The High Tide Club
“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.
She wrote for obscure trade journals like American Hardware Retailer and The Journal of Lawn Care Professionals. She’d penned a handful of travel stories for regional airline magazines, and her most prestigious byline, as far as Brooke could tell, was for a series of stories about midlife dating for the online version of Glamour magazine.
Brooke bookmarked the articles to read later. Right now, what she really needed was to locate Ruth Elizabeth Quinlan. She couldn’t find a telephone listing for the woman, but after clicking around, she did find a website for R. Elizabeth Quinlan, freelance journalist. Which led her to R. Elizabeth’s private Facebook page.
Brooke clicked on the private message button and typed in a missive to Ruth Elizabeth Quinlan, one she hoped would be intriguing enough to elicit a reply.
Hi. I’m an attorney in Georgia, and my client was a lifelong friend of Ruth Mattingly Quinlan, whom I believe was your grandmother. If that is the case, my client would very much like to contact you. Please call or reply to this message at your earliest convenience.
Almost immediately after she’d sent the message, she received a reply.
This is Lizzie Quinlan. My grandmother has been dead nearly ten years. I don’t know anybody in Georgia. What does your client want? If this is some kind of a scam and you’re looking for money, you’re out of luck, because I don’t have any.
That made Brooke laugh out loud, and she quickly typed a reply.
Welcome to my world. I’m broke too. I can assure you that this is not a scam. My client was an old classmate of your grandmother’s. She is a widow and never had children. She lives alone on a barrier island off the coast of Georgia, and I’m sorry to say that she is terminally ill. She lost contact with your grandmother some years ago, and now she would like to meet and make amends to Mrs. Quinlan’s heirs.
Lizzie Quinlan’s reply took less than a minute.
Yeah, sure. And I’m the crown princess of Istanbul. Who is this really?
Brooke sighed. It was late, and she was exhausted and in no mood to play games.
My name is Brooke Trappnell. I’m a member in good standing of the Georgia bar. Feel free to check me out. In the meantime, I’m going to bed. If you want to talk further, contact me tomorrow, after 8:00 Eastern time.