The Pickup Request Brought His Own Instructions Into The Courtroom

I sent the warehouse manager's message to Mara. Then I called Tessa.

Nobody went to chase a truck.

The manager kept the crate behind the locked storage gate. He sent the pickup request, its attached form, and the email that had delivered it to the lawyers named on the hold notice.

The driver arrived at eight the next morning. He left with an empty truck and a signed note that no goods had been released.

His dispatch sheet named Corbin as the customer.

The warehouse charged $175 for the failed pickup. The driver had still done his job, and someone had to pay him.

Mara added that bill to the request for another hearing.

Corbin's lawyer said his client had meant to move the window to cheaper storage. The request had listed me because I was familiar with its handling.

“He didn't call me,” I said.

“I know,” Mara answered. “Say exactly that when you're asked.”

At the hearing, I sat with my hands flat on my knees. My tin stayed zipped in my coat. I had brought it for myself, not for the judge.

The warehouse manager testified by video. He explained the hold notice, the pickup request, and the call he'd made to check it.

Then the judge asked Corbin about the order.

“Did you understand that this window was not to be moved without written agreement or further order?”

“I understood there was a dispute about its destination.”

The judge asked again, more slowly.

“Did you understand the restriction?”

“Yes.”

The room seemed to grow still around that word.

His lawyer asked why he had arranged the pickup.

“Costs were building up,” Corbin said. “Nobody else was making decisions.”

The society's lawyer held up the email.

“You didn't ask the society. You didn't ask Ms. Pike. You didn't ask Mr. Redbird. Whose decision were you carrying out?”

“Mine. I ran the sales side.”

That answer had worked in our shop for too long.

I could see the little room behind our counter, where he'd said those same words whenever I asked about a missing invoice. Here, someone wrote them down. He couldn't turn away and answer the telephone until the question disappeared.

Next came the document specialist. She showed the matching signature images and the working file. She explained how the signature had been placed onto a document created after the sale.

Mara asked whether the signature image proved I had approved that document.

“No,” the specialist said. “It proved the image was reused.”

I testified that I had signed the storage acknowledgment and had never signed or approved the release. I described my work in Wilmington and the first time Corbin had shown me the page.

Corbin's lawyer asked whether I had given him access to my signed company and society records.

“Yes. We were partners.”

“So he had permission to possess that signature?”

“He had permission to keep the agreement I signed.”

I stopped there. Mara had told me an answer didn't need extra weight piled onto it.

When Corbin was asked about the sale certificate, he stopped saying loan.

“It was sitting there,” he said. “Dead stock. Nolan treated every old piece like it belonged in a museum.”

Tessa looked down at her hands.

The judge found that the evidence supported the society's right to the window and that my old signature had not authorized its removal. The attempted pickup had broken the restriction in the existing order.

There would be a written ruling on the motions. Meanwhile, Corbin could no longer direct shop operations. A temporary business custodian would oversee the company until ownership and the accounts were settled.

June would continue the accounting under that oversight.

My access no longer depended on Corbin opening a door.

Outside, he caught up with me beside the courthouse steps.

“You wanted me embarrassed.”

“I wanted the count to match.”

“You could have talked to me.”

I thought of my key stopping halfway into the new lock.

“I did. You called me hired muscle.”

He glanced toward Tessa, then away.

She said nothing. Her folder had done enough talking.

Over the next two weeks, the lawyers worked through the return and the business valuation. Elin agreed to give up any claim to the chapel window upon receipt of her full $18,400 refund from escrow.

The remaining $9,600 would go back to the company as its missing sales proceeds.

An independent valuation put the whole company's net value at $22,000, excluding every society piece. Corbin's half was worth $11,000. We finally had a number based on the business that actually existed.

The costs of his conduct were counted separately.

On a wet Thursday, Mara called me to her office. A settlement draft lay on the table, with the court's written ruling beside it.

The draft assigned Corbin's entire company interest to me.

“He's signed,” she said, turning to the last page.