Simon nodded.
I frowned at him. “But why now? And why did he use his own money? Was he just trying to cut his losses?”
“According to my source, it looked like the insurance company—and by extension Wallace—was probably going to win both cases. As for why now and why he used his own money, I have no idea.”
“Maybe he had an attack of conscience.” That didn’t quite jibe with kicking a service dog in a bar, but it was all that I could come up with.
“Maybe,” Simon said. His expression told me he didn’t think it was likely.
“Wait a minute,” I said, holding up a finger. “Where did he get the money?”
“That’s the second thing. I found out how Wallace really made his money. I don’t think he got rich playing football in Canada. He and some other investors made their real money investing in new businesses and ones that were looking to expand.”
“So Wallace and his friends were angel investors?”
“Not exactly.” Simon straightened the scarf at his neck. “First of all, an angel investor generally offers a lot more favorable loan terms than a bank or some other lender because most of the time the investment is in the person—the entrepreneur—not the actual business. Wallace and his group weren’t doing that.”
I didn’t like what I was hearing.
“Angel investors are interested more in helping start-ups take their first steps and in seeing established businesses expand than they are in just maximizing profit.”
That decidedly didn’t fit with what I knew about Lewis Wallace.
Simon smiled. “You probably know where the term ‘angel’ comes from.”
“Yes, I do know that,” I said. I had been twisting my watch around my arm. I made myself stop and put one hand behind my back. “From the theater. From Broadway, to be specific. Angels invest in productions to help them reach the stage. I can think of a play my mother was part of that wouldn’t have been staged without an angel.” I also knew who had used her persuasive skills to convince that angel to bless the production.
“But you’re saying Wallace wasn’t lending money at a better rate than the banks.”
“As far as I know he was charging more because the people who were borrowing from him had already been turned down by those kinds of conventional lenders or they knew they would be.”
“It seems so . . . manipulative,” I said.
“The way Wallace was doing business, it was. His loans all included a way to call in the loan on short notice.”
“And if the business owner couldn’t pay?”
“Then Wallace and his investor friends looted the company of everything that was worth anything. They’d make their money back and then some, plus for months before that they were getting above market rate interest.”
“So there would be no company left,” I said slowly. “No products or services to sell. No jobs for anyone.”
“Businesses that had been in operation for decades, that had just hit a small financial bump, were essentially looted.” Simon’s expression was grim. “And it happens more than you think.” He pulled a folded sheet of paper out of the pocket of his hoodie and handed it to me without comment.
It was a list of businesses. I recognized some names, several others I’d never heard of and one name I knew well. I looked up at Simon. “Redmond Signs was in Red Wing. They went under a little more than a year ago.” I’d heard the name just recently, too, but I couldn’t place where or when.
“More like they were held under,” he said. He tapped the company name on the page with one finger. “I remember that one. The company had been in business for more than sixty years. They got a bit overextended buying some new equipment to print removable decals. Wallace and his partners swept in and in less than six months the company was gone.”
“Red Wing isn’t that far from here,” I said as I folded the paper in half again.
“No, it isn’t,” Simon agreed. “A lot of people would have heard that Lewis Wallace might be doing business here.”
I nodded, wondering how I was going to use what Simon had discovered.
His eyes narrowed. “Will this help?”
“It gives me somewhere to look, so yes.”
He smiled. “My work here is done, then.”
“It was good work,” I said. “Thank you.”
“Anytime, Kathleen,” he said. “Remember that.”
When I got home that afternoon after stopping for groceries I found Hercules on the bench in the porch, chin resting on the windowsill, looking morose. I set my two grocery bags on the floor and leaned down to stroke his fur. “It is kind of quiet without Ethan here drumming on pretty much everything and singing ninety percent of the time,” I said.
Hercules murped his agreement.
I tried not to think about how quiet it was going to be when my baby brother went home.
It was a cold and windy day and neither the cat nor I felt inclined to go back outside, so we ended up at the table with my laptop. Me with a hot chocolate piled high with The Jam Lady’s marshmallow and Hercules with a couple of sardine crackers. “You’re a pretty good research partner,” I said as I gave him a scratch under his chin.
“Mrr,” he replied. It seemed he already knew that.
Since the company had gone under, there was no website for Redmond Signs anymore, but a little digging did produce a newspaper article on the demise of the company. When I saw the accompanying photographs, I knew why the name Redmond had twigged for me. In one of them, part of a timeline of the company’s history, there was a gawky teenager, skinny, all but hiding behind his grandfather, who had begun Redmond Signs when he wasn’t much older than the kid who was all arms and legs. The older man was tall like his grandson with dark skin, graying hair and the barrel-chested build that suggested maybe he had played football.
I raised an inquiring eyebrow at Hercules. “Do you think Redmond Senior was a football player at some time? Could that have had anything to do with Lewis Wallace’s investment in the company?”
He wrinkled his whiskers at me. He didn’t seem convinced.
I might have passed right by the older man’s grandson. In the caption for the photo he was identified as Michael. I probably would have if the photo hadn’t been in color. It was the teen’s eyes that caught my attention. They were a vivid blue. That’s when I realized why the name Redmond was familiar. I’d met Michael Redmond, except he was going by the name Zach. He was Maggie’s friend, the bartender at The Brick.
I leaned against the back of my chair and stretched one arm over my head. It could have been a coincidence that Lewis Wallace had ended up at a bar where Zach/Michael worked. On the other hand . . .
“I need to talk to him,” I said to Hercules.
The cat’s response was to stretch out a paw and bat my cell phone closer, then he jumped down and headed back to the porch. Clearly the next part of this fact-finding mission was up to me.
I picked up the phone and called Maggie. “Hi,” she said. “I was just talking about you. Well, actually, about Owen and Hercules. Another customer came in and asked about the calendar. I really think Ruby is going to have to do a second one.”
Owen and Hercules had posed for a series of photos taken by my friend, artist Ruby Blackthorne, at various landmarks around Mayville Heights—the library, of course, the Stratton Theatre, on the walking trail along the river—with the resulting photos made into a calendar to promote the town. Everett Henderson had funded the project. The response had been even better than we’d hoped. The first printing had sold out and so had the second. And people were still asking for copies or wondering if there was going to be a version for next year.
“I guess that will depend on whether or not Ruby and Everett can reach a deal with the ‘talent.’” I laughed. “Sometimes I feel like I’m just part of the celebrity entourage.”