The Court Ordered An Inventory Before Another Can Could Leave

Nadim let his phone ring until it stopped.

"Confidential client," he said.

Beatrice handed him a second sheet. It listed the records she wanted preserved: sales terms, bank entries, shipping papers, messages, and the inventory binder.

"Confidential doesn't mean disposable," she said.

Two days later, I sat outside the Providence Probate Court with my hands locked between my knees. I'd worn my only suit. A loose thread hung from its cuff.

Nadim arrived with a lawyer and an easy smile.

"Still time to be sensible," he told me.

I counted four ceiling tiles and said nothing.

Inside, the judge did not decide who inherited the archive. There were competing documents and witnesses to hear. First, she needed the property held still.

Beatrice presented the old will, the signed codicil, and our written request for protection. Nadim's lawyer called our concern about a sale "a family misunderstanding."

Then Beatrice showed the photograph I'd taken of the price sheet.

"Has money changed hands?" the judge asked.

"A refundable expression of interest," Nadim said.

His lawyer touched his sleeve.

The judge appointed a temporary administrator to secure the estate's assets while the will dispute went forward. The order barred removal or sale of the archive and required records of anything already moved.

It didn't make me trustee yet. It did mean Nadim could no longer treat a key as proof of ownership.

In the hall, he offered to give me the key if I dropped the request for bank records. I told him to make any proposal through the lawyers. He closed his fist around it, and I added the offer to my notes before I forgot his exact words.

The administrator, Ruth Bell, met us at the building that afternoon. She had a clipboard, two new locks, and no interest in our family history.

"I need an accurate count," she said. "Can you provide it?"

"Yes."

"Then start at the left."

We counted cans, not films. One film could take several reels. I read each number aloud while Ruth marked it. Beatrice watched Nadim open the desk drawers.

There should have been 189 cans.

There were 186.

The three empty places were in the run listed on the sales sheet.

"Those went for inspection," Nadim said.

"Where?" Ruth asked.

"A controlled location."

"Address."

He reached for his phone.

"My client handles transport."

Ruth wrote his exact answer. It looked much smaller on paper than it had sounded in the room.

I checked the nine listed cans still on the shelves. Their strips showed the most advanced acid decay in the collection. Acetate film could shrink, buckle, and grow brittle as it broke down. Cool storage slowed it. A careless shipment could make a weak reel much worse.

"He picked these because they're fragile," I said.

"I picked them because you said they needed expensive care," Nadim answered. "I found someone willing to take the risk."

"You told Salma that you could sell prints."

"Markets adjust."

Ruth looked up.

"I'm recording that as your explanation?"

He stopped smiling.

The binder turned up in his briefcase. Its last six pages had been removed from the rings, but the punched edges had left small scraps behind.

"Those were rough notes," he said.

At home that night, I opened my own box of custody slips on the kitchen floor. Aunt Salma had insisted on copies because a film could travel farther than a person's memory.

I had no outgoing slips for the missing cans. They'd left after her death, while Nadim was sorting her papers.

But the binder copies I had made in December included her condition notes. Next to each missing number, she'd written: No Unsupervised Shipment.

I scanned the pages and sent them to Beatrice.

Then I called the lab where I worked.

"I may need time off for a hearing," I told my supervisor. "I can make up the hours."

"Don't do two full jobs badly," she said. "Take Friday."

For the first time all week, I cried. It lasted less than a minute. Then I dried my hands and went back to the box.

Ruth's requests brought the first bank records the following week. The $23,000 hadn't gone into an estate account. It had gone into Nadim's brokerage account.

There was no buyer's name on his invoice. A freight charge listed a rented receiving bay in Pawtucket.

Beatrice sought the records through formal requests and subpoenas. I wrote a handling plan in case we got the reels back. Neither of us called the buyer or offered a deal.

At 6:18 on Friday, the freight company sent its delivery receipt to Ruth.

The three cans had gone out the Thursday before the preservation order.

Below the driver's note was a signature: Felix Saye.

And below that was a handwritten instruction: Do Not Return To Origin Without My Permission.