Missing Witness (52 page)

“That's okay,” Will motioned to Jonathan that he would be just one more minute.

“Dr. Longfellow, one more thing. What you told me pretty much verifies what my client said. But there's one bit of critical information missing.”

“What's that?”

“I need to know if anyone died—or was buried—sometime in October or November of 1718,” Will said, peering at Glen Watson's note.

“Give me a minute…Let me pull that Collier survey out again…”

Outside, Joppa was waving to Will and pointing to the sky. Will could hear the wind picking up, and off he saw, along the dark horizon, a muted flash of lightning within the black clouds.

“Okay, here it is,” Longfellow exclaimed. “It's Ebenezer. He died on October 8, 1718.”

“Tell me something—back then…how quickly did they bury after a death?”

“Real quick. Not to get too maudlin about it, but a corpse had to get taken care of immediately in the old days …”

“And so,” Will was putting the pieces together in his mind, “if Ebenezer is buried the next day, the dirt would still appear disturbed for at least several days. If someone wanted to dig up that grave after Youngblood's burial and put some valuables, some treasure in there, then cover it back up, say during the night of the eleventh, by the following morning no one would have been able to tell that it had been disturbed.”

Longfellow agreed, with one additional warning.

“I've heard the rumors about Teach's treasure being somewhere on Stony Island,” Longfellow remarked.

“I'm heading out there right now by boat. We may need to consider getting a court order to exhume the grave of Ebenezer Youngblood.”

“One additional historical factoid,” Longfellow added. “Those pirates, being a superstitious bunch, besides stashing treasure in the grave of a recently buried person would also often kill someone and bury them at the spot. They figured the ghost of the departed would haunt the place and keep prying visitors away.”

“Doctor,” Will said, ending the phone call, “you always have such cheerful information.”

Will locked up his car and sprinted over to Jonathan.

“That storm seems to be heading back at us,” Joppa said. “We'd better do this quick.”

Joppa fired up the outboard and, after turning on the fore and aft lights, headed them fully into the wind, which now was whitecapping the waves.

As the boat lurched over the choppy water, Will shouted to Jonathan, telling him everything. Halfway across the sound, the rain started pelting down, and both of them donned the slickers. As the skiff neared the island, Will turned the beam of the flashlight onto the dock. No boats were moored there. Then he scanned the beach, which was empty.

“So far so good.”

After tying off the boat, they sprinted up the sandy path, with Jonathan's lantern lighting the way and the beam from Will's flashlight bouncing wildly up into the trees ahead of them.

Jonathan, running at a good pace, was ahead of Will.

He turned left to head toward the little cemetery.

“We're almost there,” he cried to Will, increasing the distance between them.

Then suddenly, Will lost sight of Jonathan's lantern light. He was tempted to call out, but something warned him not to.

Instead, he focused his flashlight straight ahead. There was the gate to the cemetery. He flashed the beam left and right. Jonathan was not there.

He flashed the beam up a little, revealing, through the sheeting rain, the great oak tree with its immense spreading limbs.

Will had slowed to a cautious walk now, peering ahead. Searching for any sign of Jonathan. There was no sight of him.

And there was no sound except for the whining wind of the nor'easter, which, in its fickleness, had turned once more against the mainland and the islands—and the sound of rain pelting loudly on the hood of Will's slicker.

75

W
ILL HAD A STRONG FEELING OF FOREBODING
. Undefined, but palpable.

But it wasn't until he walked through the gate to the cemetery and saw the hole that had been dug at the foot of the oak tree—at the grave of Ebenezer Youngblood—that he fully understood.

He knew he had made a terrible mistake coming to the island that night. But by then it was too late.

He stepped closer to the hole and gazed down into the grave as the rain poured down into it, the wind at his back now feeling more like a gale force.

Someone had dug down, and broken through to what occupied the grave, exposing it to the outside world.

There was a skull. As Will shined his flashlight down he could see the eye sockets. Below it, more scattered bones, surrounded by vines that had penetrated the coffin.

There was a crunch in the underbrush to his left.

He wheeled around, flashing his light.

A gun barrel was pointing at him, only a few feet from his face.

The bearer of the weapon stepped a little closer, through the sheeting rain, out of the shadows.

In a black raincoat and wide-brimmed hat, Blackjack Morgan was steadily pointing the revolver at Will's forehead as he stepped forward.

He tucked his cane under his arm and patted down Will's coat to make sure he was unarmed.

As he did, he was half-humming, half-singing some kind of off-key tune under his breath.

Will stood perfectly still, madly searching with his eyes for Jonathan Joppa. He was still missing.

Morgan was still muttering something in a sing-song voice, something vaguely familiar. Then Will recognized it. Only Blackjack Morgan would
be sick enough to be singing that song, over an open grave, while threatening a man with a gun.

With a yo-heave-ho! and a fare-you-well

And a sudden plunge in the sullen swell

Ten fathoms deep on the road to hell

Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!

“Putrie!” Morgan screamed over his shoulder, but with the gun still trained on Will. “Get out here!”

Orville Putrie stumbled from behind the oak tree. He was also holding a revolver and was wiping the water from his face.

“Get the good reverend up on his feet,” Morgan yelled.

“He's still out cold,” Putrie replied. “You really whacked him. You know, if you fractured his skull, he may be dead.”

“What a wimp!” Morgan exclaimed, laughing. “I only bopped him once. Slap his face a couple times. He'll come to.”

Several minutes later Putrie and Jonathan Joppa, who was still groggy and rubbing his head, appeared together.

Morgan was still laughing and singing his little song. Then he walked over to Putrie and whispered something in his ear.

“See—you can trust me, Putrie. I gave you one of my guns, didn't I? Does that look like somebody who doesn't trust you? I always take care of my people. And you'll get a cut of this. But not the share you would have. That's the penalty you get for trying to do this without me, see?”

Putrie eyed Morgan, but didn't answer.

Morgan turned to Will.

“I've got a special job for you, big-shot lawyer.” Then he pointed to a blackened, ancient-looking metal box, about the size of a small suitcase, that was on the ground, and had been extracted from the Youngblood grave.

“Put this on the hand truck and wheel it down to your skiff. We'll take yours. Putrie and I both anchored ours over on the other side. Yours is closer.”

But then he added, “If anything falls out of that box, I start shooting.”

The four of them made their way down to the dock through the slant of wind and rain. By now, the waves were surging over the dock, and the lightning was flashing closer, up within the cloudy recesses of the sky.

Jonathan and Will went in first, barely able to stand up as the boat rocked and slammed against the pier. Then the box went in. And then
Putrie, finally followed by Morgan, who took his seat in the bow with his revolver pointed at Will, who was back at the outboard, given the task of motoring the boat through the swells.

As Morgan sat down his raincoat opened, and Will noticed two handguns stuffed under his belt.

Morgan shouted for Will to take them around the side of the island and pointed the way. As the small craft slammed down, then surged up again, the bow dropping and then lifting again wildly, Morgan sat unperturbed, smiling his Cheshire-cat grin.

Then Will caught sight of a large fishing boat anchored about a hundred yards off the shore. Morgan yelled for Will to steer over to the ladder on its side. As they closed in, Will noticed that Morgan had painted the bow with his name, BLACKJACK, and next to that, the image of two cards—one, the ace of spades, and the other, the king of clubs.

Morgan saw Will was looking around for some possible escape from the skiff.

“Don't waste your time thinking about jumping,” Morgan yelled with a sneer. “I'll shoot you in a heartbeat. Face it, I always win. I never lose.”

Then Morgan had Will tie off onto the side of the big rig that was bobbing wildly in the sea and told him to climb up.

With his handgun pointed at the lawyer, Morgan was following him up the ladder, just out of kicking range.

Then Jonathan Joppa made his way up. He was ordered to lift the heavy metal box up to Will.

When the box was safely on board and Joppa had climbed up, he and Will were told to go to the stern. Then, with his weapon still pointing at his two captives, Morgan barked out a command to Putrie, who was still in the skiff.

“Scuttle it!”

“How?” Putrie yelled up.

“Like this.” Morgan fired a couple shots into the middle of the skiff, which quickly began taking on water. In an instant, it disappeared under the waves.

Putrie scampered up the ladder, still clutching his revolver, and moved toward the bow, pointing it toward Will and Jonathan at the other end.

Morgan entered the wheelhouse, walking like a drunken man across the rolling deck. He turned on the ignition and kicked in the big, dual inboard engines.

Will looked down on the deck. There were two ropes with heavy drag anchors attached.

But there was something else on the deck also. And when he saw it, he knew that their time to escape was quickly evaporating.

There were two nylon ropes coiled up. At the end, each had been knotted through the hole of a large cement construction block. Anything, or anyone, tied to those ropes and thrown over the side would head straight down to the bottom of the ocean.

Will looked at Putrie, who was nervously clutching his weapon with both hands. Then Will looked down at the black metal chest on the deck. Then he glanced over at Jonathan, who was sitting with his head down and resting his hands on his knees, trying to maintain his balance on the rolling ship. He was groaning in pain.

“How's your head?”

“Bad.” He lowered his voice and said, “Tell me that you've got a plan to get us out of this.”

“I'll figure something out,” Will replied guardedly.

But he had already been considering their dilemma.

And had no idea how he was going to do that.

76

B
LACKJACK
M
ORGAN WAS HEADING
the big fishing boat out to the open sea, that was clear now.

The storm was increasing in ferocity. That was also indisputable. The boat was rising up with each wave, then pitching and slamming down. The terrible undulations of water were pouring torrents up to the bow, against the wheelhouse, and flooding the deck.

And the black metal box was slipping a little this way, then that way, with each roll of the boat.

Will was now facing the inevitable.

With their skiff scuttled, Will and Jonathan could easily be presumed drowned in the heavy seas. They would probably be shot first, then tied to the cement and sunk to the bottom. And the nylon cord would weather the currents and salt water well. They would dangle, lifeless, down in the frigid depths, until time or the creatures of the sea reduced them to mere polished bones, buried in the sands of the sea.

And when it was discovered that Ebenezer Youngblood's grave had been desecrated, speculation would run wild—but most of it would settle on the scenario that Jonathan, who had won the island, had dug the grave up with the help of his lawyer.

Whether they had found any treasure would be an unanswered question, but most folks would conclude that the pair had vanished in the storm while attempting to cross the sound in their skiff.

And Fiona would watch for Will. But he would not return to see her in her hospital bed. And then the next day, a police vehicle would drive up. Perhaps she would have little Andrew in her arms. And the officer would take off his hat and express his sympathies.

Will just hoped that Aunt Georgia would be visiting—in case Fiona collapsed after her world began to crumble.