Merritt Sent A Locksmith While We Traced The Missing Deposits

By Monday, we had reached all thirteen customers.

Eleven still had their suits. Two had sent theirs to other repairers after Merritt's promised collection failed. No customer gear had vanished. The only things that had reached our shop were their payments and the false intake entries.

I called each person myself.

"I don't have your suit. I didn't inspect it. I'm helping trace the deposit."

Some thanked me. Some were angry. One man asked why he should trust the half of the business that had picked up the phone.

"You shouldn't have to decide from my voice," I said. "I'll send the record and a date for the next update."

Saskia helped me make a sheet with thirteen rows. We recorded each amount, payment date, receipt, and written account of the failed pickup. The total stayed $9,600 no matter how often we checked it.

On Tuesday, an independent bookkeeper named Leah Cale sat at my clean table. Ruth had suggested her. Her review would cost $960, a sum that hurt to approve while the shop was half stopped.

"What do you need?" I asked.

"Facts in separate piles. What the bank shows. What the booking system says. What customers can confirm."

She found thirteen expense entries that matched the $7,760 in transfers. None had a vendor invoice. Each carried the same note: Paid By Booking Office.

The bank descriptions ended with the same account digits.

"Whose account?" I asked.

"We ask for the full record," Leah said. "We don't guess from four numbers."

I liked her at once.

She asked for my repair calendar too. On two dates when the ledger claimed outside work, I had been alone at the bench all day. I gave her the customer cards, but marked my memory as memory. The cards could show completed repairs. They could not show every person who had walked through the door.

At two, a locksmith came in with a small tool bag.

"Shaw called," he said. "Front cylinder and the inside room."

He held out a work order with Merritt's name under Property Manager.

I showed him the lease and called Nell. He waited while she confirmed that he had no authority to change her tenant's locks.

"Sorry for your trip," I told him.

"Better than drilling a lock I shouldn't touch."

He wrote canceled, no work done on the order and gave me a copy.

Merritt arrived ten minutes later.

"You're running up bills now?"

I set the canceled order on the desk.

"You hired him."

"I have the same right to this place you do."

"You have access for partnership work," I said. "You don't have my lease."

He glanced through the drying room window. I had put no new lock on that door. Six customer suits were still drying inside, and I would not turn them into hostages.

"Owen's asking for costs," he said. "His inspection, his lawyer, his travel. Four thousand two hundred dollars."

"Then send the claim to Ruth."

"Lawyers don't repair suits."

"Neither do threats."

He leaned against the desk and lowered his voice.

"Take down your little list. Tell people it was a software mistake. We finish the sale in some form. Everybody gets paid."

"Show us where the $7,760 went."

"I kept this business alive."

"Show us the bills."

He left without taking the canceled work order.

That evening, I used my spoon to check a wrist seal. Halfway around, I felt a faint catch. Under the lamp, a thin strip of the bond had lifted.

I marked it and started again.

There had been no dramatic tear, just a small place that had failed to hold. The customer would never see it once the glove ring went back on. I still had to fix it.

Ruth called while I cleaned the surface.

Merritt had refused the proposed two-signature rule. He had also written that he planned to remove the hanging rails and air unit on Saturday to satisfy a business debt.

"He attached a haulage booking," she said. "We have a date and named property. That changes what we can ask the court to protect."

I could hear a printer running at her end.

"What happens next?"

"We file for an accounting and dissolution, and ask for temporary protection while ownership is sorted out. You'll need to swear to what you know."

"I can do that."

She warned me that a temporary hearing would not decide every dollar or make anyone guilty of a crime. It could keep the room intact and the records available.

I read my statement at the kitchen table twice. I corrected one date from Thursday to Friday, then signed before a notary the next morning.

At four, Ruth sent the stamped filing back to me.

Across its first page was a hearing date: Friday, 9 A.M.