Софи Райан - A Whisker Оf Trouble

“I don’t mean to make it sound like some hokey old movie in which the widow with the six kids is going to lose the farm unless everyone pulls together and puts on a show,” I said. “But I know the family was hoping Mr. Quinn would be able to put together enough of a paper trail for them to go after the people that defrauded Edison Hall.”

“I’m sorry,” Linda Fairchild said. “Ronan told me about Mr. Hall’s wine collection. I’ve heard stories like that before—and worse. But it could take years for a lawsuit to move through the courts and there’s no guarantee the family would end up with anything. These people can be very . . . creative at hiding their money. I’m surprised Ronan didn’t explain that.”

“Maybe he did,” I said. “I didn’t ask a lot of questions.” I hesitated. I wasn’t sure how to ask her if there was any chance Quinn had been involved in any sort of scam. I settled for asking her what kind of person the man had been.

“Ronan was a straight arrow,” the lawyer replied. “He was the kind of person who did what he said he would do when he said he would do it.” She went on to talk about how much work Quinn had put into building the case that she’d taken to court. “In that case we were able to get some money for the woman who had been defrauded. And now the police are looking at bringing criminal charges against the two people involved. They didn’t sell any wine to Mr. Hall, by the way.”

I flashed to the image of Ronan Quinn’s body on the kitchen floor of the Hall house. I had the feeling I would have liked the man. And I also had the feeling that Mr. P. was on the wrong track.

“So he was one of the good guys?” I said.

“He was.” Now it was her turn to hesitate. “Sarah, are you thinking that Ronan might have been involved in something illegal?” she asked, almost as though she’d read my mind.

“That was a possibility,” I admitted. “That’s why I wanted to talk to you, but from what you’ve said, he just doesn’t sound like that kind of person.”

“He wasn’t. I worked with the man for months and I can promise you that all he wanted was to catch the bad guys. He wasn’t one of them. In fact, when I spoke to him last week he seemed to think that he was onto something.”

My office door swung partway open, seemingly by magic. Then in a moment Elvis jumped onto my desk. He walked over and sat down next to the phone. “Something to do with Edison Hall’s wine collection?” I asked.

“I think so,” she said. “In the case I mentioned, the fraud involved just a few faked bottles. Ronan said this seemed to be deception on a larger scale. He was planning to drive down and see me a couple of days after he was killed.” She cleared her throat. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be any more help.”

“You’ve actually helped more than you realize,” I said. The first thing I was going to do after I hung up was go tell Mr. P.—gently—that his idea that Ronan Quinn had been involved in conning people was off base. “I have one more question.”

Elvis leaned against my shoulder and looked expectantly over at the half-open office door.

“Do you know a wine broker named Thorne Logan?” I asked.

“Yes, I do. His real name is Thornton Logan.”

Mac slipped around the door, set a steaming cup of coffee on my desk, smiled at me and left again.

“Would you say he’s the same caliber of man as Ronan Quinn?”

She hesitated, cleared her throat again. “I have no personal knowledge of Mr. Logan being involved in any illegal endeavors,” she finally said.

That was about as close to a no as I was going to get. I thank Linda Fairchild for her help and we said good-bye. I leaned back in the chair again, wrapping both hands around my coffee cup. “How did Mac know I needed this?” I asked Elvis. He craned his neck to look at my cup and then almost seemed to smile at me.

I thought about Liam, urging me to make a move on Mac. I shook my head. Mac and I had way too good a relationship for me to do something like that.

I took another sip of my coffee. “I have to go tell Mr. P. and the others that we’re on the wrong track as far as Ronan Quinn is concerned. It wasn’t any lack of honor among thieves that led to his death.” On the other hand, it seemed as though it was worth taking a closer look at Thorne, formerly Thornton, Logan.

I pulled a hand back through my hair. “You know what Nick would say?” I said to Elvis, who was looking over the side of my desk at the left drawer where he somehow knew I’d put a box of kitty kibble that morning.

The cat looked up and cocked his head to one side. I’d seen him do that enough times to know he was faking an interest in what I was saying because he thought it would get him a treat.

“Nick would say this is what I get for getting involved in something that is really none of my business.” I opened the drawer, fished out half a dozen tiny bits of the dry cat treats and lined them up in a row on my desk.

Ever polite, Elvis meowed his thanks before starting to eat.

I took another sip of my coffee. Aside from the information about Ronan Quinn, one other thing had stuck in my mind from my conversation with the lawyer: the fact that she’d stressed that there was no big payout in a lawsuit against these con artists. Ethan had told me that he wanted the people who had defrauded his father punished. What had he said, quoting Ronan Quinn? If the law can’t get them, then at least we can hit them in their wallets. Had Quinn really said that or had Ethan misinterpreted his words. Each time I talked to Ethan I couldn’t help noticing that he was a little self-absorbed.

Elvis was crunching away happily on a star-shaped piece of kitty kibble. “You know what?” I said, lowering my voice so the cat would be the only one to hear me. “I like Stella a lot. But there’s something about Ethan . . .” I didn’t finish the sentence.

As if he’d understood my words, the cat turned and glanced at the doorway before bending down for the last treat on my desk. “I know,” I said with a sigh. “That’s probably not something I can share with anyone else.”

Chapter 16

Rose was in the Angels’ office with Mr. P. when I went downstairs.

“Hello, dear,” Rose said. “Did Mac tell you we’re finished in the living room and one bedroom?”

“I haven’t had a chance to talk to him yet,” I said, “but that’s good to know. Thank you.” I looked at Mr. P. “Do you have a minute? I have some information I think you might find useful.”

“Of course,” he said. “Go ahead. Rosie is up-to-date.”

I leaned against the doorframe. “It occurred to me that Sam might know someone who could tell us more about Ronan Quinn, so I called him.”

“Of course,” Rose said. “We should have thought of that sooner. What did he say?”

“He put me in touch with a lawyer who had worked on a couple of lawsuits over the fake wine with Quinn. I just got off the phone with her.”

“I was on the wrong track, wasn’t I?” Mr. P. said, pushing his glasses up his nose with one finger.

I nodded.

“I’ve been looking into Mr. Quinn’s background and he really was what he appeared to be, a decent man trying to stop whoever was taking advantage of people like Edison Hall.”

“I did learn one thing that might be helpful,” I said. “I told you that Sam’s contact was a lawyer, so she was pretty circumspect about what she said, but she didn’t seem to have a very high opinion of Thorne Logan, and by the way, his real first name is Thornton.”

Mr. P. reached for a pencil and wrote the name on the pad of paper next to his laptop. “Thank you, Sarah,” he said. “So far we’ve been hitting a dead end trying to find contact information for the man. I tried the number on the card as well. I got the same message you did. This will help.”