Missing Witness (32 page)

“Absolutely not.”

“Any other criminal convictions, legal problems, or points of potential embarrassment I ought to know about?”

Longfellow paused and chuckled a bit.

“I may be a philosophy professor, an eccentric, and a part-time poet, but I'm not a sociopath!” With that he gave a hearty laugh.

“I'm not suggesting you are,” Will said, not sharing Longfellow's amusement. “I just want to make sure I'm not stepping into any quicksand. It's
important that you tell me anything in your background that might create a problem with your credibility.”

“Will,” Longfellow said with an air of lingering mirth, “I'm as clean as your grandma's tea set.”

Moderately satisfied that his witness's background contained no booby traps, Will gave him a few reminders of the date and time of his testimony and then said goodbye.

Will ambled into the kitchen, retrieved a large pitcher of lemonade from the refrigerator, and poured two glasses. Then he sat down next to Fiona and gave one glass to her.

“Do you know what I was just thinking?” Fiona said as she was sliding documents into a three-ring binder.

“What?”

“I was thinking…after our baby grows up and is off to college and I start getting old—not that old, but somewhere around Aunt Georgia's age—you know what I would like to do?”

“No, what?”

“I'd like to go to law school. Then you and I could practice law together.”

Will was chuckling quietly.

“Alright, what's so funny? Don't you think I could do it?”

“No, I don't have any questions about that,” Will said, still chuckling.

“What are you laughing about then?” Fiona said, pressing the point with a bit of mischief in her eye.

“I'm just picturing the two of us in our old age. Both of us with white hair. We're in a courtroom. You are at one counsel table and I'm at the other. We're on opposite sides of some case.”

“Then what? What happens?”

“Well, then you beat the pants off me!” Will burst into laughter.

Fiona was trying to be serious, but failed—finally laughing so hard that she got the hiccups.

“Besides—”Will said.

“Okay…here it comes…”

“Now you don't know what I was going to say. I was just going to make the point that in order to go to law school, you would have to stop singing. No more concerts, no more records.”

Then Will paused for another moment.

“And in my humble opinion, if you ever stopped singing it would probably mean the death of music.”

Fiona smiled, and her eyes were soft.

“I remember the first time I heard you sing,” Will said. “I was offstage at that pavilion in Baltimore. I don't think you knew I had arrived yet. You were singing ‘Let the Children Come to Me.' That's when I knew I was beginning to fall in love with you, even though I barely knew you.”

“Oh, I was aware that you were offstage.” Fiona's were filling with tears. “You just did not see me keeping you in the corner of my eye through the concert!”

They both laughed again. Then Will looked at his wife.

“Sing something for me. Just a capella. That would be perfect. I would really love that.”

Fiona was surprised by her husband's look—intense, emotional, enthralled. She thought for a moment, then began singing an old Celtic hymn based on a Psalm:

The hevins furth-tellin are

The gudeliheid o' God

The hail lift furth-schawin

Is his ain han's doen.

But then Fiona stopped singing. Will looked at her and saw a startled look on her face.

She turned slightly in her chair and lifted up the hem of her sundress. A trickle of blood was flowing slowly down her leg.

She could only say, “Will…”

“Fiona, darling, stay right there. Don't move.” Will jumped from his chair toward the telephone.

“I need to get my feet up on a chair right now,” Fiona's voice was cracking.

“Yes, absolutely, but don't move. Let me do it…” Will dashed back to Fiona, gingerly lifted her two feet off the floor, and pushed a chair underneath them.

On the phone, Dr. Yager's receptionist indicated that the doctor would see Fiona immediately. Will was to lay her supine in the backseat of the car and drive her directly to the office.

As he carried her to the car, Fiona buried her face in his neck. Will could feel the hot stream of tears from her eyes. She was quietly murmuring a prayer for the safety of her baby—and for fast and safe travel to the doctor's office.

As they reached the car, Will finished by adding, “And protect my wife, Fiona, soul of my soul.”

Fiona looked up and gave him a hard kiss on the lips. Then he laid her gently in the back.

When they reached the medical clinic the physician's assistant was waiting at the front door with a rolling bed. Dr. Yager immediately attached a fetal heart monitor, then commenced an ultrasound.

After an examination, Dr. Yager looked at both of them—Will sitting in an uncomfortable plastic chair, Fiona lying on the table.

She began. “I think we are looking at one of two scenarios. Sometimes you get very mild spotting when a small sinus leaks. But in this case, Fiona, you had blood flow. The position of the placenta is now giving me a great deal more concern. It may be tearing away—this may be the beginning of separation of the placenta itself. A real risk to you, Fiona—and to your baby of course. You can lose a lot of blood very quickly. This could be life-threatening. Of course we knew there was an outside chance of this when you first saw me. But now we've got a very high-risk pregnancy. Here's the big question—do you want to be hospitalized right now? Or, Will can you make sure she has complete bed rest at your place? Is there someone to look after her…either you or someone else?”

“I want to do what is safest—” Will began.

“I want to be at the cottage,” Fiona blurted out. “Or you could take me over to Aunt Georgia's cottage. She could take care of me through the day, and then—with the trial coming up—Will, you could be with me at night. I really do want to be close to you, and close to Aunt Georgia. I think that would be just as safe, and I really prefer it…”

Will turned to the doctor expectantly.

“I think that will be alright,” Dr. Yager said. “But you have to remain lying on your back except for getting up and using the bathroom. Any change—any blood at all, spotting or flow—you call me immediately and we'll admit you.”

Will and Fiona both nodded.

After the doctor was gone, Will walked over to the examining table and kneeled next to his wife.

He brushed her dark hair away from her eyes and cupped her delicate features in his two hands, wanting to say something strong and reassuring. But his voice cracked—there were no words.

He simply cleared his throat and bent down to kiss the woman he loved, then carefully moved his hand down over her belly, and gave a blessing to the tiny traveler.

Then a shoulder, a foot, perhaps an arm pressed out toward the world from the inside. A sign of life, at least for the time being, from behind the curtain of flesh.

48

W
ITH THE TRIAL DATE APPROACHING
, Will had set aside half a day to drive up to Elizabeth City to visit his uncle Bull. But as he motored north, his mind seemed to be filled with a cacophony of thoughts, as if he were listening to some abstract and discordant symphony. Most of them focused on Fiona.

Her pregnancy had been a problem from the beginning. But now the danger was real and imminent. Will was feeling guilty and stupid about the way he had been ignoring her lately.

As a trial lawyer, one of his greatest gifts—his ability to focus ferociously on the narrow and sometime abstruse categories of fact, law, and jury psychology—had now become his biggest impediment. The recent problems with her pregnancy had now sent him into a jarring change of gears. He had even toyed with the idea of delegating the lead counsel position at trial over to Boggs Beckford, whose recovery had enabled him to begin getting around on crutches. But how could Will do that? The recreation of Isaac Joppa's life and the proof of his innocence had become imbedded in the core of Will's thinking. He walked in and out of it, like a well-furnished room where he knew each object, each proof, each logical argument—carefully shelved and indexed. He felt confident he could locate and retrieve each item with rapidity and accuracy.

Even beyond that, Will felt the moral force of absolute conviction that Isaac Joppa was innocent. He believed it deep down in his guts and sinews. It went far beyond even vindicating Bull by beating Blackjack Morgan now. In a strange sense, Will felt as if he was
meant
to try this case…and to reveal something hidden—long a secret—about the life and times of Isaac Joppa.

Thus it would have to be Will's task—and Will's alone—to argue this case.

But given that, Will wondered why he felt the compulsion to visit Bull Chambers
now
. Why not wait until after the trial?

Perhaps
, Will mused to himself,
it has nothing to do with anything except the most simple and profound sense of loyalty and love for my uncle—the man who was like a second father to me.

For Will, that was enough.

He arrived at the convalescent center and checked in. Bull was out on the side porch, where Will found him in a large cane-backed wheelchair, lying in the sunshine.

Bull looked like he had lost a little weight since just a few weeks before. The right side of his face drooped, and his right hand was curled into itself. His right leg was turned inward, his foot at an awkward angle.

When Bull saw Will quickly approaching, his eyes brightened, and he lifted his left arm in an open embrace.

Will bent down and gave him a hug that lasted a long time.

Then Will pulled up a chair. He did most of the talking, filling him in on his summer on the beach living next to Aunt Georgia. And about Fiona's pregnancy. About their hopes for the future. About his law practice in general—and about the Jonathan Joppa case in particular.

Bull offered only a few comments. Will had to strain to understand his garbled speech. But he seemed alert as Will was painstakingly describing the complex factual background of the life of Isaac Joppa, and the question of his innocence upon which the current lawsuit depended. When Will pointed out how Blackjack Morgan fit into the case, Bull looked away, an expression of sadness sweeping over his face.

Will decided to change the focus, and he began explaining his general theory of the case and what proofs he would bring to bear in an effort to establish Joppa's innocence at trial.

When Will finished, Bull leaned a little toward him, raising his left arm and vigorously making an ambiguous gesture. Will finally determined that his uncle was asking him to elaborate more about the case…but Will could not begin to figure out what fact or argument he had omitted.

Then Bull pointed to himself, opening his eyes wide and giving an inquiring look to Will.

“So,” Will said with a smile, finally deciphering Bull's body language, “can I ask
you
a question?”

Bull nodded and gave a struggling, crooked smile with the left side of his face.

“Still the country judge, aren't you?” Will said with a chuckle.

Bull nodded even more vigorously at that.

“Alright, here's my question. How am I gonna get through to this jury that Isaac Joppa was innocent? I've told you all my evidence. I've told you my arguments. I'm just trying to figure out if there's something I'm missing. I get the feeling there is, but I can't tell you what it might be. It's like driving on the freeway and you sense there's another car real close to you, close enough where you could reach out and almost touch it. But the car is traveling at the same speed—so close, and on your blind side, you don't see it…but somehow you sense it's there. So what am I missing?”

There was silence for several minutes. Then Bull Chambers gave another labored smile, and said something.

Will could not understand. Three words…but what were the words? He apologized, put his hand on Bull's shoulder, and quietly asked him to repeat it, carefully.

Now Will thought he understood.

They were familiar words. Words well-known to Bull, and particularly his wife, Georgia—whose lives had been steeped in the language of the Bible. The three words were from Paul's first epistle to the Corinthians, chapter thirteen.

Faith, hope, love.

When Will had absorbed those three words, Bull, overcoming the tortured disability of the flesh, spoke the end of the matter.

Greatest…love
.

As he motored back to the oceanside cottage, Will was still contemplating the conversation.