The Missing Reserve Money Led Back To Irma's Desk

I printed the fee agreement on the rink's old office printer. It took three tries. The machine pulled one sheet crooked and left a black stripe across the next.

The third copy was clean.

Irma would receive $96,000 after closing for what the paper called family liaison services. The fee would come from Harbor Rise, apart from the price paid to the company.

“Did the other owners know?” Margo asked.

“The owner of seventy-two percent did not.”

She went quiet.

“Mrs. Ellison said this was disclosed.”

“Please preserve every message.”

Jasper asked Harbor Rise to suspend its work while ownership was confirmed. Margo agreed. There was only a letter of intent, not a signed property contract. No deposit had changed hands.

That evening, Beth came to the rink carrying a covered bowl.

“Chicken soup,” she said. “I didn't know what else to bring.”

I let her set it on the office counter.

“You could have said something at supper.”

“I know.”

She looked through the glass at the sheets. Her father had taught her to curl there. Leo had once taped a paper crown to her broom after she won a junior match.

“Mom said you'd been given work because you needed help.”

“Did you believe her?”

Beth rubbed the bowl's lid.

“It was easier than asking you.”

I didn't rescue her from that answer.

The next morning, our bookkeeper, Ruth Vega, spread bank statements across the office table. Ruth had worked remotely since breaking her ankle, which explained the stack of unopened mail Irma had left in the desk.

“I asked for backup on this twice,” Ruth said, pointing.

A payment of $18,450 had gone from the repair reserve to Tradition Table Services six weeks earlier.

The description read MEMBERSHIP STUDY.

“I've never seen a study,” I said.

“Neither have I. Irma told me the invoice was in the office.”

We found it in a green folder. One page. No work dates, no list of tasks, no report attached.

Ruth searched the state's business records. The listed owner of Tradition Table Services was Irma Ellison.

I sat down.

The reserve should have held $31,200. It held $12,750.

Three days earlier, the cooling contractor had quoted $8,420 to replace a leaking seal assembly before it caused a larger failure.

“She took the repair money,” I said.

“We have a payment with no support,” Ruth said carefully. “Let's prove the rest.”

We checked the shared drive, the survey box, and the minutes from every meeting that season. No one had asked members a single question.

Ruth called three league captains while I listened.

“A paid study?” one asked. “We fill out the same free card every April.”

In the storage drawer, those cards still sat under a rubber band. Irma hadn't collected them.

I hired an outside accountant, Deena Cho, to examine the company's books. Jasper put the fee agreement and invoice into separate folders.

“Suspicion isn't a finding,” he said. “Don't give her an excuse to make this about your temper.”

“My temper isn't the missing eighteen thousand dollars.”

“Exactly.”

We approved the seal repair from the money left in reserve. I moved a morning practice to the next day so the contractor could work. I told the league captains what had broken and when their ice would be ready.

I didn't tell them about Irma. They needed a schedule, not a family fight.

On Friday, she arrived with her old key.

It still opened the front door. It no longer opened the office.

“You've changed locks?” she asked.

“Only on the records room and office.”

“Your husband would be ashamed.”

I set down the hose I had been draining.

“Leo liked receipts. He kept grocery slips in his shirt pocket until they went through the wash.”

“Don't lecture me about my son.”

“Then don't use him to get past a locked door.”

A stone crossed the far sheet with that soft zipper sound. Two retirees stopped sweeping and glanced toward us.

I lowered my voice.

“What work did Tradition Table do?”

“I have spent fifty years bringing families here.”

“What work did it do for $18,450?”

Her mouth tightened.

“Ask your lawyer.”

“I have.”

She turned and left. Through the front windows, I watched her climb into her car without looking back.

Deena's first report came the following Tuesday. She found no study, no approval of a related-party payment, and no proof of services. She listed the payment as unsupported and requested its return or full records.

Irma sent neither.

Instead, a process server came while I was teaching Claire how to check the pebble without stepping onto the sheet.

He asked my name and handed me a packet.

Irma had petitioned the court to remove me as trustee. The first page called my authority a fiction built on an unexecuted draft.