Missing Witness (7 page)

Fiona continued staring at him as they walked. Her gaze was kind but unrelenting.

“So I'll think about it,” Will said, noting her gaze.

As they continued walking, Fiona was silent but smiling, and her eyes were locked on Will.

“Promise? You'll seriously consider it?”

“Absolutely.”

Fiona broke into spontaneous applause, and the noise startled some white terns that were standing on the beach a few yards ahead of them. The flock rose up with noisy squawking and flew off.

Fiona stopped on the beach, eyed her husband, and then looked out onto the ocean. And then she smiled mischievously.

“If you love your wife, you'll test the water for me. I was thinking about wading in. But I'm afraid it may be too cold.”

“Take it from me, it's too cold.” He flicked some water with his toes toward Fiona's bare leg.

“No, seriously. I want you to go in and test the water. Are you man enough?”

“Oh—ouch! A deadly blow to the male ego,” Will said with a laugh. “But realistically, can't you feel how cold the water is? You've been wading up to your ankles.”

“I repeat myself,” she said, laughing. “Do you have what it takes to dive in this early in the morning?”

Will stopped dead in his tracks. His smile melted into a look of steely determination.

“Of course, you know I have to go in now. Of course, you know you've made the ultimate challenge. A challenge I cannot turn down. And what I want you to realize,” he said with manufactured solemnity, “is when I dive into this water, into its near arctic temperature…that even though I be in excruciating and infinite pain, I shall do it for you, my beloved. And I will do it with such courage that you will hear no audible complaint from my lips.”

With that, he stripped the terrycloth sunshirt off his back, dropped his sandals and ran headlong into the surf, taking one final, arching dive to immerse himself in the cold, crashing waves.

All was silent.

Then two seconds later, Will emitted a scream so loud that it sent another flock of birds from their stations on the sand…into the blue sky.

9

A
FTER
W
ILL AND
F
IONA RETURNED
from their walk on the beach, Will climbed out of his wet shorts, showered, and put on some casual clothes. Fiona went out on the little deck that overlooked the ocean, taking her cell phone with her. Then she began a conference call with her concert manager. Meanwhile, Will used the landline inside the ocean cottage to call his office for an update. Hilda, his secretary, had little to report—which was good news to Will. His two associate attorneys, Jacki Johnson and Todd Furgeson, were keeping things well in hand.

Then Will was on his way to the meeting with Boggs Beckford at the local hospital.

It was warm and sunny, and Will enjoyed the ride in his '57 Corvette convertible. From Hatteras through the miles of national wildlife refuge, sand dunes, and open fields of waving sea grass, it was a good forty-five minutes before he reached the Oregon Inlet Bridge. The span took him high up over the ocean, which stretched out to his right. The sea was crystal blue and calm, and he could see through the clean waters to the sandbars that protected the shore of the Outer Banks on the Atlantic side. To his left was the darker blue of the Sound waters.

On the other side of the bridge he hit the usual heavy tourist traffic—the endless line of minivans crammed with rambunctious children, jeeps, old station wagons with surfboards strapped to the tops, and pickup trucks with multiple fishing rods housed in cylinders attached to their front grills.

A few minutes later Will was pulling into the Dunes Memorial Hospital.

He identified himself at the front desk and made his way to Boggs Beckford's hospital room.

Beckford was a man in his forties with sandy hair and glasses. Will found him in bed with his left arm outstretched in a cast tethered on a wire from an aluminum pole, and his right leg in a cast. At the tableside next
to his bed there were files and papers stacked high, and the phone was placed on top of the papers.

Will introduced himself and shook hands with the only functional hand that Beckford had.

“Jonathan Joppa told me you were coming in and you'd be meeting with me,” Beckford began. “I urged him to get new counsel. As you can see, I'm out of commission for a while. They promised they'd get me a walking cast and get me ambulatory by the end of the summer. So, what are you going to do…” Beckford said, his voice trailing off.

“I am sorry about your accident. It looks like you've had a nasty time.”

“What you're looking at here is not the worst of it,” Beckford commented. “I had a bunch of internal injuries. Injury to my spleen. Bruised kidney. I was a mess when they brought me in here.”

“What happened?”

“You tell me,” Beckford shot back. “I was crossing the Oregon Inlet Bridge. I was way up there. Minding my own business. Going about fifty miles an hour. And suddenly everything goes wrong. I lose my steering and the car flips off the top of the bridge. I go down in the water. It's just a good thing I had my windows rolled down. When I came to, my car was filling up with water, and I barely got out as the car was sinking. I barely managed to get myself to shore. I really don't know how I did it. I was like a half-dead seal with one flipper. I want to tell you, I was in a world of pain…”

“Why'd the steering go?” Will asked.

“That's the million dollar question. It was a new Acura. The dealership that does my regular maintenance had never worked on the steering, or anywhere near it. So then I thought,
Maybe I'll sue the manufacturer.
But then I did some checking. No recalls on steering problems. No history of steering problems. And no similar lawsuits against the manufacturer.”

“So you really don't know?”

Beckford shook his head. “Well, let's just say I've had my suspicions. I had my car looked at by the best mechanic on the Outer Banks. And I brought the Sheriff's Department in, just in case there was some kind of vandalism. I thought maybe somebody tampered with my car.”

“What did they conclude?”

“Well, ‘ain't conclusive' is what they said. Plus they didn't have any suspects. No motive. As far as I know, their file is still open. But it's going nowhere. So here I am, laid up in bed. Trying to practice law out of a hospital room. I didn't mean to gripe at you, Mr. Chambers, but you just got me on a bad day.”

“Don't worry about it. And call me Will.”

“First off—let me say that I gave you a glowing recommendation to Reverend Joppa. I did a background check on you via the Web, and one of the attorney listings. Very impressive. I told Joppa he was lucky to get you. So how can I get you up to speed on this case?”

“Well, first of all, give me an idea of how far you've gotten in preparing Joppa's case.”

“Actually,” Beckford said, shifting himself painfully in a vain attempt to get a little more comfortable, “most of my time was taken up with the preliminary matters in the initial appeal. We challenged the contingency contained in Willowby's last will and testament. You know, the requirement that Joppa has to disprove the piracy charges against the ancestor—Isaac Joppa—in order to take the island under the will. I don't know how much you know about probate…”

“Not very much,” Will replied. “The only time I've gotten involved in my career has been in contest matters. But the day-to-day, technical probate stuff, I'm not up on. So enlighten me.”

“Well, the long and short of it is this. There's a difference in North Carolina law between conditions precedent and conditions subsequent. I'm not going to bore you with the details. The point is, we challenged the condition in the will on the grounds of impossibility, and a number of other grounds. We lost at trial. We took it to the Court of Appeals and then lost there too. The case got remanded back for trial on the merits—in other words, giving Joppa an opportunity to prove his ancestor's innocence in order to determine whether he takes that island. That's when my accident happened.”

“Have you done any work on the factual issues—on the circumstances of Isaac Joppa's life? The piracy charges against him? The likelihood that you might be able to
disprove
any complicity between him and Edward Teach?”

“I had only gone so far as to contact the one guy that I believe knows more about local history around here than anybody else.”

“And who is that?”

“A fella by the name of August Longfellow. He's a real piece of work, this guy. A little on the eccentric side. He used to teach regional history and a bunch of other stuff over at Duke University. He's semiretired. Now he's mostly writing books—I think he's working on one about the history of the Outer Banks. He's also published some poetry. I think he still teaches a class—some kind of philosophy class.”

“What was your purpose in retaining him?”

“Actually, I had thoughts about his testifying as an expert witness. He's published two different books on piracy and regional historical events down here along the Banks. I figured he was the logical place to start. I mean, really, how do you put together three hundred years of history? Go back to the early 1700s. Put together the life of someone that the history books are silent about. We know there was a criminal indictment filed by the grand jury and an arrest warrant by the local magistrate there in the city of Bath. Then this Isaac Joppa character ends up getting killed in the big battle involving Blackbeard, where most of the pirates are either killed or captured. Really, where do you go from there?” Beckford let his voice trail off in a way that implied the absence of any logical answers.

“You've pretty well analyzed it the same way I did,” Will said. “Did you tell Reverend Joppa how difficult this case was going to be for him to prove?”

Beckford nodded. “Told him that over and over again. I have to say, he's a nice fella. Easygoing. Always responded to my requests for information. Cooperative. And he's no slouch. You know the guy played triple-A baseball, don't you?”

“No, I can't say that I did,” Will said with surprise.

“Yeah, from what he told me, I think he had aspirations of going into the majors. That was a long time ago, of course. You know the different kinds of clients. There are some that are really gung-ho. And you know that they're going to fight, bare knuckles and all, until the bitter end. Joppa isn't like that. He's a pretty easygoing guy. Which surprised me.”

“What surprised you?” Will asked.

“That he wanted to persist in this case. Even after we lost the appeal. Even though it was apparent he'd have to perform a near-impossible historical feat in order to get that island. I really don't know what is driving him to continue this case. Maybe it's the money.”

“I heard that there's some real estate development interest in that island. Possibly condos.”

“Sure. I heard the same thing. In fact, Joppa confided that to me,” Beckford said. “I know they're not paying him much over there at that church where he's the pastor. On the other hand, he doesn't strike me as one of these get-rich types.”

Will was taking notes on his legal pad. Then he put his pen down and thought for a few seconds.

“Did this Longfellow guy give you any indication you'd be able to prove Isaac Joppa's innocence?”

“I had only had one conversation with him. But he sounded downright optimistic about that.”

“Did he say what kind of evidence he was talking about?” Will asked with increased curiosity.

“Not really,” Beckford replied. “I do remember him saying something about a woman, though. Or was it
women?
More than one woman in his life? I'm not sure.”

“A woman, as in—a romantic interest?”

“I think so.” Beckford tilted his head slightly in his attempt to recall. “I think he said there was some information that indicated that he had a woman he was in love with. Wait a minute. Now I remember. He said there was some kind of connection with a woman in England. And I think it was a love interest of Isaac Joppa's. That's it.”

“A woman he had fallen in love with? Was he ever married?”

“Now you're going beyond what I remember. I do remember him saying that there was some information, historically, that indicated Joppa had a woman in England he had fallen in love with. And then there was something about a
second
woman. But I can't remember. You'll have to talk to him about that.

“Besides talking to this August Longfellow, is there anything else you think I ought to know?”

“Just this—the party on the other side of this lawsuit—Terrence Ludlow. See, if Reverend Joppa can't prove the innocence of Isaac Joppa, then the island goes to Ludlow—he's a shirttail relative of Randolph Willowby. Ludlow's got this lawyer—Virgil MacPherson from Raleigh. Comes off polite. But then he knifes you in the kidney. MacPherson's slipperier than the skin on a tiger shark. Keep your eye on him.”