San Piedro fishermen – in those days, at least – went out at dusk to work the seas. Most of them were gill-netters, men who traveled into solitary waters and dropped their nets into the currents salmon swam. The nets hung down like curtains in the dark water and the salmon, unsuspecting, swam into them.
A gill-netter passed his night hours in silence, rocking on the sea and waiting patiently. It was important that his character be adapted to this, otherwise his chances of success were dubious.
At times the salmon ran in such narrow waters that men had to fish for them in sight of one another, in which case arguments brewed. The man who’d been cut off by another man up tide might motor abreast of the interloper in order to shake a gaff at him and curse him up and down as a fish thief. There were, on occasion, shouting matches at sea, but far more often a man was alone all night and had no one, even, to argue with. Some who had tried this lonely sort of life had given up and joined the crews of purse seiners or of long-line halibut schooners. Gradually Anacortes, a town on the mainland, became home to the big boats with crews of four or more, the Amity Harbor fleet home to one-man gill-netters. It was something San Piedro prided itself on, the fact that its men had the courage to fish alone even in inclement weather. An ethic, with time, asserted itself in island souls, that fishing alone was better than fishing other ways, so that the sons of fishermen, when they dreamed at night, dreamed of going forth in their lonely boats and hauling from the sea with their nets large salmon that other men would find impressive.
Thus on San Piedro the silent-toiling, autonomous gill-netter became the collective image of the
good
man. He who was too gregarious, who spoke too much and too ardently desired the company of others, their conversation and their laughter, did not have what life required. Only insofar as he struggled successfully with the sea could a man lay claim to his place in things.
San Piedro men learned to be silent. Occasionally, though, and with enormous relief, they communicated with one another on the docks at dawn. Though tired and still busy, they spoke from deck to deck of what had happened during the night and of things only they could understand. The intimacy of it, the comfort of other voices giving credence to their private myths, prepared them to meet their wives with less distance than they might otherwise bring home after fishing. In short, they were lonely men and products of geography – island men who on occasion recognized that they wished to speak but couldn’t.
Ishmael Chambers knew, as he approached the knot of men
gathered before the
Susan Marie,
that he was not a part of this fraternity of fishermen, that furthermore he made his living with words and was thus suspect to them. On the other hand he had the advantage of the prominently wounded and of any veteran whose war years are forever a mystery to the uninitiated. These latter were things that solitary gill-netters could appreciate and offset their distrust of a word shaper who sat behind a typewriter all day.
They nodded at him and with slight alterations in posture included him in their circle. ‘Figure’d you’d a heard by now,’ said the sheriff. ‘Probably know more ’n I do.’
‘Hard to believe,’ answered Ishmael.
William Gjovaag tucked his cigar between his teeth. ‘It happens,’ he grunted. ‘You go fishing, it happens.’
‘Well, yeah,’ said Marty Johansson. ‘But Jesus Christ.’ He shook his head and rocked on his heels.
The sheriff brought his left leg down from the piling, hitched his trousers at the thigh and brought his right up, then settled his elbow on his knees.
‘You see Susan Marie?’ asked Ishmael.
‘I did,’ said Art. ‘Boy.’
Three kids,’ said Ishmael. ‘What’s she going to do?’
‘I don’t know,’ said the sheriff.
‘She say anything?’
‘Not a word.’
‘Well, what’s
she going
to say?’ put in William Gjovaag. ‘What can she say? Jesus Christ.’
Ishmael understood by this that Gjovaag disapproved of journalism. He was a sunburned, big-bellied, tattooed gill-netter with the watery eyes of a gin drinker. His wife had left him five years before; William lived on his boat.
‘Excuse me, Gjovaag,’ said Ishmael.
‘I don’t need to excuse nothing,’ Gjovaag answered. ‘Fuck you anyhow, Chambers.’
Everybody laughed. It was all good-natured, sort of. Ishmael Chambers understood that.
‘Do you know what happened?’ he asked the sheriff.
‘That’s just what I’m trying to straighten out,’ said Art Moran. ‘That’s just what we’re talking about.’
‘Art wants to know where we all was fishing,’ Marty Johansson explained. ‘He – ’
‘Don’t need to know where
everyone
was at,’ Sheriff Moran cut in. ‘I’m just trying to figure out where Carl went last night. Where he fished. Who maybe saw him or talked to him last. That kind of thing, Marty.’
‘I saw him,’ said Dale Middleton. ‘We ran out of the bay together.’
‘You mean you
followed
him out,’ said Marty Johansson. ‘I bet you followed him out, didn’t you?’
Younger fishermen like Dale Middleton were apt to spend considerable time each day – at the San Piedro Cafe or the Amity Harbor Restaurant – rooting for information. They wanted to know where the fish were running, how other men had done the night before, and where – exactly – they had done it. The seasoned and successful, like Carl Heine, ignored them as a matter of course. As a result he could count on being tailed to the fishing grounds: if a man wouldn’t speak he was followed. On a foggy night his pursuers had to run in close and were more apt to lose their quarry altogether, in which case they turned to their radios, checking in with various compatriots whom they invariably found to be checking in with them: hapless voices tuned to one another in the hope of some shred of knowledge. The most respected men, in accordance with the ethos that had evolved on San Piedro, pursued no one and cultivated radio silence. Occasionally others would approach them in their boats, see who it was, and turn immediately away, knowing there would be neither idle conversation nor hard information about the fish they pursued. Some men shared, others didn’t. Carl Heine was in the latter category.
‘All right, I followed him,’ said Dale Middleton. ‘The guy’d been bringing in a lot of fish.’
‘What time was that?’ asked the sheriff.
‘Six-thirty, around there.’
‘You see him after that?’
‘Yeah. Out at Ship Channel Bank. With a lot of other guys. After silvers.’
‘It was foggy last night,’ said Ishmael Chambers. ‘You must have been fishing in close.’
‘No,’ said Dale. ‘I just saw him setting. Before the fog. Maybe seven-thirty? Eight o’clock?’
‘I saw him, too,’ said Leonard George. ‘He was all set. Out on the bank. He was in.’
‘What time was that?’ said the sheriff.
‘Early,’ said Leonard. ‘Eight o’clock.’
‘Nobody saw him later than that? Nobody saw him after eight?’
‘I was outa there by ten myself,’ Leonard George explained. ‘There was nothing doing, no fish. I ran up to Elliot Head real slow like. A fog run. I had my horn going.’
‘Me, too,’ said Dale Middleton. ‘Most everybody took off’fore long. We came over and got into Marty’s fish.’ He grinned. ‘Had a pretty fair night there, too.’
‘Did Carl go up to Elliot?’ asked the sheriff.
‘Didn’t see him,’ Leonard said. ‘But that don’t mean nothing. Like I said, fog soup.’
‘I doubt he moved,’ put in Marty Johansson. ‘I’m just guessing on that, but Carl never moved much. He made up his mind …n’ stuck where he was. Probably pulled some fish off Ship Channel, too. Never did see him at the head, no.’
‘Me neither,’ said Dale Middleton.
‘But you saw him at Ship Channel,’ said the sheriff. ‘Who else was there? You remember?’
‘Who else?’ said Dale. ‘There was two dozen boats, easy. Even more, but Jesus, who knows?’
‘Soup,’ said Leonard George. ‘Real thick fog. You couldn’t see nothing out there.’
‘Which boats?’ asked Art Moran.
‘Well, okay,’ said Leonard, ‘let’s see now. I saw the
Kasilof
, the
Islander,
the
Mogul,
the
Eclipse –
this was all out at Ship Channel I’m talking about – ’
‘The
Antarctic
,’ said Dale Middleton. ‘She was out there.’
‘The
Antarctic,
yeah,’ said Leonard.
‘What about over the radio?’ said Art Moran. ‘You hear anybody else? Anybody you didn’t see?’
‘Vance Cope,’ said Leonard. ‘You know Vance? The
Providence
? I talked with him a little.’
‘You talked with him a lot,’ said Marty Johansson. ‘I heard you guys all the way over to the head. Jesus Christ, Leonard –’
‘Anybody else?’ said the sheriff.
‘The
Wolf Chief
,’ answered Dale. ‘I heard Jim Ferry and Hardwell. The
Bergen
was out at Ship Channel.’
‘That it?’
‘I guess,’ said Leonard. ‘Yeah.’
‘The
Mogul,’
said Art. ‘Whose boat is that?’
‘Moulton,’ replied Marty Johansson. ‘He got it from the Laneys last spring.’
‘What about the
Islander
? Who’s that?’
‘The
Islander
is Miyamoto,’ said Dale Middleton. ‘Ain’t that right? The middle one?’
‘The oldest,’ Ishmael Chambers explained. ‘Kabuo – he’s the oldest. The middle is Kenji. He’s working at the cannery.’
‘Suckers all look alike,’ said Dale. ‘Never could tell them guys apart.’
‘Japs,’ William Gjovaag threw in. He tossed the stub of his cigar into the water beside the
Susan Marie.
‘All right, look,’ said Art Moran. ‘You see those guys like Hardwell or Cope or Moulton or anybody, you tell them they ought to come talk to me. I want to know if anybody spoke with Carl last night, from all those guys – you got this? From every last one of them.’
‘Sheriff’s sounding like a hard-ass,’ said Gjovaag. ‘Ain’t this just a accident?’
‘Of course it is,’ said Art Moran. ‘But still, a man’s dead, William. I’ve got a report to write up.’
‘A gud man,’ said Jan Sorensen, who spoke with a hint of Danish in his voice. ‘A gud fisherman.’ He shook his head.
The sheriff brought his leg down from the piling and with care repaired the tuck of his shirt. ‘Abel,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you square away the launch and meet me back up at the office? I’m going to walk up with Chambers here. Me and him’ve got things to discuss.’
But it was not until they’d left the docks altogether and turned onto Harbor Street that Art Moran quit speaking idly and came to the point with Ishmael. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘I know what you’re thinking. You’re gonna do an article that says Sheriff Moran suspects foul play and is investigating, am I right?’
‘I don’t know what to say,’ said Ishmael Chambers. ‘I don’t know anything about it yet. I was hoping you’d fill me in.’
‘Well, sure, I’ll fill you in,’ said Art Moran. ‘But you got to promise me something first. You won’t say anything about an investigation, all right? If you want to quote me on the subject here’s my quote: Carl Heine drowned by accident, or something like that, you make it up, but don’t say anything about no investigation. Because there isn’t one.’
‘You want me to lie?’ asked Ishmael Chambers. ‘I’m supposed to make up a phony quote?’
‘Off the record?’ said the sheriff. ‘Okay, there’s an investigation. Some tricky, funny little facts floating around – could mean anything, where we stand now. Could be murder, could be manslaughter, could be an accident – could be
any
thing. Point is, we just don’t know yet. But you go telling everyone that on the front page of the
Review,
we aren’t ever going to find out.’
‘What about the guys you just talked to, Art? You know what they’re going to do? William Gjovaag’s going to be telling everyone he can you’re snooping around looking for a killer.’
‘That’s different,’ insisted Art Moran. ‘That’s a rumor, isn’t it? And around here there’s always going to be rumors like that even if I’m
not
investigating
any
thing. In this case we want to leave it to the killer – if there
is
a killer, remember – to figure what he
hears is just gossip. We’ll just let rumor work for us, confuse him. And anyway I’ve got to be asking questions. I don’t have much choice about that, do I? If people want to guess what I’m driving at it’s their business, I can’t help it. But I’m not going to have any announcement in the newspaper about any sheriff’s investigation.’
‘Sounds like you think whoever it is, he lives right here on the island. Is that what – ’
‘Look,’ said Art Moran, halting. ‘As far as the
San Piedro Review
is concerned there
is
no “whoever”, okay? Let’s you and I be clear on that.’
‘I’m clear on it,’ said Ishmael. ‘All right, I’ll quote you as calling it an accident. You keep me posted on what develops.’
‘A deal,’ said Art. ‘A deal. I find anything, you’re the first to know. How’s that? You got what you want now?’
‘Not yet,’ said Ishmael. ‘I’ve still got this story to write. So will you give me a few answers about this
accident
?’
‘Now you’re talking,’ said Art Moran. ‘Fire away. Ask.’
After the morning recess had drawn to a close, Horace Whaley, the Island County coroner, swore softly on the courtroom Bible and edged into the witness box, where he seized the oak armrests between his fingers and blinked behind steel-rimmed spectacles at Alvin Hooks. Horace was by inclination a private man, nearing fifty now, with a sprawling portwine stain on the left side of his forehead that he often fingered unconsciously. In appearance he was tidy and meticulous, storklike and slender – though not so thin as Art Moran – and wore his starched trousers high on his narrow waist and his scant hair slicked from right to left with pomade. Horace Whaley’s eyes bulged – his thyroid gland was overactive – and swam, too, behind his spectacles. Something attenuated, a nervous caution, suggested itself in all his movements.
Horace had served as a medical officer for twenty months in the Pacific theater and had suffered in that period from sleep deprivation and from a generalized and perpetual tropical malaise that had rendered him, in his own mind, ineffective. Wounded men in his care had died, they’d died while in his sleepless daze Horace was responsible for them. In his head these men and their bloody wounds mingled into one recurring dream.