That observation followed William back to the gallery that afternoon. Christina insisted he eat the chicken salad she had already made for supper before leaving, and he agreed because she could tell the difference between a man who was hungry and one who was pretending not to be. He kissed her cheek at the front door, promised to call that evening, and drove back north with the blue Porsche still reflected somewhere in his thoughts.
Martin met him in a quiet office overlooking the service drive. The floor-to-ceiling glass made the room appear transparent, but the door closed so tightly that traffic noise vanished when it latched. On the table sat a preliminary incident report, the visitor sign-in log, security footage timestamps, and copies of two complaint emails that had never reached the ownership board.
"Two?" William asked.
Martin rubbed his face. "Two formal ones I know about. There may be more."
"What did they say?"
"A couple from Macon said Richard refused a test drive because he thought they were only pretending to shop. Another visitor said he mocked her trade-in before asking about her budget. In both cases he reported they were abusive and left of their own accord. The operations team accepted his account."
"Did anybody speak to those customers?"
Martin was silent for a moment. "No."
"Then we accepted a manager's version of himself as our entire complaint process."
"That's what it looks like."
William opened the first email and read the visitor's careful description of her experience. She had come with her husband to mark their twentieth anniversary, wearing clothes from a day spent visiting relatives, and Croft had told them that the entry models at Sterling would be beyond their means. She had never asked for a test drive. She had asked only whether the gallery offered vehicles with enough luggage space for long-distance travel.
The second complaint came from a retired teacher who said Croft had asked whether she was actually planning to buy or simply wanted a place to sit with free coffee. Her letter ended with a line William read twice: I left not because I lacked money but because I did not wish to spend it with people who had so little respect for me. The woman had supplied her telephone number, but there was no record anyone called it.
"How many people walked out without writing?" William asked.
Martin shook his head. "I don't know."
"We need to find out. But don't turn this into a hunt for reasons to justify something we've already decided. We owe Croft a fair investigation too," William said.
"Collect the facts. Interview employees separately. Preserve records. No public conclusions before we know what we're dealing with."
Martin nodded. "I've contacted Naomi Patel. She works for the external employment practice we use. She can lead interviews without reporting to Richard or Peter."
"Good. Offer the witnesses protection from retaliation in writing. And make sure we haven't ignored customer feedback because it didn't come attached to a purchase."
The president of the gallery sat back, looking older than he had that morning. "I built this business to be a place where people loved machines," he said. "I remember my father bringing me to dealerships when I was a boy. Most days we couldn't afford anything. We just looked. Somebody eventually let me sit inside a beautiful red car, and I've remembered that man for fifty years."