A Whisker of Trouble

by Sofie Ryan

  “Stop looking at them,” he said. “What the heck is wrong with you?”

  I propped an elbow on the table and leaned my forehead against the palm of my hand. “I don’t know,” I mumbled. I turned my head and looked over at Nick. “What are you having?”

  “Bear burger and fries,” he said.

  “That’s sounds good,” I said, closing the menu and setting it on the table. I resisted the urge to glance over at Liam and Jess again.

  The waiter came back for our order. After he’d taken it and headed for the kitchen, I looked at Nick. “What the heck is wrong with me?” I said. “Jess has known Liam since she and I were roommates in college. How many times have we all had dinner together?”

  “I don’t know,” Nick said. “A lot.”

  “So why does it feel all . . . weird seeing the two of them over there having dinner?”

  He studied me for a long moment. “I don’t know,” he finally said, reaching out to set his knife spinning in a circle on the wooden tabletop. “You tell me.”

  I pulled a hand back through my hair and sighed. “Liam was doing that thing he does.”

  “That thing?” Nick asked, just a bit too casually, frowning across the table at me.

  “That guy thing.” I made a circular motion with both hands. “You know, where he leans forward, smiles and tips his head to one side the way Elvis does when he’s trying to wrangle a bite of cookie from someone. That thing that you just said you taught him.”

  “Oh, that thing,” he said, and his cheeks flushed with a bit of color.

  “Jess is my best friend. I don’t want her to get hurt,” I said.

  Nick actually laughed.

  “Not funny,” I said, glaring at him.

  He leaned against the back of his chair, still laughing. “Yes, it is, Sarah. Jess is probably the only person in the state, heck, maybe on the entire East Coast, who won’t fall for Liam’s charm.”

  When I didn’t immediately say anything, he raised an eyebrow at me. “Because he is good. I did teach him well.” He leaned to one side and the balled-up napkin I pitched at him sailed over his shoulder.

  Sam caught it before it hit the floor and lobbed it back into the middle of the table. “Play nice,” he said as he passed the table.

  I looked at Nick. “Okay, new rule. No talking about the case, my cooking, you running or Jess and Liam doing anything.” I ticked each one off on my fingers.

  He nodded. “Deal.”

  We looked at each other in silence. “So, what do you think of the Sox’s chances this year?” he said finally.

  This time I was the one who laughed. “We’re going to talk about the Red Sox?” I said. “What is there to say? You know they don’t have any depth in their pitching this year?”

  Our waiter arrived then with our burgers. Nick waited until he’d refilled our coffee mugs before he spoke. “You’re right about the pitching roster,” he said. “I don’t like it, but you’re right. So how about we don’t talk about the Sox or cooking or running or Jess and Liam, but”—he held up one finger—“how about this one time, which won’t be construed as a precedent of any kind, we do talk about what Alfred and his merry band of angels have been up to? It’s pretty much the safest topic I can come up with.”

  I looked at the plate in front of him. “Can I have some of your fries?” I asked. My burger had come with onion rings because Sam knew they were my favorite.

  “As long as you don’t complain about me eating them with tartar sauce,” he said, grabbing two fries, dunking them in the little bowl of tartar sauce the waiter had brought to the table.

  “Tartar sauce is for fish,” I said, picking up an onion ring with my fingers. Nick opened his mouth and I held up my hand and smiled sweetly at him. “Ketchup is for french fries. But if you want to eat them wrong, it’s okay with me.”

  Wordlessly he pushed his plate toward me. I used my fork to take eight or nine fries and slid a couple of onion rings in their place on his plate.

  “So, what’s happening with the Angels’ investigation?” Nick asked.

  “Rose and Mr. P. are talking to most of the people the police have already questioned.” I took a bite of my burger. It was good, not that I’d expected anything else. Sam was particular about everything that came out of his kitchen.

  “Did they find anything the police missed?” he asked. There wasn’t any condescension in the question as far as I could hear.

  “Maybe,” I said.

  He looked up at me. I filled him in on how Edison had cheated Teresa out of the metal moose sign and how she’d gone back to look for it and seen Ronan Quinn the morning of the day he was killed.

  “You’re sure it was Quinn she saw?” he said, wiping a dab of mustard off the side of his mouth.

  “Positive,” I said. “She’d talked to him once. She knew him on sight. I keep wondering what he was doing there so early. You think he was meeting Ethan?”

  “I think Ethan would have mentioned that.”

  I lifted the top of the bun and stuck two small onion rings on top of the burger patty. “Maybe Quinn was getting another opinion on the wine,” I said.

  Nick shrugged, his mouth full.

  “What was the old man like?” I asked, reaching for my coffee. “Based on what everybody’s said about him, I have to say he didn’t sound like a very nice person.”

  Nick looked around for our waiter and, when he spotted the young man, held up his cup. He waited to answer my question until it had been topped up and then he leaned back in his chair with his hands wrapped around the mug. He’d demolished about three-quarters of his burger already.

  “Edison Hall was a hard, rigid man,” he said. “Although he wasn’t quite so bad when his wife—Ethan’s mom—was alive. I think I said that already.”

  I nodded.

  “For all that, everything he did, everything was for Ethan and his grandchildren.”

  “You mean the wine collection.”

  “The old man worked hard all his life. The house had been paid for and he didn’t have any debt, but he didn’t have any savings, either. Stella said he got a little obsessed with leaving an inheritance after his wife was gone.”

  I reached over and speared another two fries from his plate. “I understand that. Gram was the same way for a while. Finally Mom and I got together and told her if she kept going without things so she could leave money to us we’d take it all and donate it to the Future of Swift Hills Coalition.”

  Nick laughed. “The group that wanted to build a condo development along the side ridge of the park? Didn’t Isabel and my mother work on some sort of campaign against them?”

  I shifted sideways in my chair and reached for my own coffee. “They did. Once Gram realized we were serious, that pretty much put an end to all her talk of leaving an inheritance.”

  “I told my mother that if she was foolish enough to leave anything to me I’d rent this place out and offer beer and chili to everyone as long as the money lasted.”

  “What did Charlotte say to that?” I asked, swiping another fry while his attention was diverted.

  Nick gave a snort of laughter. “You know my mother. She told me she wanted her urn set up on the bar and to make sure Sam and the guys played ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want.’”

  I laughed, too. It was pretty much impossible to get the better of Charlotte.

  Nick set his coffee on the table. There were two onion rings left on my plate. His hand snaked out and snatched the larger of the two.

  “I saw that,” I said, shaking my fork at him.

  “And I saw you steal those fries,” he countered.

  I glared at him. “That onion ring is twice the size of the one you left for me.”

  Nick pressed his free hand against his chest. “Oh, I’m sorry,” he said, his tone making it clear tha
t he wasn’t the slightest bit remorseful. “Would you like to share this one?” He held up his fork with the onion ring speared on the tines.

  “Yes,” I said. The moment the word was out of my mouth, I knew what he was going to do. But it was too late. He licked it. And smirked at me.

  I definitely didn’t want that onion ring anymore, so I took advantage of the moment and snagged the last french fries from his plate.

  We stared at each other for a long moment like a pair of Old West gunfighters with fast food instead of six-guns.

  “Do we look as silly as I think we look?” Nick asked after a moment.

  “Probably,” I said.

  “Truce?”

  I nodded. “Truce.”

  I dipped the fries into the last bit of ketchup on my plate and thought about Edison Hall, determined to leave something for Ethan and his family. I straightened up in my chair. “Wait a minute,” I said. “You said the house ‘had been paid for.’ What do you mean by ‘had’?”

  Nick’s expression grew serious. He set his fork down and leaned an elbow on the table. “I’m sure Stella will tell Rose and her cohorts if she hasn’t already, but keep this under your hat anyway, please?”

  I nodded.

  “Edison mortgaged the house and borrowed money against his life insurance to buy more wine.”

  “Aw, crap!” I exclaimed softly. “Stella told us he’d borrowed money, but I didn’t know it was that bad.”

  “The real estate market is better here, because of the tourists, than it is in other places. Even so, once the house is sold and the bank is paid back, there won’t be anything left.” Nick hesitated for a moment. “Did Stella tell you about Ellie?” he asked.

  “She did. So there isn’t going to be any money at all for her surgery?” I tried to imagine what it would be like to have small children and be losing the ability to walk. I couldn’t. “What about some kind of fund-raiser?”

  Nick made a face. “Aaron told me that Ellie has a thing about taking charity. To her it’s like begging.”

  “When people want to help, it’s not begging,” I said. “And even if it were, I don’t see it as a bad thing.”

  “I know, but she does. She doesn’t even want people to know there’s anything wrong.” He sighed. “You know, we’re talking about thousands of dollars. A bake sale or two would only be a drop in the bucket.”

  I sighed softly. “If those bottles of wine had been the real thing . . .”

  “It could have made all the difference,” Nick finished. “You know, it turns out finding the people who’ve been putting those fakes out there had become a bit of a cause for Quinn. It’s where he’d been putting most of his time and effort in the last six months. He was pretty much the best chance—maybe the only chance—to see these fakers brought to justice.” He swiped a hand over his chin. “It doesn’t seem fair.”

  It didn’t, and I found myself wanting to do something about that.

  Chapter 9

  Nick and I spent the rest of the meal talking about the new guitars I had in the shop. More customers were coming in specifically just to see what we had and I’d even sold several, sight unseen, via the Web site. I told Nick the story behind my latest estate sale find, a beautiful Gibson guitar packed in a trunk in the hayloft of an old barn. An irate rooster, annoyed at my disturbing his “love nest” had chased me across the yard and into the porch of the old house. I’d actually had to toss the guitar to Mac as I sprinted past him.

  “What kind of shape was the guitar in?” Nick asked. “If it’s playable it can’t have been outside that long.”

  “I was almost attacked by vengeful poultry and you want to know about the guitar?” I said in mock outrage.

  “You’re pretty good at that running thing,” he said, trying and failing to hold back a smile. “The rooster never really stood a chance.”

  Nick dropped me off a little after eight. “I’m not on call next week,” he said as he leaned against the doorframe. “Will you be at Thursday night jam?”

  “I wouldn’t miss it,” I said.

  “Save me a seat,” he said. He leaned over and kissed the top of my head and left.

  Elvis wandered out from the bedroom. I bent down and picked him up. “How was your night?” I asked.

  He wrinkled his nose at me.

  “Liam was at Sam’s with Jess.”

  Elvis didn’t seem the slightest bit interested in that piece of information. I sighed. Who was I to judge my brother’s social life when I was sitting at home talking to my cat on a Friday night?

  Elvis squirmed in my arms. I set him down and he shook himself and then climbed to the top of his cat tower and looked expectantly at me. When I didn’t immediately move he meowed loudly.

  I knew what he wanted. The last couple of times he’d been sitting at the top of the polished wooden tower Mr. P. had made for him, I gave him a few little fish-shaped bits of kibble. Now he seemed to think he should have one every time he climbed to the top.

  “You don’t need any fish crackers,” I said firmly. Two treats and he was already conditioned to expect one every time now.

  The cat’s response was to hang his head but at the same time manage to tip it to one side so his scar was clearly visible.

  “Not going to work,” I said, getting my laptop out of my briefcase and setting it on the counter. Since I was home I could check to see if there were any new Web site orders.

  Elvis made a sound like a sigh. He stretched out on the curved platform and put one paw over his nose.

  I watched him for a moment while he watched me but pretended not to. After what felt like several minutes but probably wasn’t, I slipped off my stool, went into the kitchen and got him three pieces of the fish-shaped kibble.

  Elvis took the paw off his nose. He sat up, sniffed his treat and then leaned over and licked my hand. “Mrrr,” he said.

  I leaned over so our faces were inches apart and scratched the top of his head. “I already told you, don’t get used to this. We’re not doing this every night.”

  He blinked his green eyes at me and licked his whiskers. Then he licked my nose.

  I straightened up and headed back to the computer. I heard a soft “merow” behind me. “Still not doing this every night,” I said without turning around.

  I sat down at the counter again and looked at the screen. On a whim I pulled up my favorite search engine and looked for “counterfeit wine.” I was surprised by the number of hits I got.

  I spent the next half hour reading, fascinated by what I was learning. Counterfeit wine, like dealings in other types of fraud, was big business. Most of the dealers in those fake vintages had begun business as legitimate wine brokers. I read about one whose own, legitimate collection had sold at auction for close to forty million dollars.

  The fact that these were oenophiles with knowledge of the wine-making business and educated palates made it easier for them. They carefully blended inexpensive wines to mimic the color, the taste and the character of some very rare and expensive vintages and decanted them into empty bottles that had once held the real thing, bottles that came from restaurants, wine-tasting events and other less reputable sources. They added counterfeit labels and even had ink stamps made to mark the corks.

  It was a remarkably sophisticated con, one that someone like Edison Hall, who knew nothing at all about wine, could easily have fallen prey to. I still didn’t like the way he’d cheated Teresa out of the old moose sign, but I also didn’t like the way he’d been cheated, either.

  Ronan Quinn, I learned, had impeccable credentials. He had a degree in chemistry and had worked and studied in France and Italy. He’d been an advocate for more tracking of legitimate wine sales. It had made him popular in some circles and from the half dozen articles I’d looked at, surprisingly unpopular in others. Just like the way I didn’t always want to adve
rtise that my supper was half a container of mint chocolate chip ice cream, wine collectors didn’t always want word to get around that they’d purchased a particular rare bottle.

  I straightened up and pulled both hands through my hair. Ronan Quinn’s death had to be connected to Edison Hall’s worthless wine collection. Nothing else made sense.

  I was about to go to the store’s Web site when there was a knock at the door. Elvis lifted his head, meowed loudly as if he were calling, “Come in.”

  “It’s locked,” I told him, getting up to see who was there.

  It was Liam, smiling at me. “Hi,” he said. He brought one hand from behind his back. He’d brought me a hot chocolate from McNamara’s.

  I took the cup from him and lifted the cover. It had just the amount of whipped cream that I liked on top. I narrowed my eyes at him. “Is this a bribe?” I asked. “I’m going to drink it whether it is or isn’t. I’d just like to know.”

  “It’s not a bribe,” he said, shaking his head just a little. He looked over my shoulder. “Are you going to ask me in?”

  “Maybe I have someone here with me,” I said.

  Liam laughed. “Right. Green eyes, hairy, about this big.” He held up his hands about eighteen inches apart.

  Right on cue Elvis meowed. We both laughed.

  “C’mon in,” I said, moving to one side to let him pass. “Although I want it on the record that it’s Friday night and you’re hanging out with your sister.”

  He made a face at me. “Touché.” He pulled off his jacket, tossed it over the arm of the couch and then dropped down onto the sofa. “Hey, I’m sorry I didn’t call you back.”

  Elvis jumped down from the cat tower and padded over. He launched himself up and settled next to Liam. The two had been great buddies from the first time Liam visited after I got Elvis. Liam claimed it was a guy thing. Sometimes I thought he was right.

  Liam reached over and began to stroke the cat’s fur. “I was headed down to Sam’s after my meeting and I swear I was going to call you. Then I met Jess and we started talking and I just . . . forgot.”