An Aurora Poster Put Our Troupe In Two Places At Once

Alma drove east with me the next morning. She brought her pocket calendar, a flashlight, and a sack of egg sandwiches.

“Evidence runs better with breakfast,” she said.

Beyond the windshield, flat fields reached toward a pale sky. Irrigation rigs stood over the corn like long steel insects. I worked a loose seam in my tool bag while she drove.

“You're sewing luggage at a time like this?”

“The needle was already threaded.”

My brass thimble made a small tick against the door handle each time she turned.

In Aurora, events manager Mavis Cole met us beside a torn projection screen.

“I thought you were going to tell me puppets can't tear anything,” she said.

“A falling stand can. May we see the report?”

Her shoulders dropped a little.

She had paid a $2,400 deposit for our full marionette show. The remaining fee was supposed to depend on attendance. Instead, two strangers had arrived with plywood trees and flat figures on sticks.

They had said the regular cast was sick.

“They tried,” Mavis said. “One young woman was shaking. They didn't know the screen stand was loose.”

The repair estimate was $640.

I asked her to preserve it, along with the contract, poster, emails, and payment record. I gave her Ruth's number and explained that ownership of the company and responsibility for its bills were being sorted out.

“I won't tell you a refund is on its way until someone has put money behind that promise,” I said.

“That's the first useful sentence I've heard this week.”

She turned her monitor toward us.

Our booking clerk, Della Voss, had sent the contract. Della worked from Grand Island and kept Russell's calendar. She could arrange a school gym, a county hall, and supper for six without raising her voice.

I had trusted that calm.

The payment instructions were different from our usual ones.

“Red Willow Presentations,” Alma read. “Who owns that?”

“I don't know.”

The invoice called it our regional payment office.

It was not an office I had ever heard of.

Mavis called the young woman who had performed. She asked whether she would talk to us, then passed me the phone.

“I'm not here to blame you,” I said. “I need to know who hired you.”

“Della. She said you were opening a second unit.”

The performer's name was Nora. She and her brother had been paid $350 each. Della had supplied the flat figures, a short script, and a company banner.

“We asked about the strings,” Nora said. “The poster showed strings.”

“What did she say?”

“That the new version traveled light.”

Nora sent her work order to Mavis, who printed it with her permission.

The bottom carried an approval in Eli's name.

Alma took out her calendar.

“That boy was with us loading cases in Gothenburg. He cried because he stepped on the moon.”

Our stage moon was painted tin. Eli had bent it with his heel, then spent an hour making it round again.

I remembered signing his repair time.

I called him outside, where no stranger could hear his answer.

“Did you approve another unit?”

“No.” His voice cracked. “Russell asked for a sample signature in March. Said the school forms needed one.”

“Keep any message about that.”

“Are you going to fire me?”

“I asked what happened. You told me. That's all we're doing right now.”

He breathed out hard enough for me to hear it over the traffic.

Inside, Mavis found another message from Della. It said the second unit could perform anywhere while the main troupe stayed on its posted route.

There were five more dates offered in the message.

“Would you send us the full thread?” I asked.

Mavis did, with the original attachments.

On our way back, Alma pulled into a rest area. We ate the last cold sandwich at a picnic table while Ruth joined us by phone.

“Don't log into any account that's been closed to you,” she said. “We'll request the business records through proper channels. Keep what people voluntarily send.”

I still held a share of Prairie Lantern. Ruth said that gave us a basis to demand an accounting, but it did not let me empty an account or seize Russell's desk.

“I don't want his desk,” I said.

“Good. Desks are rarely worth this much trouble.”

She would send a notice asking Russell and Della to preserve the booking records. She would also ask them to identify every second-unit date.

At the storage room, I hung my king on a test rack. His repaired thumb moved with the rest of his hand.

Then Mavis sent one more attachment.

It was a safety certificate for the Aurora show, used to avoid a $900 equipment deposit.

The name at the bottom was Alma Gutierrez.

Alma stood beside me, reading a signature she had never written.