The Bankrupt Distributor Sent Us Three Years Of Payment Records

"My name is Parisa Mehran," I told the woman. "Please use that."

"I'm sorry. I'm Noreen Alvarez, finance manager. Your husband said you had retired."

I looked at the kit on my kitchen table. My pencil notes for its cover lay beside the fruit bowl.

"I finished that revision in October."

Noreen asked for the invoice number. I heard keys, then a chair move.

"I need to bring our counsel into this. May I call you back?"

"Yes. My auditor can join us."

I wanted to ask twenty questions before she hung up. Leila later told me that stopping had helped.

"You gave her something she could check," she said.

The call came the next day. Granite Lantern's lawyer had read the license copy Maya sent. Its own distribution agreement named me as the copyright owner and required sales reports to support the audit clause.

They agreed to send their records through counsel.

"We weren't bankrupt," Noreen said. "A warehouse vendor failed. We moved stock. Our company kept trading."

I remembered Curtis at our sink, telling me the whole industry was down.

I had offered to cancel my dental crown.

He had let me. I remembered folding the dentist's estimate and putting it beneath the phone. That small memory made me angrier than the big number on the screen.

"Did he receive your reports?" Leila asked.

"Every quarter. Tessa Voss confirmed the latest one."

"In writing?"

"Yes."

Leila left a space after the answer. Noreen kept talking.

"And the banking change. We asked twice because the new business name didn't match our contract. Tessa said the ownership was unchanged and Parisa had approved it."

"Please send that exchange too," Leila said.

The records arrived in a secure folder. I opened the first report at Leila's office while traffic hissed through wet snow below us.

Twenty-eight sublicenses. Three years. Payments totaling $684,000.

The last payment was the $162,000 Noreen had mentioned. On that receipt, the destination was Bell Ridge Advisory. On older ones, it was Bell Field Safety.

My maps had traveled to patrol huts, county rescue classes, and training centers in four states. I had imagined the boxes sitting unsold in a dark warehouse.

I put both feet flat on the floor.

"That's $205,200 at thirty percent," I said.

"Before we credit what you've received," Leila said. "Before we check other sales. We'll keep those steps clear."

She wrote the sum in pencil.

It mattered that she did not hand me the biggest possible number and call it mine.

Maya sent Curtis's lawyer a request for the missing statements and an explanation of the unauthorized transfer. That evening, Curtis called.

"You've frightened a major client."

"You said they were bankrupt."

"People use that word loosely."

"Did they send $162,000?"

"That money paid business obligations."

"Which obligations?"

"You wouldn't understand the timing."

I held the phone away until I could breathe without him hearing it.

"Send the records to Leila."

"You think some accountant understands my business better than I do?"

"I think she reads the questions before she answers them."

He hung up.

Two days later, I passed Tessa outside a grocery store near Harrison Boulevard. She stood by Curtis's truck, holding a bag of bread. My old snow brush was visible behind the seat.

"Parisa," she said. "This has gotten bigger than it needs to be."

"Have you sent the statements?"

"Curtis carried that household for years."

"That wasn't the question."

Her face changed. Just a small change, but I saw it.

"We have a mortgage," she said. "You can't pull money out whenever you're upset."

We.

I set my grocery bag on the pavement so I would not drop it.

"Where?"

She looked toward the truck.

"Talk to the lawyers."

I let her leave. At home, I wrote down the words while I still remembered them.

Maya had a title search run. I paid $185 for the report.

Curtis had told me he was living in a short-term rental while we worked things out. The recorded deed told a different story.

He and Tessa owned a house together on Birch Hollow Way in North Ogden. They had bought it seven months before he filed for divorce. The recorded mortgage was $388,800.

There was a small picture from an old listing. A pale brick house. A two-car garage. A view toward Ben Lomond.

I had once shown Curtis a rental with that view. He had said we could not afford to move.

Maya called while I stared at the picture.

"The deed proves ownership," she said. "It doesn't prove where the down payment came from. We need bank and closing records."

"Then let's ask for them."

She paused.

"I've also received his proposed settlement. He wants you to warrant that no royalties remain unpaid."