“That was a fool’s errand,” Liz said, setting her purse on one of the chairs in the Angels’ office.
“I don’t think it was,” Charlotte said, unbuttoning her jacket. “I think we’re on the right track at least.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“The woman moved and no one in the building seemed to really know her or know where she went,” she said. “More than one person remembers her talking about the uncertainty of the stock market. She’s the woman we’re looking for.”
“Which doesn’t do us any good, since we didn’t find her,” Liz said.
“But we do know Edison was at that seminar,” Charlotte said. “I talked to Stella,” she added as an aside to me.
I opened my mouth to point out to them that knowing Edison Hall had been at the seminar proved nothing because there was no proof that anything underhanded had happened there, but before I could speak, Mr. P. did.
“I found her,” he said.
“Found who?” Liz asked. She looked over his shoulder at the laptop he was working at.
He looked up at us. “The woman from the seminar. At least based on the description Charlotte got, I think I found her.”
He clicked several keys and video footage appeared on the screen. Thanks to the Angels’ investigations, I’d seen security camera footage enough times to recognize that was what this was.
Mr. P. tapped the screen with one finger. “This is from the day of the seminar.”
“Which was more than eighteen months ago,” I said.
“I’m aware of that, my dear,” he said.
The view was the parking lot at Legacy Place, taken, as far as I could tell, from the building next door, which housed offices for several doctors and dentists. I was going to ask him how he’d gotten the old security footage—how he’d even known it existed—but I thought better of it. Alfred and I had come to an unspoken agreement about this kind of thing. I didn’t ask him how he got his information and he tried to keep his tactics more or less legit.
The image on the screen was of a woman in her early seventies talking to a younger man.
“I think that could be her,” Charlotte said. “She looks like the woman Maribelle’s friend described.” She turned to Liz. “What do you think?”
Liz studied the computer. “It’s her. See her purse?”
Charlotte and I both leaned in for a better look.
“Maribelle’s friend said the woman was carrying a plaid purse—a beige background with white, black and red lines.”
“Alfred, can you zoom in on her bag?” Liz asked.
He clicked a few keys and a close-up of the right side of the woman’s body filled the screen. The image was a little blurry, but the purse did match the description Liz had just given.
“That’s the Haymarket check,” she said, pointing at the screen. “The bag is a Burberry. Let’s just say it’s not cheap. We need to find that man Alfred.”
Mr. P. smiled. “I think I can enlarge his face and run it through a nifty little software program I came across to enhance the image just a little.”
I cleared my throat, but they either didn’t hear me or ignored me. I did it again.
“Sarah, are you trying to bring up a fur ball or did you want to say something?” Liz asked without looking away from the computer.
Charlotte, however, turned to look at me. “What is it?” she asked. Her glasses had slid down her nose and she pushed them up with a finger.
“We have to give this information to Michelle,” I said.
Liz looked at me then, one hand on her hip. I knew that posture. I was in for an argument. “No, we don’t,” she said. “There isn’t any information to give. All we have so far is a third-hand description of a woman who may or may not have been touting alternatives to the stock market at a financial planning seminar that took place well over a year ago.”
Charlotte sighed softly and looked from Liz to me. “I don’t like to take sides, Sarah,” she said, “but Liz is right. We don’t have facts. All we have is guesswork.”
“You don’t think it’s guesswork,” I said. “And neither does Liz.”
“Is this because of Nicolas?” Charlotte asked.
I shook my head. “No, it isn’t.”
“Then are you part of our team or not?” Liz asked, holding out a hand.
“Of course Sarah is part of our team,” Mr. P. said with just a hint of recrimination in his voice. “And she’s right. We should share what we’ve learned with the police. We’re both trying to find out who killed Mr. Quinn.”
Liz made a sound a lot like a snort.
Mr. P. chose to ignore her. “I’d also like to show Nicolas and Detective Andrews that we know what we’re doing and we’re not going to disrupt their investigation.”
Charlotte smiled. “Alfred, you’re a very sensible, reasonable man,” she said.
Liz exhaled loudly. “Yes, you are,” she said. “And I like you despite that.” She got to her feet. “I need a cup of tea.” She headed for the door. “I’m going to bring Rose up-to-date.” She caught my hand and gave it a squeeze as she passed me.
“Thank you,” I said to Mr. P. once they were both gone.
“Everything you said was correct,” he said. “And underneath her bluster Elizabeth knows that as well. I think she’s still a little touchy over being a suspect in that whole dreadful business last winter.”
The dreadful business he was referring to was the death of Lily Carter. Liz had never been a serious suspect, but she had been questioned more than once.
“I think that’s probably right,” I said. “And thank you for saying I was part of the team.”
He smiled. “It’s true. You are part of the team, my dear.”
I just nodded. I didn’t know what to say because I realized that good or bad, right or wrong, I was.
Chapter 14
I went back up to my office while Mr. P. made the phone call to Michelle. I was printing out two new orders from the store’s Web site when my cell rang. It was Nick.
“Hi,” he said. “I was just in a meeting with Michelle and she had a call from Alfred Peterson. I sense your hand in that.”
“It wasn’t me,” I said, sitting on the edge of my desk.
“So you know about their theory that Edison Hall met the person who sold him all those worthless bottles of wine at some money-management thing?” The skepticism was obvious in his voice.
“You don’t?” I asked.
“I just don’t think it has any relevance to the investigation.”
“You don’t think Mr. Quinn’s death had anything to do with the whole wine scam?”
“That’s not really my part of the case.”
I reached over and took the two pages I’d just printed out of the printer tray. “It doesn’t mean you don’t have a theory.”
I heard him exhale. “I’m not saying what happened isn’t connected to those worthless bottles of wine. I’m just saying I don’t think the connection is directly related to Edison Hall.”
“So how is it connected, then?”
Nick laughed. “I suppose I may as well tell you,” he said. “It’s not like Alfred won’t ferret this out if he hasn’t already. Ronan Quinn was already involved in a court case over another fake wine scam.”
“That’s not exactly a secret, Nick,” I said. “There was an article about the case in the Boston Globe. It’s how Ethan came to hire him.”
“Quinn had received death threats because of that case as recently as a week before he came to town.”
“The police are looking in that direction.”
“They’re looking in a lot of directions, but yes, that one seems to hold the most promise.”
“I hope it works out,” I said. Could someone have followed the wine expert here to North Harbor just to kill him? It wasn’t any more of a stretch than the angle the Angels were working on.
“Michelle said they released Edison’s house back to the family,” Nick said.