Earlier in the evening I made my way along the darkening street, stepping around
wet piles of fallen leaves that were beginning to clog the sidewalks of the
lakeside community. “Our community” I had wanted to call it when we first moved
here, but my husband and I were never welcomed by the local
residents with any enthusiasm. Only by Maude, whose home was at the end of my path tonight. We had been close friends until
two years ago. How my world could
change in such a short time was more than a wonder to me. It was a heartbreak as well.
A year ago in
September of 1949, Maude was not allowed at the prison the night of her husband's execution. She sat at home weeping, staring at the cheap plastic cuckoo clock on the wall until the noisy bird blasted
out through tiny doors at midnight to announce William's death in the electric chair. Tonight ... exactly one year after the electrocution ... Maude wanted me to be with her on the anniversary of her husband's death.
In
these last minutes before twelve we now sat across from each other in the seedy
living room of the old house. I could
see the tears well up behind her eyes as she once more glanced up at the
inexpensive clock high on the wall. At fifty-eight
years old, Maude Carney appeared much older as she stared into the blackness of
the night through a large window, a single pane of glass almost four feet
wide. Were it daylight she would have
seen bluebirds flitting around two little birdhouses her husband William had
built and placed on the fence posts before the war.
The
yard was much the same as when the poor wreck of a man was
alive, but it was not as well kept these days.
Maude said she remembered years before the
tragedy watching William’s strong back
and shoulders stretch through his old cotton shirt as he happily labored away
on hot summer afternoons, keeping the grass clipped and trimming the bushes
that surrounded the back yard. Across from Maude I tried to hold in my own tears. I too yearned for my beloved, lost so
senselessly in a storm of hate. I looked
around for my things. I wanted to be
ready to leave after the clock struck the hour.
Earlier
in the evening we had talked of old times when we were younger and hopeful, but
as the hours progressed toward midnight our conversation lessened and our
private thoughts took over. Like the
cuckoo we pulled back inside ourselves and closed the little doors. We fell to silence, sitting in each other’s
presence, our minds elsewhere, my head
racing over the events of the past two years.
When the clock struck midnight, I half expected Maude to swoon or cry
out or at least moan and begin to sob.
But she just sighed after the cuckoo finished and said, “I think I’ll be
getting ready for bed.”
“I’m sorry Maude,” I said.
“Me,
too,” she half whispered.
The
past two years had been an awful time for us.
In fact, many of the residents of the little town of Sylvan Beach in
Central New York had in one way or another been affected. The Beach, as everyone called it, was a small
tight-knit community of a few full time residents who spent the uncomfortable
winters hibernating by the lake, and
then suffered through the summers with tourists who couldn’t afford the Thousand Islands to the north on the St. Lawrence River.
When the trial finally got started in the
summer of ’48 in the Oneida County
Courthouse in Utica, I
gave my testimony on the afternoon of the first day of the proceeding. I
kept my eyes from wandering to Maude or William while I testified, but looked
in their directions after I finished and was descending the stairs from the
witness stand. Maude cast her eyes
downward to the floor and William read a newspaper someone had given him.
For the rest of the trial, I sat a few
rows back from the lawyers’ tables. When
Maude and William were allowed moments together at lunch and during breaks, I
watched her touch William’s cheek or put her arm around him. During the testimony of those who would seal
his fate, she leaned far forward in her chair with her hand reaching forward as
if to touch him, to comfort him when he could not keep back his tears.
“William bothered poor Tomo all the
time,” Ward Lankton testified before me on the first morning of the trial. He was the boss from the car repair shop where William and
Tomo worked. “I told him to stop, but
William was a big guy so I didn’t push it.”
“Did
the defendant criticize Mr. Kanazawa because of his work or because of his
heritage, his nationality?” intoned Marvin Stillwater, the county district
attorney.
“You
mean ‘cause he was a Jap?”
“Yes,”
replied Marvin, “because he was Japanese.”
“Well,
yeah. Sure, I guess so. William had just
been shootin’ at them in the war a couple of years ago.
“What
happened on the afternoon in question?”
“Well,”
said Lankton, “I noticed Willam say something to Tomo …. Billy Bishop was
testing an engine so I couldn’t hear over the noise … then Tomo must have said
or done something, because William leaned back and threw a punch at him.”
“Was
Mr. Kanazawa hit?” Marvin asked.
“He
ducked. Talk about a spry little guy,”
said Lankton. “Then he popped William
twice in the forehead. Never saw a fist
move so fast. William fell over like a
chopped down tree. We all stood there
frozen.”
Of
everyone in the court room that morning,
I was probably the only person who would know the big Irishman went down
from a carefully placed double punch to the forehead, a classic Aikido move. It was surprising William hadn’t been out
cold for ten minutes.
“Then
what happened?” Marvin asked.
“Tomo
bent over William. I remember he looked
worried, like he shouldn’t ‘a done that.
He put out his hand to help William get up.”
“Did
the fight continue?” asked the district
attorney, and I could see that even the prosecutor was bored with this line of
his own questioning. Everyone knew the
details of the fight.
“William
swatted Tomo’s hand away and jumped up,” said Lankton. “You could see William was mad as hell … face
red … he was fuming. I thought: he’s
gonna kill the little Nip ... I mean Japanese.”
“Then what transpired,” asked Marvin.
“I
jumped in between the two of ‘em as William came up off the floor. I told William to pack up his gear and get
out. Pronto! I wouldn’t have any fightin’ in my shop.”
“Had
they fought before?” asked Marvin.
“A
little shoving, but no punches."
“Was
William fired, then?” Marvin asked.
“I
never said that,” replied Lankton. “I
never fired William. No, sir, that’s not
true. It ain’t my fault what happened.”
“No
one has stated that, Mr. Lankton,” said Marvin
The
foreman continued, “I didn’t want him back, but if William had apologized and
changed his attitude, maybe that would be different. I figured he was off on a bender, anyway, you
know?” said Ward. “But he never came
back. After a few weeks I took his name
off the workers list. You know … Good
Luck, Good Bye, Happy Trails.” Ward
Lankton looked at the defendant and said,
“I didn’t need his kind of trouble.”
The
testimony dragged on through three of the hottest days in August of 1948. I didn’t attend when the coroner and
ambulance crew testified about the scene of the shooting. At the end of the second day of the
trial, Maude was called to the witness
stand when the defense began their case.
There was a brief discussion between the judge and the D.A., joined by
Maude’s attorney and William’s defense counsel, Robert Winkle, about spousal privileges. Judge Gambill then explained it all to the
jury and cautioned they would be hearing from a witness who had strong ties to
the defendant. Everyone in the court room knew that Maude wanted the
chance to explain William’s actions without condoning them. She believed her husband’s mind was
deranged. The poor woman was fighting
for his life and none of the evidence in this open and shut case was
helping. But she must explain his insane
actions to the jury and hopefully keep the state from executing him. The judge decided the hour was late and Maude
would begin her testimony the next day.
The
temperature had stayed warm overnight and rain began to fall after court was in
session. The court room was dark and
felt soggy at nine a.m. as Maude went forward, mounted the two steps and took
her seat. Among the attorneys and the
rest of us, Robert Winkle, William's
attorney, was the only person in court that morning who looked crisp in his
grey striped suit and starched white shirt.
He gave Maude a warm smile before beginning his questioning, and I could
see it helped to calm her a bit.
“Mrs.
Carney,” Mr. Winkle said, “I realize this is difficult for you and so I would
like to ask you to just tell us in your own words what happened on the night of
the shooting.”
“I
was asleep,” she replied.
Winkle’s
eyebrows went up in confusion. He
thought Maude would begin a long explanatory account of poor William’s mental
state since returning from the war.
“You remember nothing, Mrs. Carney?” Winkle
asked. He must have wondered if she was
being coy, and if she was angling for
sympathy. Since the shooting Maude had
become a sort of victim in the newspaper accounts, as each day she sat in court
solidly supporting her husband. The
papers had already decided William was crazy.
Since young men from The Beach had lost their lives in Europe and the Pacific, one might have expected a clambake honoring
the killer rather than a trial.
“My
husband, William, is a wonderful lunk of a man,” Maude said, and then broke
down and gushed tears and choked into her hankie. “He drinks too much,” she said in a kind of a
stifled wail.
“It
was those men down at the bar on the canal that put him up to it,” she
continued.
“No,
no, we tried to stop ‘im,” a man’s voice shouted from somewhere behind me in
the courtroom.
“Order
in this court!” boomed the judge.
“Bailiff, escort that man out into the street.”
“Judge,
I was just trying to --”
“Silence!”
shouted the judge, who was now half standing and leaning out toward the
courtroom, his face red with anger. “Leave, sir, before I throw you in jail for 3 days.”
The
man was quickly gone of his own accord and everyone’s attention returned to
Maude.
“I
knew there’d be trouble when he came home from the shop that afternoon,” she said. “Said he’d beat up Tomo Kanazawa and he was
fed up with the place and he would be taking a little vacation. I thought the same thing Mr. Lankton said,
that William would go back and apologize in a few days. But he never did. He just sat down there in the cellar all day
and night and drank himself silly.”
Poor
Maude had puttered around upstairs and worried.
William might say he was on vacation and working on his building
projects, but what she saw was a man doing nothing but sitting in the cellar
drinking. Often William wouldn’t come
up for supper or even for bed, she said,
and she would find him asleep next to the coal bin in the morning when
she went down to stoke the old furnace and throw on a few more shovelfuls.
As
the D.A. began his cross examination, Maude sighed and looked across the space
to her husband. William sat with his
head bowed. It was impossible to know if
he was listening.
“Oh,
William,” she said,” I’m gonna tell ‘em
what’s wrong with you.”
There
was no reaction from William. Marvin
could have stopped her, but he didn't.
He may have thought he was giving her rope. Her husband's counsel, Winkle, could have
stopped it. It is anyone's guess why he
didn't.
“You
see, William was in the war, of course.
In the Pacific. He fought the
Japanese. They killed a lot of his
friends. He has terrible nightmares
about it. Mr. Kanazawa was nice man, but
all William saw was a Jap. William
couldn’t understand how a Jap could be holding the same kind of mechanic’s job
as himself, being paid the same kind of money, while all of his relatives
overseas were killing our boys! It was
like working with somebody who had just been shooting at you last week and who
had killed all your buddies!”
A
hush came over the courtroom as no doubt most of the spectators realized Maude
was describing what was on all of their minds.
“But Mr. Kanazawa was in America from the
1920’s,” said the District Attorney.
“Certainly the defendant couldn’t blame him for what happened to his
country and their military.”
“William
doesn’t understand things like that,” she said.
“His head is all messed up … from the war, from the booze. Don’t you see what I’m saying? He was still fighting the war the night he
shot …” And at this point, Maude broke
down, dissolving into sobs and tears.
When she recovered, Marvin steered her back to the night of the
shooting. Nothing she said about it was
news to me.
Anyone
reviewing the testimony would sense that a burning anger and humiliation must
have simmered in William, and on the night of March 3rd he left the house for the first time since
his degrading defeat. Maude tried to convince
William to stay home and come to bed, but the big man slammed the front door
and headed for O’Toole’s, a beer joint down near the canal. He had finally worked up the courage to go
out and face the group of men who made up the only society he knew, and to
explain to them how he had come to get beat up by a little Asian man half his
size.
There
are different accounts of what took place at the bar, who said what, who
jeered, who didn’t. But late in the
evening, William came back home and got his shotgun from the bedroom closet
where he kept it hidden behind the suit he wore to weddings and funerals. Maude lay in bed in the dark, and although
she could see nothing, the sounds revealed her husband’s intentions. She could tell by his hoarse breathing he was
drunk, but she had never known William to harm anyone beyond a punch or
two. A zipper sound told her William had
removed the pump shotgun from its soft leather bag. She knew he might just wave it around or he
might use it, maybe to shoot out a street light to vent his anger, like back in ’39 when he destroyed the yellow
caution light near O’Tooles and then spent the rest of the night safely in
jail. She sighed. What was she to do? Certainly not try to stop him, for that
indeed would be dangerous. Better to let him go and call the sheriff’s office
in the morning to see what could be done and for how much.
As
I listened to Maude’s testimony, my soul
heaved with guilt. I could sense a
tightening in my chest. I so much wanted
to help this woman, who such a short time ago had been my best friend. But I would not allow myself to do so.
William
took the stand following his wife. As he
mounted the stairs, I was reminded of his size.
He was a big fellow and I imagine he walked about the world feeling
physically superior to any man. Now that
image was damaged. Deep inside William's
soul had been made small. And just as he
would never forgive those who had killed his fellow soldiers in the war, he would never forgive the man who bested
him. The seeds of murder were planted in
the fertile soil of his raging hate.
After being sworn in, William was asked by
his attorney to tell of his actions on the night of the shooting. He wandered about in his story and had to be
coaxed back on track a number of times by the judge. Eventually he told of carrying the shotgun
through the cold streets to the corner of 12th Avenue and Main Street. He remembered drunkenly lurching to a stop
and standing unsteadily in the slush across the street from the apartment over
the Blue Blade Hardware store. Upstairs,
a light shone in the window and illuminated the ceiling of the room
within.
“So
you were opposite the Kanazawas’ apartment,” said Winkle. “Then what happened, Mr. Carney?”
“I
got under the streetlight,” he said, “so I could see … to load the shells in
the gun.”
William
stopped and looked up, but not at anything in particular. There was a moment of silence before his
attorney asked him to continue.
“Well,”
said William, “I heard a train.”
“A
train ….” said Winkle.
“A
train,” said William. “I heard the
whistle. I’ll bet it was taking a string
of coal cars to Syracuse or maybe Buffalo.”
“Mr.
Carney,” said Winkle, now getting impatient, “can you --”
“It
made me think of my trip to boot camp on the train,” continued William. His voice had taken on a quiet and wondering
quality that told us he no longer knew he was on the witness stand.
“All
of them,” he said. “All of them were gonna try to kill me, but I didn’t know it
yet,” he said.
“Who?”
asked Winkle, sharply.
William
looked at his attorney as if he was just seeing the man for the first time,
scrutinizing him from his perch on the witness stand.
“Who?”
repeated William. “Every frigging Nip
west of San Francisco, that’s who. And
they almost did.”
A
low murmur of voices went through the crowd, as well as muted laughter. The judge sternly reminded William to be
careful of his language, and then directed him to continue.
William
swayed a little as he stood under the street light. He said he took aim at the upstairs window,
clicked the safety off and pulled the trigger.
A half pound of bird shot blasted out the front of the barrel with a
terrible punch of sound that rang his ears.
The kick of the gun knocked him backward, but he somehow remained on his
feet. Just above the hardware store sign, the upstairs window disintegrated
into a fountain of tiny pieces of glass and the room was plunged into darkness.
Winkle
continued his questioning and at times I had to wonder if he was defending
William or helping the D.A. get a conviction.
I had to believe Winkle knew the cause was lost and his purpose was to
simply show the craziness of William’s behavior.
"Did
you see Tomo or his wife through the window of the apartment?” asked Winkle.
“No,”
said William, “I wasn’t aiming at nobody.
I just wanted to scare Tomo.
That’s why I shot their ceiling.
I was just trying to even things up, you know?”
“How
could shooting out their window even things up?” asked Winkle.
“I
don’t know. Tomo thought I was scared of
him after he knocked me down. This way
he’d be afraid of me,” William replied.
“Were
you? Were you afraid of Tomo after he
bested you in a fight?” asked his counsel.
I
put my hand to my face to cover a smile.
William’s face turned red with anger.
He said nothing. Winkle remained
quiet, possibly hoping the jury would see how quickly the defendant was moved
to anger. Finally, William shrugged and
seemed to regain himself.
“I
was standin’ there on the street,” William said, “and I realized I was
crying! And I was drunk, but it was like
all of a sudden I was sober. You ever
have that happen to you?”
Winkle
shook his head no.
“I
couldn’t believe it!” said William. “The
wife, Mrs. Kanazawa, came out the downstairs door and high-stepped right across
the slop and slush in the street, right over to me. She had a pistol and pointed it at me!”
“Objection,”
shouted Marvin as he rose from behind the prosecution table. “That is not an established or corroborated
fact.”
“Are you sure she had a gun, Mr. Carney,”
asked Winkle.
“Yeah,
I’m sure,” William answered.
“Gentlemen,”
the judge almost shouted, again half standing up.
“Of
everyone involved that night,” said Marvin, “you’re the only person who saw
it. Now don’t you think that’s a bit
strange?”
“Objection!”
shouted Robert Winkle, over the judge’s admonition for all three parties to be quiet.
“Your honor, this is highly prejudicial to my
client ….” Winkle said.
"There
has been testimony ... " said Marvin.
“Mr.
District Attorney,” interrupted the judge, “You will not indirectly testify to
the jury in my court. You will refrain
from such behavior and you will wait for redirect before questioning the
defendant. Am I making myself clear, Marvin?”
“Yes
sir,” said the D.A,
“I
tell ya, she had a gun!” said William. “And later …”
“We
heard you,” Judge Gambill interrupted peevishly. “Do you have further questions, Mr. Winkle?”
“Well,
that’s why I was aimin’ the shotgun at her.
I pumped another shell in the chamber. I kept yelling at her, ‘put the
gun down, drop the gun.’
"Settle
down, Mr. Carney," said the judge.
"But
she kept coming," cried William, "with the pistol pointed at me. She came right up to me. Then she dropped the pistol in the snow. Just stood there looking at me."
"William
...." said Robert Winkle.
"She
reached up and grabbed the barrel of the shotgun. My God, why did she do that? I pulled back with both hands and the gun
went off. Boom! I thought my heart stopped. There she was lying on the ground, bleeding
and moaning and … Jesus, all I wanted to
do that night was scare Tomo!” William
covered his face with his hands.
The
courtroom was quiet and Williams sobs could be heard all the way to the back.
The
judge and lawyers no longer attempted to silence William. They simply watched the spectacle. There wasn't a person in the room who by now
didn't believe they were looking at a dead man.
William
gave forth a long sigh.
“I
shoulda helped her,” he said. “I
shoulda.
"Please
continue, Mr. Winkle," said the
judge.
“William,
what did you do then?” asked Winkle, a hint of impatience creeping into his
voice.
“I
ran. I ran home. Or tried to.
About half way, Tomo caught up to me.
He had the pistol. He was
shouting some gibberish at me … Japanese, I guess. I stopped and he was dancing around me in a
circle shouting something. I was
twirling around, trying to keep my shotgun on him, telling him to drop his
pistol.
“What
happened next?” asked Winkle, staring at the defendant and pushing back his
hair, his hand running back over his head as he couldn’t believe what he was
hearing.
William
slumped back in the witness chair. He
raised his hands and opened them as if he had no idea what the answer was.
“I’m
so tired of telling what I saw … what I guess I saw … maybe I should tell you
what the police say happened.”
“You
should tell us what you believe to be the truth,” Winkle said.
“All
of a sudden,” William said, “I was back on Corrigedor. I remember it was so hot. The sun was so bright. My head felt like it was split open by the
sun … that sun! … and the heat was awful. I was standing nose to nose with a
Jap soldier. I suppose it was Tomo, but I don’t remember clearly. We were pointing our guns at each other and I
thought, maybe we’ll just back off and go our separate ways. I took one step backward. Maybe we won’t have to die, either of
us. But then the second soldier showed
up.”
“Go
on,” said Winkle.
“Now
there were two of them, don’t you see?
Pretty soon they’d both have the drop on me. I just started firing,” said William.
“Did
you shoot Tomo Kanazawa?” Winkle asked of his client.
William
looked up at his attorney as though he had just explained the simplest concept
to someone who clearly didn’t get it.
“I
shot one of the Jap soldiers,” said William.
“I blew his arm off.”
The
courtroom was very quiet.
“Yes,”
William continued, “I guess I shot Tomo.
I just wanted to get off that beach alive … away from that god-awful heat … the
explosions, the blood, the death. I
just wanted to get home. I shot him and
I ran. I ran home.”
The
noon recess was called and the bailiff led William out of the courtroom through the
door behind the Deputy’s desk. In a few
minutes the bailiff returned and took Maude through the same door. I wondered if the couple were allowed to meet
back there and share a sandwich. As I watched William and then Maude leave the
court, I sat riveted to my seat, my legs having suddenly gone so weak I could
not get up to leave. Of course, I was
familiar with the circumstances of that night, and I'd heard a rumor that
William said he imagined himself back in the Pacific when he shot Tomo. But I had not heard of the second
soldier. The second soldier might change
everything.
A
few days before, when I gave my testimony,
I saw the familiar look of surprise on the faces of people in court who
had never met me. It's a look I should
have become used to by now when anyone hears my voice, but I'm always surprised
by the assumptions all of us make that are based on appearances.
When
the court clerk had stood and announced,
“The Prosecution calls Mrs. Tomo Kanazawa to the stand.” I got up from my chair and shakily walked
forward, mounted the steps to the witness stand and seated myself.
“Are
you Mrs. Ayano Kanazawa?” Marvin had asked.
“Yes,
I am” I replied. I had meant to be cool and calm, but now I was swamped with
grief for my husband. A moment passed before I could make my voice work to answer
the questions.
“May
I remark, Mrs. Kanazawa,” Marvin said,
“that you have no accent.”
“That
is not true,” I said with a smile. “My
accent is from Wyoming. My grandfather
came to America to help build the Union Pacific railroad. I was schooled in a
Christian academy in Cody, Wyoming before my family moved east to New
York. I am Sansei, third generation
American Japanese. Tomo came from Japan
to the University where I met him in 1928.
We moved to The Beach in 1933 when Tomo sensed the coming war and argued
with his Japanese employers in New York City.”
“Mrs.
Kanazawa, had you known the defendant before the night of the shooting?” Marvin asked.
“Yes,
his wife and I were friends and we attended church together. She and I often worked on committees
together. We went to movies together,
and sometimes lunch or dinner. Just the
two of us. Since I knew Mr. Carney’s
feelings toward Asians, I never went to
their home. And certainly my husband did
not.”
Maude
Carney was in fact the best friend I had made at The Beach. Although Tomo had no beliefs, my religious upbringing naturally led me to
the little church on Spencer Ave.
where I met Maude. She had the
kindest smile and welcomed me without suspicion while the other members
initially held themselves back. To them
I was foreign, but worse a member of the race which was becoming the scourge of
the Pacific.
I
remembered the evening I sat in my apartment with Tomo reading and my heart was
heavy with loneliness for the people who had always been around us in New York City just two months before. A tiny knock sounded at the downstairs door
and Tomo went down and brought up the night visitor.
“A
lady from your church,” he announced as he ushered Maude into the small living
room. There she stood, a smile as bright
as the noon day sun and bearing her first attempt at
Yakisoba. The noodles were terribly
American, but fried nicely, and the vegetables were sweet and tasty. Even Tomo broke out in a grin as he ate the
snack. That was the evening Maude
mentioned that her husband’s employer was looking for another mechanic or
trainee.
“Mrs.
Kanazawa, can you tell us in your own words what happened on the night of the
shooting?” said Marvin.
“Tomo
and I were about to go to bed when our front window was blown out. Tomo froze in his chair. He had what I believe is called shell shock
from when he fought in China years ago, before he came to America. I’d seen this happen to him before when a
very loud noise surprised him.”
“How
long was he immobile?” said Marvin.
“Not
long,” I said, “ I know, because of what happened later. But I jumped up from my chair almost
immediately and looked out the window.
Mr. Carney stood across the street with his shotgun pointed at the
ground.”
“And
what did you then do,” Marvin said.
“I
ran down to the street to stop the fool before he decided to fire again.”
“You
didn’t call the police?” he asked.
“As
you know,” I said, “The Beach depends on the County Sheriff’s Patrol. I didn’t think we could afford to wait that
long, but I do remember thinking Tomo might call them if he recovered soon.”
“Weren’t you afraid, Mrs. Kanazawa?” he said.
“Of
course I was,” I said, “but I didn’t think Mr. Carney would really try to hurt
me on purpose. I thought if I could grab
the gun away from him we’d all be a lot safer.”
“And
then?” said Marvin Stillwater.
“I
grabbed the barrel of the gun and it went off, tearing flesh from my index
finger and some from my middle finger.”
I held up my mutilated hand for everyone to see. It had healed well in the past year and only
the attorneys in the front row might have noticed the damage at that distance.
“And?”
“Tomo
came down the stairs and out into the street as Mr. Carney was running away.
Tomo helped me toward our home, but then said he must stop William from hurting
anyone else.”
“Rather
than see to your safety, Mrs. Kanazawa?”
“Tomo
was not a samurai, but he knew the nature of duty,” I said.
“And
Tomo had no weapon?” said Marvin.
“Mr.
Carney was drunk and Tomo was a martial arts expert. And I … encouraged him to stop Mr. Carney
before he hurt himself.”
I
glanced over at the jury. They appeared
doubtful.
“Besides,
there was nothing to be done for my hand except to stop the bleeding, which I
knew how to do. But then I worried for
Tomo and so I wrapped my hand as best I could in my blouse and I ran after
him. When I was half way to Vienna Road
where Mr. Carney shot him, I heard the gun go off. I found Tomo lying in the snow, his arm
….” I had to stop for a moment. “I screamed and screamed and by then people
were roused by the noise and the ambulance came. But it was too late. My husband bled to death.”
I
sat on the witness stand and felt sick with anger and loss. I can still remember the warm blood from Tomo’s heart pumping out
of his body as I tried to stop the bleeding. His eyes looked at me one last
time in a mixture of fear and love and then glazed over in death. This pig of a man sitting across from me
staring at the floor, would die in the electric for killing my husband. I truly felt sorry for poor Maude, but her husband deserved to die.
“Now
Mrs. Kanazawa,” Marvin said, “there have been statements made to the police
by the defendant about another gun, a pistol that Mr. Carney said you pointed
at him, and your husband allegedly used to menace the defendant.”
“I
know nothing of another gun,” I said. “I
have no gun and I know that Tomo did not have a gun.”
“Did
you see a pistol at the crime scene … where your husband was killed? On the ground or anywhere?” asked Marvin.
“No,”
I replied. “I saw nothing on the ground
but my dying husband.”
“There,”
I thought, “I have sealed our fates.” But I didn’t care. William Carney must die as my husband
died. And he would get off with life in
prison if the court suspected or knew of the existence of the small pistol that
now sat wrapped in an old coal bag under a floor board in my kitchen.
I
looked William Carney straight in the eye as I denied the existence of the
pistol. He looked back at me and frankly
he appeared so confused he may have
believed me. When I finished my
statement, he nodded his head, as if in acceptance. For the first time, I almost felt sorry for
the man and wished for him to die bravely.
Maude continued to stare down the whole time, not looking at me.
On
the morning following my testimony, as I walked up the stairs to the entrance
of the Courthouse, Ward Lankton caught
up to me. He had hired Tomo and then befriended
him in a quiet sort of way. Tomo said
they seldom showed their friendship at work, but Ward often stopped at our
apartment to see Tomo. I don’t know why
Mrs. Lankton never accompanied him and I never asked. I was happy enough that Tomo had someone to
talk to in the community and I was used to other people giving us a wide
berth.
Mr.
Lankton took my arm and pulled me aside.
“I’m awfully sorry about Tomo, Mrs.
Kanazawa,” he said to me. “I really
liked your husband. All of us at the shop
did.”
“I don’t know what to say,” I replied,
and I truly didn’t.
“Not all of us hate your race, M’am,” he
said. “I spent a year in Tokyo after the War. Tomo and I had many enjoyable conversations.”
“I know he valued your company, Mr. Lankton.”
The
man looked uncomfortable, then said, “I wanted to … “
His
words stopped, but his jaw continued to move and his face was filled with
pain. I wondered if a tooth was
bothering him.
“Are
you not well, Mr. Lankton,” I said.
“I
just wanted to say this jury will do its duty.”
“I’m
sure they will –“
“We
all will,” he said forcefully, interrupting me.
“I just …”
We
both fell silent. Something was
bothering him greatly. He took a breath
and began again.
“I
mean … Sometimes doing the right thing isn’t easy,” he said. “I hope all goes well for you.”
“Thank
you, Mr. Lankton,” I said, “You’re very kind.”
He tipped his hat, gave me his farewell
and continued on ahead of me into the building.
I wondered for a long time afterward what it was he felt he couldn’t
tell me.
The
Defense called a number of psychiatric
witnesses, but none were convincing enough to persuade the jury that William
was anything more than a bully who may or may not have been unhinged by his
combat memories. Of course, many in the
court room had been affected by their own war experiences, but since combat none
had shot a man in cold blood. Still,
there was a feeling among the citizens of The Beach that William might avoid
execution because of the war. He didn’t.
William
was convicted of first degree murder and sent back and forth between the county
jail and the state hospital for the insane.
According to the newspapers, the
court asked for new tests a number of times,
but William was finally judged to be responsible for his actions. He
never came home again. I didn’t know
whether Maude believed her husband or my story about the pistol. I had not spoken to her since the murder,
just nodded when our paths crossed in church when we both returned to services
on Sunday mornings shortly before the trial began.
A
few weeks after the verdict, William Carney was sentenced to die in the
electric chair. A year later, on a
softly beautiful early fall evening in September of 1949, after all the appeals and a final
effort to have his sentence commuted to
life imprisonment, the warden and guards marched him into a room in the
basement of the prison and strapped him in the electric chair. Bob Buttoni
of the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle sat with a chaplain and three other
reporters in the viewing room and he wrote this account. The executioner connected the wires to the
electrode cuffs on William’s wrists and ankles.
These were tested for ground and then the skull bowl with wires attached
was placed on the top of his head and secured with a strap under his chin. Over this assemblage and across his face was
placed a hood with a slit up the back for the skull wires. Although not part of
the regulation equipment, his bare feet were lifted and placed in an ordinary
pan used for foot baths. This was filled
with water from a pail to a height that covered the ankle electrodes, thus
insuring excellent contact between his legs and ground. The prison wanted William to go quickly, for
his sake and for theirs.
As
the wall clock marched toward 11:55 p.m.,
the Warden picked up the phone and listened for a dial tone to make sure
the line would be open in case a last minute reprieve was sent, although none
was expected. At five seconds before
midnight, as the generators spun up to deliver William into the hands of his
creator, Buttoni leaned forward, closed his eyes and dipped his head. He had watched an electrocution only once and
wrote he would never do so again. The
sound was bad enough.
While
Maude sat alone at home the night of William’s execution, I too sat crying over
my lost Tomo in the apartment we had shared.
My thoughts roamed from the summer evening we met to the early winter
morning we parted as he lay dying in my arms. On that awful night in the short
space of twenty minutes I had gone from comfortably getting ready to go to bed
with my husband to sitting in the street, a widow, covered with his blood.
When
our front window disintegrated and Tomo sat glued to his chair, I jumped up and
saw William standing across the way, under the street lamp of all places. I ran to our bedroom closet and quickly got
the small pistol. Tomo had gotten the
weapon the previous year from someone he said owed him money. He called it a gambler’s gun because it was
small enough to hide in one’s clothing and did not have a hammer sticking out
to catch on the pocket when pulled out.
Tomo said it was for our protection and taught me how to use it. That’s why William described me high stepping
over the slush filled street, exactly as Tomo had taught me, to keep from
having to look down in front of me and take my eyes off the target. William
kept shouting for me to drop the gun. I
said nothing but continued toward him. I
was deathly afraid, but if I didn’t disarm the drunken man, he could continue
his rampage, killing myself and my husband, who now sat stupefied in our living
room, unable to protect us.
“If
he brings the shotgun up and points it at me,” I thought, “ I’ll put two
bullets in his chest and one in his face, just like Tomo taught me.” Pop, Pop, Pop. But when William raised the
shotgun, I couldn’t do it.
I
walked right up to the idiot and the two of us stood rooted in the slush and
snow pointing our guns at each other, faces a few feet apart. A moment passed in silence, except for the sound
of William’s sobbing and sniffling, and then the rumbling on the stairs behind
me as I heard Tomo come running down to the street. I looked at William’s pitiful crying face and
I said, “No more.” Throwing the pistol to the ground I reached up
to grab the tip of the shotgun, pushing it from me as Tomo came running toward
us. The shotgun went off while I still
had my hand on the muzzle. William ran
away down the street.
When
Tomo reached me, I lay in the slush curled up in a fetal position, my hands between
my legs. God, it hurt so! I kept insisting I was all right as he helped
me to my feet. Torn between his concern
for me and his anger, Tomo scooped up the pistol and ran after William. With tears of pain flooding my eyes leaving
me weak, I stumbled toward the apartment, but then turned in the direction of
the two men. I remember thinking, “I
must follow Tomo.” I was afraid for him, but didn’t know what I could do to
help.
I
rounded the corner of Vienna Road and was almost on top of the two men. I stopped short and stood like a statue no
more than thirty feet away. Tomo was
screaming and cursing in our language and telling William to drop his shotgun. He danced around the big
man as William twirled to keep his aim on my husband. Suddenly, William stopped moving and looked
over to me. Tomo did the same. In
the street lights, I could see the surprise on both their faces. But William’s was being horribly transfigured
as I watched. He didn’t look human. His
eyes were bulging and I’ve never seen a grimace like that on a person’s
face. William turned back to Tomo and
pointed the shotgun, but my husband was still staring at me. I shouted, too late. William pulled the
trigger and blew my husband’s arm off.
Then he ran.
No
one will ever know what caused William in his deranged drunken mind to imagine
first one, then two soldiers being upon him.
But in agony I wondered if I had not followed the men, Tomo might still
be alive. To William, I was the second
soldier.
Trying to stem
the flow of my husband’s blood, I pushed snow into the hole where his arm had
been, all the while screaming for help.
It was no use, he died before the ambulance came. I picked up the pistol and hid it under my
clothing before anyone arrived. As the
eastern sky turned a dirty grey and the winter morning dawned, I sat in the
light freezing rain and cradled my dead husband’s body and promised I would
avenge him, if it took the rest of my life.
I know honor. And I know duty.
But
now I also know guilt, for I have killed a man by bringing about his
execution. And I have taken him away
from a woman I had loved like a sister.
I wanted so much to call Maude or to take her aside when we met in
church, to put my arms around her and with no words that I could possibly think
to say, simply hold her as we were each assailed by the fates that had brought
us our terrible grief. Instead we
continued to live out our individual existences. How I lamented our separation. We should have been with each other in our
suffering, doing whatever two people do to help each other through our misery.
Our grief was so large there wasn’t any emotion left for blame.
But
as time marched toward William’s execution, I became afraid that for Maude’s sake I might
break down and tell the truth, to absolve myself from the gnawing guilt and to
acquit myself of the perjury. But I
would not dishonor the memory of my husband and the promise I had made to
avenge his murder.
Some
nights I lay in my bed quaking in fear for the punishment that awaited me,
either in this life or the next, I knew not which. And when I finally fell asleep, the terrible
dreams would come for me, of limbs torn off, blood sprayed through the
air. In the worst dream of all, I was somehow William, the man I killed. In the dream I was both of us. I found myself in darkness, hearing the sound
of my own breathing, suffocating under a hood in the stink of my cold
sweat, with feet in a pan of water and
my arms cuffed to the chair. The sound
of an electrical generator running up ended with a final searing explosion
inside my head as I dropped into an awful pit of fear to await The Accuser.
Maude
called me on the day before the one year anniversary of William’s death and
asked me to come and sit with her the next evening. I longed to be with her, but was afraid of
not being able to control myself.
“Please,”
said Maude, “we should be together through this. We were friends. We each lost the man we loved. And we each had a part in it.”
That
last phrase made me fearful. I did not
want to face the lie I had told that killed her husband. I did not want to face Maude, but I knew I
had to do so.
And
so here we sat in her living room, the midnight hour now past, she having said
she was ready for bed, me gathering my hat and purse to take home. No accusations had been made.
“It
was awful for William,” she said from out of the blue.
I
spoke up. “Well –“
“I
know, I know, it was awful for Tomo, dying in the street. But William sat there in prison for a year
scared witless, not eating, soiling his pants every night while he was
sleeping. It was just awful.”
“Maude,
I’m sorry you lost your husband. And I’m
sorry both men had to die.” I opened my
purse and took out my gloves, getting ready to leave.
“I
need to tell you this, Ayano,” she said.
“You know why. You know what you
did.”
I
sat back in my chair. Eventually this
moment would come and I was in one sense relieved that it was finally
here. I always expected my secret would
eventually be found out.
“There was
nothing left of William,” Maude said.
“All he spoke of was home, but he never held on to any hope for a
reprieve. For a while there was talk his
sentence might be changed to life, but Governor Dewey refused.”
“Oh,
Ayano, he was so afraid. He could never
find the words to say so. You know,
after the trial he never said anything about the shooting, or even about being
in prison. I sometimes wondered if he
knew he was there. All he talked about
was the war and the battles he had survived. The last time I saw my William was
the day before the … the way they killed him.
He went on and on about wanting to be home, breaking my heart. It was the only time in prison I saw tears in
his eyes, but he didn’t break down and cry like anybody would. He told me how he had missed me during the war. Every night in a foxhole somewhere on the
other side of the world he dreamed of walking through this front door here at
home. He said he’d sweep me up in his
arms and take me to sit on his lap in that very chair you’re sitting in, his
chair. And he would look out this window
on the grass and trees and birds and flowers and know he was home.”
I
shifted uncomfortably in the chair. I
was now crying quietly, thinking of how I missed Tomo.
Maude
was quiet for a moment and then she spoke.
“Ayano,
what have we done here?”
“What
do you mean?” I said.
“Ayano,
I killed Tomo by letting William go out that night with the shotgun. I should have called the Sheriff. But I hadn’t the slightest thought he might
go to your apartment. William didn’t
hurt people. I thought he might shoot
out the traffic light down near the bar.”
I
remained silent.
“You
think you killed William,” she said, “but you didn’t. If you had admitted to
having the pistol, he might have gotten life … might have … but he would’ve
died in that place by now. Maybe you
saved him another year of agony.”
“I’ll
tell you the truth,” I said, “I didn’t mean to save him anything. He killed my husband, and for that he had to
die.”
“I
know,” she said in almost a whisper.
Maude
turned in her chair and picked up a Bible from the lamp stand. She pulled an envelope out from between the
pages, then reached across the space between us and handed it to me.
“You
should have this,” she said. “I don’t
want it.”
Inside was a
carbon copy of a receipt from Lankton’s Auto Repair. At the top was written the word “personal”
and in the middle of the form “received
$18.00 from Tomo K. for H&R hammerless revolver, plus 32
shorts ammo.”
The
fear mounted up within me. My stomach
lurched and I sensed something hot and malevolent at the bottom of my throat.
“How long have you had this, Maude?” I said.
“Does
it matter?” she asked.
“Did
you have it before the … before William …?”
“Of
course not. I could not have let William die.
Ward Lankton brought it to me a month ago. He couldn’t sleep nights. He felt justified withholding it during the
trial because he believed William should pay for making you a widow. But the man has cancer and is afraid of dying
with my husband’s death on his soul.”
Maude
looked over to me and her mouth broke in a sob.
Then she looked away.
I
looked down at the floor. “I had no
choice. Your husband killed my Tomo.”
“And
Mr. Lankton,” said Maude, “felt he had no choice but to cover your lie.”
“Yes,”
I said.
“And
I,” continued Maude, “had no power to save my husband’s life.”
“Nor
I to save my beloved,” I said.
The
possibilities of what Maude would do with the receipt began to play out in my
mind and each of them filled me with fright.
“What
will you do?” I asked.
“Mr.
Lankton said to do what I felt best with the receipt. I feel best to do nothing with it. Ayano, you deserve a life. William had his and so have I.
“You
won’t go to the police?” I said.
“Police?
Wouldn’t that be a fine mess?
First my husband kills your husband and then I have you sent to prison.”
We
sat for a few minutes more in the quiet of the late evening. It was ten minutes past midnight. I didn’t want to hear the cuckoo again at
twelve-fifteen. I didn’t think Maude
wanted to either. I stood and walked over to her chair, bent and kissed the top
of her head.
“I’m
sorry,” I said once again. “There seems
no way out of this … the hurt and the guilt and the terrible loss.”
“We
do what we must and somehow God sorts it all out.”
I
took her hand and squeezed it in mine.
She
glanced up at me. “Ayano, I love you.”
“I
know,” I said.
I
let myself out the front door. The rain had stopped. It was
such a beautiful autumn night with temperatures turning cool and the leaves now drying up and skittering across the lawns and sidewalks. I began
the walk of a few blocks home, the same route William took on the night he killed
my husband. When I came near the corner
of Vienna Road and Main Street where my husband died in my arms, I did not
stop. I couldn’t. I walked on, my soul carrying the terrible
pain of losing my beloved.
I
will never regret avenging Tomo's
murder, but at the same time I cannot
forgive myself for bringing to Maude the same loss and agony I suffer. And God will never forgive me for the
seething hate still burning in my heart that allowed me to kill the man who made
me a widow. But some day in hell William and I will stand in the dock
side by side, two murderers yoked
together, equally guilty of killing a man and breaking the heart of the woman
left behind in desolation to struggle on without him.
-- o --
Ayano’s
story took longer to read than Maude anticipated. I put it aside reluctantly
when she set down a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich at my place.
“No,”
she said. “Finish reading it. Lunch can wait.”
I
read the final two sheets and then sat thinking a moment while Maude silently
shelled peas for the supper she would make for herself in a few hours. When she finished her task, she pushed the
dish of peas to the side of the table against the wall and pulled her BLT in
front of her. She looked up at me.
I
didn’t know what to say. Finally I
mumbled, “It just seems so unfair.”
Maude
smiled. “Ain’t life mostly unfair?”
“It
shouldn’t be,” I answered.
Her
eyes caught mine for a moment, moved elsewhere and then she bit into her
sandwich.
Maude
must have wondered if it had been worthwhile revealing her story to me. She probably doubted a fifteen year old boy, who usually thought of nothing but himself,
could understand or even imagine the pain of loving and losing someone or being
left to spend the rest of one’s life
alone. She was right, I couldn’t.
We
ate for a few minutes before she spoke again.
“You
want another Pepsi?”
“I’d
rather have a beer.”
“I’ll
keep you in my prayers,” she said.
end
copyright
2010/2014 by David Griffin
This story was inspired by the murder of a Japanese
man in Central New York in 1943. The facts of the
case versus my story are different, but I tried to capture the loss and human
agony left behind after hatred has run its course. And smallness has made one a murderer. It’s a far different story than someone
simply being crazy.
The real William was named O’Toole. He was a
more bizarre drunk than the William Carney in this story. He managed a
bar and night club at Sylvan Beach.
During the year in which I was born he met a girlfriend in a motel one morning
and after a few drinks said he was going out to kill “a dirty Jap,” with whom
he had business dealings.. He drove to the man’s house and shot the man,
his wife and mother-in-law. William O'Toole knocked on a neighbor’s door
and told them they would no longer have to fear living next door to Japs.
He then drove to the Japanese wife’s place of employment and told a startled
grocer to call the police. The wife and her mother survived, the younger
woman with a leg injury.
William O'Toole was judged sane and pleaded guilty
to second degree manslaughter, but was incarcerated in a psychiatric center
anyway. During the war, the D.A.would have had a terrible time getting a
conviction; he had trouble enough seating a jury (which is one reason why I
placed the story AFTER the war.) A few years later William was released
from the psychiatric hospital to die of natural causes in 1946 after only
a few months of freedom.
When I was a young child and we visited Sylvan
Beach, my mother would take me to a
small booth on the Beach’s midway of rides and amusements where for a nickel
anyone could pull on one of hundreds of strings tied to rows of little hooks on
the counter running across the front of the small hut. The myriad of
strings rose up to the ceiling and became lost in a vortex as they crossed each
other and descended to a table at the back of the booth. There each
string attached to one cheap prize or another, all lined up like an army of
plastic cowboys and soldiers, trinkets and pens and lapel buttons. Each
was no more valuable than what could be found in a box of Kracker Jax, with a
few more worthwhile treasures prominently placed in front. When I asked my
mother why the old Japanese lady in the booth walked with such a pronounced
limp, she said the woman had once been shot by a crazy man. Mom never
told me she was acquainted with the shooter through her cousins.
William and Maude (nee Bertha) O’Toole had lived across the street
from our relatives and when I was a teenager I would occasionally mow her lawn
when we visited for the day as a favor to my uncle who would have done it had I
not. The Widow Maude would sit inside the house and watch me through the
large four foot window as I cut the grass and trimmed the shrubs. I
inadvertently destroyed an old hand made bird house with a wild swing of the
rake one afternoon while trying to push the neighbor’s bushes back over
on his side of the fence. When I took the pieces to her door to
apologize, she told me not to worry about it, but I was sure there were
tears in her eyes. Maude O’Toole, widow of William, died at age 88 in
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