We Counted Brass Plugs While Two Lenders Claimed The Same Wood

The court order reached Beckett before we did.

It required him to preserve the listed patterns and allow a supervised inspection. The ownership hearing would follow. Until then, nothing on our list could leave the building.

Ruth handed me a copy outside the foundry.

"Today we record what exists," she said. "We don't win an argument in the doorway."

Beckett opened that doorway wearing his wool coat over a clean shop apron.

"Quite a production," he said.

Orla carried a camera. Ruth carried the order. I carried the register and a small flashlight.

June waited inside with Mara and Eli. All three had been told to come in for an inventory shift.

"Record your hours," Ruth told them.

We began with the long split pattern for a bell throat. I laid one hand on its curve and tapped three times with my knuckle.

The same dry note came back each time.

"Why are you knocking on it?" Beckett asked.

"Checking the joint before I turn it."

June helped me roll it onto padded blocks. Beneath the foot, a brass circle caught the flashlight beam.

K-14. Three small notches.

Orla took a wide picture, then a close one with a ruler beside the plug. Ruth read the register entry aloud.

"Bell throat, split. Repaired left foot, October 1988."

I showed her the darker wood at the foot.

Beckett folded his arms.

"Lots of people stamp things."

We kept working.

K-06 had a chipped corner noted in the book. K-19 held a square patch under its rib. Granddad had recorded the patch and the name of the man who had dropped it.

By lunch, we had matched all twenty-three pieces.

One plug sat under a curl of old shellac. I softened the edge with a cloth and lifted the curl with a wooden pick. Nobody rushed me. Once the number showed, Orla photographed it before I touched anything else.

"Your grandfather made a little archive inside the wood," she said.

"He was afraid shops would close and books would get lost."

"He allowed for people being people."

I closed the register while she changed her camera battery. Its spine had outlasted three owners of this building.

The apprentices watched from the workbench. Eli began quietly reading the numbers before Ruth did. He had helped me clean those plugs every winter.

"You told us they came with the building," he said to Beckett.

"Get back to work."

"What work?" June asked.

No one answered her.

At one o'clock, a woman named Nell Archer arrived from Breakwater Equipment Credit. Her letter had listed the six patterns.

"Our borrower owes $48,000," she told Ruth. "We were told these were company assets."

"Did you receive the original excluded-property schedule?" Ruth asked.

Nell checked her tablet.

"Yes. When the account opened. We acknowledged it. The later advance came with a replacement asset list."

She looked at Beckett.

"You certified that the six pieces had been purchased from Mr. Keene."

He rubbed a spot on his apron.

"We had an understanding."

"We didn't," I said.

Nell showed Ruth the replacement list. My name appeared beside a typed claim of transfer. There was no signature from me, no price, and no bill of sale.

Ruth requested the full loan file.

Then a man in a rain jacket came through the front door holding another letter.

"I'm looking for Shaw," he said.

Beckett moved quickly. "Outside, Paul."

"You haven't answered me for nine days."

The man stopped when he saw Nell's folder.

"What's this?"

Paul Redd owned a small lending company. Beckett had borrowed $36,000 from him in his own name for a boat purchase that never closed. His agreement pledged six antique casting patterns as first security.

They were the same six numbers.

Paul put his paper on the bench. Nell put hers beside it.

Two lists. Two promises of a first claim. One set of wood.

I counted the numbers again because my hands needed something steady to do.

"These pieces were never his," Ruth said. "We dispute both claims against them. Send your records to my office."

Paul stared at Beckett.

"You showed me an insurance schedule."

"They are insured here," Beckett said.

"So is my tool chest," I told him. "That doesn't make it yours."

Ruth stopped the discussion and asked everyone to preserve their messages and papers. Neither lender agreed to surrender a claim that day. They did agree to wait for the hearing.

That mattered. Wood could be damaged in an hour. Paper could wait a week.

At the door, Mara caught my sleeve.

"He told us you'd have to pay everybody if you wanted your patterns back."

"Wanting something doesn't make his statement true."

I hoped my voice sounded steadier than I felt.

On the way out, June handed Ruth a folded payroll sheet she had found in her own employee portal.

"Please check the bank details," she said. "Our checks were marked paid, but the last four digits weren't ours."