Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson Read Free Book Online Page B

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,