The Auditor Matched His Storage Bills To Our Confiscation Receipts

I let Alma finish before I spoke.

"Does the match prove the bills were false?"

"No," she said. "That's why we're asking for the backup."

I wrote that down. The distinction mattered. Curtis had started with a belief and built a charge around it. I would not do that to him, even now.

My first customer that evening bought two candles for $36. She held the sleeves carefully, one in each mitten.

"These smell like summer," she said.

I thanked her and gave her the change. For those few minutes, I was only doing my job.

Then a vendor I had never met stopped beside my table and asked where to send an old receipt.

By the end of the next week, sixteen vendors had sent records covering nineteen paid holds over four years. Some had paid twice. My own unpaid demand was listed separately.

Faye offered her studio again. This time we did not spread everything across the pottery tables. The outside auditor, Beth Rusk, collected copies through a secure folder and gave each person a receipt for their records.

"I don't need anyone's guesses," Beth told us. "I need dates, amounts, and where the money went."

Lena found her check image. Several others found theirs. Curtis's own receipt book helped match cash payments. The book had been in the office cabinet, along with his work files, when the board secured the room.

He had kept very neat records of what people owed him.

He had kept fewer notes about why.

Beth sent him a list of questions and gave him time to answer. She checked the agreement in use for each year. She checked minutes from before Mara became chair. She checked whether an older board had approved fees the current board had forgotten.

There was no such approval.

His contract also barred side charges to vendors. Danner Site Services could bill the association for approved work, but Curtis could not set private prices for giving back people's goods.

The paid holds came to $6,840.

That number sat on the summary page in plain black type. I thought of $180 from Ellis's spoon sales, $220 from Lena's soap, and all the small hours inside the larger sum.

Ellis asked Beth to check his entry once more. He remembered paying part of it in cash and feared it had been counted twice. She showed him the two amounts, the one receipt, and the total. He ran a finger down the page before he nodded. I recognized that care. Getting our money back would mean less if we stopped caring whether the count was right.

The storage invoices totaled another $1,260.

Curtis had billed the association for rented storage during those holds. The addresses on the invoices led back to the market's own sheds and office storeroom. The association already paid for those spaces under its lease.

Beth asked for rental bills from anyone else. Curtis supplied none.

In his written answer, he called the charges an allowance for responsibility. His contract contained no allowance by that name.

The board gave him the findings and a chance to respond at a final employment meeting. He came with a lawyer. I did not attend. This was their decision to make, and my account was already signed.

That afternoon, Mara called to say his contract had been ended. His lawyer would handle any further contact. Curtis no longer had keys, access, or authority to assign stalls.

I put the phone down and sat still.

My niece asked whether I wanted to celebrate.

"I want to finish these tapers," I said.

She put on the kettle and left me the warm corner of her kitchen table.

The association settled my claim the following day. It paid $144 for the eighteen damaged candles at my documented cost of $8 each, refunded the lost night's $90 fee, and repaid Rowan's $45 inspection bill.

Total: $279.

I signed a clear settlement for those losses. I had not claimed $1,728 in sales that had never happened. The seventy-eight whole candles were still mine, and most had sold by then.

Mara's correction used the words false accusation. It said I had not taken market electricity and should never have lost my goods or stall. It also said the board had failed to check a practice carried out in its name.

I read that last sentence twice.

The vendors had their own money to recover. The association had its storage payments and my $279 settlement to recover from Curtis. With counsel, they filed a civil case based on the records Beth had checked.

I gave permission to include my account and agreed to appear if needed.

Two weeks later, a lawyer's envelope arrived at my house. Inside was a proposed settlement and a request that I sign a statement calling the whole event a misunderstanding.