Clifton Brought His Booming Voice Into A Very Quiet Courtroom

The first thing my lawyer did was put a yellow slip over the amount Clifton wanted.

"Read what he's asking the judge to do," she said. "The number is meant to make you stop reading."

Her name was Lena Price. A friend from my old trade school had given me her number. Her initial retainer was two thousand four hundred dollars, nearly all of my workshop reserve.

"Can he take the panels?" I asked.

"Not by sending you a complaint. We answer it. We oppose his request for an order. We make him support his claims."

She read the papers while I watched rain collect against her office window.

"I don't want him to buy my silence," I said.

"Then tell me what you do want."

"My name cleared. My panels left alone. My work back."

She wrote those three things at the top of a page. During every call that followed, she kept that page beside her. It helped when I was tired enough to mistake any ending for a fair one.

Clifton claimed I had damaged his business by contacting Ruth and the city. He said the disputed window had passed through my hands and that I was hiding the true sale history.

"Did it?" Lena asked.

"Only when police asked me to identify it."

"Good. We'll be very exact about that."

I gave her the receipt, final lot list, original condition report, and delivery record for my city photographs. She asked for Clifton's email to the church too.

"No speeches online," she said. "Send new contacts to me. Keep doing your work."

Keeping busy sounded simple until I returned to the bench. Every strip of lead looked like money I might need for court.

Beatrice came by with lunch.

"I paid someone to read the truth," I told her.

"You paid someone who knows which door the truth has to enter."

The hearing took place three weeks later in a Garland County courtroom. Clifton wore a blue suit and carried a leather folder. His lawyer spoke quietly to him, but Clifton kept looking toward the back benches as though waiting for an audience.

I sat beside Lena with my hands folded over my scar.

The judge asked what order Clifton wanted.

His lawyer said further contact with buyers could cause harm that money would not fix.

Lena stood.

"My client reported a documented ownership concern to the city and answered a buyer who contacted her. The city now has the window. Mr. Rusk wants to prevent discussion of those records while his own ownership claim remains unsupported."

She handed up copies already shared with the other lawyer.

Clifton leaned toward his microphone.

"I've preserved more of this town than most people in this room."

The judge looked at him.

"Your attorney will present your request, Mr. Rusk."

When Clifton later testified, his voice filled the room.

"I acted to protect public property."

Lena asked him about his demand at the fundraiser.

"You asked Ms. Tesfaye to surrender all twelve panels?"

"Until things could be settled."

"To the city?"

"I offered to store them."

"At premises you controlled?"

"I have proper space."

She let that answer sit.

Then she asked if he had read my certified receipt before emailing the church trustees.

"Receipts can be wrong," he said.

"Did you ask the city to verify it?"

"I knew something was wrong."

"That wasn't my question."

He looked at his lawyer before answering no.

Elise testified about the lot list and my payment. She also explained that the city had found no authorized addendum transferring W9. The city's attorney attended because the city intended to protect its ownership of that window.

Nobody asked Beatrice to rely on memory. The records she had helped us find were there in their own right.

The judge denied Clifton's request to restrict my communications. She said that ruling did not decide every claim in the lawsuit. She ordered both sides to preserve relevant files while the case continued.

It was a narrow ruling. I still had legal bills. But I walked outside able to breathe all the way down.

Clifton waited by the courthouse steps.

"You could have settled this with a donation," he said.

Lena moved beside me.

"Any proposal goes through counsel."

I did not answer him.

In the weeks that followed, Lena filed my counterclaim over his false statements and sought records about the forged page. Detective Ellis continued her separate case.

The print shop that had assembled Clifton's sales packet supplied files in response to legal requests. Its owner had saved the customer's instructions with the job.

Lena called me into her office to read one line.

Under an image of my genuine release form, Clifton had written: "Lift her signature from this and put it on the added-window page."