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Faith pursed her lips. She didn’t enjoy knowing that she was wrong to toss Occam’s razor out the window. But she didn’t have time to worry about her own ego.
“Okay. So let’s find out if there’s a supplier somewhere who sold equipment to all three of our victims.”
Discovering the answer to that was tedious. When they called Bethel Records, the office was closed, so they called the University. It took them fifteen minutes to get to someone who knew what materials were purchased or requisitioned by Professor Tate for his studies. It took another thirty minutes for them to learn enough about Emily Chen to even know who to call about her own audio equipment. Finally, they called Bethel Records and spent another ten minutes waiting to get a hold of Zeke before he finally answered the phone and gave them a list of equipment Rebecca Wells used.
In a rare silver lining to their ever-darkening cloud, they were able to finally find a supplier for all three places. Washington University and Bethel Records both obtained their equipment from Pacific Audio Solutions, a wholesaler of professional audio equipment based in the city of Yakima in Central Washington.
Faith called the company and got an answer from a receptionist who sounded young enough to think that dating a forty-five-year-old professor was a good idea because he was totally in love with her. “Good morning, thank you for calling Pacific Audio Solutions, home to all your audio equipment needs. My name is Darlene, how can I help you today?”
“This is Special Agent Faith Bold of the FBI. I’m following up on a multiple murder investigation, and I need the name of the sales representative responsible for sales to The University of Washington and Bethel Records.”
Darlene was silent for a moment. Then she said warily, “Um… let me get a supervisor.”
She put Faith on hold, and Faith took a breath to remind herself to be patient. It was always hardest to be patient when she was closest to an answer.
After a moment, a slightly older sounding voice said, “Good morning, this is Shawna, how can I help you?”
Faith repeated her earlier statement. The pause was longer this time, long enough that Faith said, “I can provide an ID number for you to verify if you’d like.”
“Um… Hmm…”
Faith resisted the urge to reach through the phone and throttle both Shawna and Darlene. “Is there a problem?”
“Well… No. No, there’s no problem. I’ll put you through to the rep now. Um, you don’t…” she lowered her voice. “You don’t think that an employee of ours was responsible, do you?”
“I can’t answer that right now, ma’am,” Faith said. “All I can say is that it’s critical that I discover who may have had contact with all three of our victims.”
Another pause. “Okay. God, um… Let me transfer you.”
Faith released a sigh and took a deep breath. After another eternal hold, a gravely male voice on the other end said, “Yeah? This is Dave.”
“Dave,” Faith said. “I’m hoping you can help me with something. Did you sell audio equipment to the University of Washington and Bethel Records?”
“Not me personally, no. That was the rep before me. I’ve only been here for two weeks.”
“Who was the rep before you?”
“Elena.”
Faith sighed. “Does Elena have a last name?”
“Vargas.”
“Elena Vargas. Wonderful. Can you tell me if a woman named Emily Chen was also one of Elena Vargas’s customers?”
“Yeah, the name sounds familiar. I think we sold her a microphone and a vocal recognition software. She was on the list of accounts to manage when I took over. Why?”
“I’m afraid I can’t answer that. Can you give me Elena Vargas’s contact information?”
“Um… I mean, she doesn’t work here anymore, and I don’t know if I should give her personal info out.”
Faith suppressed another powerful urge to throttle someone through the phone. “Dave. Three women are dead. It’s my job to find the person responsible before more women end up dead. So can you please, pretty please with sugar on top, give me Elena’s fucking phone number and address before I call a judge and get a damned search warrant?”
“Okay, okay,” Dave said, cowed. “I just had to make sure. This isn’t the kind of call we get every day, you know.”
“I suppose that’s a good thing,” Faith said. “The contact info, please?”
“Right. Here goes.”
