The Rent Book With Twelve Lines Of Familiar Numbers

Mabel asked us to meet her in the empty bread shop at eleven the next morning.

"I own the building," she said again, as if she wanted that clear. "The records I'm showing you are mine."

Darlene had opened the shop for my cousin Scott three years earlier. He baked good bread. He was bad at selling enough of it.

By summer, the front door had a paper sign that said CLOSED FOR CHANGES. Darlene still told people Scott's business was growing.

Mabel let us in through the back. Empty bread racks stood along the wall. A clock had stopped above the sink.

"She was trying to keep the lease until he could reopen," Mabel said.

She laid a rent book on the bare counter.

Twelve payments. One thousand forty dollars each.

I counted them twice.

"Cash?" Eli asked.

"Every time. Before that, she paid by check."

The dates fell within a day or two of the kitchen's cash withdrawals. I knew those dates from the claim sheets. But I also knew matching numbers did not show whose bills had been in whose hand.

"Why tell me?" I asked.

Mabel closed the book halfway.

"Because your aunt came here yesterday. She wanted the receipts changed."

"Changed how?"

"She said the kitchen had used this place for food storage. Asked me to write that on the old receipts."

I looked at the empty racks.

"Did it?"

"Never. The cool room hasn't worked since spring. And the winter before that, Scott had all his dough in it."

She opened a drawer and took out an envelope.

"I told her no. Then I wrote down the time she came, what she asked, and what I said. My father taught me to do that when a conversation got strange."

Len would have liked her.

Mabel let us photograph the rent entries and signed a statement for Ruth. She said she would speak to the outside bookkeeper herself.

On the drive home, Eli asked if I wanted to stop for lunch.

"We should save the money."

He pulled into a small grocery and came back with two apples and a $4 tub of egg salad.

We ate with plastic spoons in the parked van.

"I keep thinking about Scott," I said.

"We don't know what he knew."

"I know. I hate how easy it is to forget that."

That evening, Scott knocked on our door.

He held no folder. He had flour on one sleeve, though his shop had been closed for months. He had found work on the early shift at a bread plant outside town.

"Mom said you were trying to get her arrested," he said.

"I was trying to get the records checked."

I showed him Celia's statement. Then the rent book photos.

He sat at our table and read each page.

"She told me she was using savings," he said.

"Did you see the rent receipts?"

"No. She said she'd handle the building while I handled getting back on my feet."

His face changed when he reached Mabel's note.

"The kitchen never stored anything there," he said.

"Would you tell Ruth that?"

He looked toward the door.

For a moment, I thought I had lost him.

Then he took out his phone and called her.

On Monday, the board met behind closed doors. I was allowed to explain my records, then asked to wait in the hall.

I sat under a picture from the kitchen's first year. Mom stood beside a borrowed stockpot. I was twelve in the picture, holding a stack of bowls that hid half my face.

Glenn came out with two paper cups of water.

"I should have asked more questions," he said.

"You should have let me ask mine."

He handed me a cup without arguing.

The outside bookkeeper was a woman named Farah Webb. When she called me back in, she had marked twelve rows on a bank statement.

"Darlene withdrew the cash," she said. "That establishes access. The supplier statements raise serious questions about the claims. We are still checking where the cash went."

"And my job?"

Ruth folded her hands.

"We're restoring your pay while we finish. Darlene is on leave and has no access to the accounts. We are sending the records to the county investigator."

My relief came slowly. It did not erase the supper room.

"Will you tell the people who heard her?"

"Yes," Ruth said. "In writing today. In person Friday."

As we stood to leave, Farah stopped me.

She slid a second packet across the table.

"Before Friday," she said, "you need to know what happened to your mother's last gift."