Snow Falling on Cedars Read Online Free PDF

metal?’
    ‘Yes. Soft enough. It’d been banged back to make room for a D-6.’
    ‘To make room for a D-6,’ Nels repeated. ‘But sheriff; didn’t you say that the spare was a D-8? Didn’t Carl Heine have a D-8 available that would have fit into the existing well with none of this banging and refitting?’
    ‘The spare was dead,’ Art Moran said. ‘We tested it after we brought the boat in. It didn’t have any juice to it, Mr. Gudmundsson. Didn’t have any juice at all.’
    ‘The spare was dead,’ Nels repeated. ‘So, to summarize, you found on the deceased’s boat a dead spare D-8 battery, a working D-8 down in the well, and beside it a working D-6 that was in fact too large for the existing space and which forced someone to do some refitting? Some banging at a soft metal flange?’
    ‘All correct,’ said the sheriff.
    ‘All right now,’ said Nels Gudmundsson. ‘Would you please turn to page twenty-seven of your report? Your inventory ofitems aboard the defendant’s boat? And read for the court item twenty-four, please?’
    Art Moran turned the pages. ‘Item twenty-four,’ he said after a while. ‘Two D-6 batteries in well. Each six celled.’
    ‘Two D-6s on Kabuo Miyamoto’s boat,’ Nels said. ‘And did you find a spare aboard, sheriff?’
    ‘No. We didn’t. It isn’t in the inventory.’
    “The defendant had no spare battery aboard his boat? He’d gone out fishing without one?’
    ‘Apparently, yes, sir, he did.’
    ‘Well, then,’ Nels said. ‘Two D-6s in the well and no spare to be found. Tell me, sheriff. These D-6s on the defendant’s boat. Were they the same sort of D-6 you found in the deceased’s battery well? On board the Susan Marie ? The same size? The same make?’
    ‘Yes,’ replied the sheriff. ‘All D-6s. The same battery.’
    ‘So the D-6 in use on the deceased’s boat could have – hypothetically, since it was identical – made a perfect spare for the defendant’s batteries?’
    ‘I suppose so.’
    ‘But, as you say, the defendant had no spare on board. Is that right?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘All right, sheriff,’ Nels said. ‘Let me ask you about something else, if you don’t mind, for a moment. Tell me – when you brought the deceased in was there some sort of trouble? When you hauled him up from the sea in his fishing net?’
    ‘Yes,’ said Art Moran. ‘I mean, he was heavy. And, well, his lower half – his legs and feet? – they wanted to slide out of the net. He was hanging by one of his rain gear buckles. And we were afraid if we pulled him out of the water maybe we’d lose him altogether, he’d come out and the buckle would give or the rubber around it would and he’d be gone. His legs were hanging in the water, you understand. His legs weren’t quite in the net.’
    ‘And,’ said Nels Gudmundsson, ‘can you tell us what you and Deputy Martinson did about this?’

    ‘Well, we cupped the webbing. And then we pulled on the lead line. We made a sort of cradle with the net, got his legs inside it. Then we brought him in.’
    ‘So you had some trouble,’ Nels said.
    ‘A little, yes.’
    ‘He didn’t come in cleanly?’
    ‘Not at first, no. We had to jerk the net around, work it. But once we had him in and the webbing grabbed it was fairly smooth from there, yes.’
    ‘Sheriff,’ said Nels Gudmundsson, ‘with all of this jerking of the net and this trouble you’re mentioning now – is it possible the deceased hit his head on the transom of the boat as you were bringing him in? Or somewhere else? On the stem gunnel, say, or on the net roller? Is it possible?’
    ‘I don’t think so,’ said Art Moran. ‘I would have seen it if we did.’
    ‘You don’t think so,’ said Nels Gudmundsson. ‘What about when you pulled him out of the net? When you laid him on the deck? He was a big man, as you say, two hundred and thirty-five pounds, and stiff, as you’ve pointed out. Was he difficult to move around, sheriff?’
    ‘He was heavy,