Missing Witness (54 page)

The huge donation for the construction, and for a special ferry to take visitors back and forth to the island, was only the start. Frances also financed the equipment and the baseball uniforms, specially designed by her personal clothes designer. They were blue and yellow. Blue, for the ocean that could be seen sparkling in the background from the bleachers—and yellow, for the yellow trumpet pitcher plants that were her favorite. She now was often seen being chauffeured through the little coast towns in her Rolls Royce, sitting in the back and wearing an Islanders baseball cap.

Frances had also insisted on paying for special catering at the camp. The boys loved the food whipped up by Melvin Hooper—burgers, cheese fries, Italian sausage. That afternoon, Boggs Beckford, who by then was nearly fully recovered, was sharing a joke with Hooper, whose laugh could be heard all the way across the ball field.

Melvin had been able to reopen his café—at a new location. When Blackjack Morgan died, the
Joppa's Folly
tavern went into foreclosure. Hooper bought it from the bank for a song, spruced it up, and turned it into a family restaurant, renaming it
Melvin's Revenge.

Not all of the mysteries were solved after that night when the
Blackjack
sunk to the bottom of the Atlantic. Carlton Robideau's remains were never discovered—but he was presumed murdered at the hand of Blackjack Morgan. And Morgan, everyone agreed, was gone forever.

But no sign of Orville Putrie, the twisted technological genius, or his inflatable raft was ever found.

And every lawyer who heard about the case would ask whether, in the trial at the Old Bailey, Isaac Joppa had been found innocent or guilty. There was simply no clear answer to that. But Will had his opinions, of course, and no one could convince him otherwise.

As Will and Fiona were motoring back to Virginia very late that night in Fiona's Saab, they joked quietly how Will's '57 Corvette was just too small for their growing family now. But Will said he could never part with it. They would simply have to use Fiona's car when the three of them traveled together.

Fiona turned and looked into the backseat. As the freeway lights intermittently washed the car with iridescent light, she caught little glimpses of Andrew, his fuzzy head bowed in peaceful slumber in the car seat, his tiny mouth half-open, a little trail of baby drool on his chin.

Then she turned back and snuggled closer to Will.

“I overheard Boggs Beckford telling someone today all about why you won the Joppa case,”

“Oh? What did he say?”

“That because Isaac Joppa was your missing witness…and when you finally had his testimony from the Old Bailey trial, that's what convinced the jury.”

Will was silent.

“So…is that what you think, too?” Fiona asked.

Will was still quiet. Then he replied.

“Sure, Joppa's testimony from the London trial was important—but he really wasn't the key, I don't think.”

“Oh?”

“No. Not really.”

“Well…then why did your jury decide that Isaac was innocent?”

“There was another bit of missing evidence that—when we found it and presented it—well, I think that's what convinced the jury. Not just intellectually…but made them certain in their hearts…”

Fiona waited. After a few seconds, she nudged Will.

“Well? What was it?”

Will smiled, and admired the graceful beauty of his wife's face out of the corner of his eye.

“You know something, darling?” he said. “I would cross a thousand oceans if I had to—just to get back to your lovely face, and your loving arms. I'd be a fool not to…”

Fiona blushed and smiled, her dimples showing. But after a few more seconds she asked Will why he had not answered her question.

As they drove on, Will started to explain the meaning behind his comment to her.

And Fiona learned why her question actually had just been answered. And answered more truly, in fact, than either she or Will could possibly have imagined.

78

1719

London, England
After the verdict in the Isaac Joppa case

O
LIVER
N
EWHOUSE
, E
SQUIRE, WAS STRIDING QUICKLY
through the Sessions House Yard, which fronted the Old Bailey court building in London. Now that the jury had reached their verdict in Isaac Joppa's capital case, Newhouse was striding toward the street, his black barrister's robes flowing. That was where he expected to meet Abigail Merriwether.

They had to talk immediately, in light of the profound consequences attendant on the jury's decision.

But first Newhouse had to make his way past a few of His Majesty's officers, and the large number of witnesses milling about in the courtyard waiting for their cases to be called.

As the gatekeeper swung the gate open for Newhouse, the barrister turned and looked at the Old Bailey building, with the massive symbol of the English Crown that encircled the double doors at its front. It was a place he frequented often in his lawyer's work. Yet he never got used to the dread—the awful power that was exercised within its massive walls over matters of human freedom and captivity—over life and death.

As his gaze rested on the court building, he pondered the verdict in Isaac Joppa's case.

Then he turned, slipped through the gate, and searched the street for Abigail Merriwether's bright yellow dress.

Between the horses and carriages passing by at the mid-afternoon rush, he caught sight of her and dashed across the street.

She was waiting. She had been there in the great Justice Hall when the verdict was announced. And now she had to talk to her fiancé's lawyer.

Newhouse approached her, bowed quickly, and extended his hand in sympathy for all she had been through.

The young woman had kept her composure up to now. But as Newhouse held out his hand, she began to sob. She fell into the barrister's arms, her shoulders heaving with emotion.

“Now, now, Miss Merriwether,” he said, “let's remember what is important …”

“Yes,” she replied, pulling away slightly, and accepting a starched handkerchief to dab her eyes. “Thank you.”

“After all, what is important to remember—”

But he stopped. Abigail's eyes were somewhere else.

Newhouse turned and smiled broadly.

Isaac Joppa, just released by the jailers, was running across the street with a burlap bag of his belongings in his hand.

The betrothed couple embraced wildly, passionately. They were entwined and inseparable.

Isaac Joppa had been found not guilty, and had been released. The two lovers held onto each other—weeping, and laughing, and expressing all those things that could, at last, be shared.

Oliver Newhouse glanced down discreetly at the cobblestones and smiled. As he then looked out over the busy street, out beyond Warwick Lane, and over the blackened buildings of the West End of London, he was convinced—and no one could convince him otherwise—that these two could now, finally, find happiness together.

Newhouse would keep track of the two, from time to time, after the trial. Shortly after the verdict they set sail for the West Indies. They were married aboard ship. They were to help in a church established there. After all, Abigail had gained experience in organizing women's groups to support the evangelistic ministry of Reverend Thomas Boston of Ettrick during the long year of Isaac's unexplained disappearance.

Isaac, with a rekindled faith of his own, one tested by the fires of adversity, had suggested to Abigail they should consider ministering on foreign soil.

They would occasionally write to Oliver Newhouse, sharing the news of their transplanted lives. How they later had a baby boy and named him Jacob. And years later they would write of the typhoid fever that was sweeping the islands. Fearing for Jacob's life—he was by then seventeen—they shipped him out from the West Indies to the American colonies. His
ship would land in Charleston. They would never know that he would disavow Isaac as his father.

That was in 1736. Later that year, Isaac and Abigail sailed to England to try to raise support and medical assistance for their work. They met with only moderate success. But they did meet a popular minister by the name of George Whitefield, who was speaking publicly about his intentions of leading an evangelistic campaign in the American colonies.

“Where did you say you were raised?” Whitefield asked Isaac in their brief encounter.

Isaac studied the minister, with his prematurely white hair, tidy black coat, and white starched cleric's tie.

“A town called Bath, Reverend Whitefield,” Isaac said. “It is just inland from the coast of North Carolina. Unfortunately, it is a place known mostly for piracy, rough living, and heathenism. Perhaps you would consider bringing the light of the gospel there. They certainly could benefit from it.”

Whitefield smiled politely. But he suggested that he would, indeed, pray on the idea.

Isaac and Abigail also visited with Oliver Newhouse that same trip. It was a warm and delightful reunion over dinner. The lawyer could see that the two were still very much in love, though almost eighteen years had passed. The couple was to set sail for the West Indies the next day. That was the last that Newhouse would see of them.

The barrister would later learn that the two had been killed, shortly after their return, in an uprising among the locals.

But now, outside the Old Bailey court building, watching the two lovers embrace, Oliver Newhouse could only feel that, if any couple deserved the best, it was these two, as they had suffered from some of life's worst. Yet even then he knew it would probably not be so. That life would likely bring a yet greater share of rain on the heads of even such as these, who seemed to be so pure at heart.

Isaac and Abigail thanked him profusely for the victory in court, but the barrister modestly turned aside their praises.

“In truth,” he said, “I could only wish that I could lay claim to your victory, Isaac. But I cannot.”

“But why not, Mr. Newhouse?” Abigail asked.

“Because,” Newhouse replied, “I truly feared for you, Master Joppa…that the jury would find you guilty and turn you over to the hangman's rope at Newgate. I feared your execution—that is, until the absent piece of evidence, the one missing part of the Crown's case against you was finally produced, albeit in our cause…”

“And what was that?” Isaac asked, a little bewildered.

Newhouse glanced over to Abigail.

“Why your bride-to-be, of course,” he said. “I am convinced that the jury decided on your innocence when you, Miss Merriwether, testified for your betrothed.”

“I am flattered,” Abigail said with embarrassment, “but how could that possibly be true?”

“Because the jury no doubt decided,” Newhouse said with assurance, “that only an utter fool would have willingly run away from such an unshakable love and unswerving devotion as you displayed, Miss Merriwether.”

And then he smiled. “And you, sir,” he said to Isaac, “are no such fool.”

Isaac shook his lawyer's hand vigorously, and Abigail kissed him lightly on the cheek.

As the two walked off together, Oliver Newhouse, barrister, headed back to his offices down along Fleet Street, among the Inns of Court. And as he walked, he mused that such a sensational case as the Crown of England versus Isaac Joppa was never attended, much less reported, by the newspapers. But then again, the men from the papers were all down the hall, attending the celebrated trial of the chief assistant to the Lord Mayor of London, on trial for the theft of a silk handkerchief, allegedly later sold to cover gambling debts.

The barrister chuckled at that irony. As he entered his offices, retreating from the sounds of carriage wheels and horses' hooves clopping on the cobbled streets, one thought lingered.

That perhaps one day, years hence, some other lawyer might read of the Old Bailey case of Isaac Joppa, and what had taken place there, and would learn its lessons.

Love may not keep any record of wrongs,
Oliver Newhouse mused, thinking back to Abigail Merriwether's testimony.
Yet perhaps it will keep the record, and perchance some day it will tell the tale, of those things done right.

The barrister smiled a little at that. For he had no doubt whatsoever, that if the story were ever to be told some day, it would have to be a lawyer who would tell it.