The Lease Rider Brought Me Back Through the Front Door

Mrs. Arnaud read the auction notice without reaching for her glasses.

"He never told me he was leaving," she said.

We sat at her kitchen table. A ceiling fan pushed a grocery receipt along the edge.

I laid out my lease, the rider, and twelve months of rent receipts. She got her own copies from a blue folder.

The signatures matched. So did the dates.

"I let your business use the place," she said. "I rented it to you."

"He changed the lock."

"Without asking me."

She started toward her phone, but I asked her to wait while I called a lawyer. I wanted access. I also wanted a record that nobody had broken a door or carried off disputed stock.

By noon, I sat across from Mara Fenn, a lawyer whose office overlooked a narrow parking lot. Her fee for that first meeting was $225. I paid from my own account.

"The lease handles the room," she said. "It doesn't settle who owns every object inside."

"Eight tools are mine. Some equipment belongs to the partnership. Eleven accordions belong to customers."

"Can you prove which are which?"

I slid over my repair copies.

She stopped at the photographs.

"You made these at intake?"

"Every time. Cases get mixed up. Memories get worse."

Mara sent Dorian a demand for access and a demand that he preserve all records and customer goods. Mrs. Arnaud added a signed statement about my tenancy. Copies went to the auction company.

Dorian called six minutes later.

"You hired a lawyer over a door?"

"I hired one over what was behind it."

"You always did make a patch into a production."

Mara took the call with me present. She asked if he would meet us and the landlord at four. After a long silence, he agreed.

I brought Sabine as a witness. She wore a yellow rain jacket and carried her intake receipt in a plastic sleeve.

"I brought my manners," she told me. "They're in here somewhere."

Dorian was waiting outside when we arrived. His smile looked fixed in place.

"Could have just asked for a key."

"I did ask to enter," I said.

Mrs. Arnaud held out her hand. He gave her one key. She tested it, gave it to me, and told him he could arrange future collection of business property through Mara.

A locksmith changed the cylinder with everyone present. The bill was $185. I kept it.

We made a written agreement for the afternoon: inventory only, no removal of disputed items, photographs allowed. Dorian signed after Mara explained that refusing would leave us asking a judge for help.

Inside, the place smelled of glue, dust, and the cold coffee he never threw away.

My stool had a cracked leg. I set it upright anyway.

Sabine headed for the red accordion on the counter.

"Wait," I said.

The corners were wrong.

Her box had narrow brass guards. These were broad and dull. The red finish was close, but the grain beneath it ran the other way.

I held the bellows closed and worked them gently. Air hissed at the bottom seam.

"That's not your accordion."

She stared at me, then at Dorian.

"Where is mine?"

"There were a few substitutions for display."

"Display of what?" Mara asked.

"The auction has the nicer pieces for pictures."

I turned over the hanging tag. Number 1147 was mine. The string was new.

My old string had been brown cotton. I bought it in one-pound balls. This was white plastic cord.

We worked along the shelves without arguing. Eleven tags. Eleven cases. Eight held the instruments in my photographs.

Three did not.

Number 1152 held a black accordion with a crushed bass end. Number 1159 held a pearl-colored box with two buttons missing and a split fold.

"Are the originals all at the auction?" I asked.

"As far as I remember."

Mara wrote down those words.

On the back shelf were six accordions the business actually owned, with purchase receipts. We marked them separately. My right to work in the room did not turn his share into mine.

Sabine photographed each shelf before we moved anything. Mrs. Arnaud signed the inventory as a witness.

At six, Dorian left with his coat and a copy of the agreement. He had taken no instruments.

I called the owner listed on ticket 1152. The number was out of service.

Then I called the owner on 1159.

A woman answered.

"I'm looking for Ida Rusk," I said. "About her accordion."

The woman drew a short breath.

"My mother died in February. Why are you calling from that shop? Dorian told me her accordion had been ruined."