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“Were you aware of this review?” asked Noah.
Silence.
“Mr. Collins?” Josie said.
He picked up the bourbon and knocked it back in one gulp. He smacked his lips together and then wiped his face with the cuff of his sleeve. “Yes. I was aware of the review when it was posted several years ago. I don’t know if Ron Abbott wrote it.”
“Who made you aware of it?” asked Josie.
Beau’s tone was laced with fatigue. “Claudia. She was upset. She took it quite seriously. But as I told her then, and as I am telling you now, I don’t know who wrote it or why. After it was posted, I reviewed the files of all clients who had recently left the practice. There was no one I believed might have reason to write that review. I have never been inappropriate with a client. I have never had any flirtatious, romantic, or sexual relationship with any client, past or present.”
“Not even with Casey Abbott?” asked Josie.
Beau didn’t answer.
Noah said, “Then why would someone write this review?”
Beau stared longingly at the bottom of the empty glass. “Detectives, you’re wasting your time with this. I don’t know why someone I don’t know would write a review like that. I always thought that the person who wrote that had me mixed up with a different marriage counselor, or maybe they just wanted nothing but to embarrass me and damage my reputation. Certainly, that was accomplished since it caused quite a bit of difficulty between me and Claudia.”
Josie said, “If you were worried about damage to your reputation, why didn’t you track the guy down and sue him for libel? Or at least request to have the review removed?”
“Have you tried getting in touch with Citizen Review yet?”
“Not yet,” said Josie. “We wanted to hear from you first.”
“Well then. I’ll leave you to that. You’ll quickly see why I was not able to do either of those things. Believe me, that stupid review is a stain. Thank God now that it’s been so many years, it’s not as prevalent when you pull up our reviews. For a while, it was a very big issue.”
Josie said, “We would like you to provide us with the names of all patients who stopped receiving counseling from you around this time.”
“I cannot possibly disclose something like that. You must know that. Without a very specific threat, I cannot give you names. Even though my intention is to close the practice now that Claudia is gone, it could still be an issue with my licensing should any of the former patients whose names I gave you take issue with it, which they might. If you want names, I have to ask for a warrant although, even with my limited legal knowledge, I’m pretty sure that it is extremely unlikely that a judge would sign a warrant for a blanket request.”
Josie met Noah’s eyes. They both knew that Beau was right. They could certainly prepare a warrant, but with no way to draw a connection between any names they might get from Beau’s files and the imminent threat posed by the killer, no judge would grant it.
Beau continued, “Also, bear in mind that this person, whoever he or she may be, chose to post their complaints anonymously, on a site that is unreliable at best. These are pretty serious accusations and yet, no formal complaints were ever lodged against me with the state licensing board. You can check that for yourselves. Trust me when I tell you that this was someone playing a cruel game and the object was to ruin my reputation. Ultimately, it did not work.”
Noah said, “I just want to be clear: you are absolutely sure that this review was not written by a former patient.”
Beau hesitated before answering. “Unless Ron Abbott wrote that, in which case, I’ve already told you it’s all lies, then yes, I’m sure. Now please. Leave me alone.”
They did as he asked. Josie was relieved to be out of the hotel and back in her car. She turned the ignition and pulled out of the Eudora parking lot. “He’s lying,” she said. “He had an affair with Casey Abbott.”
“Yes,” Noah agreed. “We can call the Lenore County Sheriff’s office and talk to whoever worked the Abbott case. See if they turned up anything. Maybe contact her coworkers, the neighbors, his brother. Someone has to know something.”
“But that doesn’t get us any closer to the killer,” Josie said. “Collins is right. A dead man did not kill Claudia or Eve. I just cannot figure this guy out. Why lie about the Abbotts? It doesn’t matter anymore.”
“Because if he admits to having one affair with a patient, he’s got to admit to having others?” Noah suggested.
“Sure,” Josie said. “But what if the stuff he’s not telling us is the key to cracking this entire case? There has to be something he knows that he’s not telling us. He must have some idea who is behind all this. His wife and his mistress are dead. His practice, his show, book deals, everything he has is now on the line. Does he even have those things without Claudia? Their success is a result of them putting themselves out there as some kind of perfect couple—whether that was true or not.”
“If he loved his wife as much as he claims,” Noah said, “none of that other stuff would matter. If anything ever happened to you, I’d burn this entire city down finding the person who hurt you.”
THIRTY-TWO
Beau Collins was right about the Citizen Review website. After getting the warrant signed, Josie and Noah spent the rest of Sunday night just trying to track down where to send the warrant for information about the site—to no avail. Every email address they tried was defunct. When they finally found a name associated with the site, it was so generic that they had no way of narrowing where to find the owner. By early Monday morning, the entire team sat at their desks, each down their own internet rabbit hole trying to find more information about the site and how they could access personal information about reviewers.
Another dead end.
Josie momentarily gave up on Citizen Review and called the women’s center to verify the anonymous thirty-thousand-dollar donation from October. But they had not received it. Not in October or any other month in the last year. In fact, Josie’s contact at the women’s center laughed so hard and so long at the suggestion that the rest of the team heard her through the phone receiver. Josie hung up and briefed the team. They were discussing what might have happened to the money when the Chief strode out of his office and across the great room. He walked over to the television affixed to the wall, found the remote control, and clicked to power the TV on. Then he turned the channel to WYEP. Beau Collins’s face filled the screen. He was clean-shaven but his face looked sallow and sunken, even with the copious amounts of make-up that had obviously been caked on his skin.
