The Bookkeeper Matched Four Private Sales To Four Empty Spaces

June laid a ruler beneath the first deposit.

“Eighteen thousand four hundred dollars. Pike House. Chapel window.”

Then she moved it down.

“Four thousand two hundred. Green fanlight. Three thousand one hundred. Etched door panel. Two thousand three hundred. Pair of narrow sidelights, sold as one lot.”

Four sales. The chapel piece belonged to the society. The other three lots belonged to our company.

“Show me the dates,” I said.

June slid over a second page. Two sales had happened on days I'd been out taking measurements. Another had closed while I was stripping putty from a storm sash in the back room.

I had been close enough to hear Corbin greet that buyer. I'd heard his pleasant voice and kept working.

Now the greeting had a deposit line beside it.

Corbin had supplied statements for his separate sales account after the lawyers pressed for the records required by the order. The buyers' receipts and delivery sheets matched the deposits.

There was no missing cash to guess about.

“That was my sales work,” he said.

June turned to our operating agreement.

“Where is the approved commission?”

“We didn't write down every little thing.”

“Twenty-eight thousand dollars isn't a little thing to this business.”

He looked at me.

“You were happy taking your share while I brought in buyers.”

“Show her my share.”

June waited. Corbin folded his arms.

The company books showed both of us taking the same agreed draws before money got tight. They showed no approved extra payment for his private sales. They showed no credit to me from that account.

His lawyer asked for a break.

I went outside and sat on the low loading step. The air smelled of wet leaves and truck exhaust. Somewhere beyond the road, a train horn held one long note.

Tessa sat beside me.

“I keep thinking I should have noticed sooner,” I said.

“You noticed enough to keep the originals.”

“I also kept handing him the sales calls.”

She rubbed a thumb over a pencil mark on her skirt.

“Trust didn't sign that false release. He did something with your trust. Keep those two things separate.”

Inside, June asked about an $860 tire charge on the company card.

Corbin sat up straight.

“There. Ask Nolan about his truck.”

I felt my face warm. The charge had been for my own truck, used on a weekend trip. I'd handed the wrong card over at the tire counter.

“I paid it back,” I said.

“Evidence?” June asked.

I found the transfer on my phone, then sent the statement to both lawyers and June. The repayment had cleared three days after the charge. My note on it said personal tires, wrong card.

June matched the amounts and dates.

“Repaid. No balance due.”

I hadn't liked having that mistake opened in front of everyone. But an accounting that only looked at Corbin wouldn't have been worth much.

By the end of the week, the full $28,000 was held by agreement in an escrow account pending a decision. Corbin had kept it for what he called his next location. He couldn't spend it now.

The buyers of our three company lots sent their sales papers. Their purchases had been ordinary shop sales, despite Corbin's private letterhead. Our company would stand behind those sales and pursue the proceeds. We weren't going to pull installed glass out of three houses to punish their owners.

The chapel window was different. The society had never approved its sale, and Elin's lawyer was now working toward a refund and return.

That left the release.

Corbin still said I had signed it.

“You forget what you agree to,” he told me at the next supervised work session.

I kept setting Beth's glass into its new lead channels.

“Then there should be an original.”

“A scan is a document.”

“Yes. Send the file it came from.”

His lawyer later produced the electronic files in response to the formal records request. Mara arranged for a document specialist to compare them with the originals.

While that went on, I finished Beth's stair window. I brushed cement beneath the lead, cleaned the face, and left it flat to cure. The blue pieces cast little pools across the bench.

Ken came to check his porch lights.

“Can I pay you directly?” he asked.

“The company did your job. Pay its account when we issue the final invoice.”

He nodded toward the office.

“You still play fair with him?”

“I need books I can stand behind.”

That evening, the building owner called. His name was Mr. Arlen, and he rarely used a telephone when a rent notice would do.

“I received a proposed surrender of the lease,” he said. “Your partner says you're both done.”

I put down my soldering iron.

“I didn't agree to that.”

Paper rustled at his end.

“Then you'd better look at what he's asking me to sign tomorrow.”