I've already been over this, but I guess I have to repeat myself.
1. You almost certainly already talked to him about Tia by that point, and he had nothing useful to say except he doesn't like her, which suggests against him having any useful info.
2. If you're trying to argue Rick would have more knowledge about her history, when he would have been all of a few years old at any time you weren't also in Arenfield is genuinely absurd. As I said, it makes far more sense to go to someone older in the community who would have already been a teenager or adult when Tia showed up.
3. Going to Rick for this makes zero sense. The only thing constituting a hint is that he is the only character who will have had a Tia specific dialogue option, but as he doesn't make sense as a source of this info and you likely already did that dialogue option, it's not a very good one... and hints that rely not on in-narrative reasoning but metagame are bad design anyway.
I am going to deal with point 3 especially, since going over Rick it makes sense c’mon!
He is your best friend (allegedly), he spends every night in tavern he must know a lot of rumors!
And in a city full of strangers and abusive jerks who do you think MC goes to seek help?
John just smiths all day, Roderick has its own problems, Corven is an outsider, Emily seems clueless about most people except the ones that are connected to her, Thomas and Lucius care only about business and Giron is Giron.
Rick has been there more than you, and you trust him, and you go there asking for a specific question, Tia’s family not an opinion on her persona.
And even MC himself seems to be oblivious to most things happening, this can have a reason narratively (MC didn’t interact that much with others) and both gameplay wise, since the game wants you to discover the thing by yourself
Another thing to put aside that bugs the hell out of me is that metagame hints are bad designs…
The hell are you saying?
From to the old games from NES and PS1 (Like Zelda, MGS, Mario) to new indie games (Undertale, Lisa and even fucking DDQL) metagame hints were used continuously!
From Instructions manuals that were considered organic to the play, to meta hints like the ambience and objects that didn’t work before finding an item like in all metroidvanias and usage of walkthroughs the metagame hint elements were never considered bad design to begin with.