The Receiving Clerk Brought Her Carbon Copy To A Diner

June met me at a diner two blocks from the courthouse, carrying her lunch bag like it held a live bird.

"I didn't sign," she said before she sat down.

I moved my coffee so she had room.

"What did it say?"

"Complete original movement received. All major parts present."

"And the first one?"

She pulled a yellow sheet from beneath an apple.

"Said something else."

The sheet was dated May twenty-second. I had first touched the case on June third.

Under Exceptions, the driver had written: E-17 ORIGINAL ANCHOR/WHEEL ASSEMBLY ABSENT. TEMPORARY BRIDGE INSTALLED.

June's name appeared beside the driver's. Beneath them sat a small county warehouse stamp.

"They wanted me to call that a copying error," she said.

"Who wanted it?"

"Vernon brought the clean sheet. Said nobody needed to lose a job over a form."

She tore the corner from a paper napkin, then laid it flat.

"I've worked there twenty-one years. My husband needs my health coverage."

"Keep your original," I said. "May I photograph it?"

She nodded.

I took one picture of the whole sheet, then close views of the date, notes, and signatures. I emailed the images to her so she had a record of what she had shown me.

The pressure of the driver's pen had left a dent through the yellow copy. June ran her thumb over it.

"He wrote that before I let him unload," she said. "I made him. We don't accept a crate with missing parts and pretend it arrived whole."

I photographed the crate number too. It matched my intake pictures.

"Don't post it," she said.

"I'm building a file."

My phone lit up with a message from the Carthage church.

WE HEARD ABOUT THE COUNTY JOB. PLEASE RETURN OUR KEY.

The church owed me $2,300 for work already done. The next stage would have paid $3,900.

I put the phone facedown.

June saw enough.

"I'm sorry."

"Tell me where the case came from."

"County maintenance storage. Before that, a shop out near the rail yards. The owner died. Sheriff's people cleared it."

"Was the clock evidence?"

"The little parts were, I think. The case came back separately. I only handle deliveries."

That gave me a place to begin.

At home, I opened my survey on the kitchen table. My rented house had one good work light, which I moved between the table and my repair bench.

The scan showed the back of the movement through a narrow service slot. I had put small paper targets around it and moved the scanner on a short rail. The slot allowed a clear view of the escapement bed, though it was too narrow to pass the assembly through.

In the model, the wrong bridge sat across the old mounting points. The original escape wheel was absent. Two old screw holes stood bare.

I pulled up the ordinary photographs taken beside the scan. One showed June's dated job card. Another showed seal 4418 across the upper door.

The seal remained whole until the following morning. June had signed my log when we cut it.

I made a table with three columns: time, event, source.

May twenty-second: missing part recorded on delivery.

June third: substitute recorded during sealed-case survey.

June fourth: upper case opened with June present.

June sixth: theft accusation and tool seizure.

I called Mara Voss, a local lawyer whose office had a clock I once repaired.

"I'm not asking for free work," I told her. "I need a price for getting my tools back and correcting a record."

"Bring the receipt and your contract. Initial review is three hundred dollars."

I had $1,106 in checking.

"I'll be there at nine."

Then I called Greta Lindholm.

Greta was forty-eight, a Swedish American metal conservator with strong hands and gray hair she wore in a braid. We had worked together on a bank's copper roof figure in Webb City.

She could spend an hour asking why one rivet differed from its neighbors.

"Describe the old repair," she said.

"A split anchor arm. Three silver dots."

"Send the county photograph. Full size."

"Can you tell when the repair was made?"

"Maybe. First I want to know why I'm remembering it."

I sent the image with a note identifying its source. Then I wrote to county purchasing, requesting that it preserve the original delivery sheet, email, seal log, and loading-dock camera file.

I attached my survey receipt. I asked them to confirm delivery of the request.

No anger. No guesses. Each sentence asked for something a person could find.

At ten that night, Greta called back.

"There are only two silver dots in your picture," she said.

"The third is underneath."

"Exactly. I saw it this afternoon in a private sale catalog."

I sat down at the kitchen table.

"Where?"

"A broker in Springfield. Twenty-eight thousand four hundred dollars. Obinna, they photographed the underside."