Beatrice Counted Twelve Blue Commas And Found One Missing Window

Clifton snapped my document case shut before I could turn another page.

I lifted his hand off it by the cuff.

"You don't touch my records."

For the first time that evening, his voice dropped.

"That was a city assignment. I was helping move things."

Beatrice looked at him over the rims of her glasses.

"Then there'll be a release."

Nora asked him to wait in the office. He left instead. His keys struck his vest all the way to the door.

The music started again, too bright and too fast. Nobody knew what to do with their hands. A donor offered me a fresh cracker, which nearly made me cry.

I packed my display.

"Can you come to my workshop tomorrow?" I asked Beatrice.

"Nine o'clock. Put on coffee. I'll bring the good biscuits."

I slept badly. Each time a truck passed outside my apartment, I pictured men lifting my racks onto its bed.

At eight the next morning, I checked every lock. At nine, Beatrice arrived with a paper sack and a folder tied with cotton tape.

"These are my notes," she said. "For official copies, we'll ask the current clerk. Retirement did not give me a magic city stamp."

That made me smile for the first time since the fundraiser.

She set the biscuits on a clean board, well away from the lead dust. Then she washed her hands at my little sink without being asked. She had never worked on a window, but she respected a room where other people knew their trade.

My workshop smelled of damp wood and glazing cement. On the bench sat a tray of amber fragments. I had been fitting them into a damaged border when Nora called about the fundraiser.

Beatrice stood before the racks.

"Show me what you bought."

We read the numbers aloud. R1 through R12. Each was etched on the lower zinc edge and written on the city's release sheet. I had added padded tags, but had left the old marks clear.

"Eleven," she said.

"Twelve," I answered.

The last panel had a split blue comma. I laid its two pieces on white paper. Their cloudy streaks joined like a little river seen from above.

I hummed while I turned one piece.

"There," Beatrice said. "Even the break knows where it belongs."

We checked my purchase against the removal pictures. Every panel matched. Not just the numbers, but trapped bubbles, solder joints, and a rust stain on R7.

Then I opened the full image folder on my computer.

The pictures had been taken over two mornings. I had photographed the rain panels coming out, then the empty openings after the crew finished. In between, I had stepped into the yard to record the padded racks.

Clifton had crossed behind them with a helper and the round window.

"I thought the city had sent him," I said.

"You were hired to record glass. Not police every man with a trailer."

The round window was marked W9 on the survey. Its pattern looked like water rolling around a drain, with pale green rings and a dark blue comma near the rim.

That comma had an old repair. Someone had used a short, crooked strip of lead to hold a chipped tip. I had drawn it in my condition report.

Beatrice untied her folder.

"West window, withdrawn," she read. "To remain city property pending review for the new public reading room."

"Why do you remember Clifton being there?"

"Because he still owed six hundred twenty dollars on lot eight. Brass towel rails. He wanted the pickup gate opened before he paid the balance."

"Did they open it?"

"Not on my volunteer shift. They'd asked me back to help with that sale."

Her memory gave us a place to look, but I wrote NOTES ONLY across my copy. I wanted facts that could stand without anyone having to trust us.

We walked to the municipal records counter after lunch. The current clerk, Elise, found my paid receipt and release. She gave me certified copies for twelve dollars.

The final auction list showed W9 withdrawn. There was no price beside it, no buyer number, no payment.

"I'll notify the property office about the photograph," Elise said.

"Please give me a receipt for what I submit."

She stamped my cover letter and copied it for me.

Back at the workshop, I placed the new copies in a second binder. One would stay there. One would go home with me.

My phone rang before I could close the rings.

It was Paul, who had hired me to repair the windows of a small church on the ridge.

"Hana, a man sent our trustees something," he said. "They're pausing your eighteen-hundred-dollar deposit."

He sounded ashamed, which made it worse.

"What did he send?"

"A notice saying you're under investigation for selling stolen city glass. There's a photograph of you beside the panels."

Then the email arrived, and Clifton's name sat at the bottom of it.