Three Quiet Taps Played Before The Jury Heard His Voice

By the time of the trial, I had stopped counting how often I checked my locks.

Voss had pleaded guilty. His agreement did not set his sentence, and he still had to answer for the threats. Kline went to trial alone.

Before the jury came in, the judge had heard arguments about the recordings. The signed permissions, my presence during the sessions, and the way the files had been preserved all mattered. The judge allowed the recordings into evidence.

That ruling did not make my walk to the witness chair easy.

In the federal courthouse in Rapid City, I gave my name and promised to tell the truth. I could see Kline over the edge of the prosecutor's table.

He wore the same musical note pin.

The prosecutor asked how I tuned a piano while using hearing aids.

"I listen for beats between notes," I said. "When two strings are close but not right, the sound swells and fades. I also use an electronic reference. I check both."

"And the recordings?"

"They help with faults I can't fix in one visit."

I explained the contact pickup and the air microphone. I explained that a pickup on wood did not turn a room into a perfect listening device.

"Some speech was unclear," I said. "Some wasn't."

The evidence specialist had already described the preserved copy. I identified my equipment, the work order, the serial number, and the three taps.

The prosecutor played the beginning of the session.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

I had made that sound in hundreds of rooms. Here, it seemed to reach every corner.

The jury heard the repair test, then Kline and Voss talking while I worked. They heard the delivery instruction and the amount due by Friday. The prosecutor showed Beth's receipt beside the dated service order.

She did not ask me what Kline had meant.

She asked what I had heard and what I had done.

Then Kline's lawyer stood.

"Mr. Dizon, you're angry with my client."

"Yes."

"You lost work after a public dispute."

"Yes."

"And you stand to benefit if he's convicted."

"I want the threats to stop."

"That wasn't my question."

I waited.

The judge told him to make the question clear.

"Have you sought money from him?"

"My lawyer sought the cost of defending his civil claim and the business losses tied to the false post. Those claims need their own proof."

"You could have accepted twelve thousand dollars."

"Not without signing things that weren't true."

He brought out page three.

"You cannot prove no meeting occurred on these dates."

"I can say I wasn't at the meetings this page says I witnessed."

"But your hearing is limited."

"My hearing didn't put my name on that form."

I kept my voice level. It took effort.

The lawyer asked whether I had made a special recording because I suspected a crime.

"No. The setup was already running for the repair. The work order and file show that."

"And you've never secretly recorded my client elsewhere?"

"No."

When I stepped down, my knees felt loose. A witness coordinator showed me to a waiting room. I could not sit through other testimony until the court released me from that restriction.

Beth came out later with a paper cup crushed in her hand.

We did not compare our answers. We talked about the cold room and whether either of us could face lunch.

"Soup," she decided.

That sounded possible.

I learned the rest from the public record after the evidence closed. Bank records followed the $286,400 through the fund and into Kline's company. Host messages matched delivery dates. Lena identified the altered books and admitted her part under oath.

The Nebraska buyer had supplied his bill of sale for the broken spinet. The youth program confirmed it had never arrived. My canceled repair order had led investigators to both. A piano that needed a pinblock could not be in two places, however neatly someone filled the boxes on a form.

The case did not require anyone to believe a piano could hear everything.

It required them to follow ordinary things that had survived: receipts, signatures, transfers, dates.

Mara testified about that trail. I read her words later. She had given the doubtful entries as much space as the clear ones, and she had corrected one total when a defense lawyer showed an error.

That was the woman I had met beside the rattling fan.

On the fourth day, the jury found Kline guilty of the extortion and money laundering counts before it.

I sat beside June while the clerk read the verdicts. Kline lowered his eyes to the table. He no longer seemed interested in mine.

That evening, June called me with a new filing.

Kline wanted to dismiss his $96,000 lawsuit, with no right to bring the same claim again. This time, he was offering to pay my legal fees.