Daniel followed Ortiz into his kitchen while Bell established a perimeter around the patio.
A mug sat in the sink, and a folded dish towel lay where Daniel had left it.
The ordinary arrangement made the violence outside seem even more deliberate.
Ortiz asked permission to photograph the side gate and examine the house’s exterior doors.
Daniel agreed, then asked whether his home was still safe.
“At this moment, yes,” Ortiz answered.
“We need to keep it that way.”
She explained that Price operated a residential pool-maintenance business called Blue Current Services.
Over the past eighteen months, expensive musical instruments had disappeared from several homes on his client list.
At first, the cases seemed unrelated.
A cello disappeared while one family attended a funeral.
Two antique clarinets vanished during a bathroom renovation.
A handmade violin went missing from the home of an elderly retired teacher.
Each family had hired a pool company, but no one had thought to connect routine outdoor maintenance with indoor theft.
“How would a pool technician get into a house?” Daniel asked.
“Some clients handed over access codes for equipment rooms,” Ortiz replied.
“Other clients left garage doors open or gave permission to use a downstairs bathroom.”
Daniel remembered the form he had signed when Blue Current took over his pool last autumn.
It listed exterior access, access to the equipment cabinet, and emergency entry when a water leak threatened the property.
He had never granted permission to enter the main house.
“Isabel has never done anything suspicious,” he said.
“We know,” Ortiz replied.
“Isabel is the one who made us take a closer look.
”
Daniel stared at her.
“She reported her own company?”
“She reported an incident that did not make sense.”
Ortiz explained that Isabel had discovered an instrument case inside a maintenance van on a service call.
The case bore a name tag from a local school music program.
Price told her it belonged to a customer and ordered her not to touch it.
Isabel later recognized a photograph of the same instrument among missing-property notices posted by the school.
She had begun documenting discrepancies in van assignments, with help from another technician.
Price learned of her questions and fired that technician the following week.
“But Isabel kept working for him?” Daniel asked.
“She needed the income, and she thought staying employed would help the investigation.”
Ortiz looked toward the pool.
“We asked her to stop making solo visits after yesterday.”
“Did she agree?”
“She said she had one last customer appointment to cancel.”
Daniel could hear what Ortiz was not saying.
Price knew exactly which customer Isabel intended to visit.
Carol’s yard bordered Daniel’s patio, providing an unobstructed view of the route technicians used to reach his equipment cabinet.
The trap had been installed at that route.
