The Judge Asked The Chairman To Read His Own Initials

I wore my only dark suit to the Daviess County courthouse.

Denise brushed lint from my sleeve in the kitchen. The pocket thermometer made a small bump above my heart.

“Leave it?” I asked.

“You'd spend the whole hearing checking for it.”

At the security desk, I put it in the tray with my keys. The officer turned it once, then passed it through.

Nola met us outside the courtroom. She held a thin folder. Kent's lawyer carried two large binders.

“Should ours be thicker?” I whispered.

“Only if we need a doorstop.”

Wickett's request said I had used company information to disrupt a sale and was claiming a right that should belong to my former employer. It asked the judge to stop me from withholding consent while the ownership dispute went forward.

Nola had filed our answer and a counterclaim asking the court to confirm the contract rights and enforce the reserve terms.

“Today isn't the whole case,” she told me. “Today is their request for immediate relief.”

Still, my mouth went dry when the clerk called our names.

Kent sat at the next table, his tie bright enough to guide traffic.

His lawyer said a vital business transaction faced needless delay. He described me as a former maintenance employee seeking a personal advantage.

Nola stood.

“Mr. Reed continued service under the existing contract. He demanded funding for maintenance of equipment he does not own. The proposed order would force him to grant a transfer right he never sold.”

She offered the certified settlement, the supply agreement, and the amendment. The lawyer did not dispute the signatures for purposes of that hearing.

Kent testified first.

“Mr. Reed worked for us,” he said. “We paid him to develop this system.”

Nola put the settlement list in front of him.

“What happened to the separate design claim?”

“It was resolved.”

“How?”

“Through an arrangement.”

“Please read the excluded property.”

He looked toward his lawyer.

The judge leaned forward.

“Mr. Avery, are those your initials beside the exclusion?”

“Yes.”

“Then read the line.”

Kent read the words that placed the supply agreement and its transferred rights outside Wickett's retained property.

He read them much more slowly than he had called me a cleaner.

When my turn came, Nola asked what I wanted.

“A funded reserve and safe equipment,” I said. “Then we can agree on a transfer.”

“Have you ordered Blue Heron to stop heat?”

“No.”

“Have you told Wickett's staff to stop working?”

“No.”

Kent's lawyer asked whether the delay gave me leverage.

“The contract gave me a consent right,” I said. “The missing money made me use it carefully.”

“You expect payment?”

“The reserve goes into the operator's restricted account. I can't take it home.”

Farah testified next. She explained that Stillwater had paused the purchase because the seller's forecast assumed rights the seller could not transfer alone.

“Would you have approved the purchase on the original information?” Nola asked.

“No.”

“Why?”

“I couldn't reproduce the heat supply assumption or the claim that the reserve was funded.”

She spoke in the same level voice she used over a spreadsheet.

The judge denied Wickett's request for a temporary order. He said the signed documents did not support forcing immediate consent on the record before him. He set a schedule for the remaining claims and urged the parties to resolve the maintenance problem promptly.

He did not award me the company. He did not declare Kent a criminal. He left me holding the right I had walked in with.

That was enough to make my knees feel loose.

I put each original back behind its proper tab. Across the aisle, Kent's lawyer was already talking about settlement dates. The clerk called the next matter. Our years of trouble had occupied less than a morning on her list. Denise waited until we reached the hall before she handed me a cup of water.

Outside, Kent stepped in front of me.

“You enjoyed that.”

I looked at his suit, then at the courthouse door behind him.

“I would have enjoyed getting a pump fixed two years ago.”

Nola guided me down the steps before he answered.

At her office, we ate sandwiches from waxed paper while she read an email from Inez.

The board had voted that afternoon to remove Kent as chairman and revoke his signing authority. He would keep his shares, but he could no longer direct the sale. Inez would chair the board until new officers were appointed.

They had also approved an immediate $48,000 reserve deposit from remaining company cash, with payment to the service firm after the controlled outage.

Denise squeezed my hand.

“That's parts,” she said.

My phone lit up before I could answer.

Farah had sent a document titled Proposed Consent And Reserve Funding Terms.