Missing Witness (29 page)

Will looked over at Fiona, who was hunched over the keyboard, with the concerto rolling out so loudly that the floor under his feet was vibrating.

Snatching the book, he retired to the porch outside. But it was not to be. A dozen teenagers were on the beach, screaming and cheering each time the volleyball was spiked across their net.

Will walked back into the cottage. He stood for a moment in the middle of the living room as Fiona kept playing. But after a few minutes, aware of his presence, she stopped playing and turned around.

“Is something the matter?” Then she added innocently, “I'm thinking about doing the
William Tell
overture next. What do you think?”

Will wasn't sure whether she was serious nor not. But he threw her a look that left no ambiguity about the fact that
he
was serious. And not pleased.

“So,” Fiona said with an eyebrow raised, “my darling husband, are we ill-tempered this morning?”

Will was losing it.

“No—but
we're
highly frustrated—in fact,
we're
growing more and more discouraged—as
we
try to construct a theory of this case for
our
client, Reverend Jonathan Joppa…
We
are growing tired of questions that have no answers. Of trying to reconstruct a historical and legal event that is three hundred years old, buried in obscurity, and is proving nearly impossible to reconstruct.”

“Well…isn't that what you do?” Fiona asked with a tinge of sarcasm in her voice.

“What do you mean, what I do?”

“Well, it seems to mean that you've always specialized in taking on impossible cases and winning them. Sometimes at the expense of
everything else in your life
. Isn't that what you do?”

Under other circumstances Will might have taken the first phrase as a compliment. But not today.

“Look, what I really need is some peace and quiet today to concentrate.”

Fiona, with cumbersome effort, raised herself from the chair in front of the piano and walked over slowly, throwing Will a look that indicated that she was about to check some baggage, and it wasn't just carry-on.

“Tell me something,” she said, her voice quivering. “Have I been good about my pregnancy?”

Slightly befuddled by the question, Will replied, “I don't get it—what do you mean?”

“Exactly what I said. How have I been about my pregnancy? Have you heard me complain a lot? Have you heard me talking about my backache? Or my knees hurting? Or my trouble sleeping at night? Or what it's like being this pregnant in the heat of the summer? Have you heard me grumbling about those kinds of things?”

Will was still unable to connect the dots. “Well…sure, you've been great about it. But I still don't see what that has to do with what we're talking about.”

Fiona put her hand to her forehead in exasperation.

“The point is this…the wife here is extremely pregnant, extremely uncomfortable, and constantly dealing with raging hormones and rollercoaster emotions. On the other hand, the husband is apparently concerned only with creating a working environment as quiet as his legal-office law library. And winning his case.

“Now, I'm the pregnant one here. You're not. I help you with your case…and how do you say thank-you? By becoming even more obsessed with this Joppa lawsuit.”

“I don't know how else to say this—but I really need to win this case.”

“You need to win every case. That's the problem,” Fiona countered. “You're always driven—but this time you seem totally consumed. This is a little ocean cottage. Not a law office. It was supposed to be our summer getaway—and you've got the Joppa case taking over every corner of it.”

“But you were the one—”

“I know. I encouraged you to take the case. But that's no excuse to lose all sense of balance. I've done my part to help you on this, remember? I'm a team player. But you're running the team into the ground.”

“Look, I can't help it. MacPherson, and especially Blackjack Morgan, want to run all over us. And I haven't come up with a single decent piece of evidence proving our case—”

“So is it about justice? Or is it really about sticking it to this Blackjack Morgan guy?” Fiona's face was flushed. “I'm the same one who tells you all the time how the Lord is using your legal talent to right some of the serious wrongs in the world. Remember? I was there when you defended my Da…and also that case wrongly accusing those parents of child abuse in Georgia, where I flew out to be with you …and do I have to remind you what I went through in Caleb Marlowe's war crimes case? Do I? Or waiting to see if you would come back safely from the Sudan trial after getting death threats…”

Fiona's eyes were tearing up.

“Hey, come on…don't get yourself upset …” Will fumbled.

“You made me upset. So now you're going to hear what I've been carrying inside…”

“What you're carrying inside is our baby. I want you to sit down—”

“Convenient. Now you get pro-family! You never answered my question.”

“OK. Here's the answer,” Will said fiercely. “It's not about revenge against Morgan. Not exactly. It's about Uncle Bull—”

“Uncle Bull? What are you talking about?”

There was an awkward silence.

“What's going on…there's something else, isn't there? Something you haven't told me,” Fiona said with a hurt expression.

After another pause, Will explained. About Morgan's vendetta against Uncle Bull because of the search warrant he had signed…how Morgan's revenge probably cost Bull a seat on the Court of Appeals.

“So, you
do
have an axe to grind. My Da used to say something about that—‘If you've got an axe to grind, be careful where you point the blade…'” She tried to turn away, but Will put his hand gently on her arm.

“Don't go…alright. I have been absorbed into this case. I admit it. And I haven't been taking enough time for you. And I probably haven't been prioritizing this pregnancy. I'm going to start zeroing in on you and the baby. Promise.”

“So I'm sure you remembered,” Fiona said, still slightly caustically, “we've got another checkup this afternoon with Dr. Yager. Right? You remember that? Let's start by zeroing in on that.”

Fiona turned her head away slightly, but Will still saw tears forming.

“Fiona,” he said softly, “I want you to know how great you've been during this pregnancy. This really is a
big deal
. The pregnancy…our baby. It's a really big deal. And I'm so very proud of you.”

Fiona started weeping. She covered her eyes and shook her head.

“I don't know why I'm crying. I really don't…”

Will held her tightly, and kept holding her for a while.

Then she kissed him, and turned to the piano.

“All right, Counselor, I'll knock off the Beethoven. How about I play a little Bach instead.
Very
softly…I'll even use the damper pedal! Now go back to work…”

Will went back to the kitchen table and returned to the trial proceedings of Captain William Kidd.

Fiona was gently playing Bach's “Sleepers, Awake.”

As Will was reading the trial testimony, a thought struck him—a random thought. Quiet. Like just a snatch of a voice…as if he'd been walking down the halls of some university and, for only a moment, heard a few words floating out from a lecture through a partially opened door.

He flipped back to the beginning of the record of Kidd's trial:

THE TRIAL of CAPTAIN WILLIAM KIDD, for murder and piracy, upon six several indictments…at the Admiralty Sessions held at the Old Bailey, London, on the eighth and ninth of May, 1701…

An
indictment
. Suddenly, he understood. William Kidd was indicted by a grand jury. Then Will flipped the pages of the book to the beginning of the jury trial. He studied the jury's charge from the clerk:

You of the jury, look upon the prisoner, and hearken to his cause. He stands indicted by the name of William Kidd, late of the English colonies in America, in the state of New York, who upon this indictment has been arraigned, and thereunto has pleaded not guilty, and for his trial, put himself on God and his country, which country you are. Your charge is to inquire whether he be guilty of piracy and robbery whereof he stands indicted, or not guilty.

A sailor. A captain—based in New York, but tried in the Old Bailey criminal court in London, England.

As the structured chords of Bach formed an aural background, a picture came to Will's mind. It was an ancient drawing, a replica of the maps of the sea, in one of the articles in Virgil MacPherson's avalanche of documents. It showed the Old World islands of Britain—then the waves of the ocean, with a sea serpent's head appearing behind one of the waves—and then the shores of the New World of the Americas.

Two worlds. The Old World and the New World. Separated, yet organically connected, by one common ocean.

And more than that.

Two worlds connected by a common legal system.

The English common law ruled in both England and in the English colonies in America.

Unknowingly, Will had dropped the book and risen to his feet. He found himself walking to the window overlooking the ocean as Fiona played softly in the background.

“Which is why,” Will muttered out loud excitedly, “it was possible for Captain William Kidd to have been arrested in New York for crimes of
piracy committed on the high seas, sent back to the Old Bailey court in London, and there tried. Under one common law system.”

He rushed back to the kitchen table and grabbed the book he had been reading. He turned to the notes at the back to find out the source of the trial transcript.

Old Bailey. Old Bailey. Old Bailey.
Will kept turning the words over and over again. It was possible…theoretically possible…procedurally possible…that Isaac Joppa could have been charged by a grand jury in the American colonies but subjected to a full jury trial on the charges of piracy in the Old Bailey criminal court in London.

Will looked at his watch. It was only mid-morning. He might still be able to contact someone in England. He had to test his hypothesis. He quickly dialed the international operator for information about the source he'd found in the book.

“Should I stop playing?” Fiona whispered softly.

“No. Absolutely not. Keep playing…softly…but keep playing!”

Eventually, Will was connected to a researcher at the University of Sheffield who was in charge of transcripts for the Old Bailey criminal court in London.

After more than ten rings, someone picked up.

“University of Sheffield,” the voice at the other end said.

“Yes, ma'am,” Will said excitedly, “I have a request for you. A
very unusual
request.”

43

“W
HAT KIND OF REQUEST DO YOU HAVE
?” The woman spoke with a proper British accent.

“I understand,” Will explained, “that the oldest records of Old Bailey criminal trials held in London are managed by a project there at the University of Sheffield.”

“Yes, that's quite correct. We've been working on the project for several years.”

“I'm trying to determine whether a certain criminal action resulted in a trial in the Old Bailey in the early 1700s…”

“I'm going to transfer you to our research director. He's much more up-to-date with the specifics of the project and the information that can be retrieved. If you would hold on for one very short moment, I'll see if I can get him for you.”

Will was put on hold. Fiona was still playing softly, but her attention was divided between the keyboard and furtive glances at Will, trying to read his expression.

After several minutes, Will heard another crisply English voice.

“Yes, sir, calling from the States?”

“Yes, I am. My name is Will Chambers. I'm an attorney. I am doing some research as part of a case I'm handling. The research has to do with someone who was charged with piracy in the American colonies—in 1717. In 1719 an entry was made in court records in North Carolina indicating that the matter had been dismissed. But another entry indicated that it was dismissed res judicata…”

“Very interesting,” the other man replied. “Exactly how can I be of assistance?”

“Well, the question is this. There was never any trial held in the American colonies. I am speculating…wondering whether, even though the indictment was issued by a grand jury in the American colonies, whether
the case could actually have been tried in the Old Bailey in London. And so I'm trying to get some information on the case.”

“Yes—well, you've certainly come to the right place. The University of Sheffield has been in charge of this project for some time. We've been trying to retrieve the trial transcripts of proceedings before the Old Bailey. And we're very proud of our ability to reconstruct trials going back several hundred years.”