Missing Witness (17 page)

Fiona shook her head. “I didn't get any answers to that. But there was something interesting. Something at the very end…”

“Like what?”

“I asked her whether Mr. Willowby had ever kept a diary. Or notes. Letters. I had the feeling she was uncomfortable with that. She cut the conversation short. Said she had things to do. And that was it.”

“Where does that leave us?”

“Well, Mrs. Willowby did leave the door open for me to come back and talk to her again. And I definitely want to do that. Not only because of the case. But also on a personal level.”

Will then shared his conversation with Susan Red Deer Williams in more depth than he had had a chance to previously. Then he thought of something that Williams had said at the end of their conversation.

“She told me there was
one piece
of tangible evidence that might be able to prove Isaac survived the Battle of Ocracoke Inlet, as the Indian legend had indicated. The Indians believe he was nursed back to health by the Indian princess and her family.”

“What was the piece of evidence that she was talking about?”

“Apparently there was a small ceramic plate with a painted portrait of Abigail Merriwether. It ended up, somehow, in the possession of King Jim Blount.”

Will studied the flickering candlelight within the hurricane lamp on the table. He listened to the surf and its rolling and surging.

“Apparently, years later, the descendants of King Jim Blount made a temporary return back to the Pamlico Sound area,” he continued. “The plate supposedly was transferred from King Jim Blount to someone else—to a white man. That's when it left the custody of the Indians. Now the significance of the plate is this—Isaac Joppa apparently carried it on his person throughout his travels. If he was shot and killed, it would have gone down to the bottom of the ocean with him. On the other hand, if he survived, then he would have taken that plate with him. That's the most likely explanation of how the Indians got their hands on it—by coming into contact with Isaac Joppa. So, it does support the belief that Isaac survived the battle.”

“Where's the plate now?”

“Williams gave me the name of this guy—she said he's a collector of oddities, so-called antiques, and quite a bit of ocean junk. He's inland, in the swamp areas. She gave me his name and directions on how to get there. She said the guy doesn't have a telephone—can you imagine that? He makes all his phone calls from a pay phone at a general store down the road.”

“What's his name?”

“Oscar Kooter.” Then Will smiled and added, “Apparently, his nickname is ‘Possum.'”

“Why do I think that's your next visit?” Fiona asked with a cautious grin.

“Yes, I suppose you're right.”

“You don't sound too excited about pursuing that lead.”

“No, it's not that…” Will's eyes were now riveted on some unseen landscape. And, for the moment, Fiona was not in it. As Will talked, it was a soliloquy, not a dialogue. “It's just that all of this information I'm developing…all the evidence so far has indicated only a few things. First, that Isaac Joppa may have survived the battle that killed Edward Teach. He may have been taken in by Indians. He may at some point have been engaged to a woman in England, and may have had some sort of encounter with an Indian princess here in the Pamlico Sound area—though the Indians end up going one way and he goes another. But I keep wondering…how does any of this prove that Isaac Joppa was not a willing participant with Teach and his gang?”

Fiona reached out and took Will's hand and squeezed it.

But she didn't tell Will about the doubts she was now having about whether she should have encouraged him to take the Joppa case. Will had that look…she knew it too well. He was slowly becoming obsessed with winning…as he did in all of his cases. But now…with her first pregnancy, and their summer together…it was looking like this complicated case was becoming all-consuming for him.

Will broke out of his silence, noticed Fiona, and smiled back.

But he was holding something back as well. Georgia's conversation with him that night.

Georgia Chambers had confided in him that his Uncle Bull had been the presiding judge years before in the grand jury investigation of Morgan's drug enterprise. Bull had signed a search warrant for Morgan's homes and businesses. But the police search came up dry. Morgan retaliated—through attorney MacPherson—by filing a judicial ethics complaint against Bull
Chambers. Bull was being considered for a vacancy on the Court of Appeals at the time.

Morgan's frivolous but well-timed complaint was enough to bump Bull out of the running. And according to Georgia, he never quite got over the disappointment.

For Will, beating MacPherson and defeating Blackjack Morgan's obscure interests in the case had now become intensely personal.

25

F
OR THE LAST FORTY-EIGHT HOURS
Blackjack Morgan had been on the hunt for Orville Putrie. He wasn't in the shop. He was not over at Joppa's Folly. The secretary at Morgan's newly furnished real estate office had not seen him. And when Morgan called Putrie's house, he only got his answering machine.

So Morgan climbed in his black customized pickup truck and headed down the beach road.

At Putrie's handsome two-story beach house, he noticed, immediately, Putrie's car in the driveway. He yelled profanities at Putrie from inside the cab. Then he added, “I just pay these clowns way too much money.” He grabbed his cane and quickly limped up the stairs to the front door. It was unlocked.

Somewhere, Putrie's stereo was blaring the frantic, industrial beat of techno-rock. Morgan made his way up to the second floor, where he found Putrie sprawled on the living room couch in his underwear. Junk food wrappers and empty soda cans were strewn all over the living room. Morgan looked at the coffee table and picked up a clear vial of a crystalline substance.

“Why, I do believe this would be crystal meth…or maybe angel dust…” Morgan held the test tube contents up to the light. “How much did you pay for this, genius boy? Whatever you paid for it, you could have got it cheaper through me. Hey, Putrie!”

But Putrie wasn't moving. Morgan bent down and grabbed him by his T-shirt, yanked him up off the couch, and then threw him down violently to the floor. Putrie opened two eyes…but separately, asymmetrically.

Morgan yelled his name again, but Putrie was still having a problem coming around. So Morgan bent down and yanked him up by the neck of his T-shirt, ripping it down the middle. Then he grabbed him, dragging
him to the bathroom where he bent him over the bathtub and turned the cold water onto Putrie's head.

Putrie jerked his head up, gasping for air, but Morgan pressed it back down again under the water.

Putrie was spitting water and gagging, flailing his thin arms toward Morgan, who was amused at his reaction.

Then Morgan sauntered back into the living room, using his cane to knock empty cans off tables and look under the cushions on the sofa.

“You know, you've got a decent beach house, Putrie,” Morgan said, casually hobbling around the living room. “But you live like some kind of zoo animal. I mean, look at this…you take absolutely no pride in your environment. Putrie…do you hear what I'm saying to you?”

After a few minutes, Putrie stumbled out of the bathroom, his hair, head, and torso soaked with water.

“What's the matter with you?” he whined. “Couldn't you see that I was sleeping?”

“No…you weren't sleeping. You were trashed.”

“I was sleeping!”

“Putrie…you were brain-fried, spine-dried, garbage-dump trashed. And don't ever contradict me when I'm telling you something, you little creep…”

Putrie walked, wobbly-legged, to the living room where, he dropped like a dead weight into one of the chairs.

“You never got back to me,” Morgan said, suddenly speaking in a soothing, reasonable voice. “You never got back to me about our interesting research project.”

“Which research project are you talking about?” Putrie rubbed both of his eyes with his knuckles.

“The computer search for October 11, 1718, you moron!” Morgan screamed.

“I did your project. And I came up with exactly what I figured I'd come up with, considering the fact that you refused to give me the information I needed…”

“And exactly what's that remark mean?”

“The only things I found were a marriage certificate…having nothing to do with Edward Teach, or anybody involved with him. And one unimproved parcel of land way down the coast that was registered on that date. That was it.”

“All right. Then you're going to do another computer search for me. The entire year 1718. The same geographical points I gave you before. But
you're going to look for three letters. You're going to try to come up with what these letters stand for.”

“Three letters?” Putrie ran his hands through his hair, scratching wildly.

“That's exactly what I just told you. Now listen carefully. The three letters are—I-Y-U.”

Putrie dropped his hands to his knees and looked up at Morgan. After a few moments of concentration he laughed.

“I know what those three letters are…”

“You have no idea what those letters stand for,” Morgan taunted him.

“I certainly do,” Putrie said with a grin. “You must have figured that the two symbols on the shell are, in fact, three letters. The first symbol is the letter Y placed over the letter I. Therefore, you've concluded that the letters spell out…I-Y…and the third symbol is an upside down U. So it's I-Y-U.”

“Sometimes,” Morgan sneered, “you show these flashes of brilliance, Putrie. But, at other times…other times it's like I'm sitting on more brains than you've got in your entire head.”

With that, Morgan burst into hysterical laughter.

“Oh, man, Blackjack…you've given me another incredibly complex and nearly impossible search.” Putrie shook his head. “I've done some code breaking. The key to code breaking is to start with one part of the code—no matter how small—that you have the key to. You need a match on one small part of the undetermined code system. Once you have a determinant, then it's simply a matter of running through the variables. We need a key. We need to start with one of these letters.”

Morgan was staring blankly at Putrie. He didn't much care how the eccentric genius figured it out. He just wanted the problem solved—and as soon as possible.

But Putrie's mind was beginning to work the problem like a Rubik's cube. “I know you don't want me to ask you…so I won't…but I know what you're after,” he said with a twisted smile. “You want to know where Edward Teach put it. And if he put it anywhere…then it's land-based or sea-based. Either he hid it on a ship that went down or he put it on the land. And if it's on land, then somebody owns the land. And if Teach made a note to himself on that shell, using these symbols…then it may have something to do with land ownership—location on someone's land.”

Morgan was still silent. Now he was bending forward, listening intently to Putrie's ruminations as he rambled on.

“So maybe I'll begin with the matrix of information and cross-index by land ownership that has a Y in it, or an I in it, or a U in it.”

Putrie's eyes were fixed on the coffee table in the middle of his living room, staring at it as if he were looking right through the wood, right through the floor to something else.

“So I'll begin my search looking for land ownership under those three letters. But I'm going to start with one letter in particular. I'm going to start with the letter Y.”

Now Morgan sat up straight, staring right at Putrie.

“Why are you going to start with the letter Y?”

“Because…in the last research you had me do I went through land records for the entire year of 1718. There aren't a lot of people whose last names start with I or with U. But there are a couple whose names begin with Y. In fact…”

“In fact what?” Morgan asked, his voice rising.

“I remember a guy who owned quite a lot of land. His last name started with a Y. He was doing land deals throughout 1718. Then he died. And after he died his wife sold that Stony Island to Malachi Joppa.”

“What was his name?”

“Ebenezer Youngblood.”

“This Youngblood guy owned the island.”

Putrie nodded.

“Yeah…good thinking…”

Then Morgan rose, leaning on his cane, and walked over and patted Putrie on the shoulder.

“That sounds fine…good place to start…you do your computer geek stuff and get me some answers. I may even drop you a big bonus.”

After Morgan had left, Putrie got up from the chair, searched until he found his thick-lensed glasses, and made his way to his computer room. He wasn't going to wait before starting on this project.