An Excavator Waited Outside While The Judge Asked About Our Power

I stayed clear of the truck and held up my hand.

The driver stopped beside the gate. A foreman climbed down with a rolled site plan tucked under his jacket.

"You the owner?"

"I'm the tenant. There's a court order."

He took the copy I offered and called his office. I heard him read the case number aloud.

Rena stood in the shed doorway. Behind her, the treatment room was dark.

"Power went out at six forty," she said.

Our electric service ran through the venue's main panel. Without steady heat, the load in the chamber could not finish its cycle. We would have to discard it. We could not sell bags that might carry mold into someone else's grow room.

I checked the panel by our door. Nothing had tripped.

Rosalind crossed the lawn with a plate of muffins.

"You're early," she told the foreman. "Have something warm."

He kept the order in his hand.

"I'm not unloading until this is cleared up."

"That only covers the buildings in dispute."

"Which ones are those?"

She pointed at the little tool hut beyond our yard.

He unrolled his plan across the truck hood. Her signature sat beside the outline of our main shed.

"This is what you hired us to remove."

The plate shook. One muffin fell into the gravel.

I photographed the plan with his permission. He gave me his office number and drove away with the excavator still chained down.

Rosalind looked at Rena.

"Perhaps you'd all enjoy a day off."

"Who shut off the power?" I asked.

"There are safety concerns."

"Show me the electrician's report."

She turned toward the house.

Dana called her lawyer. An electrician arrived after he agreed in writing that we could restore service. The venue's locked main cabinet had been opened, and our breaker had been switched off. The electrician found no fault in our equipment.

His report cost $380.

By then the batch was lost.

Rena and I weighed the waste and recorded the bag numbers. We saved the temperature log and the witness jar. I marked its lid with the usual blue dot, though I knew the batch would never leave our yard.

The lost order, disposal, extra labor, and electrician's bill came to $14,400.

Rena made the waste entry while I checked it. We both signed. A number that large could look made up unless someone could follow it back to hours, bags, and bills. I wanted every dollar to survive that trip.

"Are we getting paid?" one of our packers, Luis, asked.

I gathered everyone by the packing bench.

"Yes. Today's pay is covered. So is next week's. After that, I'll tell you what I know every Friday."

"My landlord likes actual dates," he said.

"So do I."

I drew $18,000 from my separate emergency savings. It was money I had promised myself I would never put into this orchard.

That hurt more than Rosalind's hired-man speech.

At the next hearing, Dana put the site plan, temperature log, and electrician's report before the judge. The foreman appeared by video. He said Rosalind had called after the order was served and told him to proceed.

Rosalind's lawyer leaned toward her. She kept looking at Claire.

The judge asked whether anyone still claimed the leased shed had been scheduled by mistake.

Nobody answered.

She continued the order. The later claim for our lost batch would stay in the case.

Dana had also asked for an independent receiver to protect the property and its income. At the noticed hearing on that request, she showed overdue bills and the new debt. Beth showed that Claire, a member of the company, could not obtain its full books.

"A receiver won't work for you," Dana warned me before we went in. "She could recommend a sale you don't like."

"Will she keep records?"

"That's a large part of the job."

After hearing both sides, the judge appointed June Mercer, an accountant with experience running troubled event properties. The order gave her control of the venue's business accounts, bookings, and property care. Rosalind could no longer sign checks or direct contractors.

"People come here for me," Rosalind said outside the courtroom.

June handed her a receipt for the keys.

"Then I'll need your list of current clients."

There was no sharp tone in it. June had another task to finish.

That evening, Claire and I brought her the vendor files we had at home. June placed our copies on a clean table and began a numbered inventory.

"Did your mother have a separate account ending in 4418?" she asked Claire.

"I don't know. Why?"

June turned her screen toward us.

On the day Aster Hollow funded its loan, $180,000 had left the venue account for that one.

The transfer note read: ROSALIND PERSONAL RESERVE.