The Twelfth Child

by Bette Lee Crosby

  “He claimed his great granddaddy was Miss Abigail’s daddy, but she said you couldn’t believe nothing that came from Elliott.”

  “It does sound preposterous,” Charles said. “If such a thing were true it would cover an extensive period of time.”

  “Elliott said his grandma, Margaret Louise, was the first born child of old Mister Lannigan and Abigail Anne was the very last. Of course, they had different mamas.”

  “Of course,” Charles repeated, but a blind person could see the confusion swirling around his brain. “Did Abigail Lannigan know Elliott’s grandmother?”

  “No. Margaret Louise was a whole lot older than Miss Abigail.”

  “Was there ever any proof that this Margaret Louise was actually a Lannigan?”

  “Uh-huh.” Destiny nodded. “Her name’s written in the family bible.”

  “Did Miss Lannigan ever say anything about that?”

  Destiny hesitated a moment and grinned – I knew she was remembering back to what I’d told her. “Yes, she said it didn’t make a bean of difference where the woman’s name was written, she still didn’t believe Elliott was related to the Lannigans.”

  “This family bible, who has it?”

  “I do. Well, at least I did. It’s at Miss Abigail’s house. I used to go there and tidy up once a week, but the detective said it would be better if I stayed away, until the question of ownership is resolved.”

  Charles McCallum was starting to knit his brows together like a man with some concerns. “Which detective?” he asked. Destiny told him it was Tom Nichols; he made note of the name then asked if she had the will Miss Lannigan had written.

  “A copy of it,” she answered and started rummaging through her purse. “Mister Nichols has the original.” She handed Charles a folded sheet of paper.

  “Hmmm,” he mused eyeing it, “this didn’t copy very well.”

  “Yes, it did,” she said innocently, “That’s how it looks.”

  “It is?”

  Destiny nodded.

  He angled the paper, squinted at it sideways, then glanced across the desk like a man who suspects he’s the butt of a joke. Destiny wasn’t laughing. He went back to the paper and studied it for a full minute trying to make sense of a page of chicken scratch – a roadmap of scribbles, not a single word legible, not even the signature. Finally he asked, “Do you have anything else? Any other documents?”

  She shook her head.

  “Any witnesses to her writing this?”

  “Me.”

  “No one else, just you?”

  She nodded.

  Charles started jotting notes on a legal pad. “Without someone to substantiate that Miss Lannigan actually wrote this, it won’t do us much good. We need witnesses to verify your relationship – people who can attest to the fact that you and she were close enough to warrant a bequest such as this.”

  “She didn’t have any family and no close friends that I know of.”

  “What about people she came in contact with on a regular basis? Shopkeepers? Bankers? A nurse or cleaning lady, maybe?”

  “No nurse,” Destiny said, “I took care of Miss Abigail when she got bad sick.”

  “How about her doctor?”

  “Uh-huh.” Destiny nodded. “Doctor Birnbaum knows we were real close.”

  Charles made note of Doctor Birnbaum’s address and telephone number, then he moved on to questions about friends or possibly even other relatives. I must say, for a young fellow with such a casual look about him, he seemed to be quite thorough and Lord knows Destiny was in need of all the help she could get. I wish she knew about the letter I wrote Gloria last year, it would have helped to set things straight.

  In all, Charles spent almost two hours asking Destiny questions about one thing and another, then after she left he got on the telephone and called the detective. “Shouldn’t this be handled as a civil case?” he asked, but Tom Nichols indicated it was open-ended as to exploitation of the elderly and the issue of forgery.

  “Actually,” Tom said, “Broadhurst is pushing for an arrest warrant.”

  “On evidence this thin?”

  “Thin? She’s got a new Thunderbird, purchases up the wazoo –”

  “Maybe so, but there’s no priors, no obvious intent.”

  “You met the nephew? Tom asked, then continued on without waiting for an answer. “This guy’s a real hard ass.”

  “Emerson? What claim has he got? There’s no involvement with the deceased. Abigail Lannigan even told people he wasn’t a relative.”

  “Well, he is.”

  “He is?”

  “Yeah. We did a trace. The jerk’s great grandfather was William Lannigan.”

  “Shit,” Charles McCallum said. There was a few moments of silence then he suggested, “Let me dangle a carrot for the guy – suggest if he flips it over to a civil suit, he’ll stand a better chance of getting the money back.”

  “What about the forgery? Exploitation?”

  “No court is gonna go along with those charges. Fairchild has a credible story, she was taking good care of the woman and I’ve got witnesses that’ll swear Abigail Lannigan gave her the authority to sign checks.”

  “Broadhurst wants her for grand larceny.”

  “Oh, come on!” Charles McCallum replied. “The best you can possibly hope for is fraud. With no priors, she’d get probation.”

  They dickered back and forth for almost a half hour and in the end agreed to a face-to-face conference, including both Destiny and Elliott Emerson.

  Elliott was first to arrive at the meeting, which didn’t surprise me one little bit, seeing as to how he was so fired up about getting hold of my money. When Destiny entered the room, he didn’t stand as most gentlemen would, but scrunched deeper into the chair and glared across the table with the look of a man ready for a fight. Tom Nichols, who was standing alongside of Elliott , nodded and gave Destiny a pleasant enough smile, then he reached across the table and shook hands with Charles McCallum.

  Once the negotiations got underway, the nastiest side of Elliott came through. “She’s a thief,” he shouted, “a thief! Look what she’s done to my aunt – stole her house, her car, her money! She belongs behind bars! In prison for life!”

  “That’s not likely to happen,” Detective Nichols replied in the calmest voice imaginable. “So, cool down and let’s discuss some realistic alternatives.”

  “Realistic alternatives?” Elliott grumbled. “I suppose it’s realistic that she won’t even tell me where she’s hidden the money!”

  Charles McCallum’s expression suddenly looked like a bonfire had sprung up inside of his head – I could tell he was on to something. He began bringing up points of law, hammering at how they’d have to first prove intent to defraud. “Pursuing this issue in criminal court,” he said looking straight at Elliott, “would provide punishment only if Destiny Fairchild is found guilty of an actual crime. “However,” he strung the word out as if dessert was about to be served, “if you elect to drop the criminal charges and pursue this as a civil action, my client would be required to answer interrogatory questions as to the amount and whereabouts of any assets in question.”

  Elliott’s eyes lit up.

  Now I could see where Charles was heading. “So,” he continued, his face still fixed square to Elliott, “while you have the right to pursue this along either pathway, you should decide which is more important – her punishment or the restitution of any assets that may be judged legally yours.”

  “That true?” Elliott asked Tom Nichols. “She’s gotta say where the money is?”

  The detective nodded.

  “Well, under those circumstances –” Elliott sighed, his eyes registering like cherries on a slot machine. “Although I’d prefer to see this criminal get her just desserts, I owe it to my dear aunt to make certain her money stays in the Lannigan family.”

  Lannigan Family? He meant his own greedy hands! If I was still flesh and blood, I’d have lambasted that
man for all he was worth – why, the Lannigan’s wouldn’t wipe their feet on the likes of you, that’s what I’d have told him. Destiny, who’d been forewarned not to let herself be goaded into an argument, was probably of the same opinion, because she sat there picking the polish from her fingernails and ripping her cuticles to pieces.

  Detective Nichols sided with Charles McCallum. “You might want to consider that course of action,” he said, glancing sideways at Elliott. “In criminal cases we’ve got to prove she’s guilty beyond any doubt. Our exploitation case is weak to begin with, and if she’s got witnesses who will swear that she was authorized to sign those checks, fraud is out the window.”

  “Civil court only requires the prosecution to show there’s a likely probability of the crime,” Charles added. “The burden of proof is much lower.”

  “Of course, Mister Emerson will have to drop the exploitation complaint,” Tom Nichols said, “the rest of the charges can be transferred to civil court.”

  “But she has to tell where all the money is?” Elliott asked again.

  The other two men nodded, and within fifteen minutes they reached an agreement to dismiss the criminal charges against Destiny Fairchild.

  End of an Era

  Richmond, Virginia 1933

  Abigail and Gloria both worked at Club Lucky until nineteen-thirty-three, when the government decided to give folks the legal right to drink whisky and repealed the eighteenth amendment. It happened in December, on a day that was so cold people bundled up in wooly coats and covered their noses with scarves. Although it was rumored that there would be dancing in the streets, Abigail knew better because the moment she opened her eyes she saw that the sky was gray as a stone. Days like this, you could step outside your door and get run over by a car or trampled by a horse, if that didn’t happen you were sure to catch your death of cold. Itchy had told the girls to get decked out in their best bib and tucker because Club Lucky was having a party – “a celebration to end all celebrations,” he’d called it. Still, Abigail couldn’t get rid of the nagging apprehension that was scratching at her brain.

  After breakfast, she pulled on a pair of boots and ventured out to do some Christmas shopping. Abigail walked the full seventeen blocks to Market Street, all the while thinking how she’d buy some wonderful presents this year, now that she had the feel of money in her pocket. Other years she’d had to scrimp, looking hard at the price tag before considering a gift, settling for a scarf when she’d hoped to buy something much finer. For three hours she meandered in and out of stores, finally selecting a mohair sweater, ignoring the cost and thinking only of how handsome it would look on her brother. At five o’clock she started home, carting an armload of presents and a bright red poinsettia plant. For the first time in five years, she’d bought her father a present – a meerschaum pipe with a massive figurehead bowl. She planned to enclose a letter along with the gift, a letter asking for his forgiveness – although she knew that forgiveness did not come easy to William Lannigan – he was a man who just might refuse to read what she’d written and set the gift aside unopened. Still, she reasoned, it had been five years, long enough perhaps for even his anger to fade.

  She tried to focus her thoughts on the upcoming holiday – pictured eggnog with a floating sprinkle of nutmeg, an angel atop a pine tree, presents tied with ribbon the color of cherries – but the sky was still there, ominous as a tombstone. She arranged the poinsettia in the center of the kitchen table then sat and ate a bowl of chicken soup – which Ida Jean Meredith had once said was the cure for anything – but it burned going down and ultimately gave her indigestion. It’s going to snow, she thought, maybe even sleet.

  At eight o’clock, when Abigail arrived at Club Lucky, the party was already in full swing. A block away from the building she’d heard the band blasting out Happy Days are Here Again and no sooner had she walked through the door when Gloria scooted across the room and grabbed hold of her arm. “You’re late,” Gloria slid a glass of champagne into her friend’s hand, “the party started hours ago!”

  “It feels like we’re gonna get snow tonight,” Abigail said, the look of worry tugging at the corners of her mouth.

  “Who cares!” Gloria answered. “It’ll melt by time this party is over.”

  Abigail furrowed her brows until they matched the slope of her mouth. “You know,” she said, “up until midnight we could still get raided.”

  “Raided?” Gloria laughed, “We ain’t getting raided. We ain’t even selling whiskey. Tonight everything’s free, Itchy said so.”

  “Free?” Abigail hated the thought of things running amuck of her expectations, especially on a day when the sky was so worrisome. “What about tips?” she asked, remembering the extravagant presents she’d bought that afternoon. “If everything’s free, we’re not going to get tips.”

  “We won’t need to. Itchy said tonight every one of us girls is getting at least a fifteen dollar bonus. You and I,” Gloria whispered, “will probably get more, ‘cause we been here the longest.”

  “Oh.” In a situation such as this, any other person might be dancing a jig, but Abigail had a stone-colored ball of worry in her head and it was weighing her down.

  With the free liquor flowing every which way but up, Club Lucky didn’t close its doors until the last three patrons staggered out at six o’clock in the morning. Once he’d turned out the barroom lights, Itchy came back to the dressing room and passed around the envelopes. “This is it, girls,” he said, “the end of Club Lucky.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Gloria asked.

  Itchy laughed. “Honey, you ain’t none too swift! End is end. I’m closing down the place. We had a good run, now it’s over.”

  “But, why?” Abigail said, her lip quivering. “Why would you close down now when selling whiskey is legal?”

  “Because it’s legal,” Itchy answered, frantically digging at his crotch. “There ain’t no money in selling legal whiskey.” After that he told the girls he was real sorry, but business was business and if they wanted to take home the dresses they’d been wearing to help themselves. “I got no use for them now,” he said and walked out.

  That was the last Abigail ever saw of Itchy.

  She and Gloria walked home together in a gray dawn, a day so bleak that you couldn’t tell where cement ended and sky started, a day where you could pass by a person and believe they were a shadow. “What am I gonna do?” Gloria moaned, for although she had worked at the club for five years, she had not saved a cent.

  Abigail, on the other hand, now had a shoebox of dollar bills hidden beneath her laundry basket. “Things are better now,” she said optimistically, “we’ll find jobs.” The following morning they sat down together and started searching the help wanted section of the newspaper, but despite Mister Roosevelt’s New Deal, there were still very few jobs to be had.

  When Christmas came, Abigail didn’t buy the pine tree she’d been wanting, nor did she splurge on eggnog, instead she settled for a small stewing hen and invited Gloria over for dinner. Although the poinsettia had already lost a good portion of its leaves, Abigail was determined they would enjoy the day, so she played Christmas carols on the phonograph and sang along as if she had not a care in the world. That night when she crawled into bed, Abigail dreamed her father had thrown away the unopened package containing the meerschaum pipe and the letter she had written. In the dream, she could see the flame of hatred still burning in his eyes and when she woke the next morning, Abigail knew that William Lannigan would never forgive her, not even a thousand years from now.

  Two months after Club Lucky closed its doors; Gloria came to stay with Abigail and started sleeping on the living room sofa. “If you hadn’t let me move in with you, I’d be out on the street,” Gloria said. “Starving, probably.”

  “I’d have starved to death three years ago, if not for you,” Abigail answered, then they both laughed and vowed to remain friends for as long as they lived. “Longer, even,” Abigai
l promised, “special relationships reach beyond the grave.”

  “Whoooo,” Gloria clowned, “that’ll be us, two ghosts, sitting on our tombstones, worrying about where we’re gonna find jobs.”

  That’s how it went – day after day they tromped downtown and asked about work at one place and then another. “I’ve an opening for a bricklayer, the manager at Apex said, but neither Gloria nor Abigail were qualified for a position such as that. “I’ll let you know if something else comes up,” he’d told them, but they never did hear from him.

  The very last week in March, after the weather had turned unseasonably warm and started the daffodils blooming, Gloria burst into the apartment with her cheeks ablaze. “I got a job!” she screamed, then grabbed hold of Abigail and danced around the kitchen for a full ten minutes. “You’re never gonna believe this,” she finally gasped, “Sally Mae, the waitress at ChickenCastle is having a baby! I’m standing there, asking the manager for a job, when she walks up and tells him that her feet are so swollen she can’t work no more.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Yeah. Right away he starts eyeing me up, then asks if I can start tomorrow. Hell’s bells, I tell him, I’m ready right now!”

  “You worked today?”

  “Nah. He said tomorrow would do just fine, and gave me this –” Gloria held up a wide-skirted dress with the name Sally embroidered across the pocket.

  Gloria started paying the expenses and Abigail continued to plod along looking for work. Twice a week she marched herself down to the newspaper office and asked about the possibility of becoming a reporter. “You don’t have any experience,” the personnel manager said. “We only hire writers with experience!”

  “I’d be willing to start in classifieds,” Abigail suggested. “Obituaries, even.”

  “I could put you on the waiting list for a delivery boy spot –”

  “Proofreading, maybe?”

  Every day Abigail bought the newspaper and turned directly to the classifieds, but most times there were only a handful of listings. She’d slide her finger along the column – accountant, barber, dog catcher – a job she applied for but didn’t get – electrician, jeweler, plumber, undertaker; afterwards, she’d fold up the paper and hope for better luck the following day. After a while, she quit spending the three cents to buy a newspaper and started going to the library, where she could sit in a comfortable chair and read the Richmond Courier for free. After she finished going through the classifieds, which usually took only minutes, the remainder of a day without purpose stretched in front of her like the SaharaDesert, so she’d stay at the library and read through periodicals that had to do with things such as raising fish or telling jokes. Once she’d gone through those, she turned to history books, then it was biographies and after that geography. She read The Good Earth and Tobacco Road, taking heart in people who overcame adversity. State Fair she read twice, and might have read it for a third time if it weren’t for the fact that five other people were waiting for the book.