Missing Witness (31 page)

“So, let's pick up your wife, do some grocery shopping, and have a great dinner,” Jonathan said with a smile.

Jonathan pulled away slowly and headed for Sandy Point Lane.

He took a deep breath, and then very slowly let it out.

Then he said, “Thanks, Lord, for being with me back there.”

45

B
OTH SIDES HAD FILED MOTIONS
before the trial, which was only a few days away. Judge Gadwell was in his courtroom hearing the motions.

During Will's more than twenty years of experience as a trial lawyer, he had become used to this last-minute flurry of activity before the first day of trial.

He likened it to the opening of battle during the Civil War. The North and South would both discharge their artillery to soften up the lines of the other army. Try to break a hole in the offensive structure of the enemy. Those were the pretrial motions. Then the fury of the full-scale charge would begin. For Will, that was the trial.

In his first motion, Will was requesting that the court take judicial notice of the proceedings before the Central Criminal Court in the Old Bailey, London, England, from 1719. This would have the court accept, and announce to the jury, that the Old Bailey transcript was to be received as proof of the official judicial action of the English court on the question of Isaac Joppa's innocence or guilt.

But there was one problem with that argument. The only portion of the transcript that had survived the ravages of time was the testimony of Isaac Joppa and Abigail Merriwether during the defense's case. No other part of the transcript had survived.

And even more important, the verdict rendered by the jury had not been recovered either. Their decision of guilt or innocence had been lost to the ages.

“How can this court take judicial notice,” MacPherson argued to Judge Gadwell, “when we don't know how the jury or the court decided in the case? That's like watching an old videotape of the Superbowl that contains only the first half of the game and then saying, based on that, you can tell who won.”

Gadwell chuckled loudly at that.

“Well, Virgil,” he said with a smile, “I read ya loud and clear on that one. It reminds me of the story of the two guys who went into court to argue about who owned a certain horse. The judge decided he'd compromise a bit in his decision, and he awarded half the horse to the plaintiff and half the horse to the defendant. When the plaintiff complained, the judge couldn't figure out what his problem was. ‘What's the matter with you? I've given you first choice of which end you want.' So the point is, Mr. Chambers, that with only the testimony of Isaac Joppa and his girlfriend, this Abigail Merriwether, you're asking me to take judicial notice of only half a trial. I think I'm going to have to reserve my ruling until trial so that I can think about that one.”

“Our second motion,” Will continued, “is to permit us to expand our list of exhibits, particularly regarding the entry of clerk's notes in the magistrate's court in Bath, North Carolina.”

“Is that the old document you've filed,” the court asked, “where the court says that Isaac's Joppa's case in 1719 is dismissed res judicata?”

“Exactly,” Will replied. “We're asking that the court permit us to amend our exhibit list to include the Old Bailey transcript, obviously; but the other document to be added to the list is this clerk's note. Lastly, we want the court to take judicial notice of that note as an official act of the court in Bath as of 1719.”

MacPherson began rising from counsel table to respond, but Judge Gadwell motioned for him to sit back down.

“You can save your breath, Virgil, because I've already thought this one through. Okay—I think both of you want to be able to add additional documents to your exhibit list. And I'm going to let you do that. But this is it. Don't come flying back into my courtroom twenty-four hours before the trial—and the trial's just a few days away now—and want to expand your list with new surprise exhibits and that kind of stuff, because I'm not going to tolerate that. But Mr. Chambers, as to the business of me taking judicial notice of the clerk's notes as part of an official court record, I'm going to have to think about that one. I'll rule on that during trial after I've heard some of the testimony.”

“Then am I to understand,” MacPherson asked with a smile, “that this court is also granting my motion to add to our exhibit list the transcript of the proceedings in admiralty court in London, England, where Isaac Joppa pled guilty to a charge of desertion from the Royal Navy, which occurred shortly before the criminal trial on the piracy charges in the Old Bailey?”

“You've read me correctly,” Judge Gadwell said. “You can introduce that document as an exhibit at trial as well.”

Will was troubled, of course, by the fact that MacPherson had researched the admiralty court desertion case against Joppa and had come up with a copy of the transcript.

It was clear to Will how MacPherson would use it at trial. He would hit hard on the fact that Joppa had admitted his criminal behavior in deserting from the ship
Intrepid
. Regardless of the well-established reputation of its captain for beating, abusing, and occasionally even killing his sailors, the fact remained that Isaac Joppa had jumped ship just prior to his first encounter with Edward Teach. MacPherson would undoubtedly argue to the jury that Joppa's life of crime began prior even to his first appearance on Teach's ship. That, in fact, it began when he illegally deserted his post as a seaman in His Majesty's Royal Navy.

Before concluding the proceedings, Judge Gadwell offered one final reminder.

“Okay—finally, both sides have asked for a jury trial, so a jury trial is what you're gonna get. I want your proposed jury instructions and verdict forms on the first day of trial so I have a chance to get to look at them. Have a good day, gentlemen.”

He gaveled the proceedings to an end and disappeared into his chambers.

A tall man in a Hawaiian shirt and wearing a wide smile, carrying a pad of paper, strode up to Virgil MacPherson.

“Mr. MacPherson, I don't know if you remember me…I'm from the
Tide and Times Daily
here on the Banks. I covered that furnace explosion case you handled about two years ago down here. The one where several kids got injured. You won quite a big verdict in that case…”

“Yes, yes, great to see you.” MacPherson began. “Listen, if you want a couple comments on the record on this case, let's go out in the hallway and talk.”

“Sure, that'd be wonderful.”

MacPherson and the reporter walked away from counsel table, leaving Terrence Ludlow alone to slowly stretch and then rise from his chair.

As the reporter followed behind MacPherson, he added, “Hey, did you hear the news? It was all over this morning. There's quite a bit of commotion going on down at Stony Island.”

MacPherson stopped in his tracks at the doorway.

Blackjack Morgan was only a few feet away, sitting in the last row of the courtroom. His eyes were riveted on the reporter.

“Yeah, the rumor started late yesterday,” the reporter explained. “I guess the word got out on the grapevine that Blackbeard's treasure might be located somewhere on Stony Island. I think every person with a boat within fifty miles is heading over there today.”

Morgan had heard enough. He pushed his way through MacPherson and the reporter abruptly and quickly stepped, cane tapping on the floor, out into the parking lot to his rented truck—the one he had been driving since the fender bender at Glen Watson's auto repair shop.

Will and Jonathan both heard the reporter's comments and then stared at each other for a few seconds.

“What do you know about this?” Will whispered to Jonathan.

The other man shook his head. “Nothing. I don't know what to say…what do you think's going on?”

Will shook his head. He didn't have an answer to that.

But he now had a new question of his own.

Was this case really about the innocence or guilt of Isaac Joppa?
he wondered.
Or was it about an island that had successfully kept a secret over the centuries—a secret perhaps more spectacular than any of them could have possibly understood?

46

T
HE WATERS WERE FILLED
with a frenzy of boats—an armada of fishing rigs, rowboats, and sailboats.

By the time the two Sheriff's Department boats arrived, several dozen treasure hunters were already swarming over the surface of Stony Island.

One of the sheriff's boats slowed to a glide as the deputy stood up with bullhorn in hand.

“Attention, all boaters! Please clear the waters around the island immediately. This is an order from the Sheriff's Department. You are required to comply immediately. Please move your boats from the shallows of the island.”

At the top of the island, some of the would-be looters heard the bullhorn. They were now scrambling pell-mell down the sandy path to the dock, where their launches were tied.

The later arrivals at the dock had already managed to jump in and motor madly away, and the remaining treasure hunters scrambled to the other end of the island, where they had their rowboats and canoes.

Leonard Moore, the property manager for the Willowby family, was in the other Sheriff's Department boat. After both boats coasted up to the dock, one of the deputies helped him onto the dock and walked with him up to the ruins of the old Youngblood house.

Moore immediately noticed the smashed urns. He inspected the shards of stone on both sides of the crumbling front step.

“Looks like some vandalism, right?” the deputy asked.

Moore nodded his head.

Then the deputy's radio crackled. One of the others had caught two of the trespassers.

“What do you want me to do with them?” he asked.

“Take 'em in. Book 'em for trespass. We're not quite sure what we're gonna do…I have to talk to Mr. Moore here, and he'll talk to the owner, Mrs. Willowby. And then we need to talk to the sheriff.”

“How in the world did all of this craziness begin?” Moore asked, as the deputy helped him straighten up from the ground.

“We're running down the leads right now. But I've got a pretty good idea. I heard from someone who was hanging around one of the bars the night before last. A local diver by the name of Robideau was on a drinking binge with some buddies. He starts bragging about how Blackbeard's treasure is buried over here on Stony Island. I think that's where it started. The next thing you know, it's all over the Outer Banks.”

“Well, we had
No Trespassing
signs posted in a number of spots…”

“Hey,” the deputy replied, “when these Blackbeard stories surface, nobody cares about trespassing laws. I've heard about this kind of insanity…a number of years ago, before I joined the force here, they had the same thing happen. Another part of the Outer Banks…somebody's property got demolished by all the looters. You know, they're just never going to find anything—but once these stories get started, they're really hard to put a stop to.”

“Now about Mrs. Willowby wanting to prosecute these people—I really don't know about that. I'm not sure if she's going to want to bother, but I will have to speak to her about it.”

“I understand. Just let us know in a couple of days what she's decided to do.”

Then the deputy took a few steps toward the shoreline and surveyed the melee of boats motoring and sailing away from the island. Several boaters were screaming at each other. Vulgarities were faintly echoing over the island.

“Human greed,” the deputy muttered to himself. “It's a scary thing, isn't it?”

47

W
ITH ONLY TWO DAYS LEFT
before trial, Will Chambers was busy with his final preparations.

Fiona was at the kitchen table with a tall stack of documents in front of her. She was three-hole punching and collating them into a large tabbed notebook. The material consisted of examination questions for each of Will's witnesses, cross-examination questions he expected from MacPherson, and legal research notes with arguments he planned to make to anticipated evidentiary objections from his opponent. Those were followed by a set of cross-examination questions for each of Virgil MacPherson's witnesses. Then there was the bulk of Will's legal research, not to mention jury instructions, verdict forms that would be submitted to the jury, and an outline of his opening and closing arguments.

Will was on the phone with August Longfellow, going over his anticipated testimony.

“Dr. Longfellow, about that reference by Judge Gadwell to your driving under the influence—”

“It's ridiculous!” Longfellow bellowed. “He must have me mixed up with some other person. I can't imagine where the judge would get such a ludicrous idea!”

“So,” Will said, still asking for some reassurance, “you were definitely not convicted of drunk driving?”