The Retired Inspector Matched Our Papers To The Locked Hall

Aster put her case on the kitchen table and asked for a clean towel.

"Coffee?" I said.

"After the paper."

She spread the towel beneath the certificates. Her nails were short. She turned each sheet by its corner, as if even old ink deserved clear space around it.

I told her Dolores said I had only worked there.

"Did labor keep you from owning beans?" she asked.

"Apparently."

"Then let's leave apparently out of the report."

She opened her notebook to the year we had started the hall. There were rough plans for bin spacing, notes about air flow, and a list of certificate numbers.

She matched the numbers to mine.

On Certificate 006, Mateo had first written kilograms, then crossed it out and entered pounds. Both of us had initialed the change.

"I remember that," Aster said. "I made you weigh it again."

Her notebook showed both readings.

She checked a torn corner on the carbon copy she had kept. It matched a mark on our first office form. She compared the hall's opening records, the attached payment receipt, and the depositors' signed letters.

"These fit the records made at the time," she said. "That's what I can testify to."

At eleven, Mae called. Edwin had agreed to a supervised inspection that afternoon. Dolores would be there. We could look and take pictures, but remove nothing.

"Accept it," Aster said. "A locked room needs a count."

The hall smelled wrong when we entered.

There was fresh cardboard dust beneath the usual dry smell of hulls. Several locker doors stood open. My clipboard lay on a shipping table under a sandwich wrapper.

I picked it up by the clip.

"That's estate property," Dolores said.

"It's an inspection tool," Mae answered. "Photograph it where it was, Anibal."

I put it down and took the picture.

Edwin stood beside Dolores, holding a thin file. He looked tired already.

"We're here to sort ownership," he said.

"Then start with Twelve," I told him.

Aster checked the door tag against my certificate. I read the seal numbers while she wrote. We did each locker in order.

Three taps on a wooden tray. A soft rattle. Then a count.

Dolores watched my hand.

"He always did that," she said to Edwin. "He liked his little routines."

Aster looked up.

"His routine found a cracked lid in Eight. Put that in your notes."

We found the crack before any seed had spilled. We also found two lockers set three degrees warmer than their contracts allowed.

The man Dolores had hired said he thought warmer air kept the pipes safe.

I showed him the separate pipe heater.

"Can I put these back?" I asked Edwin.

He nodded. Mae wrote down his consent.

In the office, Dolores placed an auction agreement on the desk that had replaced Mateo's.

"This is already moving," she said. "There are expenses."

"Whose expenses?" Mae asked.

"The estate's. Roof loan. Funeral. Taxes."

I had paid the funeral myself. I gave Mae the bill from my coat pocket.

Edwin took his glasses off.

"Dolores, we need the full accounting."

"I advanced money."

"We'll need records of that, too."

Aster asked for the current stock sheet.

Twenty-seven locker entries appeared on it.

"There are thirty-one certificates," she said.

Dolores folded her arms.

"Some small deposits were moved for sale."

I went cold in the warm office.

"Moved where?"

"The auction yard. South of town."

"Which deposits?"

She pushed a freight receipt toward Edwin.

Four lockers. Twenty-eight through Thirty-one. One belonged to me; three held other growers' seed. The receipt described them as cabinet, bins, and miscellaneous farm stock.

The collection in Thirty-one belonged to Ruth Bell. Her son had put it with us after she died. He lived in Montana now.

"Those aren't miscellaneous," I said.

"They aren't commercial quantities," Dolores replied.

"Neither is a wedding ring," Mae said. "That doesn't make it yours."

Edwin asked Dolores if she had signed owner releases.

"I signed as representative."

"For the estate's goods," he said.

"They're in his building."

Aster closed her notebook.

"A grain truck doesn't own a farmer's wheat. A building doesn't own what it shelters."

Outside, wet snow struck the windshield. Mae photographed the freight receipt and called the auction manager, Cal Dean. She asked him to hold the four shipments.

I stayed beside her under the loading awning. Water dripped through a loose seam onto an empty pallet. Years earlier, Mateo and I had moved seed upstairs when the Souris rose. We had argued over wet boots that night, then eaten cold soup together. We had never once argued over whose names belonged on the jars.

He promised to check their intake numbers.

Before we reached my house, his email arrived.

The shipments had been unpacked. Their contents had already been split among several auction lots.