I Followed Three Missing Voices Through A Warehouse Near The Parkway

Owen Pike met me outside a storage building west of the Garden State Parkway. He held his count sheet in a plastic sleeve.

“My boss said I could give you a copy,” he said. “Your lawyer sent the order.”

“I'm not trying to blame you.”

“People say that before they do.”

He led me to a loading bay that smelled of wet cardboard.

“She wanted me to put musical supplies on the slip,” he said.

“Why didn't you?”

“Because my insurance wants to know what I break.”

He had written the names from the rack labels, then counted the empty holes after packing. I thanked him for being careful. He looked surprised that I meant it.

Two long crates sat on a pallet. Grandpa's handwriting showed through the clear tape: VOX HUMANA and UNDA MARIS. He had labeled the racks years before, back when his hands were steady enough to make tiny square letters.

The warehouse manager, Clara West, checked my identification but kept the crates closed.

“The dealer paid for these,” she said. “I need written directions before they leave.”

“I only need to know they're safe.”

She handed me a condition sheet. The dealer, Edwin Marsh, had bought all three ranks for $18,600. He had sold the Oboe rank to a church music committee in Pennsylvania for $6,200, with the sale still subject to their inspection.

The other two ranks remained here.

“Did any machinery arrive with them?” I asked.

Clara walked me past a shelf of blankets. Under one lay the tremulant assembly, wrapped in Grandpa's old red shop towel.

I touched a clean corner of the towel.

“That belongs with the organ.”

“I'll add it to the hold,” she said.

Daniel had advised me to ask for records and photographs, then let him arrange the return. I wanted to load everything into my car. Instead, I sent him the crate numbers.

Outside, I sat on the curb and called Edwin.

He sounded tired before I said my name.

“Your aunt signed that she had authority to sell.”

“I know.”

“I didn't buy a lawsuit.”

“Neither did I.”

There was a long pause.

“Send me the inventory,” he said.

I sent the blue sheet. He called back within ten minutes.

“Twenty-seven pedal Bourdons?”

“Yes.”

“I remember that organ. Odd little pedal compass.”

“Grandpa kept the original set when they rebuilt the console.”

“Then this paper describes that instrument.”

He agreed to preserve the crates while the lawyers worked out whose money would repay him. He also gave Daniel the Pennsylvania buyer's contact information.

That was one trail.

The second began with the missing regulator. Owen's other delivery slip named a used-furniture shop in Neptune. Verena had sold a box of workshop pieces for $350. The owner sent me a photograph: tools, two broken lamps, and the regulator upside down beneath a chair.

He agreed to hold the whole box for seven days.

“I'm not donating inventory because somebody's aunt got clever,” he said.

“You shouldn't have to.”

The third trail was Gideon.

I called every organ builder in Grandpa's old address book. Most numbers failed. One man had retired to Maine. Another had died. A former apprentice named Celia remembered that Gideon had gone to stay with his daughter after a hip operation.

“I won't give out her address,” she said.

“Please give her mine.”

“What's this about?”

“A promise he witnessed. I need him to tell the truth about it.”

She went quiet, then said she would call.

While I waited, I worked. A church in Red Bank had a reed that rattled on G. A chapel near Long Branch had a stuck key. I earned $610 over two days and put most of it aside for Daniel's next bill.

In each empty room, I tapped a wooden rail three times before starting. The habit steadied my hands.

Verena called Friday morning.

“The dealer wants his deposit back on the rest of the pipes. Your little stunt has consequences.”

“How much deposit?”

“Ask your expensive lawyer.”

“Did you tell the court there was another sale?”

She hung up.

I passed the call note to Daniel. He asked for the contract and the estate's bank records. Verena's first accounting had listed the $18,600 sale as money owed, not money received.

That difference suddenly mattered.

At dusk, my phone rang from a number I didn't know.

“Mr. Harrow?” a woman said. “My father would like to come see you tomorrow. He says the hall has stairs, and your rented room doesn't.”

“Gideon?”

“He heard your message.”

The next afternoon, a car stopped outside my building. An older man stepped out slowly, using a cane. His daughter handed him a brown envelope before he came toward my door.

“Emmett,” he said, “let's see what she says never happened.”