“T
his is it?” Detective Nichols said when she handed him the piece of paper. After that he started in with a new barrage of questions about who my doctor was, how she got hold of my car, and whether or not she had taken any other money from me.
Destiny was never the least bit devious, so she sat there and told him everything, where the bank accounts were, how she handled things and took care of my finances, and how she laid me to rest.
“Oh, so you had complete control of her money?”
“Not so much control,” Destiny said, “I just paid the bills and stuff.”
“Missus Lannigan made the decisions?”
“Mostly, she told me ‘you decide’ and I did.”
Detective Nichols was scribbling away in that notebook of his. “The red Thunderbird in your driveway, that’s your car?”
“Yes.”
“It looks new.”
“It is. I just bought it a month ago.”
“Weren’t you driving Missus Lannigan’s car?”
“Yes. But, I cried every time I got in it, because it reminded me of how much I missed Miss Abigail, so I traded it in and bought a new car.”
“Oh. So she signed the transfer papers before she died?”
“I handled the paperwork, but she told me to do it. Miss Abigail’s bursitis was acting up that day – anyway, she said sign the papers for her and I did. But, she knew about it. She even gave me money for the insurance.”
“Wow, that’s some friend! She just
gave
you her car?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“So I could drive her places.” Destiny replied, as if this was a fact so obvious it hardly warranted an answer.
“Wow,” Detective Nichols repeated and stretched his neck toward the front window to look out at the Thunderbird. “That’s a great car, but I’ll bet the finance charges cost a fortune!”
“I didn’t buy it on time. I used to do that, buy things on the installment plan, but Miss Abigail said it wasn’t practical because you end up paying almost twice the original cost. Now I pay cash for most everything I buy.”
“That’s great,” Detective Nichols said like they were having some kind of friend-to-friend conversation. “Where’d you get enough money for that Thunderbird?”
“I took it out of what Miss Abigail left me.”
“You mean according to that handwritten paper?”
“Yes. Miss Abigail’s will. She wrote that so I’d get the money.”
“Her estate has never been probated?”
“Probated?”
I
could tell Destiny was getting in over her head because the longer she talked, the more questions Detective Nichols had. Still, I figured he was a fair man and sooner or later, the truth would find its way to the surface.
After he left, the detective drove back to the station house and started to write up a report. He took out the list of items Elliott claimed were stolen and started making checkmarks alongside those things he had seen at Destiny’s house. When he sat down to work, Tom Nichols shook his head back and forth, like he was puzzling over some worrisome thing stuck in his brain.
The next morning he was standing outside the door when the Middleboro Savings Bank opened. For two hours he sat there counting up every check that Destiny had written against my accounts. He spoke to Martin Kroeger, the new Branch Manager who two years ago replaced Harvey Brown, the Manager I’d been dealing with since the day I moved to Middleboro. After that he talked to two of the tellers, both of which I had never laid eyes on – of course, they said Destiny was the one who made all of the withdrawals. “What about deposits?” he’d asked, and they told him those were made by electronic transfer.
Much as I hated it, I was starting to understand how someone who didn’t know Destiny for the person she truly was, could believe there was foul play going on.
After he left the bank, Tom Nichols called on Doctor Birnbaum. The doctor, bless his heart, had nothing but nice things to say about Destiny. He told how she’d cried when he said I had cancer and how she’d been right there with me ‘till the day I died. Still, I was worried that Tom Nichols’ ears had started to close up on the good qualities of Destiny, because he zeroed in on questions about whether or not she might have exercised undue influence on me and in my state was I lucid enough to prepare a will.
“How lucid is anyone racked with the pain of pancreatic cancer?” Doctor Birnbaum asked right back at him.
I suppose it’s like having a hole in a rowboat, it’s hard to take notice of all the good planks in the boat when you’re focused in on the one with the hole.
I
’m mostly to blame for what was happening to Destiny. I should have known that after the way Elliott claimed the money from the farm was rightfully his, he’d sure as certain be standing in line like a hungry wolf once I was gone. I meant to take care of things, specify exactly what my intentions were, but I always thought I had more time. Now I look back and ask myself,
how long did I think I had?
O
n Thursday morning, Detective Tom Nichols took his report, walked down the hallway and asked to speak to Morgan Broadhurst, the Assistant District Attorney.
Under other circumstances Morgan Broadhurst may have been a pleasant enough person, but on this particular morning he had a scowl etched into his face, so deep that a person could easily believe it had been there since birth. Apparently a woman driver had rear-ended his brand new Lincoln Continental and sent a full container of coffee spilling into his lap. His trousers were dangling from a hat rack that had been moved alongside the heating vent and he was crouched behind his desk in a pair of damp boxer shorts. Anyone could see Morgan Broadhurst was just waiting for someone to cross his path.
“I’ve got an unusual situation here,” Detective Nichols said.
“Get to the point!”
“Well, the point is, I’ve got an unusual situation.”
Morgan Broadhurst grimaced. “Either you –”
“I’ve got a case where a man named Elliott Emerson is accusing his aunt’s neighbor of swindling the old woman. He claims the neighbor, Destiny Fairchild, exercised undue influence on his aunt in order to gain control of her assets.”
“Did she or didn’t she?”
“It’s not cut and dry. The nephew claims the girl has gone on a wild spending spree using his aunt’s money and she’s made no attempt to have the estate probated. The girl, on the other hand, says she was a friend of this Abigail Lannigan and she has a handwritten document that supposedly is the old woman’s last will and testament.”
“Then it’s a civil case.”
“Yes and no. The will that the Fairchild woman produced is totally illegible. It also appears that she forged Abigail Lannigan’s signature to a title transfer on the car and all of Lannigan’s bank accounts have been transferred over to Fairchild.”
“Fairchild got power of attorney?”
“Nothing official. But, she swears this Abigail Lannigan told her to do it.”
“Stop dancing around the issue. Is there an indictable offense here or not?”
“Possibly. The nephew swears up and down that she was exploiting the old woman, but I gotta say the girl comes across as pretty believable. My gut instinct is to say kick it back and let them settle their differences in a civil suit.”
“I don’t give a rat’s ass about what your
gut
thinks! Is there enough evidence to indict her or not?”
“Hmm. It could be a stretch.”
“Tough shit, find a way to do it! If the press gets wind of a story where somebody’s swindled an old fart and we’re covering it up, our ass is fried! Charge the Fairchild woman with forgery, falsifying a document and exploitation of the elderly. How much money was involved?”
“One hundred thousand give or take.”
“Add grand larceny.” At that point Morgan Broadhurst stood up and strode across the office in his underwear to retrieve his trousers. He turned back to Tom Nichols and snapped, “Well, what are you waiting for?”
An uneasy feeling settled into my heart and I knew that Destiny’s streak of bad luck had not yet come to an end.
T
hat afternoon Detective Nichols brought Destiny into the stationhouse and started rattling off some long-winded statement about how she had the right to an attorney and such.
“An attorney?” Destiny said, “Why would I want an attorney?”
“If you can’t afford an attorney, one will be appointed to you…” Stone-faced, Tom Nichols went right on with what he had to say before they launched into the questioning. Right then, Destiny should have called for a lawyer, but she didn’t. Instead she sat there and answered his questions, one by one, and she peeled off a truthful answer every single time. I can say for certain those answers were the God’s honest truth because I’d been there when it happened.
“Now what exactly is your primary source of income?” Detective Nichols asked.
“I do waitressing at Aristotle’s. Thursday, Friday, Saturday.”
“Part-time?”
“Uh-huh.”
“How much does that pay?”
“Six dollars an hour, plus tips. I’ve got the lunch hour so tips are pretty good.”
“Good enough to afford a new Thunderbird?”
“No. I traded in Miss Abigail’s Buick and bought the Thunderbird.”
“They were the same price?” Detective Nichols made the question sound like some generalized point of information, but I could tell he was driving Destiny to say something she’d come to regret.
“Of course not,” she replied laughingly, “The Thunderbird was a whole lot more.”
“The money for the new car, where’d that come from?”
“I took it out of Miss Abigail’s savings account.”
“According to the bank, you’ve been running up quite a tally of charge accounts and paying for them with funds from Missus Lannigan’s account.”
“Yes. But the money is mine now. Miss Abigail gave it to me.”
“Gave it to you?”
“Yes. She wrote a will stating that her intention was for me to have all her worldly possessions. That’s the exact way she put it,
all my worldly possessions.
”
“What about her family?”
“She didn’t have anyone but her brother and he died over five years ago.”
“Doesn’t she have a nephew?”
“Elliott Emerson? Miss Abigail didn’t like him one little bit. Said he was a bad-mannered money-grubbing leach.”
“But she did give him money on numerous occasions, didn’t she?”
“Because she thought her brother, Will, would have wanted her to.”
“Why would he have wanted his sister to give Elliott Emerson any money if they weren’t really related?”
“It’s very complicated. Will believed that Elliott was a twice removed cousin, but Miss Abigail found out he was a Baptist and she knew that never in the history of the world had there been a Baptist in the Lannigan family.” Destiny shrugged apologetically, “See, the Lannigan’s were staunch Methodists.”
“Still, Missus Lannigan did on some occasions ask you to write checks for money she was indeed giving to Mister Emerson, didn’t she?”
“Yes, but it was not something she wanted to do.”
“But, you
knew
Mister Emerson was in some way related, right?”
“Yes, but –”
“Yet, you chose not to inform him of his aunt’s passing?”
“I didn’t have his telephone number.”
“Um-hmm.” Detective Nichols nodded his head in the most doubting manner.
Morgan Broadhurst, who had been watching this procedure through a mirrored window, was looking happier than he had been all day. Now, I was never a person to wish ill on others, but at that moment I was quite sorry it hadn’t been a tractor trailer that smashed into Mister Broadhurst’s Lincoln Continental.
After almost four hours, Detective Nichols told Destiny she could go home, but he said she shouldn’t leave town as they might have more questions.
T
hat night Destiny was sitting on the blue velvet sofa drinking her third glass of wine when the doorbell rang.
It was an narrow stick of a man with skin so black he would have disappeared into the darkness were it not for his teeth and a crop of snow white hair. “Evening ma’am,” he said and smiled real wide. “Name’s Elijah Blessing. I’d like to offer the word of the Lord to you in this authentic King James Bible.” He held out a red leather book.
“You’re selling Bibles?” Destiny asked.
“Yes ma’am, I surely am. And if I might say so, you look like a person who could take comfort in the Good Lord’s word. The word of God can ease a person’s load, bring peace to a troubled mind, shed light on the darkest path . . .”
“Well, I don’t think –”
“When you got troubles, you bring ‘em to the Lord, he’ll show the way. If you got a sorrowful heart, he’ll fill it with gladness. Ain’t nothing the Almighty Lord can’t do when a person abides by the Good Book.”
It could have been the wine or a chunk of fear settling inside Destiny’s heart, maybe even the loneliness she’d been feeling ever since I died, but right there in the doorway she started bawling like a baby. Elijah Blessing dropped the red book back into the satchel he had slung over his right shoulder, then reached out and took Destiny’s hand into his. He didn’t look any more substantial than a winter-worn scarecrow, but I could tell Elijah Blessing was a mountain of strength.
“You got troubles, don’t you Missy?” he said to Destiny.
She nodded her head and kept right on sobbing.
“I got the Good Book right here and I got two perfectly fine ears; you want a messenger of the Lord to listen for a spell?”
Destiny wiped her nose on the tail end of her shirt and nodded again.
It was a funny thing with those two, something passed between them, something that didn’t require any words whatsoever. He draped his arm across her shoulder in a real tender way, like a daddy or grandpa would, and together they moved back inside the house and sat down on the sofa.
Praise the Lord
I thought, for I was pretty certain it was His doing – Elijah Blessing showing up on Destiny’s doorstep this way. At first they just sat there, Mister Blessing with one arm still wrapped around Destiny’s shoulder and the other hand holding onto hers. She kept right on sobbing, shaking all over and sobbing like her poor little heart was going to break. Mister Blessing told her to go right ahead and cry, get it out of her system; he said he had nowhere to go and nothing to do but share the word of God with folks who needed it. The world sure could use more men like that Mister Blessing.