The Storage Receipt Showed Where My Missing Accordion Had Gone

Leah read Gwen's offer twice.

"Did you agree to any of this by phone?"

"No."

"Then keep it that way."

Her office looked over a parking lot crusted with road salt. I had brought my folders in a grocery sack because my good bag still held reed leathers.

She spread the papers into three piles.

My property. Company records. Mara's payment.

"These are connected," she said, "but they don't all belong to the same person. Mara needs her own advice about her money. You need your instrument and access to the company books."

I called Mara from the hall and gave her that message. She had already booked a meeting with another lawyer.

"Good," I said.

"I don't feel very good."

"Neither do I."

It was the first plain thing we had said to each other.

Leah sent a demand for the accordion's location, its return, preservation of records, and access for the six repair customers. She attached the signed schedule. She also told Gwen that the claimed rent debt was disputed.

Then we reviewed the company agreement.

Neither member could sell major assets or close the business without the other's written consent. Gwen had signed that page too.

"She had authority to take payments for repairs," I said.

"That doesn't answer every ownership question," Leah said. "We need the facts about this transaction. Keep those messages."

I liked that she didn't promise me a victory before lunch.

Gwen answered that afternoon through a lawyer of her own.

She agreed to a supervised pickup for the repair customers. She refused to return the black accordion. Her letter called it disputed business property.

Leah filed a civil action in Sheboygan County and asked for an early hearing about the instrument. The copies carried a court stamp and a case number.

For weeks, Gwen had spoken as if my worry were a bad mood.

Now it had a place in a file.

I started a separate page for expenses. The meeting cost $250. Packing supplies cost $46. I saved both receipts. Leah told me that keeping a record did not mean a court would award every dollar.

"Write down what happened anyway," she said.

That was work I understood. A missing screw was easier to replace when someone had bothered to note its size.

On Wednesday, the six customers came for their instruments. Leah had arranged a two-hour window. Gwen's lawyer sent an assistant to watch.

I stood beside the counter and checked each repair tag against the duplicate receipt the owner brought.

A retired bus driver asked whether his $180 deposit was gone.

"The company still owes the work or the refund," I said. "I won't ask you to pay it twice."

Gwen looked away.

With each customer's written choice, we marked the ticket either transfer for completion or refund requested. Four chose to let me finish later. Two wanted refunds. Nobody had to choose in front of Gwen; Leah had sent the forms ahead.

I photographed the completed forms and gave copies to everyone.

The last customer, Mr. Bell, stayed by the door.

"A mover took your black accordion out Sunday afternoon," he told me. "I was dropping mine off."

Gwen turned sharply.

"You don't know whose it was."

"Black case. White tape on the latch. She wrote the number on a form."

I had put that tape there because the latch spring was weak.

"Do you remember the mover?" I asked.

"There's a receipt in that tray. I saw her put it there."

Gwen reached toward the tray. Her lawyer's assistant said her name, very quietly.

She stopped.

The assistant called his office. A few minutes later, he made a copy of the receipt for each lawyer.

It listed one musical instrument, collected from the workshop and placed in a rented storage locker west of town.

The declared value was $9,400.

I stared at that number.

Gwen had told Mara it was a $6,800 bargain. She had told me it was just shop stock. Yet when someone else had to carry it, she knew almost exactly what it was worth.

"That's my insurance estimate," I said. "From the folder in the office."

Emil, who had come to carry the transferred repairs, read the receipt over my shoulder.

"She packed it standing up?" he asked.

"I don't know."

He closed his eyes for a moment. He understood what a fall could do to old reed wax.

Leah sent a notice to the storage operator asking that nothing be moved while the lawyers addressed ownership. She made clear that the operator was not accused of doing anything wrong.

The operator answered with the intake sheet Gwen had authorized him to share.

Under Condition, he had written: Case Received Damp. Customer Declined Climate-Controlled Unit.

Then Leah called me.

"The hearing is Friday," she said. "Bring someone who can explain what damp does to an accordion."