The First Customer Receipt Led Us To Eleven More Payments

I called the customer from beside the drying racks.

Her name was Ruth Mercer. She ran a small bath shop in Warren, and she bought soft wool sponges in lots of two hundred.

"I didn't get a deposit," I said.

She went quiet.

"He was sitting at your desk, Heath."

That hurt more than the amount.

Gideon had a key for repairs. I had also let him hand over packed orders if someone arrived while I was out. He could take a sealed envelope and leave it in my locked cash box. That was all.

He had never had the right to make new orders, set prices, or bank money for me.

"What did he tell you?" I asked.

"That you were joining the sale. Same hands, new owner. He said early deposits would hold summer prices."

Her full order was supposed to cost $4,800. The deposit was half.

I checked my order book. There was no such order.

"Can you send the back of your canceled check?" I asked. "And whatever he gave you."

"Are my sponges gone?"

"There weren't any set aside. I'm sorry. I can help sort this out, but I won't tell you something false to make today easier."

She sent the papers within ten minutes.

The money had gone into Sloane Wharf LLC, Gideon's property company. The receipt carried my business name in large letters and his company name in tiny ones below.

I sat down before I called Mara.

"Don't promise to refund money your company never received," she said. "Ask customers for copies. Keep each person's records separate."

I called every regular buyer whose name Gideon could have seen on pickup boxes.

Most had heard nothing. One man laughed and said he never paid early for anything. Then a woman in Tiverton said she had sent $900.

By Thursday, twelve customers had sent proof.

The deposits came to $18,600.

I made a separate folder for each person. A penciled order in my book meant I owed someone work. These folders meant someone had used my name to take their money. I needed to keep that difference clear, even when the customers were too upset to care.

I added the amounts twice. Then I let my neighbor check them with a calculator while I read each receipt aloud.

There was one for $1,200, one for $3,000, several smaller ones. Some customers wanted stock for summer visitors. Others had ordered gift sets. Gideon had given them dates I could never have met with the stock I had.

He had sold my time as well as my machines.

I asked each customer before sharing their papers with Saskia and Mara. All twelve said yes.

Saskia came at noon with her contract.

"I need to show you the business schedule," she said. "My lawyer has cleared me to share the pages about your shop."

We put them on my sorting table.

The building price was $615,000. A schedule set $42,000 of that value against the working equipment and promised a turnkey sponge operation at closing.

It also promised customer orders, supplier contacts, and my help for thirty days.

There was a line for my approval.

It was blank.

"Did you agree to train me?" she asked.

"No."

"Transfer your customer list?"

"No."

"Sell your stock?"

"No."

She laid down her pen.

"He said you disliked formal meetings. He said he'd get your signature before closing."

"I dislike wasting rinse water. Meetings are fine."

She took off her glasses and rubbed the bridge of her nose.

"I thought I was buying a small operation I could learn. I asked about you three times."

For the first time, I heard anger in her voice.

"He needed you to think I was part of the building," I said.

We looked out at the racks. Damp sponges hung in mesh trays, each lot tagged with a date. The wind moved through them without making a sound.

Saskia picked up the twelve customer files.

"May I have copies for my lawyer?"

"With the customers' permission. That's what these signed notes are for."

She read those, too.

That afternoon, Gideon arrived with coffee for everyone. Nobody reached for it.

"There's a lot of worry over routine bookkeeping," he said.

I set the total in front of him.

"Where's the $18,600?"

"In the business."

"Which business?"

He looked at Saskia.

"Let's speak privately."

"Answer Heath," she said.

He left the coffee and walked out. I watched his car pull away, then called the sail loft owner and paid $1,550 to hold the new workroom as my security deposit.

Before dark, a courier brought an envelope from Gideon's lawyer.

It said removing any listed equipment would trigger a claim for $42,000.