Sedona Law 5 by Dave Daren (e book reader android .TXT) 📗

you’ve got someone else splitting hairs over your own syntax.”

“I think it will be kind of a head rush,” she mused as she blew on her coffee.

“Alright,” I said as I changed gears, “what time are the volunteers coming in? Did you set a time last night?”

“Eleven,” Vicki answered. “I figure we should get cracking, given that all of our leads are growing cold.”

“We have a lot,” I muttered. “We just need to find that … smoking gun.”

AJ turned on the tapes, and the sitar music droned on through the office. Vicki said she wanted to get snacks for the volunteers, so she left.

I sat at my desk, looked at my notes, and played around with all the elements of this case again and again. Clare. Jim. Allison. Ken. Allen. Insurance money. Krishna’s Curse. Leila. Alfred. Julie. Ollie. Paul.

“God, it all has to connect somehow,” I grumbled and ran my hands through my hair.

Unless, of course, the Count actually did it.

I grabbed the notes from the night before and looked them over with a fine tooth comb. Nothing. I reread all the notes I’d typed up from all the conversations I had over the past week. Nothing new popped up there, either, so I wandered into the conference room to see if there were any note pages I’d missed.

Then something in the sitar music caught my attention.

“AJ, play that part again,” I instructed.

“Huh?” she asked as she looked up in confusion.

“That one part,” I said.

She rewound the tape and played it again.

“Do you hear that?” I asked.

“I hear … something,” she replied as she squinted and furrowed her brow.

In the background of the sitar music was the faint sound of conversation. The strain kept going, and then trailed off, and then came back up with more intensity.

AJ kept rewinding it, but we couldn’t tell anything more.

“What is that?” she wondered aloud.

“Have you heard it on any of the other tapes?” I asked.

“No,” she shook her head, “just that one. You’ve heard some of them.”

I nodded. I hadn’t heard that strain before either.

“I wonder how far it goes,” I muttered.

We let it run, and it ran close to twenty minutes. By that time, Vicki showed back up with arms full of grocery bags.

“Okay,” she said, “I got--”

“Shhh.” I held up a finger. AJ and I were crouched over the speakers, straining to hear.

“What?” Vicki asked in a lowered voice.

“I still can’t understand anything,” AJ groaned.

“What is this?” Vicki asked again as she set the grocery bags down.

“Hear that?” AJ rewound the tape, and we all strained to listen.

“It sounds like … talking,” Vicki replied.

“Yeah,” I nodded, “that’s what we think.”

“How would we isolate that?” Vicki asked.

The word ‘isolate’ was all I needed to hear.

I called my dad.

“Hey, Dad,” I said when he picked up.

“Hey,” he replied. “My ears are still ringing from that off-Bollywood crap. It’s worse than that stupid fox song.”

I laughed. “At least that one was catchy.”

“Exactly,” he grumbled.

“That’s what I called you about, though,” I continued. “I think I might have found something on those tapes.”

“Yes, Einstein did say time travel is possible,” he sighed, “but Jerry took it out of context.”

“What?” I shook my head. “No. Did he say that?”

“Ugh,” he groaned. “You know, I read Einstein’s theories. How every crackpot nerd in modern America has taken them so far out of context is beyond me.”

I laughed. “I actually found something else. Do you know how to isolate audio?”

“Well, yeah,” he responded. “It’s really easy if it’s professionally recorded. But what you’re dealing with isn’t.”

“I know,” I said. “I think I heard something in the background of one of the tapes, though, but can’t get to it. I need expertise.”

“Alright,” my father replied. “The equipment you need is already down there, but it’s too hard to explain. I’ll come out there.”

“Thanks, Dad,” I said.

“You bet,” he chuckled before he hung up.

The volunteers arrived shortly after.

“Thank you guys for coming in,” Vicki said as she smiled at everyone. “We’ve got coffee and snacks, and we appreciate your help so much. I know what we’re asking is tedious. But, I want you guys to know, you’re helping out the community. How many of you guys are fathers?”

Every volunteer raised his hand.

“Good,” she replied. “The heart of this case is a little boy whose father has been murdered.”

A murmur went through the room as the revelation sank in. Last night we’d been so quick to set up, I didn’t think the details of the case had been laid out fully.

“We don’t know why or who did this, and that’s what we’re after,” Vicki explained. “So, every tape you guys listen to, every note you guys take, is one step closer to bringing answers and justice to light for that little boy.”

Everyone applauded and whistled, and the energy in the room rose. Then I briefly played them the clip.

“Okay,” I began, “so, did anyone hear last night talking like that in any of the tapes?”

Everyone shook their heads.

“Alright,” I sighed. “Let us know if you find anything like that again.”

The volunteers all sat down at the listening stations and listened to more tapes. I took a spot at a listening station myself and played the clip over and over trying to make out anything.

I couldn’t tell anything.

Then my dad finally arrived, and he nodded briefly to his friends on listening stations in the conference room.

“What have we got here?” he asked me as we settled in the main office area.

“Listen closely,” I instructed as I handed him the headphones and played the clip. “You can hear talking in the background.”

“Yeah,” he nodded as he squinted his