Missing Witness by Craig Parshall Page A

voice trailing off.
    â€œI am sorry about your accident. It looks like you’ve had a nasty time.”
    â€œWhat you’re looking at here is not the worst of it,” Beckford commented. “I had a bunch of internal injuries. Injury to my spleen. Bruised kidney. I was a mess when they brought me in here.”
    â€œWhat happened?”
    â€œYou tell me,” Beckford shot back. “I was crossing the Oregon Inlet Bridge. I was way up there. Minding my own business. Going about fifty miles an hour. And suddenly everything goes wrong. I lose my steering and the car flips off the top of the bridge. I go down in the water. It’s just a good thing I had my windows rolled down. When I came to, my car was filling up with water, and I barely got out as the car was sinking. I barely managed to get myself to shore. I really don’t know how I did it. I was like a half-dead seal with one flipper. I want to tell you, I was in a world of pain…”
    â€œWhy’d the steering go?” Will asked.
    â€œThat’s the million dollar question. It was a new Acura. The dealership that does my regular maintenance had never worked on the steering, or anywhere near it. So then I thought, Maybe I’ll sue the manufacturer. But then I did some checking. No recalls on steering problems. No history of steering problems. And no similar lawsuits against the manufacturer.”
    â€œSo you really don’t know?”
    Beckford shook his head. “Well, let’s just say I’ve had my suspicions. I had my car looked at by the best mechanic on the Outer Banks. And I brought the Sheriff’s Department in, just in case there was some kind of vandalism. I thought maybe somebody tampered with my car.”
    â€œWhat did they conclude?”
    â€œWell, ‘ain’t conclusive’ is what they said. Plus they didn’t have any suspects. No motive. As far as I know, their file is still open. But it’s going nowhere. So here I am, laid up in bed. Trying to practice law out of a hospital room. I didn’t mean to gripe at you, Mr. Chambers, but you just got me on a bad day.”
    â€œDon’t worry about it. And call me Will.”
    â€œFirst off—let me say that I gave you a glowing recommendation to Reverend Joppa. I did a background check on you via the Web, and one of the attorney listings. Very impressive. I told Joppa he was lucky to get you. So how can I get you up to speed on this case?”
    â€œWell, first of all, give me an idea of how far you’ve gotten in preparing Joppa’s case.”
    â€œActually,” Beckford said, shifting himself painfully in a vain attempt to get a little more comfortable, “most of my time was taken up with the preliminary matters in the initial appeal. We challenged the contingency contained in Willowby’s last will and testament. You know, the requirement that Joppa has to disprove the piracy charges against the ancestor—Isaac Joppa—in order to take the island under the will. I don’t know how much you know about probate…”
    â€œNot very much,” Will replied. “The only time I’ve gotten involved in my career has been in contest matters. But the day-to-day, technical probate stuff, I’m not up on. So enlighten me.”
    â€œWell, the long and short of it is this. There’s a difference in North Carolina law between conditions precedent and conditions subsequent. I’m not going to bore you with the details. The point is, we challenged the condition in the will on the grounds of impossibility, and a number of other grounds. We lost at trial. We took it to the Court of Appeals and then lost there too. The case got remanded back for trial on the merits—in other words, giving Joppa an opportunity to prove his ancestor’s innocence in order to determine whether he takes that island. That’s when my accident happened.”
    â€œHave you done any work on the