The Judge Asked Who Had Paid For The Wooden Heads

The courtroom was smaller than the stage where I had first watched one of my wigs move under lights.

No velvet curtain. No music.

Just pale walls, hard chairs, and a clerk who asked us to silence our phones.

Vanessa had filed a civil case seeking return of my property and access to our business records. That morning's hearing concerned temporary protection while the rest was sorted out.

“Answer what you're asked,” she whispered.

“I can do that.”

Petra sat across the aisle with a lawyer I had not met. She wore a white jacket. Her glasses stayed folded on the table.

The judge started with the purchase receipt.

“Who paid the $27,600?”

“I did,” I said.

“From a business account?”

“My savings account. Six years before this company existed.”

Vanessa supplied the matching bank record.

Next came the loan agreement.

Petra's lawyer said the equipment had been used every day in the joint business. The company had paid for cloth covers, storage shelves, and repairs.

That was true.

I had approved those costs. A shop needed to care for the things it used.

“Does the agreement address upkeep?” the judge asked.

Vanessa turned to paragraph seven.

It did.

The company paid normal care costs in exchange for free use. Those payments did not buy any ownership share.

Petra leaned toward her lawyer and whispered hard enough that I heard the paper rustle beneath her hand.

He asked me whether I had ever called the collection ours.

“Probably,” I said.

Vanessa did not flinch.

“I called the kettle ours, too. We shared a room and a job. The signed list said what belonged to whom.”

The judge studied the agreement again.

“Was any later transfer signed?”

Petra's lawyer said he had not been given one.

Then Vanessa showed the inventory and the delivery ticket.

“One item is already outside the agreed location. We have not been told where.”

Petra's lawyer called that a routine appraisal.

The judge asked for the appraiser's name.

Petra supplied the name of a broker, then said she did not know which storage room the broker had used.

For the first time, I saw her confidence fail at a simple question.

Vanessa requested an order protecting the full collection and allowing the eighty-three known blocks to move to secure storage under my care.

Alder Quay's lawyer attended by video. He said the lender would not attempt collection while ownership was disputed. He also said the lender had not been told about C-017 when it made the loan.

I watched Petra stare at the table.

The judge did not decide every issue that morning. She said the papers supported temporary relief. No one could sell, pledge, alter, or dispose of the disputed collection. The eighty-three inventoried blocks would be released to my custody under a signed transfer record.

Petra had to provide the missing block's location and related communications within twenty-four hours.

The judge also set a prompt schedule for exchanging records.

My lawyer wrote every date down.

Outside, Petra caught me near the stairs.

“You wanted me humiliated.”

“I wanted a key.”

A clerk passed us carrying a stack of thin folders. I stepped aside and pressed my bag against my coat. Inside it, my old receipt lay flat between clean sheets of paper. I had carried it into court fearing it might somehow seem too small.

“We could have settled this privately.”

“I knocked.”

Her lawyer touched her elbow. She went with him.

That afternoon, both lawyers worked out a temporary business plan. Petra would step away from daily work while a neutral bookkeeper reviewed the accounts. Neither of us could move company money alone. I would supervise the rental work at Franklin's archive, subject to its board approving the contract.

Petra signed. The alternative was a shop without the tools needed for its biggest job.

The plan kept our apprentices employed and left final ownership of the company for later.

At five, a moving crew met us at the workshop.

I signed for each block as it entered a padded crate. Lara checked numbers. Ben checked condition. Franklin photographed the packing with the grave care of a man attending a royal wedding.

“Too much?” he asked.

“Keep going.”

When we reached BX-043, Lara paused over the empty space beside it.

“We'll find the next one,” I said.

I hoped my voice sounded firmer than I felt.

At the archive, we stacked the crates in a locked fitting room. Its window faced a brick wall. Its sink ran clear.

I washed my hands there, slowly.

My phone rang as I reached for a towel.

Naomi, the bookkeeper appointed under our temporary agreement, had started the account review.

“Simone, did you approve a payment of $4,800 to Alder Quay?”

“No.”

“It was entered as lace and hair supplies,” she said. “I've found the invoice attached to it.”