The Twelfth Child (Serendipity #1)(83)

Of course, Elliott swore up and down that such was the case. “Why, I’d have been at my aunt’s bedside night and day, if it weren’t for her!” he said, pointing to Destiny. “She kept dear Aunt Abigail in that house and wouldn’t let me visit!”

“I see,” Hoggman would say, stroking his chin thoughtfully. “And, as a devoted nephew, a true descendent of Lannigan blood, interested only in the wellbeing of your aunt, did you repeatedly try to visit, only to be turned away?”

“Oh yes,” Elliott swore, “repeatedly!”

“And, as a devoted nephew, concerned only with –”

Pretty soon, everybody in the courtroom had grown weary of hearing the same thing over and over, so the tenth time Hoggman started, Charles jumped to his feet and exclaimed, “Your Honor, this rambling is preposterous, a waste of the court’s time!”

“I agree.” Judge Kensington fixed a firm eye on Hoggman and told him to stop pontificating and get on with whatever questions he had left.”

Hoggman then moved on to the issue of Elliott Emerson’s lineage and introduced into evidence copies of birth certificates, baptismal certificates and the Lannigan family bible. After that, Charles McCallum started his cross-examination.

“Isn’t it a fact,” Charles asked, “that neither you nor any member of your family had any contact whatsoever with William or Abigail Lannigan until you learned that the family farm had been sold for over one million dollars?”

“I suppose we might have lost touch there for a while,” Elliott answered.

“When you spoke to William Lannigan, just after the sale of the farm, didn’t he say he’d never before heard of you?”

“Well yes, but he was still happy I’d come around to make his acquaintance.”

“Did he ask what prompted you to contact him at that particular time?”

Elliott nodded sheepishly.

“Mister Emerson, please give an audible answer for the court record.”

“Uh, yeah,” Elliott mumbled.

“What reason did you give William Lannigan?”

“Um, I didn’t know his whereabouts until I saw his name in a newspaper article.” Elliott squirmed in his seat as if he’d suddenly discovered himself sitting on an anthill.

“What exactly was the context of that article?”

“I don’t recall. I’ve got a rather poor memory.”

“Mister Emerson, didn’t you in the interrogatories state that you had an exceptionally good memory?”

“I don’t know if I did or not.” Elliott swiped his hand over the line of sweat that had popped up on his forehead.

“Would you like me to read that discourse back to you?” Charles asked.

“It’s not necessary,” Elliott answered, “I think I remember saying such a thing.”

“Can you also now recall the article that prompted you to contact William Lannigan or would you like to see a copy to refresh your memory?”

“It’s coming back to me now. It was, uh, something to do with houses being built over in the Valley, where the Lannigan farm used to be.”

“Didn’t the article state that the Malloy Brothers Development Company had paid William Lannigan one point three million for that land? And, didn’t you say in the interrogatories that part of that money should have been rightfully yours?”

Elliott nodded but he was starting to look green as a man with food poisoning.

“Please give an audible answer for the court record,” Charles repeated.

When Charles finished hammering home the fact that Elliott was only interested in his Lannigan heritage after the family had come into some money, he moved on to Elliott’s claim of trying to visit me. “Approximately how many times in the past three years have you visited Abigail Lannigan?” he asked.

“I’ve lost count,” Elliott grumbled.

“How many times in the year prior to her death?”

“I can’t remember.”

“It appears,” Charles said, turning to the jury, “that Mister Emerson has a somewhat selective case of amnesia.”

Hoggman immediately jumped to his feet, “I object!” he shouted, but by then several jurors had already taken to snickering.

Charles said, “I apologize, Your Honor,” before Hoggman had a chance to pursue the issue any further. He turned back to Elliott and resumed his questioning. “Mister Emerson, may I remind you that in the interrogatories you stated that you had visited Abigail Lannigan’s home only six or eight times and on each occasion it was for the purpose of obtaining money. Was that a true statement?”

Elliott sensing the weight of his words swinging back to punish him, mumbled, “I suppose so, as best I can remember.”

“And isn’t it true that Miss Fairchild never once interfered with those visits?”

“That is not true!” Elliott shouted. “Last time I was there she knocked me over the coffee table and almost broke my back.”

“Why did she attack you on that occasion, when she’d never before interfered?”

“Maybe I caught her on a bad day.”

“Could it have been,” Charles asked, “because you said the news of Abigail Lannigan’s death was what you had been waiting for? And, didn’t you also refer to your aunt as the old witch who prevented you from getting what was rightfully yours?”