The Officer Asked Who Had Actually Paid for the Glass

The officer looked at the phones before she looked at me.

"Who called?"

Odette held up one hand.

"I'm the manager. He's taking eighteen thousand dollars of store property."

"Eighteen thousand six hundred," I said.

The officer wrote that down.

"I'm Officer Bell. Nobody unloads anything while we talk. Sir, may I see your identification?"

I gave it to her. Odette pointed at the truck.

"He already admitted taking them."

"I heard him say he owns them," Bell said. "Those are different statements."

Someone under the awning stopped filming. Two other people kept going.

I showed Bell the email with my pickup notice. Under it sat Odette's reply from five days earlier.

Fine. Collect all three before noon Friday. We need the floor space.

"Is that your shop address?" Bell asked her.

"Staff use that account."

"Did you send this reply?"

"I agreed to discuss collection. He twists things."

Bell read it again without speaking.

I opened my scans of the receipts. Each listed one tank, its price, its serial number, and the same line near the bottom.

Title remains with Adrian Baptiste until sale and cleared payment.

Odette's signature crossed each page.

"Those aren't our current forms," she said.

"They're mine," I said. "You kept a copy of each."

"And where is your proof you ever owned these tanks? Maybe you wrote up shop stock."

I could feel the customers watching my face. She wanted me to shout. A shouting man in dirty clothes would fit the video she had started.

"In the intake book," I said. "With the repair photos and purchase receipt."

Bell walked to the open back of my truck. She asked me to point out the numbers without climbing in.

I touched the brush behind my ear.

"Lower right, under each overflow box. We can lift a blanket. The numbers are etched into the outside face."

With my permission, she photographed AB-141. Odette stayed on the pavement.

"That just proves he marked it," she said.

Bell closed her notebook.

"I don't have grounds to arrest him based on what you've shown me. I'll document the complaint and these records. If you have proof of a purchase, provide it."

"You're letting him leave?"

"I'm not deciding a property lawsuit in a parking lot."

Odette made a sharp, hurt sound. Bell did not turn toward it.

I offered to keep all three tanks at my workshop until the records could be checked. I wanted them out of that lot, away from her keys and her cameras.

Bell gave us a report number. She took Mateo's name through the side door, though Odette said he knew nothing.

Then she watched me close the truck.

I drove slowly. Snow stuck to the grass along the drainage ditch, but the main road was wet. Beyond a row of bare pecan trees, a man was covering his outdoor faucet with a towel.

At my workshop, I backed through the gate and locked it.

The place had one repair bench, two test barrels, and a heater that clicked louder than it warmed. I had built my business there over nine years.

I washed my hands before touching the book.

Its cover was green cloth, swollen near the corners. A line of blue tape marked intake sixty-four.

There were the three numbers. There was the July receipt for the damaged restaurant tanks I had bought for $4,800. There were my glass order, seam notes, and leak-test dates.

Six weeks of work stood between that purchase and Odette's sales floor.

The signed consignment receipts sat in a sleeve behind the page. I had kept them off-site because wet shops ruined paper, and because my father had once lost a whole box of job slips to a leaking roof.

I spread clean paper on the bench and made copies.

Mrs. Cole called while the scanner warmed.

"Adrian, I can't have police trouble in my office."

"I wasn't arrested."

"I know. But people are sharing it."

"I can send the ownership records."

"Please do. We'll talk Monday."

She sounded sorry. That hurt more than if she had sounded angry.

I had just emailed Bell the scans when another call came in.

"Mr. Baptiste? I'm Evan Pike, a claims examiner. Bayou Glass listed you as a contractor who may know about three missing aquariums."

I stood still beside the scanner.

"Missing when?"

"The report says the loss was discovered yesterday evening."

I looked through the workshop window at my truck.

"I collected them this morning. With permission."

Pike paused.

"Please keep every record you have. I've just sent you the item list."

My phone chimed with an insurance worksheet bearing all three of my serial numbers.