it was the first murder trial on the island in thirty-one years.
our only newspaper was the san piedro review, a four-page weekly that i operated alone.
what, i wondered, could the seattle boys know of the hearts of these people.
neighbors, sitting in judgement. on their neighbor.
kabuo miaymoto sat with the rigid grace of a samurai warrior. as if detached from his own trial.
did he know how dangerous his demeanor could be? with this jury.
hatsue miyamoto had been without her husband for 77 days.
he was in jail. when his baby son learned to walk.
earlier, i noticed her in the corridor.
are you all right?
please don't be like th.
he was a mountain, all right. anchored the line for us little fellers.
lucky i got the camera in my helmet.
a gill-netter works through black nights with only himself to talk to. and learns to be silent. they were lonely men and products of geography.
men who, on occasion, realized that they wished to speak, but couldn't.
three kids. what's she going to do?
excuse me, gjovaag.
like the sheriff, i did not work the sea, and could never merit trust. or respect.
so who talked to him? out there.
let's say. someday i need some cooperation from you on this thing. do i get it?
course, we grew up together.
her mom had this mrs. shigemura come on wednesdays. teach her how to be japanese.
dances, calligraphy. doing her hair. how to sit without moving.
she would tell me stories of this woman and her lessons. as if complaining, or at least ex- plaining her world.
but i always fantasized. the lessons were for me.
my lessons came from my father. they were different. or seemed so, at the time.
he operated the review alone, with an integrity and passion for principle that made him a figure of respect. if slightly larger than life.
he never spoke of wanting me to succeed him. and, in truth, it was the last job on earth i thought i'd ever want.
when i was five, he casually mentioned that if his sleeve got caught in the press, he'd be instantly popped open like a child's balloon, and splattered across the walls.
even his bones would disappear, to be discovered later on the floor, as strips of white confetti.
which, of course, made me certain that life would have no meaning until i could run that teakettle.
he was, for better or worse, the only god in my life. i guess it's our nature to resent those we know we can never measure up to.
which keeps us from accepting the warmth. the way we should.
every summer, after harvest, the strawberry festival was dad's favor- ite story to cover. good news was his preference. making him an oddity among journalists.
highlight was crowning the strawberry princess. always a japanese girl, sort of an unwitting virgin sacrifice to the concept of racial harmony.
senior year. it was hatsue.
she winked at me. in public. which was unusual.
i had kissed her once, when we were ten. looking at fish through a glass-bottomed box. it was just an impulse, and no big deal.
at school, she kept mostly to the japanese kids, and sort of ignored me. as if all of our times alone together. in the hollow cedar, everywhere. were a secret.
i told myself that was good. that it made our friendship special. and didn't mean she was ashamed of it. necessarily.
i thought about her. sometimes, all the time. i knew i was unhappy. but i knew if i told her.
it might be a mistake. i could never correct.
do you know what i mean, hatsue? i've always liked you.
i knew in my heart that we would love each other forever.
the way she kissed me. she knew it, too.
she avoided me for a week.
so this way, i could see her without. bothering anyone.
i was certain everything would work out.
and frightened.
by two weeks, i knew i had made the defining mistake of my life.
i'd ruined everything.
sorry. it sort of. happened, i just. i followed you. i'm sorry.
i'm sorry i kissed you on the beach.
let's just forget about it. forget it happened.
me neither.
the best part was that there was a 'this'. to debate the wrongness of.
your friends would. your dad would kill me with a machete.
why? we're only talking.
we kissed for half an hour, that first time. and i knew there would never be another day like it.
no matter how long i lived.
know where it is?
it's in my other hand.
your mother went to the bathroom. she said i could show them a trick.
i gave her all of my soul to love. i knew someday we would live in france. italy. somewhere. far from the things that upset her.
well, i don't do it for just anybody.
there can't be any wrong in this, ha.
well. since i never told your folks, i guess i'm lying to 'em, too. but you don't hear me complaining about it.
hey, mr. lamberson, over here!
i have a radio, too. don't you want to be sure i got the message?
just checking.
it was a special edition, an extra. my father wrote, 'these people are our neighbors, they have sent their sons to the united states army'
'they are no more an enemy than our fellow islanders of german or italian descent.'
i guess courage never inspires the young. until the danger of it bites their butt.
it'll be over soon. i can get you money.
it's just pearl harbor. people are a little crazy, right n.
maybe we can fix your eyes.
don't let this hurt us, okay? whatever happens.
see, you bring it on yourself. 23 ladies honored by the pta, you single out three names. and they're all japanese. that isn't journalism.
because journalism. is just the facts.
hence. the letters.
integrity is expensive stuff, huh?
it's not devious, it's what we have to do. you're leaving tomorrow.
you write to my house, and put kenny yamashita's name on the return address. it's no big deal.
you smell like cedar.
let's get married, okay?
i want to marry you. is that okay?
when something that means your whole life. is the last time ever.
god should tell you. or it's not fair.
it felt right to me. it felt like getting married.
on monday, march 30, 1942, the united states army graciously transported the imada women to the docks.
lifelong neighbors came to watch. curiosity masked as kindness.
with some exceptions.
her letter reached me on the north island of new zealand. so i had a month to think it over.
i wrote her four times. 'i hate you with all my heart. i hate you, hatsue, i'll hate you always!'
i never sent the letters. i wanted to kill as many japs as possible.
eric bledsoe was bleeding to death. thirty yards away.
i knew nothing could save him. hell, i didn't have so much as a band-aid. i also knew i was a coward. for not giving up my life to try.
i wanted to live. and i didn't know why.
some colonel came down the beach. any man who didn't go over the wall at 2100 would be court-martialed, disgraced and imprisoned.
the captain who followed said shot on sight.
my arm was dealt with by a pharmacist's mate, whose surgical career was four hours old.
he used a handsaw.
i dream of it, now and then. the way my fingers curled. against the wall.
fucking goddam jap bitch!
it was all i could think of to say.
there was nothing more to say. for a long while.
whatever she said, she was hooks' star witness. the jury, especially the men, would not betray this fine lady with a not guilty verdict. how could they face her?
my father had bought the desoto fifteen years before. driving it reminded me of him. which i considered a neutral fact.
actually, it was pleasant.
snow made all the fields into one. the notion that one man might kill another for a small patch, made no sense.
but i knew such things occurred. having been to war and all.
may i give you folks a lift?
i didn't look at her. i thought that would be best.
okay, i'll help.
i know it's caused you trouble. but don't you think the snow is beautiful, coming down?
we all expect the world to be fair. as if we have some right t.
maybe i should write a column. what do you think?
i think people. should be fair.
i might just.
i was part of her life again. i was a person.
you have the night watch? on the radio.
and you keep the records, or contribute to 'em.
all kinds of radio transmissions? fisherman in trouble, and such.
i'd been back two months. it was the first time i'd seen her.
i couldn't say anything. i just stood there, hating her.
the japs did it.
they shot it off. at tarawa.
i'm sorry, i'm sorry i said that.
i'm sorry about everything. all of it.
september 16. at 1:42 a.m., the dead of night. the s.s. west corona, a greek-owned freighter, was lost. in heavy fog.
they radioed to the lighthouse. they would have to dogleg, bisecting ship channel bank. and seaman philip milholland wrote that down. in his report.
carl heine drowned. in ship channel bank. and his watch stopped. at 1:47.
a huge freighter plowing through. throwing a wake big enough to fling any man overboard.
how long you have this detail?
you mean, early morning the 16th?
some seaman's loast report. stuffed in a cabinet, good as lost forever. no one knows.
guess i'm not completely sure. what that was.
i left the grocery, and wrote a letter. i apologizes from my heart. i should never have said that word to her. i never would again.
it sat in my desk for two weeks. before i threw it away.
i knew her car. and sometimes when i'd see it, i'd. drive that way. at a distance.
can i talk to you?
there's no one here, and i've got to talk to you.
don't you owe me that?
i'm like a dying person.
i don't sleep. i tell myself this can't go on, but it goes on anyway.
you'll think this is crazy, but all i want is to hold you. just once. and smell your hair.
look, i want to forget you, i do. i think if you hold me, just this once, i can walk away and never speak to you again.
please? as one human being to another, just because i'm miserable and don't know where to turn. i need to be in your arms. if it's just for thirty seconds.
i drove from the lighthouse to my mother's place. i brought her some groceries.
agnostics don't believe or disbelieve, ma. we just don't pretend we know.
that's a long time ago. what a child feels. that's different.
i felt milholland's report in my pocket. and wondered why i wasn't telling her. telling someone. what i'd found.
seattle boys think he's guilty. they say the evidence is rock solid.
those aren't the facts that matter.
someday i'll get lucky, too.
but he found you.
i'll stay tonight. thanks for asking.
i came back from the war to this room. i stayed a few months. until my father passed.
well.
i thought it then. and often since. a balance, he's said. finding the facts. that folks needed to know.
milholland's report was like her letter. something no one else. would ever read.
thing about having only one hand. it's hard to tear pages up. and i wasn't carrying a match.
so i thought of my father. the man who would have taken this report to judge fielding.
but every reporter. chooses his own balance. finds the facts that matter.
after all, the freighter was only a theory. it proved nothing at all. there were other facts. that mattered.
tomorrow i would write a column. about prejudice. and she would be grateful. for my large. and gentle. heart.
her husband would be judged. and she would be alone.
alone. the past looks different.
i did. but the jury won't s.
i know he didn't.
i can't.
tell your mom. i want a rain check.
won't take two.
you said there was a lantern in his hand. when you found him in the fog.
and another one. lashed to the mast?
two. lanterns.
it's the sheriff's math. i'm wondering about.
i call it keeping your promise. we said if i ever needed some cooperation from you.
same idiots who'll believe you cracked this case. when i tell 'em you did.
it's public record. if the public cares enough to read it.
you said there was a coffee c.
actually. i was hoping you got it right. what's that, up there?
pieces of twine aren't nothing.
have a look. at nothing.
you're right. i better use two.
a dozen or more, all figure eights. all cut clean through on an angle.
it's on the twine, too. but it's not r.
there's a stretch of ground between guessin' and provin', sheriff. i'll give you that.
not what i'm looking at. it's what i'm looking for.
it's the way it happened, i know it is.
you're wondering why i held it.
yes, he was.
to my father. everything counts.
well. it shows the prosecutor was wrong. it was carl's boat that was dead in the water. or he'd never have put up the lantern.
that's what mr. miyamoto reported, and he'd have no reason to lie. he couldn't know that it would help his case.
because the second lantern, the one on the mast. was never found. so we have to ask.
where did it go?
maybe it went. where carl went. over the side.
that's when he fell.
miyamoto gave him the battery, and left. carl's boat was running, he goes back to fishing. but at some point, he thinks of the lantern.
he figures a perfectly good lantern could get banged around up there. so he climbs up. to cut it down.
coincidences happen. you run a yellow light just as a car comes out of nowhere. split-second tragedy happens every day. or maybe.
maybe carl picks up something about the freighter on his radio, which is now working. same report milholland heard. and that makes him get the lantern fast. before the freighter's wake can bang it around.
then where's the lantern? and where's the knife?
coroner found an empty knife sheath on carl's belt. but they never found the knife.
he climbs up. his hand wound still bleeding. that's the blood i found on the mast. and the twine.
he cuts the lantern free, the freighter's wake hits, the boat rolls hard, his bloody hand slips. tracing blood along the mast.
he falls. the lantern, the knife, go into the water. same as carl.
and inside the cabin, a coffee cup falls off the counter.
but there's no one around. to pick it up.
the freighter started through at 1:42. the sea water seeped into carl's watch and stopped it. at 1:47.
he hit his head. on the way in.
the sheriff and the deputy and i inspected the deck closely. we found a small fracture in the wood of the gunnel. just below the mast.
anything. that had a blond hair.
i'm sorry, was there a question in there?
twelve.
my expertise. is that i'm a journalist.
and journalism. is balance. finding the facts folks need to know.
then putting them together. so truth is revealed.
oh, yes.
but no other way. to explain them all.
and since they all happened. this is the only explanation that's the truth.
like you couldn't believe.
he didn't want to lose any more.
he'd lost a lot in the war, you see. i had sent him away. to a concentration camp. but a nice one. far less brutal than the nazis. because i'm a civilized person.
that's how journalists. answer questions.
may i answer the question, your honor? anout the defendant's motivation to lie?
i didn't say. i did it alone.
so there he was. his father lost his health there, finally died. they lost more than etta heine's seven acres. they lost their liberty, their dignity. their ideals about this country.
they lost their trust in us. we had treated them worse than animals. how would we now see tham. as human beings?
this man lost a lot in the war. he didn't want now to lose his babies. or the woman who loves him.
and my expertise in this, sir. is that i lost a lot in the war myself.
and the fact that i am the only witness. who placed his right hand upon the holy bible. is the least of it, sir. i assure you of that.
that's curious. i was appealing to their intelligence.
no, sir, i can't. not beyond a reasonable doubt.
it's fortunate that the man who needs to prove his fancy story. beyond a reasonable doubt. is someone else.
i'm sorry, mr. hooks. i apologize for my tone. this is not a contest. between you and me.
for it is not. as mr. gudmundsson so wisely put it. a small trial. in a small place.
i lost more in that war than anyone will ever know. so did a lot of folks. and what we got back in return.
was a country. where a man was innocent. until we proved him guilty.
whether we all got cheated. we're about to find out.
cigarette?
i've always thought so.
you ever been strangled by a single hand?
better take three.
maybe they'll keep us waiting.
a reason.
your client's wife ever mention? we go way ba.
we don't let go, you s.
she was an honest person. doing the best she could.
it'll be there.
god's kindness, my father said. despite the hardship. it reminds us. of our place in things.
what the hell. did he mean by that?
things fall on us, i suppose. from the sky.
wars. freighters plowing through.
and we seem. helpless. until we understand.
accident rules every corner of the universe.
Except the chambers. Of the human heart.