“There must be a way around that kind of thing. A work-around, Preiss would have called it. There’s always a work-around.”
“Not this time,” Brooke said. “I’m sorry, Josephine. I really am. I’m willing to track down Ruth’s relatives and Varina, and I’ll let my mother know you’d like to meet with her, but that’s the extent of the services I’m legally able to offer you. Of course, I’ll be returning your retainer.”
“I don’t want my money back,” Josephine fumed. “And I don’t need any more damn lawyers complicating what’s left of my life.” She shoved the sandwich plate aside. “Go on, then. Take your so-called ethics and get out.”
*
Brooke had been standing under the shade of the porte cochere for at least ten minutes, staring down at her cell phone, which still had no service. So she was thrilled and relieved when Shug pulled up in the pickup truck.
Louette leaned out the passenger-side window, a look of alarm on her face. “What’s wrong? Where’s Josephine?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” Brooke said quickly. “She just woke up, and she’s in a foul mood.”
“Sounds about right,” Shug said.
“You’re leaving already?” Louette asked, climbing down and grabbing two canvas totes of supplies.
“I’ve got to get back to my son,” Brooke said. “Anyway, I’ve told Josephine I can’t represent her in the matter she raised. So there’s not much more I can do here.” She looked over at Shug. “I hate to ask, but can you or C. D. take me back across to the mainland?”
“No bother,” Shug said. “It’ll have to be me, ’cause C. D.’s off this afternoon. No telling where he’s got to.”
*
She sat in the bow of the boat as they crossed the river. It was hot and sunny, and the water was dead calm. A pair of dolphins skimmed along in the boat’s wake, and Brooke felt grateful for the slight breeze.
“So … you won’t be coming back over to the island after this?” Shug asked, his face impassive behind his sunglasses.
“Probably not,” Brooke said.
“Too bad. Louette said Miss Josephine was all excited about whatever it was she wanted you to do for her. She’s been kinda low since the last time she went to the doctor. Seems like she perked right up since she got the idea to call you. Even started eating a little bit again.”
“I’ll help her as much as I can,” Brooke said, already feeling guilty. “But there are … technicalities that prevent me from providing the services she needs.”
“I got ya,” Shug said.
He steered the boat toward the first available slip in the marina, and once they were tied up, he jumped onto the dock and helped her off. “You need a ride?” he asked, looking around the crowded complex of boat slips, launch ramps, and bait shop. “We keep a truck over here. It ain’t got no air-conditioning, but it runs all right, and I can take you wherever you need to go.”
“I’m parked right over there under that oak tree,” she said, extending a hand to shake his. “And thanks again.”
He smiled and gripped her hand with both of his. “My pleasure. You take care now.”
“You too,” she said.
He turned to go back to the boat, and she felt a sudden stab of guilt.
“Wait a minute, Shug,” she called.
He stopped and walked back to her.
Brooke dug in her purse and handed him her business card. She’d ordered a box of a thousand after setting up practice three years earlier and had barely made a dent in her supply.
“Take this,” she said impulsively. “It’s illegal as hell for me to discuss this with you, but, well, Louette mentioned that y’all are worried about what will happen at Oyster Bluff once Josephine is gone. Maybe there’s something I can do to help.”
He looked down at the card and then up at her and frowned. “We got no expectations. And Louette, she shouldn’t have said anything to you about that. We can take care of ourselves. Always have.”
“I’m sure you can,” Brooke said quickly. Had she insulted his pride?
10
Brooke eyed the stack of bills on her desk. She’d gone over her budget one more time looking for something else to cut, and turning the pages of her legal pad, she found the notes she’d jotted during her visit with Josephine Warrick.
That seemed like a lifetime ago. She tapped her pencil on the check Josephine had given her. On the boat ride back from Talisa, she’d made up her mind to return the check.
Was there any way, ethically, she could keep Josephine’s money? She chewed the end of her pencil for a moment, then opened her laptop and her favorite search engine.
*
It took less than five minutes to discover the whereabouts of Josephine’s oldest friend, Ruth.
The obituary ran in The Boston Globe on October 16, 2008.
Ruth Mattingly Quinlan, formerly of Boston, died October 12 at Hospice Care of Palm Beach, Florida, after a short illness. She was 89. Born in 1919 to Frederick Eustis Mattingly and the former Prudence Patterson, Mrs. Quinlan attended the Grosvernor School and Smith College, from which she graduated in 1942. In 1946, she married Robert Hudson Quinlan of Highland Park, Illinois. Mr. Quinlan, a former pharmacist, was a successful businessman who owned a chain of midwestern drugstores, which he later sold to Walgreens in the 1970s.
Mr. and Mrs. Quinlan made their home in Winnetka, where Mrs. Quinlan became active in civic and charitable circles in between raising the couple’s two children: Robert Hudson Quinlan Jr., born in 1949, and Diana, born in 1951.
A devoted mother and advocate for liberal causes, Mrs. Quinlan became involved in the civil rights movement in the early 1960s, joining the Rev. Martin Luther King’s Washington peace march in 1963. She was a delegate to the 1972 Democratic National Convention and was also a key organizer for Walter Mondale’s 1984 presidential bid.
Following the death of her husband in 1996, Mrs. Quinlan became a full-time resident of Palm Beach, Florida, where she resumed fund-raising for favorite charities and causes. In August, she served as the oldest Florida delegate to the Democratic National Convention, where she cast her state’s ballot nominating Barack Obama for president.
Ruth Mattingly Quinlan was predeceased by her daughter, Diana Quinlan, who died in 1968. Survivors include her son, Robert H. Quinlan Jr., of Orlando, Florida, and one granddaughter, Ruth Elizabeth Quinlan, of Los Angeles, California.
No services are planned. At Mrs. Quinlan’s request, memorials may be made to the American Civil Liberties Union or Planned Parenthood.
Brooke chuckled at the last line of the obituary. Ruth Quinlan sounded like the lefty liberal Josephine had described. And like someone Brooke would have loved to have met. According to the newspaper, Ruth was survived by a son and a granddaughter. She typed the name Robert Hudson Quinlan Jr. into the search engine.
The first hit she got was for an article in the Orlando Sentinel. A Robert Quinlan had been arrested in 2009 for breaking and entering, assault on a peace officer, and public intoxication.
She found two more published police reports concerning minor legal skirmishes for the man she assumed was the same Robert Quinlan, another in 2011, and a third in 2012. She found a white pages listing for R. H. Quinlan, in Oviedo, Florida, and called the number, but got a recorded message saying the number had been disconnected. Maybe Quinlan was currently residing in a local jail or prison?
Next she typed the name Ruth Elizabeth Quinlan into the search engine and was thrilled to see a list of more than a dozen hits. Clicking on each citation, Brooke learned that R. Elizabeth Quinlan was a somewhat prolific, if not wildly successful freelance journalist.