The Audit Put A Price On Franklin's Careful Little Lies

The accountant used green tabs for money in and yellow tabs for money out.

I had expected a desk covered in tricks I couldn't follow. Instead, Dana Shaw set three columns in front of me.

Received. Deducted. Sent.

"Tell me when I lose you," she said.

"Tell me when you get to the part he thought I'd never read."

She pointed to the first yellow tab.

The royalty deposits had arrived every quarter. Harbor Ledger took its agreed five percent, then sent the rest to Franklin's company. The company paid some business bills and moved money to Franklin's personal accounts.

The $90,000 certificate contained both diverted funds and older savings. Dana did not pretend every dollar in it was mine. The records traced $43,200 of my catalog's money into it.

"That's what I can show," she said. "The rest matters because it may be available to satisfy a settlement or judgment."

She gave me a ruler to lay beneath each line. I had used one years ago to follow the small print on a crowded music chart.

"You don't have to learn the whole trade," she said. "Just ask where each figure came from."

So I did. She showed me a deposit slip, then a transfer, then the matching bank entry. By the third page, I was finding the next line before she pointed.

I liked that she stopped where the proof stopped.

The company balance included the buyer's $30,000 advance. There was enough across the disclosed accounts to repay the buyer and cover our demand. The lawyers arranged for the disputed amount to stay put while talks continued.

Dana's total for diverted net royalties stayed $82,080. There was no second secret fortune. There were three years of steady payments Franklin had turned into silence.

Harbor Ledger sent its review too.

The changed payment request had come from our home email account. Its file showed an old scan of my signature pasted into the form. Franklin had replied to a follow-up question as "Odessa, through Franklin."

His lawyer stopped arguing that I had signed it by hand.

He began arguing that Franklin had done years of unpaid work.

"He had a booking commission," I told Lila. "He collected it. I checked the old job sheets."

We included those sheets in the next packet.

I spent three afternoons reading the statements at Ruth's table. We took breaks when my fingers cramped. She bought a thick pen grip for $4.75 and left it beside my chair without making a speech.

Eli came on Thursday.

"I don't want a fight over my share," he said.

"Then help me do the math."

His eight percent came to $6,566.40. Celia's six percent was $4,924.80. Nessa was owed the same.

Together, their shares were $16,416.

I wrote each figure on a separate page. I would not make them beg for money already promised.

Nessa brought a letter Franklin had sent after that canceled reunion. He had told the venue I had refused to honor a deposit. The venue had kept its canceled check. It showed the deposit had been returned, in full, from their own office.

My reputation had been damaged by a payment I had never even known about.

Lila added a written correction to our settlement terms. The buyer would correct its catalog credits. Franklin would notify the people to whom he had sent false claims about me. Every letter would come through the lawyers.

"I can't make everyone unhear him," she said. "We can give them a record they can check."

That was enough to begin.

I also met a divorce lawyer. Ownership of the recordings and division of our household finances needed separate care. I would not sign away a fair share of our home just because Franklin had put money in an account by himself.

I filed for divorce after that meeting.

Franklin called when he received the papers.

"Forty years," he said.

"I was there for them too."

"You think nobody ever gave up anything for you?"

I looked at my left hand. The middle finger had curled inward, as if it were still holding a chord.

"I think you could have told me what you wanted."

"I wanted some security."

"You had a wife. You wanted a signature you could use without asking."

He said I had made him sound like a thief.

I did not argue about the word.

The next morning, Lila brought a proposed settlement. It restored $82,080, added $6,240 in agreed interest, and paid $18,000 toward legal and accounting costs. The buyer would get its $30,000 back separately.

Franklin offered those amounts only if I signed a statement saying the whole matter had been an honest mistake.

I put the page down.

"He still wants to write my part."

Lila slid over the signature sheet.

Someone had already typed my name beneath the words No Wrongdoing Occurred.