The Replacement Pickup Sheet Tried To Erase Nine Brown Envelopes

I didn't cash the check. I didn't write VOID across it either.

Ansel had said to call before I changed anything, so I called. Voss collected the check, its cover letter, and the sheet with the false box. I got another receipt.

My folder was getting thick enough to stand up by itself.

"Five thousand dollars," I said. "For one signature."

"And what would that signature cost you?" Voss asked.

I looked at the box again.

"My whole word."

"Then it's a cheap offer."

The advocate found me a lawyer named Ruth Calder. Her fee for our first meeting was covered by a local aid fund. She made no grand promises.

"We answer what needs an answer," she said. "We save everything else."

She sent Strake's office a letter. It said that I disputed the new sheet, would preserve my records, and would follow the lawful hold on the cabinet.

His office manager, Orrin Pike, called ten minutes later.

"We're trying to help your client," he told Ruth over speakerphone.

"Please put that help in writing."

"He can pay the full value of the missing machine. Eighteen thousand five hundred dollars."

"The machine is at his shop."

"He altered it."

"At the request of its owner, under a signed repair order. Send your claim."

She ended the call and looked at me.

"No clever replies from either of us."

She had me make a call log on a plain sheet: time, number, name, exact words if I knew them. A blank space was better than a guess. I used the same ruled paper I used for coil readings. Seeing familiar lines under all those strange words helped me keep my hand steady.

That afternoon, I copied my calendar for the police. July 9 was one of my regular bulk pickup days. Strake's trucks collected used cabinets from three repair shops along the route.

July 16 was different.

"Private returns," I told Ansel. "The owner signs at the shop. No driver proxy. That's their rule, not mine."

"Has Strake signed here before?"

I took out two old work folders. One held a signed pickup from January. The other held a return from the year before.

"He checks the locks himself," I said. "He once sent a cabinet back because a screw head faced the wrong way."

Ansel read the forms without touching the signature lines.

"Could someone else sign this time?"

"He could change his rule. I can't promise you he'll come."

"That's a useful answer."

He asked for the records. I copied those too.

I wanted to keep him in the shop after the work was done. I wanted a normal reason for him to sit in the spare chair.

Instead, I asked whether he had eaten.

"A cheese stick in a parking lot," he said.

"That's not a meal."

"It's a meal with poor management."

I held up the takeout menu from the place on the corner.

He glanced toward the open door, then back at me.

"I appreciate it. While I'm handling your evidence, let's keep this about the case."

His voice was kind. That made the heat in my face worse, then better.

"Right," I said. "Of course."

"You didn't do anything wrong by asking."

After he left, I ate alone and balanced my June accounts. Two customers had canceled after seeing the patrol cars. One asked if my shop was a front.

I refunded his $300 deposit. I saved the email.

At nine that night, someone threw a brick through my front window.

I was in the back room. I heard the crash and stayed there while I called police. No face came through the broken frame. No note lay around the brick.

I couldn't say who had done it. That went into my statement too.

The glass company charged $1,460 for the window and temporary board. My insurer said my policy didn't cover that loss under my deductible.

I saved both documents.

On Saturday, my mother brought rice and a cordless drill. She helped me fit an inside bar across the back door.

"You don't have to be brave every minute," she said.

"I was under a desk when I called."

"Good desk."

I laughed so hard I had to sit down.

By Sunday, I had a safe place to sleep, a board over the window, and three machines I could still finish for paying customers. I tied off the blue wire in Fog Harbor and marked its loose ends for whoever restored it next.

The weather could wait.

At dusk, Ansel called.

"We found Etta Saye," he said. "She's safe. She asked whether anyone saved envelope eighty-eight."