The Buyers Asked To See The Board's Replacement Cultures

Nisha moved my soup bowl away from the phone.

“Blythe, this is Nisha Rao. I represent Red Ledger and Mr. Kulkarni.”

“Then perhaps you can explain the seriousness of this.”

“I can explain that your company possesses the cultures under a signed custody agreement. My client hasn't removed anything.”

“We lease the entire laboratory.”

“You also lease the copier. Does that give your landlord ownership of your board minutes?”

Malcolm looked down at his towel. I suspected he was hiding a smile.

“Our attorneys will contact you,” Blythe said.

“Please have them do that.”

The call ended.

“Was that wise?” I asked.

“The copier?” Nisha said. “Probably unnecessary. The rest was useful.”

She wrote a note of the threat and sent a calm account to company counsel. She asked them to correct any error in her account by the next morning.

They did not correct it.

On Wednesday, we met in Morrow's upstairs conference room. Snowplows had left narrow lanes through the lot. I parked beside the same outlet where I had plugged in my truck through eleven Fargo winters.

Blythe sat at the head of the table. Dean stood by the screen. Two other directors joined by video.

Elaine attended with Tern Basin's deal lead, Owen Beck. Morrow's outside lawyer, Evan Pryce, kept a yellow pad open before him.

Nobody offered me a box this time.

“We appreciate your years of service,” Blythe began.

“Then restore his badge through his stated last day,” Nisha said. “Security disabled it this morning.”

“A routine step.”

“So is recording that step.”

Evan wrote something down.

Owen pointed to the inventory on the screen.

“Our offer assumes that the company owns a usable reference set. If it doesn't, we need the actual rights and costs before we can close.”

Dean clicked to a slide headed REPLACEMENT PROGRAM COMPLETE.

It showed sixty-eight accessions valued at $312,800.

“Commercial equivalents,” he said. “Four thousand six hundred dollars each.”

I studied the tidy rows.

“Who checked them?”

“Our internal process.”

“Who signed the receipt?”

“We don't keep every warehouse slip in this room.”

Elaine leaned forward.

“We asked for verification records last week. We received this sheet.”

Dean turned toward Blythe.

She gave him a small nod, as if granting a child more time at a recital.

“These details can be settled after closing,” she said.

“No,” Owen said.

The word was so plain that everyone looked at him.

“If the assets supporting our biggest projected service aren't there, that isn't a detail.”

I pulled my catalog closer.

“Replacement isn't just another tube with a matching species name. Each reference has a history. You need to show that it gives the expected result in this test.”

“We understand how testing works,” Blythe said.

“Then show the comparison runs.”

Dean clicked back to the first slide.

Nisha waited until the room went still.

“We propose an independent count and record review. Both sides choose the auditor. Nothing moves. Current testing continues under the current license.”

“You would charge us for permission to use our own laboratory,” Blythe said.

“The room isn't the question,” I said. “Neither are the machines.”

For the first time, I heard my voice carry to the far speaker.

“You thought I kept some old freezers. I kept the collection I own inside them. Your license has said that since 2019.”

Evan asked for a private break.

When they returned, he agreed to propose an auditor named Casey Lind, subject to a conflict check. Casey had counted stored research materials for farm cooperatives and small labs across the state.

The inspection would begin Thursday at eight.

“I won't consent to this sale on a false inventory,” I said. “I will consider a license based on a real count and an independent value.”

Owen wrote those words down.

In the hall, Elaine caught up with me.

“Why didn't you put a price on consent today?”

“Because I don't know the right price yet.”

She looked surprised.

“You could ask for anything.”

“I could write anything on a label, too. It wouldn't change what was in the tube.”

She closed her notebook. “I'll ask our team to recommend an appraiser with no connection to either side.”

After the meeting, I walked past the lab door. Through its narrow window, I saw Dean peeling an old accession label from a rack.

I stopped.

He held it up.

“Housekeeping.”

“Please leave the labels in place.”

“You should worry about your own future.”

I noted the time and told Evan what I had seen. Then I left without entering.

At six that evening, the alarm service sent me an automatic change notice. My contact name had been removed.

Below it was a work order approved by Blythe.

At seven the next morning, a contractor would disconnect the four freezers for removal.