The Reseller's Receipt Put A Price On Every Missing Cylinder

I left the business card where Owen had set it.

"Did anybody watch you find this?" I asked.

"The afternoon driver."

"Write that down too."

I wasn't building a secret pile in my kitchen. I was keeping company records in company storage, with a record of every hand that touched them. Graham had taught me what happened when one person controlled a screen.

By Wednesday, Leah Mercer had come from Lincoln with a lawyer named Daniel Cho and two empty document cases.

Graham greeted them beside the sales board.

"We have an upset employee," he said. "Account complaints gave her an opening."

Leah looked past him.

"Where are the records?"

I led them to the return bay.

Daniel read the retention policy first. Then he checked my custodian order, the envelope register, and the scale service certificates.

"Why retain the tickets after entry?" he asked.

"Cylinder deposits. Damage disputes. A serial number can be entered wrong. Paper lets us fix it."

"And these seals?"

"Two years ago, a loose page went missing. I asked for numbered envelopes. Graham approved the $86 supply order."

Graham stood in the doorway.

"She's made a religion out of filing."

Daniel didn't look up.

"That will be useful."

We gave him seventeen account comparisons. Across them, eighty-three refills had been billed without matching delivery confirmations. At $38 each, the disputed charges came to $3,154.

"Disputed," Daniel said, drawing a line under the word. "We still need to trace the transfers and check for later deliveries or credits."

"We checked those five," I said. "The other twelve need work."

Farah nodded. "My notes prove what reached the home during my visit. They don't prove where the rest went."

That mattered. Being careful was how we kept Graham from turning one mistake into a reason to ignore everything.

Owen brought out the original loading slips kept with the dock tickets. The yellow carbon copies showed cylinders staged for patient runs before Graham changed the loads.

Ruth's slip listed six serials.

Farah's confirmation listed two of them at her house. The other four appeared on Graham's full-cylinder return and transfer records.

"He pulled them off the cart before departure," Owen said. "Told me he was correcting an extra load. Later he brought them back in his pickup."

"Did you actually see him pull these four?" Daniel asked.

Owen pointed to his own initials on the correction line.

"Yes. I thought dispatch knew."

I looked at the porch map instead of at him.

"Dispatch didn't know."

Daniel asked Leah to contact West Span through its office number. I stayed at my table while they spoke in the conference room.

They returned with permission to print an emailed receipt.

It listed eighteen full portable oxygen cylinders at $24 each. Total: $432. Payment had gone to a bank account named on Graham's pickup order, not Prairie Lantern's company account.

The receipt included the cylinder serials. Four belonged to Ruth's run.

Daniel asked for the original sales book to be preserved. He also asked who had entered the serial numbers and whether the buyer had checked them against the metal collars.

"An invoice can repeat somebody's lie," he told me. "We need the person who handled the cylinders."

I pulled an unused chair up to the table. For once, somebody wanted the slow answer as much as I did.

"The reseller says Quill represented them as company-approved surplus," Leah said. "They've stopped sales and held what stock remains."

Farah pressed both palms flat on the table.

"A woman waited beside her front window for those."

Graham came in without knocking.

"Who authorized you to discuss my customers with an outside business?"

"Company counsel," Daniel said.

Graham's face stayed pale, but one red patch rose above his collar.

"There were inventory adjustments. Account 4062 got a replacement. There was no loss."

"A replacement after she reported the shortage," Leah said. "Was her charge corrected?"

He didn't answer.

The replacement had been marked emergency courtesy stock. Her bill still showed six refills on the first visit.

Daniel put that fact on a separate line. He didn't count the four as permanently undelivered until he could sort the two visits and the bill.

I liked him for that.

After the visitors left for their hotel, I locked the cabinet. My map had curled at one corner. I smoothed it with the side of my hand.

Owen lingered by the loading door.

"I should have asked you."

"You were told the director had approved it. Tell the truth now. That's what we need."

He nodded and went out into the early dark.

At five sixteen, the office printer started behind me.

One page slid into the tray. It was a work order, signed by Graham, addressed to me.

Archive Reduction. Remove Duplicate Weight Tickets Before Friday Collection.