Pete had spread the electrical diagrams across a workbench far from the motorcycle. He wore wire-rimmed glasses that tended to slide down his nose and had been working with motorcycle electrics long enough to distrust any explanation that depended on the words it must be. "Your father gave us a good starting point," he told Leo. "But the bike's been through a lot since 1992. It might have two different problems now, and we won't know until we look."
Leo sat beside Nora in a designated safe area. "Dad said old machines are like old houses," he replied. "Somebody fixes a leak, then somebody fixes the wall, and after a while nobody remembers what's behind the paint."
"Your dad sounds like he had met my kitchen," Nora said.
Pete chuckled and showed them a photograph of the concealed wiring section. The modification was difficult to identify without removing the tank, because the added leads had been tucked neatly into the frame and wrapped to resemble the original harness. Pete had missed the route when he inspected the wiring earlier, partly because he was looking for a random short and partly because he did not expect such a deliberate installation. He began a new inspection with Tommy assisting, documenting what belonged to the original motorcycle and what had been added later.
The first hour produced confusion rather than clarity. One lead appeared to terminate beneath the tank, but another vanished into a bundle of wiring that had been repaired at least twice over the years. The insulation was discolored near one connection, and somebody had used a newer style of fastener that could not have existed when Arthur completed the original work. Pete stopped there, unwilling to assume that every unexplained wire was part of Dutch's intentional design.
"There was a security circuit," he said. "That much is starting to look likely. But somebody's been here since Arty. We have to separate the old modification from the later repair."
Leo studied the photograph without leaning beyond the line of tape. "Dad's drawing had a switch under the left side," he said. "It was tiny. He drew it because Dutch told him nobody would believe it was there."
"We haven't seen a switch yet," Pete replied. "Don't be disappointed if we don't find one. Sometimes the useful part of a clue is that it sends us to the right place, even when the answer turns out different."
The words were familiar to Leo, who remembered hearing them in his father's workshop many times. Arthur had never scolded him for guessing wrong, but he would ask what he had actually observed and what he merely hoped was true. Once, when Leo was five, he had insisted that a lawn mower was broken because it made a squealing sound. Arthur had asked him to listen again, then showed him that the noise came from a loose wheel on the cart beside it rather than the mower itself.
"You heard a squeal," Arthur had said. "That part was true. The rest was a story your brain told you. Keep the truth and check the story."