Toward Night's End (9 page)

Copying the others, Kumiko quickly claimed a far corner area for her family so that they wouldn’t have to be out in the open. Daniel helped her move a dresser and five cots to their staked out turf. Daniel had argued that there were only four of them, so they didn’t need five cots, but she insisted that Matthew would be with them soon, and of course, he would need a bed. Then she selected the oldest bed sheet they had brought with them, and Daniel stood on the dresser and nailed it into the ceiling. Between the two corner walls and the sheet, the triangular space provided a bit of privacy.

Today, Ido rested on one of the cots, not saying a word, nor asking any more questions about their surroundings. Daniel and Julia had left to explore the camp, promising to return soon. Kumiko used the time to properly unpack all their belongings, but since they only had one dresser, she elected to neatly organize some of their things in the suitcases, which would be stowed under their cots.

“Mrs. Kobata?” she heard from the other side of the sheet. She quickly walked around the partition and found a tall soldier standing there with a clipboard.

“Yes?” she asked.

“You are the mother of Matthew Kobata?”

“He’s here?” she asked excitedly.

“No, ma’am. That’s why I wanted to talk to you.”

Her heart sank. She could feel tears welling up in her eyes, but she willed herself not to cry.

“Are you expecting him on the next train?” the soldier asked.

“I don’t know,” she said truthfully.

“Well, see, I have to report any people that are missing. And I noticed that we had him scheduled to arrive yesterday.”

“He missed ferry,” she said.

“The ferry?”

“From island.”

He looked over his papers. Then he saw it. “Oh, you folks are from Washington.”

Kumiko nodded eagerly. “Bainbridge Island.”

“So he didn’t catch the ferry..?” he asked, unsure what this meant.

“To Seattle. I told them to wait. I tell everyone I could, Matthew late. But they no wait. Just go. In hurry. Go. Go.”

The soldier looked confused. “He was late?”

“We have fish business, yes? He catch fish, take to market. But he late. Not his fault, he good boy. Maybe, I don’t know, maybe he in accident.”

“I see.”

“But he will come. Look,” she said, moving aside the sheet and walking over to an open suitcase on a cot. She picked out some clothes and held them up. “See? His shirt. He put all his clothes here. He plan to come. But, I don’t know, he got late. Miss ferry.”

“Okay,” the soldier said, writing something on his clipboard. “Okay, Mrs. Kobata. Thank you. Sorry to have bothered you.”

He stepped around the sheet, and she quickly hurried after him. “No bother. No bother, okay? You make sure when he get here, he know where we are?”

The soldier smiled. “Oh, yes, ma’am.”

Kumiko nodded, watching him leave. He looked about Matthew’s age. A moment later she turned around and saw that half a dozen people were staring at her. There was no privacy in the barracks. The sheets might make one feel better, but everyone could hear everything. She could tell just looking at their faces that they now knew her eldest son was missing. She opened her mouth, to speak. Perhaps explain to these people what had happened. But then she shut her mouth. The truth was, she had absolutely no idea what had happened to her son. With a bowed head, she promptly returned to their tiny section of the barracks, hiding her shame.

In their own area, she returned to her job of unpacking to take her mind off Matthew. And from wondering what the others would think of them.

“He won’t be coming,” Ido said in Japanese, startling her.

She turned toward him, startled. “Shh.”

“What?” Ido went on.

She went over to his cot and leaned close. Whispering in Japanese, “People will hear.”

“So what?” he replied, defiantly.

She wanted to scream. This was now their home. For how long, she didn’t know. But they were forced to live with many people, and those people would quickly presume that if her son was missing it was because he was an Imperialist, plotting against America. And it was people like him that justified what America had done to them.

“I just say, he won’t be coming, so get used to it,” Ido told her, his voice still much too loud.

“Why do you say that?” she asked tersely

“We’re at war. He’s young. He’s gone off to fight.”

She could just feel people listening. Good. Hear that? My son is fighting for his country.

“If I were young enough, if I could see, I would too,” Ido proclaimed.

A part of Kumiko wanted to believe him. But Matthew would have told her. He would have never, ever simply vanished. Right? She quietly replied, “No, Papa. He was coming here. He already talked to the officials. They said he could apply, but he had to come here first. That was his plan.”

“He just told you that to make you happy,” Ido calmly said.

She stared at him for a moment. “Did he tell you that?”

“Of course not. But he will join, if he hasn’t already.”

She didn’t know what to say. She wanted to believe that Matthew had just somehow missed the ferry and would be arriving within a day or two. But she had to admit that Ido could be correct. She also knew that, if that had been his plan and he had confided in her, she would’ve tried to talk him out of it. Let the others fight. After all, she had already lost her husband. She didn’t want to lose him too.

The storm swells were getting larger now as Matthew continued to drive the trawler directly into them, the bow rising before swiftly crashing down. He stood in the wheelhouse wearing his hooded rain slicker, but the driving rain easily penetrated both the wood canopy overhead and his raincoat. He felt chilled to the bone. The only positive aspect of the inclement weather was that visibility was quite poor, which meant that other boats wouldn’t be able to easily identify him.

Since acquiring the fisherman’s two drums of diesel, he had been able to sustain a steady 22-knot clip, trying to distance himself from the coastal areas. He wasn’t quite sure where he was since the foul weather negated celestial navigation, but he imagined he had to be due west of Portland by now. However, not being able to chart his exact position didn’t concern him. What did concern him was that the Coast Guard was searching for him. Luckily, there were no further bulletins pertaining to his boat. And now the relentless rain helped shroud him. Although he was uncomfortable, he knew it was a small price to pay for the ability to escape detection.

Over the howling wind he thought he heard the familiar sound. He strained to listen, and then he knew he had heard it. The old engine was misfiring. Luckily, he had helped his father nurse the engine for years, and he knew how to fix the sticky valve. Cursing, he left the wheel, stepped out into the brunt of the wind and rain, and grabbed a mooring line. He ducked back into the wheelhouse, looped the line through the brass ring under the pilot chair, and secured it to the wheel to hold its position. Making sure the compass still pointed south, he cinched the line tight. At least he’d stay on course.

He made his way below deck and pushed the hood off his head as he finally got some relief from the blinding rain. As he approached the engine room, he noticed some water on the deck and knew that the old boat was showing her age. The hull had small leaks that he would have to find and plug some day. But not now. The water intake was minimal. Opening the hatch and stepping down into the engine room, Matthew got the shock of his life as ankle-high water poured over his feet.

Feeling a wave of panic sweep over him, Matthew sloshed through the water toward the engine. He was amazed that the diesel was still holding up with so much water engulfing the small room. It took him just a few minutes to find the cause – a broken seam along the arc-wood hull about knee high. What really scared him was that the engine room was below the waterline, which meant there was tremendous pressure against the broken seam.

The engine suddenly coughed, and Matthew knew he had to work quickly. Much more water and the engine would flood. He switched on the electric bilge pump, which had a suction valve at the lowest point of the engine room so that the water would discharge overboard. It made a pathetic whirling sound, then kicked in.

He then quickly opened his father’s rusty toolbox that sat near the engine. He pulled out several wooden wedges, scraps of old cloth, and a hammer. This too, he had learned from his father. He jammed one cloth into the crack and it was immediately soaked. He got the narrow tip of the wood wedge into the crack, too, then hammered it in, thus forcing the cloth deep into the crack to hopefully seal the leak. He held his breath, watching as the wedge and cloth stemmed the flow of water. But there was another small leak nearby, and he repeated the process over again, jamming in the cloth, then hammering another wedge into the crack. He then stood and stared down at his work. The damaging leak was fairly well sealed now. Between the wedge seals and the pump, the engine should keep working.

Just as he started to relax, he was suddenly thrown off his feet as the boat rocked violently. Stunned and lying on his side in the cold water, he instinctively knew that, with no one manning the wheel, the boat had turned sideways and a powerful, large swell had swamped the boat from the port side. He had to get back to the helm before another swell capsized her. Slowly getting to his feet, Matthew glanced at the wedge seals. They were still holding, which meant his luck was holding too. But then he saw it.

Water. Pouring across the engine room teak deck from the aft hold. Matthew hurried through the rear hatch to the large storage compartment. On the port side, unrepaired, weak seams in the aging, old hull had suddenly given away, fracturing, as water now poured in unabated. One look told him the damage was far too extensive to try to fix with his measly rags and wedges.

His father’s old fishing boat was going to the bottom.

Dark clouds hovered over Seattle’s Naval Air Station, but at least the rain had stopped. The base was bustling with activity, which Johnstone supposed was only to be expected since the country was at war. He had parked his car in a small guest parking lot and was now being escorted past the various buildings by a young enlisted man, Seaman Second Class Davis. Neither spoke.

A few minutes later he was shown into the cramped office of Commander Leseman, a man of about 40, who gave Johnstone a firm handshake. After Commander Leseman dismissed Seaman Davis, he offered Johnstone a seat in the only spare chair, as he sat down behind a desk overflowing with papers.

“You’re here about Petty Officer Carsteen?” the commander asked, getting right to the point.

“That’s right. As I told you on the phone, he was found dead on Bainbridge Island two days ago.”

The commander just shook his head. “Sad,” he finally said.

“I need to know if he has any family.”

“Yeah, right,” the commander said, sitting up straight and looking through the reams of paper on his desk. “I have it here somewhere.”

“How long had he been in the Navy?” Johnstone asked as the man searched for the correct file.

“Oh, I’m not sure. Couple years, I guess.”

“I’d like to know exactly,” Johnstone responded.

Leseman looked up at him in surprise. Then said, “Sure, sure.” Finally, he opened a beaten up file. “Here it is. Oh, I was mistaken. He enlisted as a seaman in 1936. From New York, I guess. Came here three years ago.”

“What did the petty officer do here?”

The commander seemed taken aback by the question. “His duties?”

“That’s right,” Johnstone replied.

“Eh, he worked in the anti-aircraft training center. Not the whole thing, of course, he was in charge of one aspect of it.”

“Which was..?”

Commander Leseman gave him a small smile. “Not public information.”

Johnstone bristled in his chair. “The man was murdered. I want to find his killer. So I need to know everything I can about the man.”

“No can do, sorry,” the commander responded.

“This is insane.”

“We’re at war, Detective,” Leseman answered brusquely. “I answer to Rear Admiral Mitchell. You want to go over my head, tell him why you need to know, fine. I have my orders.”

“Which are to not cooperate with civilians.”

“Look, I know what I can and can’t reveal. Cory Carsteen was a petty officer here. I met him a few times, even liked the guy. But as to what his assignment was here, that I’m not at liberty to share. I’m sorry.”

Johnstone thought for a moment then said, “Let me ask you this. Petty Officer Carsteen was, well, he was overweight. He probably could’ve taken off a good fifteen pounds.”

Leseman smiled. “He liked to eat.”

“I thought you’d only met him ‘a few times’?” Johnstone said, surprised.

A bit startled, Leseman quickly explained, “I played poker with him. We played for money. Not much, mind you, Navy people aren’t exactly rich. But he always brought in food. The joke was he never shared. And believe me, he brought in enough he could’ve. Know what I mean?”

Johnstone nodded. “I thought Navy personnel had to be in shape.”

“We do.”

“That wasn’t true for Carsteen, though.”

The commander shrugged. “He was, well, he was given a little leeway.”

“Why is that?”

Leseman looked alarmed again. “That’s off limits, I’m afraid.”

“This is ridiculous. All I want to know is why Carsteen was allowed to be overweight. Substantially overweight. Walking over here, I was looking around. I didn’t see one man, enlisted or an officer, carrying around the weight Carsteen did.”

Commander Leseman shrugged. “As I said, you’re welcome to petition Rear Admiral Mitchell.”

“He wasn’t really here, was he?” Johnstone guessed. “He was assigned here, spent some time on the base, but he was also allowed quite a bit of ‘leeway,’ as you say.”