- Ishmael arrives at the coast guard lighthouse, where he chats with Petty Officer Evan Powell. He's looking for storm records for a piece on the current snowstorm. Powell has the lighthouse's radioman, Levant, get Ishmael set up to look at the records.
- As he dives into the archives, Ishmael also dips into his "Hatsue obsession" memory bank, thinking about when he saw her for the first time after the war.
- Apparently, the encounter (at the grocery store) had been super-awkward. Hatsue had tried to offer her condolences on the loss of his arm, and he told her that the "Japs" had done it. Hatsue didn't react, but Ishmael immediately apologized and explained his meanness by telling her how miserable and wretched he was.
- After this incident, he was miserable and couldn't sleep well. While walking around the island one sleepless morning, he came across Hatsue, who was hanging out on the beach with her baby.
- Hatsue resisted talking to him, saying it wasn't right for them to be alone, but Ishmael ultimately got his way.
- He again told Hatsue how miserable he was, but he said he could probably feel better if she would just let him hold her for a little while. Despite feeling bad for him, she, you know, passed on being Ishmael's hug pillow.
- While thinking about all this, Ishmael realizes that perhaps the maritime records he's searching for would have something relevant to the Miyamoto case.
- It doesn't take him long to find something important: evidence that a ginormous freighter had gone plowing through the area where Carl Heine was fishing—and at around the same time that he went overboard (judging from the time his watch stopped). Ishmael realizes that the waves from the freighter would easily have been enough to knock Carl overboard.
- Ishmael grabs three pages of the transmission notes from that evening and puts them in his pocket.
- Also, he learns that the men at the coast guard office who received the transmissions from the freighter—that is, the dudes who would have easily pieced together the connection between the local murder investigation and the freighter's unusual detour through fishing waters—left the day after that shift for posts elsewhere. So, no one over there realized that the key to Carl Heine's death was in their records. How's that for bad luck?