Tamsin Opened Her Case While The Destruction Clock Kept Running

Tamsin looked past Fletcher's outstretched hand.

"Where's the auditor?"

"We can clear this up privately," he said.

"I tried privately. You sent me a collection letter."

Ruth came out of the hall and introduced herself. Tamsin asked to see her work identification before she opened the case.

I had liked that about her from our first fitting. She checked the thing in front of her. She expected other people to do the same.

She was thirty-three, a Nigerian American trail guide who had moved to Idaho for work. Once, while I adjusted a test socket, she had explained that guiding meant bringing everyone home, including the person who insisted they were fine.

"I wore my old backup today," she told Ruth, touching her trouser leg. "It came from another clinic. The one in here is the only limb this place ever delivered to me."

Inside the case lay her February leg. Red trail dust marked the tread. A strip of yellow cord looped through the carrying strap.

"For finding it in a dark tent," she said when Ruth looked at the cord.

Tamsin read and signed the release for her scan records. She also gave written permission for an inspection and photographs. The covering clinician removed the foot cover so Ruth could see the serial plate.

K4107.

Ruth took one wide photograph, then a close one with a ruler beside the plate. The socket carried our job tag, S118.

Tamsin pointed to a smooth dip near the socket's upper edge.

"You changed that after I sat in the truck," she told me.

"The edge pressed when you bent your knee."

That change appeared in the February notes. The clinician compared the socket to the final photos while Ruth watched. This was a thing Tamsin had worn, walked in, and brought back. It had a history beyond a billing screen.

"Could this foot have been exchanged?" Ruth asked.

"I never had it exchanged," Tamsin said. "I came back once for padding. Mateo wrote it on my visit sheet."

"March sixth," I said. "But check the record. Don't use my memory."

The outside lab sent Ruth a secure link. I stood beside her while she opened the original February file. The time of upload appeared on a separate record from the lab.

There was Tamsin's scan. There was the check socket with blue tape. Then came the final socket, job S118, joined to foot K4107.

In the last image, Tamsin stood between the parallel bars. She held a tiny wooden bird on her palm.

"You gave that back," I said.

"You needed it for the next person."

Ruth enlarged the image. A small dark patch in the socket's patterned cloth matched the one in the case. So did the job tag and the foot plate. She recorded each match.

Then she opened the August claim packet.

It showed the February check socket again, blue tape and all. The image had been cropped, and a new date had been typed underneath. The listed foot was K4421.

"A reused picture may support a false claim," Ruth said. "It doesn't finish the proof. I still need to see what happened to that foot."

Fletcher stood in the doorway.

"Parts get swapped. Patients forget."

Tamsin zipped the case halfway shut.

"Don't tell her what I forgot. Ask me."

He spread his warm public smile across his face.

"You've had a difficult year."

"I've had a difficult bill."

Ruth asked him to leave while she finished the interview.

He did, after looking at me.

Tamsin supplied her guide schedule, the collection notice, and the messages she had sent the clinic. On the claimed delivery date, she had been away on a paid trip. Ruth made a note to verify that with her employer, with permission.

"Why come back?" I asked after the interview.

"Because I can carry a case and argue," she said. "The next person might still be learning to stand."

Lena drove me home that evening. At a light near the Portneuf River, she said the preservation demand now covered the clinic's claim files, stock records, and messages.

"He has notice," she said. "That matters."

Friday morning, Ruth called. Fletcher had agreed to a stockroom count at four. Lena would join it as my lawyer. I would identify parts, and an independent clinician would handle any technical inspection.

I spent the afternoon flattening the bottom of the unfinished bird. For the first time, it stood on my table without help.

At the clinic, Fletcher kept us waiting outside the locked stockroom. Four became four fifteen. Ruth recorded the delay.

"The key holder is coming," he said.

"You're holding a key ring," Lena said.

Before he answered, a truck backed into the service lot. Its warning bell sounded through the wall.

June looked out the side window and went pale.

"The shredding company is early," she said.