Missing Witness (33 page)

He appreciated the reference to First Corinthians, but he wondered whether there was some relevance in it to the Jonathan Joppa case. He was hard-pressed to fit it in logically. He finally resigned himself to the fact that his uncle's comments had little, if anything, to do with the upcoming trial.

Will called Fiona on his cell phone and told her he loved her and would soon be home.

He decided he would put in only an hour or two more preparing for the Joppa trial and then spend the evening holding his wife in his arms, talking with her about their family and life together.

Whatever it was that was plaguing him—giving him the sense that something was missing in his case—would have to wait until later.

49

O
N THE DAY OF TRIAL
, Boggs Beckford had made it to Will's counsel table. He still had one arm in a sling. But it seemed to be intensely personal with him that he make it to the courtroom that day.

Beckford watched as Will set out his trial notebooks, exhibits, and multiple legal pads.

Jonathan Joppa, seated between Will and Beckford at counsel table, seemed peculiarly at ease. Will thought that perhaps it was because he knew the trial would not require his testimony. He would simply be a bystander to the recreation of the events surrounding Isaac Joppa.

Yet Jonathan knew there was a force now at work in his life. He was now able to view the unfolding of the long-awaited trial with calm and confidence.

At the other counsel table, Virgil MacPherson sat next to an associate lawyer and two law clerks. They were huddled together in intense conversation.

Their client, Terrence Ludlow, was relegated to a seat in the row of chairs behind the counsel table. He was reading the sports page of the morning newspaper.

Beckford leaned and whispered, “How do you feel about the case now?”

“Much better,” Will said with a smile.

“Yeah, I'm the same way. Especially because you dug up that Old Bailey transcript…now we've got a real horse race.”

Will nodded. “Boggs, you hit the nail on the head. Before I came across that transcript, we had a critical problem…my most important witness, Isaac Joppa, was missing in action.”

As Will waited for Judge Gadwell to mount the bench, and as the jury panel assembled at the back of the courtroom, Will couldn't help but think about the irony of the case.

After all, what would Isaac Joppa have thought if he knew that, nearly three hundred years later, people would still be debating whether he was guilty or innocent?

Suddenly the judge's chambers door swung open, and Judge Hawsley Gadwell climbed up to the bench. He gave a big wave to the jury and a broad smile.

The clerk called each of the jurors who had been empanelled, one after another.

Both Will and MacPherson had stipulated, prior to the trial, to the North Carolina code procedure that permitted a six-person jury.

For Will that was not a difficult decision. The historical complexities involved in proving Isaac Joppa's innocence presented a formidable task. He was depending that with the smaller jury, he ultimately had to convince fewer people. In fact, if he was simply able to convince the potential foreperson on the jury, he felt he had a good chance of winning.

Virgil MacPherson had the same game plan. With six persons having to decide, a quicker verdict was possible. And with a potentially shorter span of time in the jury deliberation room, MacPherson would be placing his primary emphasis on one irrefutable fact: Will Chambers' case had to shoulder the burden of proof. Any indecision on the part of the jury—any ambiguity about the facts—would mean that Will Chambers and Reverend Jonathan Joppa would lose, and Terrence Ludlow and Virgil MacPherson would win. Which would mean that Blackjack Morgan would win…an indescribably grotesque thought for Will.

After the
voir dire
process of jury selection, the six jurors who remained were typical. That is to say, they presented a not-so-encouraging cross-section, though still not grossly biased either way. Will studied them as they raised their right hands and took the oath of fidelity to the rule of law and to the instructions of the court, and couldn't help but think of a few potential problems.

Juror number one, a stocky, balding, and affluent-looking gentleman who was the president of a small construction company, looked harmless enough. Yet both Will and MacPherson viewed him as a strong potential for foreman of the jury. He seemed forceful, expressive, and quick to form opinions.

Juror number two was a high school math teacher, a quiet middle-aged woman with short hair and a studious, almost librarian-like affect about her.

An unemployed janitor was juror number three. He looked tired and drawn. He had complained, in his conversation with the court, of unspecified liver problems. But he indicated that he would be able to finish the trial.

The fourth juror was a pleasant, diminutive widow in her late sixties.

The last two jurors were a twenty-year-old checkout clerk at the Coastal Foods grocery store who continued chewing her gum even while being questioned by the judge; and a thirty-year-old plumber's assistant, who gave every indication of being bored out of his mind and wanting to be anywhere but in that courtroom.

When jury selection was finished, the judge broke for lunch, telling counsel and the witnesses to be back by one o'clock.

Will pulled his cell phone out of his briefcase and began walking out of the courtroom to find a quiet place to call Fiona and Aunt Georgia.

But before he could exit, Virgil MacPherson and Terrence Ludlow caught up with him.

“Hey there, Chambers,” MacPherson said, thrusting his hand. “May the best man win!”

Will shook his hand politely and then turned toward the door again.

But MacPherson interrupted.

“Say, how's your wife's pregnancy doing? She's going to have a baby pretty soon, isn't she? I thought I remember hearing that…No problems, I hope.”

Will turned. MacPherson was struggling, ever so slightly, to look nonchalant. Ludlow was grinning grotesquely next to him.

“She's doing just fine. Thanks for asking,” Will was trying to control the anger that was boiling just below the surface.

With MacPherson, Will knew that nothing was off the record and nothing was as it seemed. MacPherson was no doubt playing a sick mind game with him, trying to distract him before the commencement of his direct examination in the afternoon.

MacPherson kept talking.

“You tell that wife of yours I hope everything goes all right…You know, safe delivery. No problems. No complications. Tell her ‘good luck' from us.” Then the two men walked away.

As Will flipped open his cell phone, he saw MacPherson and Ludlow greeted by Blackjack Morgan, who was standing in the corridor. Morgan caught sight of Will and waved mockingly, giving Will a thin smile.

Aunt Georgia answered.

“How's my sweetheart doing?” Will asked.

“Oh, you know the two of us. This is like girls' night out all day long!” Georgia said with a cackle. Then she put Fiona on the line.

“Steady as she goes,” Will reminded her. “You're taking it easy?”

“Oh yeah,” Fiona said with a little hesitation in her voice. “I've got my feet up, and Aunt Georgia is spoiling me rotten. How's the case coming?”

“Much too early to tell. We picked the jury. Not good. Not bad. We'll see when the evidence starts coming in.”

“Do me a favor, will you?”

“Anything, darling,”

“Pray for our little bambino here. That everything's going to be okay…”

Fiona's voice was trembling a bit.

Will reassured her. Told her he loved her more than he could possibly say or describe. And how sorry he was he couldn't be there with her.

Sauntering back into the empty courtroom, Will surveyed the two counsel tables piled with law books, notebooks, pads of paper, and stacks of exhibits and pleadings that represented the history of the Joppa case.

Will sat down in a chair and took in, just for a minute, the quiet around him.

It was very clear what his task really was. Will understood that, within the four walls of this small North Carolina courtroom, he must literally
make history
.

50

A
FTER THE LUNCH BREAK
, Will approached the podium, which was situated in front of the jury box. He would begin the opening statements.

Will emphasized the power of the actual transcript of the Isaac Joppa case—and in particular, Joppa's testimony in the Old Bailey criminal trial of 1719. Joppa had denied any complicity in the acts of piracy of Teach and his crew. Will summarized the transcripts—the testimony by Joppa himself that he was taken as a prisoner when Teach plundered the ship
Good Intent
while Joppa was a passenger on it. Thereafter, Joppa had testified he was Teach's slave. He was manacled with leg and wrist irons in the hold of one of Teach's ships for months.

Will further pointed out that the entire transcript of the 1719 trial did not survive the ravages of time. Thus it was unknown what the original jury in London, England, had decided about Isaac Joppa's guilt or innocence. There was no historical record to indicate whether he was acquitted—or found guilty and condemned to death by hanging—the usual punishment for acts of piracy.

Thus, it would be up to this twenty-first century jury to determine what had happened in the years 1717 through 1719.

Will then moved away from the podium and struck an informal pose, hands in pockets. He paused, then continued.

“In law school they still teach Latin terms. Let me give you a legal term that you're going to hear in the facts of this case. It is ‘res judicata.' That means that a certain legal matter has gone to court in a trial or final hearing and has been finally and fully determined. That the legal issue is ultimately settled. You're going to hear testimony about that term in this case.

“You're also going to see an exhibit, an authentic photocopy of the note of the magistrate's clerk in Bath, North Carolina, made in 1719. The evidence will show that a year before that entry was made, in 1718, other entries were made by that clerk—to the effect that a grand jury had heard
testimony of a single witness, an individual by the name of Henry Caulfeld, who said he witnessed Isaac Joppa engage in acts of piracy on the high seas. Based on that testimony alone, the grand jury issued an indictment. An arrest warrant was issued at the same time. Then, a year later, in 1719, a mysterious entry was also placed in the court's records. It said, regarding the case of Isaac Joppa, ‘case dismissed.' ”

Will took his hands out of his pockets and pointed straight up in the air with both index fingers. He paused, then continued.

“But there was one more entry. Following the note about the dismissal of Isaac Joppa's case, the clerk entered these words—‘res judicata.' I believe the evidence will show that this phrase was entered as a reflection of what had happened in the Old Bailey criminal court in London a few months before. That word had gotten back to the colonies that Isaac Joppa had been acquitted. The evidence will show that there is no other logical explanation for the entry of res judicata. Such a phrase closes the chapter on the charges of piracy that had been falsely lodged against Isaac Joppa. Furthermore, I think it's going to close the chapter on the evidence of this case…evidence I believe will persuade you to find in our favor—that Isaac Joppa was not a willing or voluntary member of Teach's pirate band, nor did he willingly participate in any acts of piracy at any time in his life. That Isaac Joppa was, and still is to this day—nearly three hundred years later—innocent of those charges.”

Will had been concise and to the point. He deliberately understated his case for strategic reasons.

Unlike Will, MacPherson charged to the podium and gave an expansive, almost overblown, opening statement.

But there was a problem. As Will watched the faces of the jurors, they seemed enthralled by MacPherson's colorful portrait of Isaac Joppa as a low-life criminal whose life of piracy would soon be established.

MacPherson hammered hard on the grand jury testimony of Henry Caulfeld, who had testified as the only witness for the grand jury in Bath, North Carolina, in 1718. That Caulfeld was a co-owner of the sloop
Marguerite
. That he was an eyewitness to the takeover of the sloop by Teach's gang, and that the
Marguerite
was plundered and several of its crew severely beaten by Teach's men.

The defense lawyer was flailing his arms, his voice rising as he described the evidence the jury would soon hear—that Henry Caulfeld was less than two hundred feet away from Teach's pirate ship. And, he asked rhetorically,
whom should he see striding back and forth on the deck, giving orders to Teach's crew, apparently instructing them to board the
Marguerite
?

MacPherson paused dramatically and took a few steps toward the jury box.

“None other than Isaac Joppa…that is exactly what Henry Caulfeld said, under oath—swearing to God to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth—a successful merchant and shipowner, a man who had no reason to lie. He saw Isaac Joppa helping Edward Teach plunder his ship, then aid and abet the manhandling of his crew.”