“Are you then,” Charles said, “contesting Abigail Lannigan’s right to the estate she inherited from her brother?”
At that point, Mister Hoggman belched up the smell of pastrami and while people were fanning the odor from beneath their nose, he whispered something into Elliott’s ear.
Charles had to repeat the question, then Elliott, who likely as not had been instructed on the way to answer, said, “I don’t question Aunt Abigail’s right to the money, but now that she’s gone it ought to be passed on to a Lannigan descendent.”
“And you are the only descendent?”
“Yes,” Elliott answered.
“Of
all
those twelve children William Lannigan sired, you alone are the
only
surviving descendent?”
“I suppose it’s possible,” Elliott said, “that there could be others. Of course, there’s no one who’s close to the Lannigan family like I am.”
“Then I take it your grandmother and your mother maintained an ongoing relationship with William Lannigan Senior?”
“Not exactly. You know women, too busy to stay in touch. I was the one who called Will Lannigan.” Elliott said proudly, “The son, of course. Old man Lannigan was long dead by that time.”
“So after all those years of separation, you suddenly took the initiative and called Will Lannigan?” Charles gave the question the sound of confirming an admirable trait. “What could have prompted such action – a death? Family reunion?”
“Something I saw in the newspaper.”
“What was it?”
“A story about how some development company was gonna build a tract of houses in the valley on what used to be the Lannigan farm. Paid over a million dollars for the property. Part of that was rightfully mine.”
Hoggman erupted like a volcano, hollering how Charles was trying to make it seem that his client had done something unscrupulous, and belching in-between every fifth or sixth word. After the fourth belch, the stenographer requested a fifteen minute break saying that she had to go out for a breath of air.
When they returned to the deposition room, Charles stated that he had every right to question the complainant about his relationship with the Lannigan family and if Mister Hoggman disagreed, he’d seek a ruling from Judge Kensington. Hoggman fumed and fretted a few minutes longer but, knowing the Judge to be a man of short temper, he eventually sat down and allowed Charles to resume the questioning.
Almost immediately, Charles went on the attack and started asking questions that got Elliott squirming around in his seat like a man with hemorrhoids. “Wasn’t money,” he said, “the primary reason for your establishing contact with the Lannigan family?”
“I should’ve been in on it,” Elliott growled. “I’m blood.”
“Isn’t it true that you hardly ever visited Abigail Lannigan?”
“I knew she didn’t want me there!”
“Wasn’t that because you were always asking her for money?”
Elliott turned to Hoggman and asked, “Do I have to answer that?”
“No,” Hoggman answered. “Not unless you’re a mind-reader and
knew
what Abigail Lannigan was thinking!”
“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.
I
t 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.
T
he 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.
For the remainder of the day Hoggman paraded in a string of character witnesses, all of who had little or nothing to do with the case. They attested to the fact that Elliott did indeed bank at their bank, or shop at their store, and was a fine upstanding person.
“How long have you known Mister Emerson?” Charles asked the banker who seemed the most credible of the lineup.
The man answered, “Three, maybe four months.”
“In that short time, you’ve determined him to be an upstanding citizen?”
“I’ve had no reason to think otherwise.”
Charles shook his head wearily and dismissed the witness.
O
n the third and last day of depositions, Hoggman produced the Lannigan bible. Charles spread it open and methodically copied down each and every entry.
“Do I need to make note of those names?” the stenographer asked.
“Uh-uh,” Hoggman said, “he’s just wasting time.”
The final witness was Elliott’s mother, a woman nearing ninety and so hard of hearing that Charles had to bellow to make himself heard. “Do you believe that either you or your son are entitled to a portion of the Lannigan estate?” he shouted.
“Hell, no,” the woman shouted back. “Were it up to me, I’d tell that miserly old skinflint to stick his money where the sun don’t shine! He wasn’t no kind of grandpa, never so much as laid eyes on my face. Rot in hell with your money, old man – that’s what I’d tell him.”
“Are you aware that your son Elliott is filing a suit against Abigail Lannigan’s estate? He claims to be the rightful heir.”
“Abigail? I don’t know no Abigail.”
“She was the last of William Lannigan Senior’s children.”
“Oh. Well, if she got anything out of that miserable bastard, I’d say she deserves to hang on to it.”
“Unfortunately,” Charles said, “Abigail Lannigan is deceased.”
“Well then,” the woman sighed, “she don’t have no use for the money and I suppose Elliott’s as good as any to get it,”
The depositions ended at three-thirty and Judge Kensington was advised that both sides were ready to schedule a trial date.
I
n the months prior to the start of the trial, Charles saw Destiny two or three times a week. He’d call and say he had this or that to discuss, but more often than not they’d end up going out to the movies or some cozy little restaurant and never mention word one about the case.
When Destiny went back to working full-time at the restaurant, Charles started coming in for lunch every day and waiting on line to get a table in her section. “I’ve got a single at the counter,” Hilda, the hostess, would say but he’d shake his head and hold onto his place in line. Once he was seated, he’d order one thing at a time to keep her coming back to his table. First it would be a soda, after she’d brought that, it would be some sort of sandwich, next he’d ask for another pickle, then a piece of pie or a single scoop of ice cream. By the time he got around to ordering coffee, he’d usually been there almost two hours.
“Aren’t you tired of this food?” Destiny asked, but he just looked at her with a goofy-eyed grin and said she had the prettiest smile he’d ever seen.
About three weeks before the trial was scheduled to start, they did have an actual conversation, not so much about the case, but about the outcome. Destiny had made a home cooked dinner of spaghetti and meatballs, and then they’d settled down on her living room sofa. Charles slipped his arm around her shoulder and asked, “Not that I’m expecting it to happen, but if the judgment should go against us, will that change your feelings for me?”
She bolted to a straight-backed position, “Are you saying I
could
end up in jail?”
He laughed, “Absolutely not. Honey, this is a civil trial, it’s only about the money – who’s entitled to what. There’s no aspect of criminal prosecution.”
“Thank heaven,” she sighed and cuddled herself back into the arch of his arm. “For a moment you frightened me.”
“Well? Would it change our relationship?”
She looked at him with a puzzled expression, “Change it how?” she asked.
“Say you didn’t get Abigail Lannigan’s money, would you be angry enough to maybe stop seeing me?”
“Oh, Charlie,” she said, an echo of sadness in her voice, “How
could
you think such a thing? I wasn’t a friend to Abigail Lannigan because of her money; we were a tiny little family. Two people with one thing in common – neither of us had anyone else to love. It wouldn’t have mattered if she was poor as a church mouse. I needed her just the same as she needed me. When I did the least little thing to make her happy, it gave me a good feeling about myself. You think
that’s
about money?”
“No,” he mumbled sheepishly, “but leave it up to a fool lawyer to ask.”
“Don’t misunderstand,” Destiny said, “it’s not that I don’t appreciate having the money, but it’s not important as having someone to love. If the judge decided to take the money and flush it down the toilet bowl, I wouldn’t give a fig; but I hope Elliott Emerson doesn’t get his hands on it. Miss Abigail hated the man; the thought of him having her brother’s money would probably make her rise up from her grave.”
I watched as he leaned over and kissed her. The look in his eye was that of a man head-to-toe in love. Believe me, I know. Being dead wipes away a bunch of heartaches but it doesn’t stop a soul from remembering the good parts of love. You might think a woman my age was too old and withered to be dreaming of romance, but up until the night I died, I was still wishing John Langley would come knocking at my door.