I’m starting to think possibly the same thing. We really need a good timeline. Her appearance and then slotting into place within MITD ... just seems very manufactured.
What a great puzzle though!
@DynamoHum, I saw the revelations from Pete Eberhardt yesterday. While has a voice that can contribute to solving these mysteries, it is imperative to realize the information they provide are going to have a slant. The key is to listen for things that are corroborated and tell "the rest of the story" as they say.
An example, we had always heard that it was Heather who fired Pete and this didn't make sense. It was Keith that did the official firing and Heather who called him
later. The reasons make more sense here in that he wasn't shocked about this as he was already redundant as the show numbers probably didn't even warrant keeping him around in an advertising sales capacity even in Art's last couple of months on the show unless he could double up or take on some other duties as there was already a decline from the July and August excitement.
For whatever reasons, Art was already branded as a "has been" by national advertisers. Midnight in the Desert in December 2015 was supported only by his strongest fans as his casual fans had already fallen away since the blitz and July 20 launch. I think Art knew inside that his last chance of making a comeback on the scale of his golden era died when the Sirius XM Dark Matter deal fell apart in October 2013. That was why he was so distraught about that. Heather was the siren call among the Bellgab community at that point. "No Art, you are not washed up, please come back. Please send Art cat pictures! You have my number please call me." Midnight in the Desert was a last ditch effort, but by the time it was underway the COPD had a grip on him. It was not to the point even close to gravely ill and gasping for breath, but that it made doing a 3 hour show, 5 days a week uncomfortable and short of what he knew was his best. His back issues were still there as well. Combining these factors he looked for an external reason, any way to leave the show. While the origin of stalker is still debated (I think he was real and somewhat known by Art and Karen), he certainly wasn't going to let that excuse go to waste, so he maxed out the potential drama on this.
Art's suggestion of Heather was going to carry weight mostly because there were no takers on Keith's side that could step in on such short order. Keith would have not had any particular reason to be loyal to any candidate, he would want who was best for the network as long as they could work with him. He had already decided to shut down the network an set that into motion when Art called him and persuaded him to continue with Heather as host. I think he would have felt guilty to a degree that without his presence, Heather and Keith would have been out of work without him, so he was going to do everything possible to support them in continuing. This included plugs and moving Heather to the Pahrump studio. The audio quality of Heather's California studio was dreadful in comparison, so renting her the unused guest house was to Art a no-brainer and cheaper to him than buying another ten grand in equipment when he had no financial incentive. Plus renting her the house, he could even make some money.
Heather announced her move by stating "new phone lines and equipment were on their way" several weeks earlier. She was telling the truth in that she was on her way to the equipment and not the other way around to keep her location disguised.
Why he sold the guest house to her is somewhat banal. The entire reason he bought it in the first place was to have a studio that would not disturb Asia when she was young during the Dark Matters days and provide a place for visitors and friendly radio business associates to stay as a courtesy. Being that he didn't intend on coming back into radio and was settled into family life again, he didn't really care about the guest house at that point and selling it would provide another revenue stream for the family once he was gone as his health was still in steady decline. Plus it would take away distractions of needing to fix things on both the house and studio (of which Heather probably had complaints meant more as an excuse to try to get Art to look at them) and put those problems back in her hands as he was probably tired of hearing about these and calling and paying for service workers.
I don't think there was ever an affair. Heather was obviously smitten with Art it was never reciprocated. He was attracted at very least to her voice and did think she had some degree of talent and did want the best for her and for Keith radio career wise. I don't think he had any idea of her temper or instability until months after she had moved there in February 2016 and chalked most of that up to being a typical radio show biz personality. If he later gained any idea that her issues ran deeper than that, he probably did his best to cover for her as a means of saving face and not looking the fool to Karen or his fan base. I think his regular phone calls and advice kept her on track.
