The Twelfth Child (Serendipity #1)(79)
“Let me rephrase the question,” Charles said, “How many times did you ask her for money?”
Elliott hesitated a long time, like he was trying to recollect the accurate number, finally he said, “Not more than a half-dozen.”
“And you visited her house, what – ten times?”
“Maybe not that many.”
“Eight? Six, perhaps?”
“I can’t recall the exact number.”
“How many times did you visit in the year preceding her death?”
Elliott sat there looking like a man who’d lost his memory.
Charles waited a moment then said, “Let me help you, Mister Emerson, the answer is none. And the year prior to that? Once. When you wanted money.”
Hoggman, who by now was sweating like a politician on judgment day, smacked his hand against the table and said that Charles was answering his own questions. “My client doesn’t have to sit here and listen to your insinuations!” he shouted.
“Your client does have to answer my questions,” Charles snapped back, “and so far he has not been forthcoming as to the nature and depth of his involvement with the Lannigan family.”
“Maybe he honestly can’t remember,” Hoggman grumbled. Then he grudgingly told Elliott to answer to the best of his recollection.
The rest of the afternoon was pretty much a back and forth of questions about things Elliott claimed Destiny had stolen from my house – mostly things that never existed, silver this and that, jewelry, sculptures. Lord God, I thought, sculptures?
“How is it,” Charles asked, “that you can so accurately inventory your aunt’s belongings when you were at her house only a few times?”
“I just happen to have a very good memory,” Elliott answered.
“Good memory?” Charles repeated incredulously.
Hoggman suggested they break for the day. Then as soon as Destiny and Charles walked out the door, he stuck his nose into Elliott’s face and started yelling that such a remark was downright stupid. Elliott didn’t answer back, but he had this evil eye look, and I was hoping he’d sink his teeth into Hoggman’s neck. Not much about a situation like this can make a soul happy, but seeing those two go at each other came real close.
It was easy to see that Charles was smitten with Destiny – the way he’d watch her every little movement, brush back a strand of hair from her face, smile when there was nothing to smile at – I may have become a sorry-faced old spinster, but I sure do remember how it feels to have a man look at you that way. When the two of them left the building, Charles suggested he walk Destiny to her car. He seemed to be trying to stay on the lawyerly side of himself, talking about how the deposition had gone and what-all he was planning for the next session, but before they’d gone three blocks, he had his arm snuggled around her shoulder. “Maybe we should discuss this further,” he said, “are you free for dinner?”
“Uh-huh,” she nodded and smiled as if that invitation was the very thing she’d been waiting for. “I was hoping you’d ask.”
They walked fourteen blocks to an Italian restaurant that was so dimly lit, I’d have needed a seeing-eye dog to get to the table. It wasn’t real hard to figure out that they didn’t have a whole lot of working on their minds. He ordered a bottle of red wine right away, but they didn’t get around to deciding on food until nine o’clock at night.
After dinner they got onto the subject of Elliott’s deposition. “We should insist on a jury trial,” Charles said, “he’s not a credible witness, comes across as shady at best. I can show the only contact he’s had with the Lannigan family was for the purpose of obtaining money. Right off, that makes him seem dislikable.”
“He is dislikable,” Destiny replied. “But he’s right about Miss Abigail not wanting him around. She used to say he was a greedy man with about as much Lannigan blood as her big toe and the less she saw of him, the better.”
Charles laughed, “Repeat that on the stand.” He poured the last few drops of wine into Destiny’s glass, then took hold of her hand. “It’s not going to be all that difficult to discredit Elliott,” he said, “but we’re light on evidence to establish you as the legitimate heir. Our character witnesses are solid and we’ve got enough to prove the validity of your relationship but the lack of an actual will is going to hurt us.”
“But Miss Abigail wrote –”
“Honey,” Charles sighed, “that piece of paper is chicken scratch.”
Destiny looked at him and smiled; she focused in on the word honey and ignored the rest of his statement, which to her mind were only leftover words.
The following morning Charles resumed his deposition of Elliott by asking to see the documentation establishing that he was indeed a Lannigan descendent. Hoggman had come prepared and offered up the birth certificates of both Elliott and his mother. The lineage of Margaret Louise, his grandmother, was established with a baptism certificate issued by the ChestnutRidgeMethodistChurch and a copy of the handwritten entry in the Lannigan family bible. Hoggman spread the documents across the table and smiled. “Satisfied?” he said, his fat lips curled like overcooked sausages.
Charles asked to see the actual bible, which Hoggman agreed to produce the following day. Shortly after, he said he was finished with Elliott and called for a fifteen minute break.