It took Sam two phone calls to find Amber Daughtry. First was a call to the Daughtry Savings and Loan in Augusta, Georgia. Posing as the committee chair for the Reed University reunion newsletter, she discovered that Amber Daughtry-Reynolds now lived in Dallas, Texas with her husband who was a surgeon. The receptionist couldn’t give out Amber’s unlisted number but took Sam’s and promised to pass the information on to Ethan Daughtry, Amber’s father.
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“Talk to me, people.” Robinson parked one ample cheek on the corner of the conference table. On the whiteboard in front of him were photos of Austin Revere and Matt Bordeau. Surrounding those photos were pictures of the deceased.
“We tried interviewing some of the staff but they all have nothing but praise for the two. They both appear squeaky clean on the surface,” Frank offered.
“No one is squeaky clean.” Robinson turned to Jake. “What about bank accounts?”
“Nothing that even hints of any improprieties.” Jake sifted through his stack of papers. “They aren’t in arrears with any payments to suppliers. Payrolls have been met. No questionable deposits or withdrawals.”
“What about lawsuits? There must have been some disgruntled patients that were unhappy with their treatments.”
Jake started sliding papers across the table. “There have been several and they have won them all.”
“Any sexual misconduct?”
“None, unless they just didn’t come forward.”
“No gambling or drinking problems? No DUI’s, parking tickets, petty theft, maybe a damn fight with the neighbor?” Robinson splayed his hands as though waiting for incriminating evidence to fall into his lap. He turned his attention to Frank. “What about Bordeau’s wife?”
“Just what Sam told us. Crystal Bordeau is a jewelry designer. Makes some pretty high end stuff. Too rich for my wallet.” Frank pulled out a photo, then walked to the whiteboard and tacked it on with a magnet. The photo showed an attractive blonde, her hair pulled back in a ponytail, cutting roses from a bush by a large deck. “Amazing what zoom lenses can catch. They have a corner house in a subdivision by the lake.”
Robinson swiveled his dark eyes to Jake. “I know that look, Jake.”
“What’s that?” Jake kept his eyes on the board, shelving the names in his mental file drawer.
“If it had happened to my wife or daughter, I’d want to be alone in a room with him, too. We’ll find the guy who assaulted Sam, but we won’t get the charges to stick if you go all Jack Bauer on him.”
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“Gary Staples. I remember him.” Amber’s voice sounded rich, or maybe the oil-rich Texas slang she had acquired made it sound rich. “What a loser.”
“He seemed to be in tight with Austin and Matt, at least in some of the pictures. Was he in the same fraternity?”
Amber Daughtry laughed and Sam could picture a hand layered with diamond rings pressed against a thin neck draped in pearls. “He followed them around like a puppy dog the first year and they finally let him into the fraternity. Austin and Matt seemed to humor him for a couple years, then they had a falling out the last year. Austin and Matt couldn’t have been closer if they had been brothers and Gary was like a third wheel.”
“Do you know what the falling out was about?” Sam heard the clinking of ice in a glass and pictured a mint julep or mimosa in Amber’s dainty hand.
“Between you and me, Austin and Matt tolerated Gary. Gary Staples was brainy, straight A’s, honors, was admitted on several well-earned scholarships. But he couldn’t afford to go to graduate school.”
“What was he majoring in?”
“Business, I think, or accounting. Austin and Matt were going on to graduate school and had big plans to open up their own clinic. They had family money behind them.”
“And Gary didn’t.”
“He had more problems than money. I’m sure you’ve seen Gary’s picture. Austin and Matt only wanted to be associated with attractive people. They were big on image. They planned to only hire attractive people, only have the most expensive and tasteful décor. They even planned how their damn business cards would look. Gary, well, he was over three hundred pounds and looked like Baby Huey. Gary had served his purpose so once Austin and Matt got what they wanted from him, they tossed him like yesterday’s paper.”
Sam wondered whether Austin or Matt had tossed Amber aside. Maybe both of them did. “I understand Austin and Matt were pretty good at hypnosis. Do you know if they had anything to do with Viola Williams’s firing?”
There was that tinkling laughter again, a sound Sam could only equate to Abby’s wind chimes back home. “Those two were only average students so even I was suspicious of the straight A’s. That’s what I meant when I said he had served his purpose. They would never admit anything but my gut tells me, if they didn’t do it, Gary did.”
“Gary? Why him?”
“Because Gary taught them everything they knew about hypnosis.”