The Buyer Asked For A Signature I Had Never Given

The message came from Owen Pike, the buyer's operations manager. We had met once, during a crop trial. Gideon had introduced me as the person who kept the benches tidy.

Owen had remembered my name because I stopped him from opening a suspect jar.

I called him from Ruth's kitchen.

"Where did you get my number?"

"Your name was on the trial sheets. I called the lab. An employee gave me your cell."

"I didn't authorize a sale of my strains."

He went quiet.

"We were told the ownership issue was settled."

"By whom?"

"Gideon. Our lawyers asked for proof this morning."

I wanted to send everything at once. Instead, I made an appointment with Elin Ward, an attorney whose office was above a tax service on Main Street.

She read my documents with her coat still on the back of her chair.

"These certificates help show the history," she said. "The signed agreements matter most for ownership. We'll confirm the originals with the other parties."

"Can I tell the buyer?"

"Yes. A careful notice, with copies of the relevant pages. We state what you claim and why. We don't guess about anything else."

Her retainer was $3,500. I paid it from the wages and savings Gideon had not moved. My bank balance afterward was $2,184.63.

I wrote that figure on the back of a grocery receipt. Then I put one blue pencil line beneath it.

Wait. Check. Don't pretend.

Elin sent the notice that afternoon. It named each strain, each agreement, and the clauses that barred Porchlight from transferring my rights without my signed consent.

Owen replied through his counsel within an hour.

The closing was on hold pending proof of ownership. Their $50,000 due-diligence deposit would stay with the escrow agent under the purchase terms.

Gideon called six times.

On the seventh, I answered.

"You sent private company records to strangers."

"I sent my agreements to a buyer claiming to purchase my property."

"You have no idea what you've done."

"Then explain it in writing."

He lowered his voice. That was how I knew he was angry.

"I'll raise your settlement to $35,000 if you withdraw that letter today."

"No."

"Forty. This offer ends when we hang up."

I hung up.

The next morning, Elin introduced me to Tessa Voss in her conference room. Tessa was forty-one, a white woman with brown hair pinned low, pale lashes, and a plain green cardigan. She was an independent licensing accountant.

She set a small calculator beside a yellow pad. She spoke so softly that I leaned forward.

"Tell me how a license payment reached you."

"It didn't. The company collected it, then paid me a royalty each quarter."

"How much?"

"Usually four to six thousand dollars. Lately Gideon said the growers were behind."

"Which growers?"

I named four. Tessa wrote down each one.

"Do you have the statements?"

I had paper statements from the years I handled orders, and electronic copies sent to my personal email. Gideon had stopped copying me eighteen months earlier.

Tessa did not sigh or tell me I should have noticed.

She asked, "What changed eighteen months ago?"

"He hired a supplier to handle license support. Dry Creek Substrate Supply."

"Did they deliver substrate?"

"I never signed for any."

"Who did?"

"Gideon said it was technical support, too."

Tessa wrote another line.

"We'll need invoices, bank records, and the growers' payment confirmations. Your lawyer can seek records you can't lawfully get yourself."

"Do you think he stole it?"

"I think there's a gap. First we measure it."

I liked her for that.

At lunch, Ruth brought sandwiches. Tessa ate half of hers while sorting the agreements by date. She asked why the deposit certificates had a different address from the lab.

"The repository holds a backup under my account," I said. "A clean culture can be lost in a power failure. I didn't want our only copy sitting beside the compressor."

"And he can't withdraw your backup?"

"His name isn't on that account."

She put down her sandwich.

"Keep that correspondence. All of it."

By four, we had a list of missing royalty statements and three invoices with the same round charge: $12,000 for field assistance.

There were no visit reports attached.

Elin came in carrying a printout from the buyer's lawyer.

"They've produced the document Gideon says gives him ownership."

She laid it between us.

It was called Assignment Of Cultures And Related Rights. It was dated two years earlier. My name sat at the bottom in slanted blue ink.

I knew the shape. It came from an old insurance form.

"That's my name," I said. "But I never signed that page."