The Twelfth Child (Serendipity #1)(76)

“I never said that!” the doctor answered. “I said that Destiny Fairchild was a helpmate to Miss Lannigan. She acted as her companion, friend and caregiver.”

“Acted! Ah-ha. So she was pretending to play the part!”

“No,” Doctor Birnbaum answered, by now starting to get a bit agitated. “She was Miss Lannigan’s primary caregiver, and a very good one at that.”

“Miss Lannigan was quite feeble-minded at that point, wasn’t she?”

“Abigail? Feeble-minded?” The doctor laughed aloud. “Obviously, you didn’t know Abigail Lannigan. She could keep you on your toes.”

“But she was forgetful, had memory lapses, right?”

“No,” the doctor answered shaking his head. “No more than anyone else.”

“She was taking morphine, wasn’t she?”

“Only for two weeks prior to her death.”

“Wouldn’t that impair her judgment? Make a rational decision impossible?”

“Possibly. But, Abigail –”

“Possibly? When the woman died, she couldn’t sign her own name, how could she possibly make a decision regarding the disbursement of her estate? Unless,” Hoggman stretched the word out as far as it would go, then he shoved his chair back and stood like the statue of liberty, “unless,” he repeated, “someone coerced her!”

“You’re pontificating again,” Charles complained, “stick to the questions.”

“The question as I see it,” Hoggman said, “is – did Destiny Fairchild fabricate this entire story and did she force a dying woman to hand over her life’s savings.”

“Save it for opening argument,” Charles moaned. “It’s not a valid question.”

For almost three hours Hoggman badgered Doctor Birnbaum with the same questions over and over again – was Abigail Lannigan incapacitated by drugs, was she incapable of making a decision, was she too weak to resist.

“Resist what?” the doctor asked. “She was well cared for by Destiny, and, knowing Abigail Lannigan as I did, I’m certain that any decision making she had to do was done long before the morphine became a factor.”

Finally the doctor informed Mister Hoggman that his questions were ridiculously redundant and then he stood up and marched out of the room.

When he finished with Doctor Birnbaum, Hoggman called four different people associated with the Middleboro Savings Bank. The first was Martin Kroeger, the branch manager, a man so mild-mannered he’d wait five minutes before answering a question so he wouldn’t be perceived as interrupting. “Isn’t it true that Destiny Fairchild dragged Abigail Lannigan into the bank and forced her to transfer those funds into a joint account?” Hoggman blustered. He asked most of his questions that way – flip-flopping facts to make it sound as if Destiny actually did something underhanded. If the person he was badgering at that particular moment wasn’t quick-witted, they’d end up nodding yes to an answer the exact opposite of what they’d intended to say.

Martin Kroeger shrugged. “I can’t rightly say,” he stammered. “Those accounts were changed over before I came to Middleboro. If there was wrongdoing I certainly had nothing to do with it.”

“During the two years you were at the bank, did you ever once know Abigail Lannigan to come in alone and withdraw money from her own account?”

“Alone? I really can’t say. You’d have to ask Donna Watkins or Sally Klein, they worked the teller stations.”

“Did Abigail Lannigan appear to be confused, not in control of herself?”

“Confused?” Martin Kroeger himself looked confused. He twisted his mouth to one side, then removed his glasses and set about polishing the lenses, a task which took the better part of five minutes. Once he’d set them back onto the bridge of his nose, he answered, “I don’t know.” After that Hoggman dismissed him and went on to the tellers.

He asked Donna Watkins if Destiny Fairchild appeared suspicious, but she answered no. “Not even,” he raged, “when she wrote one check after another on Miss Lannigan’s account?”

Donna shook her head. “What was there to be suspicious about?” she asked. “Most of the checks were to the gas company, water company, telephone company, supermarket, ordinary places like that.”

“But,” Hoggman steamed, “you could see Destiny Fairchild was taking advantage of Miss Lannigan, right?”

“Advantage? Not at all. Abigail Lannigan seemed to be genuinely fond of that girl; they’d come in laughing and holding to each other like best friends.”

Hoggman snorted and told Donna Watkins he didn’t have any more questions. He then called on Sally Klein but as it turned out her story was pretty much the same as Donna’s. By the end of the day the hairs on the back of Mister Hoggman’s neck were stiff as porcupine quills.

Harvey Brown, a man who’d been the branch manager at Middleboro for fifteen years, but had two years ago moved on to the more prestigious York Federal, was the first to be deposed the next morning. Perturbed because he’d had to take time away from his job and spend four dollars for downtown parking, he’d stated, “I doubt that I can be of any help,” before even taking a seat.

Hoggman ignored the comment and jumped right in. “You were the person responsible for the conversion of Abigail Lannigan’s accounts to joint ownership,” he growled in an accusatory tone. “Were you aware that Destiny Fairchild planned to swindle her out of everything she owned?”