Missing Witness (22 page)

“Let me explain—” Will countered.

“No. I'm going to explain to you. You're going to listen, whoever you are…”

“Chambers…Will Chambers…”

“Sure. Mr. Chambers. Great. I've got a crew of twenty-five on two ships—I've got a salvage trawler and my research vessel. We're fueled up. Ready to ship out. The clock is ticking and I don't want you to ever call me on my cell phone again…”

“Edward Teach…” Will said quietly.

Rosetti paused.

“What did you say?”

“Teach. As in Edward Teach. Blackbeard. I'm handling a legal case dealing—at least indirectly—with Teach. It actually involves a presumed member of Teach's crew. Isaac Joppa was his name. He was aboard Teach's ship. I thought maybe you and I could help each other—”

“I know this case. What's the name?”

“Joppa. Isaac Joppa.”

“I know this. Is this the case involving some guy's will? The North Carolina Court of Appeals ruled on this, right?” But he did not let Will respond.

“Look, Chambers. I've checked every piece of documented evidence on the life of Edward Teach—specifically the ships he sailed. Where he sailed. Their routes…where they moored…where they weighed anchor…and even more specifically, any bit of information on the
Bold Venture
that he scuttled—”

“What I'd really like to do is talk to you.”

“Okay. Listen, Mr. Chambers. I read your case. This Joppa lawsuit. I thought it might shed some light on our work with the
Bold Venture
. But it didn't. Your lawsuit has nothing to do with our salvage project.”

“Blackjack Morgan,” Will blurted out quickly before Rosetti could hang up.

“What did you say?” the other man asked, holding the cell phone closer to his ear. “Say again?”

“Blackjack Morgan. He was an intervenor against your court petition for salvor-in-possession status in the
Bold Venture
project.”

“So?”

“He's involved…in a manner of speaking…in our probate case.”

“Define ‘in a manner of speaking.' ”

“He's paying all the bills of the opposing attorney. He wants possession of Stony Island. To do that, he's going to try to prove that Isaac Joppa was guilty of piracy in 1718.”

Rosetti paused to think.

“What do you know about Blackjack Morgan?” Will asked, probing.

“What do I know? Well, I know he's a slug…” After a moment's reflection, he added, “No—change that—Blackjack Morgan is the slime that the slug leaves behind.”

“Did you know he's a drug dealer?”

“Doesn't surprise me. It wouldn't surprise me if you told me he killed his grandmother with a butcher knife, had her stuffed by a taxidermist, and then hung her on his living room wall. Nothing would surprise me about that guy…

“Look, I've probably said too much already…I really don't know you.”

“I read some of the transcript in the last motion that Morgan brought,” Will countered. “I know he's going to be a thorn in your side throughout the project. I really think we ought to spend a few minutes talking about some of our common interests, and do a mutual exchange of information…”

Rosetti was now on the deck of his ship. He ran his hands hurriedly through his hair and scratched vigorously. The crew were all on deck, ready to ship out.

“Fine. All right. I'll tell you what I'm going to do. You follow me. I'm not taking time out of my schedule. Talk to the harbormaster here at the marina. He knows where we are. You can tag along with me for part of the day. But stay out of my way. Don't slow me down. You and I can talk for a few minutes out on the open water.”

Will had a momentary sense of accomplishment. Clearly, the ocean archaeologist would have a wealth of information that might be able to give some background on the Battle of Ocracoke Inlet, on Edward Teach, on his ships, and perhaps, even though indirectly, on Isaac Joppa.

Unfortunately, Will was scrambling to figure out what he had to give to Rosetti in return.

I guess I'll just have to come up with something while I'm driving
, Will mused as he rushed around the cabin looking for his keys and then yelled to Fiona that he was going to be late for dinner.

He didn't stop to check with his wife out on the hammock. If he had, he would surely have noticed her withering glare.

32

I
T WAS MIDAFTERNOON
. Jonathan Joppa had collapsed in bed, uncharacteristically, and had taken a nap. He was fast asleep.

The night before he had gotten almost no sleep. He couldn't put his finger on it…but he felt a constant sense of dread and anxiety over his son, Bobby, and his drug problem. And he worried about his ministry as pastor of Safe Harbor Community Church. He couldn't shake the feeling, increasing every day, that he was playing a charade as its spiritual shepherd.

And so he was having more and more trouble sleeping at night. The evening before, perhaps only an hour of sleep. He went to the church that morning, dazed with fatigue, not taking his characteristic five-mile jog. He muddled through some business in the study, excused himself to Sally, and made his way home. Then he went to bed.

And now, there was the sound of ringing. A phone. He wasn't sure if it was a dream or real. But something told him to wake up and reach for the phone next to his bed.

“Jonathan, I'm sorry to disturb you at home. You didn't look well at the church this morning…I thought maybe you went home because you felt sick. But this is very important…”

It was Sally's voice, tense and pleading.

“What is it? What's up?” Jonathan scooted the edge of the bed.

“It's about Bobby—”

“What about him?” Suddenly, his mental fog was instantly lifted.

“I have some bad news…”

“What happened?” Jonathan asked in a strangely hushed voice, as if he were afraid to wake someone who was sleeping. “What happened? Is he all right?”

“I have this friend of mine, Gloria…she works at Dunes Memorial Hospital. She told me she wasn't supposed to be telling me this…it was confidential medical information.”

Joppa squinted his eyes and thought hard, trying to understand what Sally was saying.

“What are you talking about? What does that have to do with—”

“Gloria told me Bobby was just checked into the ER. They think he overdosed on drugs. He's being treated right now. It's very serious.”

“Dear God…” Joppa muttered.

After only a second, he snapped out, “I have to go see him. I have to go to the hospital…”

“Jonathan, I'm really sorry about this.”

Jonathan said a quick thank-you and dropped the receiver down on the phone. He threw his clothes on, knocking over a chair in the kitchen, grabbed his keys, and ran to the car.

On the drive to the hospital, Jonathan had only one thought. Over and over again, he told himself this should be no surprise. Bobby had been admitted for rehab before. He had a drug problem. He'd tried to help him. But there was another question, one he didn't want to face—
wasn't there something more he could have done?

And as he roared up to the hospital and raced out at a full run, he was still asking himself that question.

33

T
HE SMALL SKIFF, WITH
W
ILL
C
HAMBERS
as its only passenger, was approaching Dr. Rosetti's research ship out on the open sound. The dock hand guiding the skiff grabbed his CB and announced Will's arrival. There was a pause at the other end. Then a voice replied.

“We'll throw a ladder over the side. Tell him he doesn't have much time.”

As the skiff reached the side of the ship, one of the crew members reached down and helped to pull Will up onto the deck.

Dr. Rosetti was in a huddle with several of the crew members. In one hand he had a cell phone, and in his other, a walkie-talkie.

Will stood off at a distance, taking in some of the gear and equipment that was laid out on the deck. One object in particular caught his attention.

There was a large device that looked like a hot air balloon attached to three nylon cords, which in turn were attached to a large square cage.

Rosetti quickstepped over to Will's position.

“I suppose you're wondering what we do with this,” Rosetti said with a broad smile as he approached.

Will nodded. But before he had a chance to reply, Rosetti jumped in.

“It's exactly what it looks like—it's a balloon we use to raise heavy objects in the cage there.”

Will glanced over at what looked like a Plexiglas phone booth resting next to the balloon.

“That's our communications booth,” Rosetti said proudly. “We sink it at the dive site, and then our divers can swim in and out of it, close the door, and communicate to the other crew topside. We also have all our divers rigged up with umbilicals—you know, hoses that give them air—and communication cables.”

Will wasn't surprised at Rosetti's warm reception. Will found it to be a trait of many scientists he had consulted as experts in other cases. Often they initially came across as cold and uninterested—but then he would meet them on their own turf, and they opened up like three-D birthday cards.

“Actually, your timing is fairly good…I was going to hop into the cabin and grab something to eat. Come on in and join me. I don't have that much time.”

Rosetti scurried into the wheelhouse, and Will followed closely after.

Rosetti sat down, popped a soda can open, and began eating his peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich.

“First of all, let me just say this. I'm not going to say anything more on the record about Blackjack Morgan. Zero. You know what I think about this guy…On the other hand, I'm not stupid. Any negative comments I make about Morgan pertaining to this project could find their way back to MacPherson—and that lawyer's a royal pain in the neck.”

Will agreed.

“First of all, let me tell you something about my qualifications,” Rosetti began. “I'm an ocean archaeologist. I'm not a maritime historian. That having been said, I do a heck of a lot of research into the historical context of the ships I investigate. Who sailed them. What they were carrying. Where they were bound. I've been reading about Teach's sailing exploits for a couple of years. So while you certainly can't call me a historical expert, I think I know a lot more than the average guy about the people and the ships involved in that battle.”

“Well, I have done some background research with some experts,” Will explained.

“Like who?” Rosetti asked with a tinge of skepticism in his voice.

“I'm hoping to retain Dr. Derek Hubbel, from Yale.”

“I've heard of him. That sounds promising. Who else?”

“A professor by the name of August Longfellow, from Duke. He's kind of a self-created regional expert on the subject of Carolina coastal history. And also, there is someone who teaches Indian history of the Tuscaroras—her name is Susan Red Deer Williams…”

“With all due respect,” Rosetti said, stuffing some more sandwich into his mouth, “I don't know these people. I really don't care. You'll find a lot of local yokels who say they know all kinds of stuff—some even claim to know where Teach's treasure is buried. It's all a lot of nonsense. It took us several years to get this fix on the location of the
Bold Venture
. I mean, for
months all we've done is map out the wreckage by stereophotography. Based on that, we created a site plan. Thousands of photographs and measurements.”

“Just as a matter of curiosity,” Will said, “how much of the ship is down there?”

“Well,” Rosetti said, wrapping up the rest of his sandwich in the plastic bag and throwing it back into a nylon cooler, “some of the stern, some of the bow—but the wood portions are all in pretty bad shape. No cannons—because this was a merchant ship—but because it was a commercial vessel we were hoping to find a whole lot of barrels down there.”

“So, about Isaac Joppa…” Will said, trying to redirect the conversation.

“Oh yeah.” Rosetti jumped to his feet. “Look, here's the bottom line in that. In my research, I checked the records from the trial in Williamsburg, Virginia—the trial of the surviving pirates of Blackbeard's crew. There was this former slave, this African crewman—a trusted member of Teach's group—his name was Caesar. Now Caesar gives a statement when he's arrested, because he survived the battle, that there's this Isaac Joppa guy who was on the ship with him.”

“Caesar mentioned Isaac Joppa?”

“Absolutely.”

“What did he say?” Will asked enthusiastically.

“Well, here's the deal,” Rosetti said, walking out of the cabin with Will close behind. “Caesar was offered some kind of pardon if he cooperated with the authorities by ratting on the rest of the other pirate crew. He refused, except to say that this Isaac Joppa guy was some kind of indentured servant. That Teach had him in chains most of the time. Only let him out on deck when he wanted to show him off. He used him because he had some medical background, which he figured would come in handy when his crewmen would get shot or sliced up in some of their battles. Otherwise, he kept Joppa under lock and key.”