The Warehouse Audit Put Names Beside The Clock's Night Entries

Conrad was charged that Friday. Silas was charged too. Owen gave a statement with his lawyer present and agreed to turn over his phone.

Bell told me only what he could. For the rest, I read the papers filed with the court. It took time. Being arrested did not make a man guilty, and a page full of charges was not a verdict.

Still, I slept better when Conrad's release conditions told him to have no contact with me or Beatrice.

Silas had a separate condition keeping him away from my shop.

The prosecutor, Dana Ames, met us the following week. She was younger than my best lathe and had a way of making a yellow pencil seem stern.

"The clock helps," she said. "Other records have to help it."

She laid out a chart with four columns: date, clock entry, outside record, property.

Employee 04 was Owen Bellis. The crew list and his tax forms agreed. Employee 07 was Silas Dorr.

On September 18, the clock showed both men arriving shortly after ten. Owen's phone held a picture of survey tools on the loading table at 10:31. One tool had Ruth Alder's father's initials scratched under its foot.

"Owen said they brought them from her house," Ames said. "He also admitted driving. We won't call him an innocent helper."

On September 26, the same two numbers appeared after eleven. A road camera showed Conrad's warehouse truck crossing a nearby junction. A family in Guilford had lost a collection of carved birds that evening.

The warehouse search had found seven of those birds in a box marked Kitchen Linens.

"And his own warehouse burglary?" I asked.

Ames slid over a signed insurance statement.

Conrad had declared that no staff had entered after six on September 18. He had claimed $86,000 for goods supposedly stolen from the warehouse. His supporting list included the survey tools stolen from Ruth that very night.

He had tried to turn incoming stolen goods into his own insured loss.

"The insurer paid a $30,000 advance," Ames said. "Its audit has stopped the rest."

Beatrice sat back.

"One set of objects, two different stories."

"And three sets of records," Ames said. "His claim, his sales, and Edwin's photographs."

The auction house had held the river letter before shipping it. Its staff had photographed both sides for police. The purple A143 was there.

I pictured Ruth's empty album.

Ames also showed us the warehouse's weekly opening sheets. Each Monday, Owen had compared the punch clock with his phone and entered the difference for payroll. The September sheets listed errors between one and three minutes.

"Those were in a separate office drawer," she said. "The adjuster photographed the clock on another day. Neither proves it never slipped, but they give us checks we didn't get from you."

I studied the small penciled numbers. A man could call an old repairer confused. It was harder to explain why the records from his own office kept agreeing with me.

"Will she get it back?"

"After we finish documenting it. We have to sort ownership on each item."

There was no grand speech. Ames gave us a list of dates and asked us to keep our originals safe.

Outside, Beatrice suggested a walk by the Connecticut River. The wind came cold across the water. She wore a red knitted cap with a loose thread at the crown.

I wanted to tuck that thread in. I kept my hands in my pockets.

"You're doing that thing," she said.

"What thing?"

"Thinking so hard I can hear it."

"I was wondering if I might kiss you."

She stopped beside the rail.

"You could have led with that."

The kiss was brief. Her cheek was cold. Her hand found mine afterward, which mattered just as much.

"I like my own rooms," she said as we walked.

"I like you having them."

"And I don't want a job keeping you fed."

"I'll learn a second vegetable."

She laughed into her scarf.

We started having supper twice a week. Sometimes I cooked. Sometimes we bought soup. She kept her own key and her own plans, and I learned that waiting for someone did not mean owning her time.

In December, I received a formal complaint from Conrad's lawyer. He had filed a civil suit for the $24,600. Helen said the criminal charges did not make that suit vanish.

Conrad's filing called me an untrained old hobbyist who had mixed up his pictures.

I took out the receipt showing when police had received the files. It was dated before he had collected the clock.

Under it lay his signed intake sheet.

They had treated my drawer like a place for scraps. It held the first version of the facts, before Conrad knew he needed a different one.

Helen called that evening.

"Keep January 12 free," she said. "His lawyer wants you under oath."