“Well,” I said as I took the wire clippers out of his hand, “no one’s getting fried today.” Then I pulled some cash out of my pocket. “Would you run to the store and get us another surge protector?”
Lon nodded. “Yeah. That will do it, too.”
After Lon disappeared out the door, my dad smirked. “Good call, son.”
“Yeah,” I laughed and flipped the breaker back on, “I thought so.”
Then I followed my dad back into the conference room, which had become a hub of activity, and I noticed someone had knocked a hole in the wall.
“What happened here?” I muttered as I fingered the ruptured sheetrock.
“Oh, yeah,” a tall lanky man said as he unwound wires, “I hit that with my amp. Sorry, man.”
“This is Steve,” my dad jumped in before I could reply, and he shot me a death look that conveyed Steve must be someone of importance.
Steve turned and smiled at me. He was about my dad’s age, with wavy brown hair down to the middle of his back, and jeans and a plaid shirt, as if his style stopped in 1995.
“Sorry, I’ll fix your wall, man,” he apologized.
My dad laughed too loudly. “It’s alright, Steve. Henry’s just glad to have your help.”
“Yeah, no worries,” I muttered and eyed my dad.
Steve smiled and continued setting up. Then my dad turned and leaned toward me.
“Steve is the best audio engineer in Arizona,” he whispered. “He works for all of the recording studios, and one time even worked with Nickelback. He books out for like two years in advance. It’s unbelievable we caught him today.”
Suddenly, I noticed movement out of the corner of my eye, and I turned to see Vicki was in a corner with the tapes.
“What are you doing?” I asked as I walked over to her.
“I’m trying to get these into a system to where we can have multiple users,” she replied. “I think your dad had in mind headphones.”
“Yeah,” my dad overheard, “everyone will have headphones, and we can have … how many listening stations, Steve?”
“Ten,” Steve answered as he messed around with cables.
“Ten listening stations?” I repeated and instantly forgave Steve for his hole in the wall. “We’ve only had one. That’s incredible!”
“What’s up with the eight tracks, though?” Steve asked as he made a face. “That was the worst format in the history of audio recording. Terrible.”
“That’s what I said,” my dad chuckled.
Just then, Lon arrived with the surge protector and handed it to Steve, who I realized was in charge of the audio room. He presented it to Steve on his palm with all the reverence of a subject presenting a gift to their king. Steve took the offering and thanked him appropriately, and Lon scampered off, having accomplished his mission.
A few minutes later. AJ arrived from her sanity coffee break, stood at the door to the conference room, and just stared.
“What the … ” she finally muttered as her wide eyes continued to sweep the room.
I laughed. “They’re going to help us. They’re creating ten listening stations so we can go through the tapes faster.”
AJ shook her head as she regained her composure and then grinned. “I’m down for that.”
“I knew you would be.” I smiled. “If you can compile some guidelines for what they need to look for, and how you’re cataloging things, it would help.”
“Sure,” she replied. Then she set down her coffee and created charts and lists on the whiteboard while the guys finished setting up.
While the chaos continued in the conference room, I decided to check on some of the other leads. Since we had gotten nowhere on the Wright Way-Morales connection, I decided to kick it into full gear.
AJ had already found a number for Olliver Morales’ wife, Julie, and programmed it into our Outlook, so I called him. I got a voicemail on the first try, so I went back to my desk and ran a background check.
Morales had lived in Phoenix, but he was originally from Sedona. He should have friends and connections here somewhere.
And according to the background check, Julie Morales was known to have an address in Sedona as late as three months ago.
“Ping,” I muttered to myself and wrote down the address. Then I turned around in my chair and raised my voice. “Hey, Vic?”
“Yeah?” she asked as she came over to lean in the doorframe of the conference room.
“I’m going to see if I can find Julie Morales, Olliver’s wife,” I said. “You got all this?”
“Julie Morales?” someone repeated, and I peeked around Vicki to follow the voice. The speaker was a small, wiry Hispanic man, wearing baggy pants and a baggy shirt.
“You know her?” I asked and raised a brow.
“Yeah,” he nodded, “she’s my sister.”
My eyes went wide. “Really?” I breathed.
What luck.
“Yup,” he replied with a shrug. “She just moved back from Phoenix.”
“Because of what happened?” I asked as I faced him more fully.
He nodded again. “She’s pretty broken up, you know.”
“I’ll bet,” I murmured as I stroked my chin. “Do you have any ideas that might lead us to where she might be?”
“No,” he shook his head, “I don’t have any ideas. I know exactly where she is, because I dropped her off before I came here.”
My heart skipped a beat, and I leaned forward excitedly. “Where is that?”
“Why do you want to know?” he asked as he narrowed his eyes at me.
“We think the murder we’re investigating is connected to what happened with Olliver,” I explained. “We just want to talk to her.”
“Well, then I know she will want to talk,” he sighed. “She’s got a lot to say about that. She’s at her son’s art show at the new Horizons school.”
