Wade Brought My Old Signature Into the Parish Courtroom

The false approval was not a clever drawing.

It was a picture of my real signature, lifted from an old order form.

I recognized the dot beneath the G. I had dropped my pen that day. On the old form, the ink spot touched the edge of a printed box. On Wade's new sheet, a bit of that box came with it.

Mara placed the two pages side by side.

"Do you still have the original?"

"In the blue cabinet. Behind the locked door."

We did not need it to make a guess. We needed it to make proof.

Mara asked Wade's lawyer to preserve the cabinet and every electronic version of the approvals. By then, Wade had hired someone. His lawyer asked us to stop calling him directly.

I was glad to agree.

Our first hearing was Thursday afternoon, in the parish courthouse. The room smelled of floor wax and damp coats. My shoes squeaked once, far too loudly.

Wade sat beside his lawyer with his arms folded.

He did not look at me.

Mara had told me what this hearing could do. It could protect things while the case went forward. It would not settle every claim in one hour.

I kept that in mind when Wade's lawyer stood.

"This is a dispute between business owners," he said. "My client believed the equipment was included in the purchase."

Mara gave the judge our agreement.

"Schedule A was attached when he signed. His initials are on each page."

The judge asked Wade whether those were his initials.

"Yes, but I paid twenty-four thousand dollars."

"For forty percent of the company," Mara said. "The document states what that included."

Wade leaned toward his lawyer.

I watched the judge turn a page.

My whole working life seemed to depend on a quiet woman reading slowly.

Then she looked up.

"Where is the trunk now?"

Lena had come to court with her receipt. She stood when asked and explained that the trunk was safe in her store. She had paid a deposit, had not paid the balance, and wanted her money returned.

"I don't claim Mrs. Getachew's tools," she said.

Wade stared at his hands.

The lawyers spoke at the front for several minutes. When Mara came back, she explained the proposed temporary terms to me in plain words.

The trunk would return to my care. Neither of us could sell or move disputed property. Company funds would stay put except for expenses approved in writing. A neutral bookkeeper, Nola Hill, would review the deposit account and report to both lawyers.

I would get a key and supervised access to copy the shop records.

"Does this decide the false signatures?" I asked.

"No. It keeps the evidence safe while we examine it."

I agreed.

Wade agreed through his lawyer. The judge signed the temporary order and warned us that its limits applied to both members.

That mattered to me. I wanted rules Wade could not change when he grew cross.

In the hall, he finally spoke to me.

"You could have just retired."

I buttoned my coat.

"I was working when you interrupted me."

At the shop, a locksmith gave me two keys while the lawyers' agreed witness watched. I tried each one. Both worked.

Nothing about that sound was grand. Metal slid against metal, and a latch lifted.

I had never heard anything sweeter.

My blue cabinet still held the old order form. The dot beneath my signature matched. So did the short black edge of the box.

We copied the original and placed it in a marked sleeve. We also copied the approval sheets stored in the office folder, with their file dates intact.

I left the originals where the preservation agreement required them to stay.

Wade's new desk had a drawer full of brochures for ready-made costume wigs. There was no purchase order behind them. He had been selling speed he had not even bought.

My display heads were still missing.

The cream trunk came back Friday morning. Lena and I checked every mold against my list before she signed the return record.

"I still need my deposit," she said.

"It's on the list," I told her. "It stays there until you're paid."

I tucked a loose blue loop back through a handle.

That afternoon, Nola called Mara's office and asked me to join the call.

She had found $11,250 left in the deposit account.

"The other thirty-one thousand seven hundred fifty dollars went to one place," she said.

Then she read out the name of Wade's private company.