The Driver Brought Her Pay Stub To The Lawyer's Office

I called a lawyer named June Mercer before I called Tobias.

June charged $1,850 to begin. I moved the money from the account meant for my porch steps.

"Bring the contract," she said. "Bring the papers you were served. Don't send Mr. Krull an angry reply."

"I usually make angry tea."

"Bring the tea if it helps."

Her office stood above a small print shop. I climbed the stairs slowly. My knees hurt, and I resented having to spend porch money to prove I owned my own work.

June read the monitoring license, then the dock agreement Lila had supplied.

"His company had access to reports for shipping," she said. "That isn't ownership. We'll file an answer and oppose his request. Preserve everything while I arrange a protected way to exchange records."

"Can he make me erase it?"

"He can ask. A judge decides. Nobody has ordered that yet."

Her plain answer let me breathe.

Lila sent June a signed statement confirming the license and her permission for the insurer's review. She also hired her own counsel over the dock contract. She could stop Alden from using the farm's trailers, but ending the whole agreement took formal notice.

Meanwhile, my badge stayed off. June advised me to let the safety review finish and get my return terms in writing.

I hated that. I understood it.

Lila offered to bring my work boots home. I told her to leave them under my bench. They were ugly rubber boots with one repaired heel, but I wanted them waiting where they belonged. She sent a photograph of them beside my spare filters. I saved that picture in a different folder from the evidence.

On Thursday, a driver called me from a number I did not know.

"It's Mara Voss. You helped me when the pallet jack jammed."

"I remember."

"Did you really sign for dumped mushrooms?"

"No."

She drew a breath so hard it crackled through the phone.

"Then I need someone to look at my pay."

I asked June before inviting her anywhere. We met at June's office, with Tobias attending by speakerphone after Mara agreed.

Mara laid down three pay stubs and a route settlement sheet. Alden had paid her extra for what he called emergency backhaul. Those payments appeared as dock cleanup, at $240 each.

"I wasn't cleaning," she said. "I drove to a storage building outside Council Bluffs. Then back across the river."

Council Bluffs was close enough that an Omaha route could disappear there and return before dawn. It was not proof of anything by itself.

"What did you carry?" Tobias asked.

"Covered cabinets. Hard cases. They loaded behind a curtain. I stayed in the cab."

"Did you see a label or serial number?"

"No."

He wrote down that answer without trying to improve it.

She had one photograph, taken when a strap came loose. A cabinet corner showed a blue sticker with a repair company's name. The image had its original date information on her phone.

"I thought they were buying used gear," she said. "Then he told me to sign a route sheet saying I never left the farm."

She had refused. Alden cut two shifts and held back $480 he said she owed for fuel.

June explained that she represented me, not Mara. She gave Mara contacts for wage help and separate legal advice. Tobias asked if Mara would speak to the officers reviewing the missing equipment.

"Will I lose my job?" Mara asked.

Nobody promised she would not.

"I can document what you tell me," Tobias said. "I can't promise what another person will do."

She looked at my red pin holding the pay stubs together.

"He calls you the mop lady."

"He keeps being wrong about my job."

She smiled for the first time.

After she left, Tobias walked beside me toward my car. The air smelled of cold rain and a nearby bakery.

"You were kind to her," he said.

"She's scared."

"So are you."

I could have denied it. Instead, I leaned against the car door.

"I miss knowing what tomorrow's work is."

He held out my empty soup jar. He had washed it and tucked a paper towel beneath the lid.

"I almost bought flowers," he said. "Then I thought that might put pressure on you. So I washed a jar twice."

I laughed until my throat loosened.

"Once would have done."

"I'll remember for future jars."

That night, his report arrived through June's secure file link. A service record connected the cabinet's blue sticker to one of the stolen laboratory units. It was a lead officers could check.

But the last attachment was from me: a logger maintenance note I had nearly forgotten.

Trailer Twelve's clock had been running eleven minutes fast.