tweezers. “Hay.”

Johnstone didn’t follow the doctor’s line of thinking. “Okay.”

“I think he was in a wooded area when he was beaten up. That’s why the cedar chip was in the eye cut. The hay was also on the backside of his clothes, as if he lay down in it.”

“He could’ve been in the hay before being beaten up,” Johnstone reasoned.

“True. But the head injury had time to set up. There was swelling. You can still see it. Injury like this, the eye and nose will swell for about three days before leveling off. He was already quite swollen.”

“So he couldn’t have been shot right after the beating?” Johnstone inquired.

“No. He bled out within minutes; the shot severed the aorta near the heart. There wouldn’t have been time for his eye and nose to swell like we see here.”

“And you think he was beaten in the woods,” Johnstone said.

“Right. Then he was somewhere where there was hay. Maybe physically restrained at that time. Hands and feet bound together.”

“So a farm,” Johnstone surmised.

“Lots of strawberry farms over there. Maybe someone who has cattle. He was there for a while. That’s when the eye and nose set up. Then he was shot.”

Johnstone nodded thoughtfully. “With a shotgun.”

“Yes, and the shooter was standing pretty close. A yard or two away. This guy didn’t stand a chance.”

Johnstone turned and nodded to the body of Sean Kanagawa on a nearby table. Like Tom Bollgen, Kanagawa lay face up on a metal table. “But this was a single bullet, not a shotgun.”

Mortenson seemed surprised by the question. “You think there’s a connection?”

“Without going into details, yes, I do. Anything else you can tell me?”

“No. Pretty cut and dried. No defensive wounds. He was also shot from close range. Probably surprised. Talking to someone who pulled out a gun and shot him.” Mortenson stared at Kanagawa for a few moments before saying, “I’m having a little trouble calling time of death. He was nearly frozen.”

“Couldn’t that tell you something? If we know how long he was in the freezer, we might know time of death.”

“That’s surmising that he was put in the freezer as soon as he was killed. There’s no way of knowing that. And to answer your question, you cannot calculate the exact time it takes to freeze a body. Depends upon the freezer itself and the body’s size and weight.” Then studying Kanagawa for a moment, he said, “His weight isn’t much. He’s pretty thin. A good eight hours could freeze him. But that’s under ideal circumstances.”

“He was last seen alive about nine o’clock on the night of the 30th.”

“Found when?”

“About eleven yesterday morning,” Johnstone replied.

Mortenson nodded, pondering this. Then he said, “Probably killed early morning yesterday then.” The doctor was lost in his own thoughts for a minute. Then looked to Johnstone. “You said you think the young man killed on the island and Kanagawa are connected, but it appears it’s this other one who’s tied to Kanagawa.”

Mortenson walked over to a third table where Cory Carsteen was laid out just like the others. Mortenson picked up the man’s left wrist, but Johnstone told him, “I already noticed. The fingertips. Same with Kanagawa, but he’s only got one fingertip missing.”

Mortenson smiled. “Very good, Detective. But they have something else in common.” He went down to the foot of the table and rolled Carsteen’s left ankle. Johnstone could see what he thought was a bruise and stepped close to examine it. “Tattoo. But this is what got me.”

Mortenson left Carsteen and moved back to Kanagawa. He lifted the man’s left ankle. “Same.”

Johnstone hurried over and studied it. It was an identical design of something, but he couldn’t be sure what. “What is it?”

“Don’t know. Never seen anything like it. I’ve already called my wife. She hates coming in here, but I told her it’s important.” Johnstone shot him a baffled look, and Mortenson smiled, saying, “She’s a terrific artist. I want her to duplicate these tattoos. It might help you find out what it means.”

Johnstone was surprised. And pleased. “Thank you.”

Mortenson just looked at the three bodies and shook his head. “So you got three murdered men. Two found on the island, one here. Two with fingertips severed and matching tattoos. One that had been beaten and probably tied up.” He was silent for a minute, then asked, “Any ideas?”

“I’ve got a good suspect.”

“Better find him.”

Johnstone nodded in agreement. “I’m working on it.”

His mind wrestled with the new information. If Carsteen, a naval petty officer and Kanagawa, a Japanese-American, both had sliced fingers and identical tattoos, what did that mean? And if Matthew Kobata killed Carsteen, which was logical since he had found a knife identical to the murder weapon on Kobata’s trawler, did Kobata kill Kanagawa? Did he come over in his own boat, maybe in the middle of the night, hook up with Kanagawa and kill him? And why kill his friend, Tom Bollgen? Or was Sally Grazer telling the truth – when Kobata left the island, Porter’s truck was still missing? Which would mean Kobata probably didn’t kill his friend.

Johnstone nodded to Carsteen’s body. “Any idea when his fingers were cut?”

Mortenson just shook his head. “Impossible to know for sure. ”

“Give me a guess.”

“A few months maybe. But that is a guess.”

Johnstone nodded. Both Kanagawa and Carsteen had the fingertips of their left hands cut off. Why? Some weird ritual? A religious group? Usually his meetings with Mortenson helped clear up questions. This time it just created dozens more.

Matthew’s head was pounding, and he remembered that when he had finally found the dinghy, he had hauled himself halfway into it before a wave caught it and capsized it on top of him. The wood plank seat had hit him on the head, and he was now certain it was the same exact spot where the man had clobbered him with the gun. For what seemed like an eternity he had struggled to right the small craft. Every time he got close, the waves would slap him, and he would either lose his grip or simply be pulled away.

Finally, he had thought to use the waves in his favor. With the dinghy positioned parallel to the oncoming waves, with the port side facing into the swells, he climbed on top of the overturned boat. He lay outstretched on his stomach across the width of the hull, with his feet on the starboard side and his hands gripping the port rail. Positioning himself this way, he waited in the driving rain for a promising large swell. When one finally came from the direction he was facing, he held his position until the dinghy’s port side was near the top of the crest. Then using all his strength, he lifted the port rail toward himself, and the dinghy began to lift out of the water as the starboard side sank under his weight.

He had seen the dinghy start to tip over as he lost his balance and fell backward. When he had surfaced, he had quickly swum to the dinghy. It had been hard to drag himself over the rail, but after the third attempt, near exhaustion, he had been successful. The first thing he had checked for was the gallon of drinking water, but it was gone. Then to his dismay, he had found that the paddles were missing too.