The Buyer Arrived Before Merritt Had Read My Lease Papers

At eight the next morning, I met the building owner at the shop. Nell Danner wore a raincoat over her office clothes and carried her own keys.

"He said you were retiring," she told me.

"He didn't tell me that part."

Nell looked at my face, then at the document box.

"Let's use the clean table."

I had called her after reading my papers. She had checked her file before breakfast. Her copies matched mine.

The master lease named me alone as tenant. It ran for another four years at $1,450 a month. The partnership paid that rent as a shop expense, but paying rent had never made Merritt a tenant.

The lease let me transfer it to another repair business with Nell's written approval. She could not refuse without a sound reason. It gave Merritt no right to assign it himself.

The second paper was the tenant-funded improvement agreement. Its attached plan marked the drying room in blue. The air unit, drain system, lining, and rails were mine. A matching schedule in our partnership agreement expressly kept the specialized drying room and its listed fittings out of partnership assets.

Merritt had signed that schedule.

His initials sat beside the words Excluded From Partnership Assets. I had asked him to read that line aloud before we signed. Nell had wanted no dispute later about who paid for the room or who could take its fittings out. Merritt had joked that nobody would fight over a big clothes dryer.

Now Owen was reading the same line without smiling.

At the time, he had wanted to put money into a booking system instead of walls. We had agreed that my room would stay mine, and the business could use it while I remained a partner.

He had called it a fair deal then.

Saskia arrived with a thermos and a notebook.

"Witness or coffee service?" she asked.

"Both, if you can."

At nine, Merritt came in with Owen Pike. Owen carried a case of small tools and wore a faded orange rain jacket. He looked first at the hanging suits, then at me.

"I thought the crew had cleared out."

"The customers haven't picked up their gear," I said. "And I haven't agreed to leave."

Merritt's mouth tightened.

"We discussed this."

"You gave me four hours to take my basket. That's different."

Owen set his case down.

"I was told the two owners had settled the handover."

I asked to see what he had signed. He pulled a folder from his bag.

The price was $68,000. Merritt had signed for our partnership under the clause that let him make business contracts. His power to sign did not turn my personal property into shop property.

The sale list included benches, tools, stock, customer records, the trade name, and something called the Complete Drying Plant With Transferable Premises Rights.

"Page six," I said, laying down my lease.

Owen read it. Nell pointed to her signature.

"I have approved no transfer to you," she said. "And Mr. Shaw has no lease to transfer."

Merritt gave a short laugh.

"Ingrid, you're still getting half. Don't hold the whole deal up over a room."

I laid the improvement agreement beside the sale list. Then I added the partnership schedule.

"You sold things the partnership does not own."

"Those are old papers."

"They are the papers still in force," Nell said.

Owen bent over the room plan. He checked the initials and the list of fixtures. He took out his phone and called the lawyer who held his $7,500 deposit in escrow.

"Do not release it," he said. "The premises and fixed plant aren't available under the seller's signature."

Merritt watched me while Owen spoke.

I had expected relief. Instead, I felt tired. I still had three wrist seals to fit and a zipper quote to send. The papers had protected my place, but they had not done my day's work.

"I can buy the loose gear," Owen said after the call. "But this agreement is for an operating shop. Without these rights, it isn't what I agreed to buy."

"She'll come around," Merritt told him.

"You said she already had."

No one spoke for a moment. Rain tapped the metal vent hood above us.

Owen asked for a full inventory before he decided whether to seek a different deal. His contract gave him that right before closing. I agreed to help count partnership property, with a copy for each partner.

"And customer work," he said. "There are thirty-one active repairs in the packet. Those deposits pass to me with the jobs."

I looked at the rack.

"There are eighteen suits here."

"Some are on the way," Merritt said quickly.

Owen turned his laptop toward me. Thirteen extra jobs showed deposits paid and equipment received.

The first name belonged to a diver whose suit I had never seen.

Beside it was a $900 receipt carrying my shop number.