The Equipment List Everett Had Signed Beneath His Own Smile

"Don't send him another dollar," I told Tessa.

"I didn't. I sent you the payment receipt."

I asked her for one hour. Then I called Mara Venn, the lawyer who had drawn up our company papers.

"I can give you the old files," she said. "But I represented the company then. If this becomes a fight between owners, you'll need your own lawyer."

That was the first useful limit anyone had given me all morning.

She referred me to Ruth Calder. By noon, I sat in Ruth's small office with my document case on my knees.

Her window faced a bank of plowed snow. She wore reading glasses on a cord and charged $325 an hour. I paid a $2,500 retainer from my personal savings.

"Tell me what you want," she said.

"My shop back. The customers' boats finished. An answer about the money."

"Three separate jobs. We'll keep them separate on paper, too."

She read the lease first.

The company rented my listed equipment for $450 a month. Ownership stayed with me. No sale, transfer, or pledge was allowed without my written consent. A serious breach required notice and a chance to fix it before I could end the lease.

"He signed every page," Ruth said.

"He wanted the rent counted as an expense."

"And did the company ever buy these tools from you?"

"No."

"Any later agreement putting them into the company?"

"No."

She placed a yellow slip on the list of forms.

"Good. But a receipt doesn't give you permission to break into a building."

"I stayed outside."

"Keep doing that."

Next came the operating agreement. We each owned half. Neither of us could remove the other from management by paying a bill. Large transfers needed both approvals. Both owners had rights to the books.

Ruth read my buyout proposal twice.

"This was an offer, Nolan. His silence didn't accept it."

"I know. Read the next section."

She turned back to the agreement.

The separation clause had seemed dull when we signed it. If a proposal went unanswered for thirty days, either owner could demand an independent review of the company's value and ask for a supervised sale if we remained stuck.

We had added it after watching two other men fight over a cabinet shop for a year.

"You opened the agreed path," Ruth said. "You didn't finish it."

That was enough for me.

She sent Everett a notice demanding access to records, return of my access to management, and a halt to any transfer of my equipment. She also sent notice of the lease breaches, with the cure period stated in the contract.

"What if he laughs?" I asked.

"Then we'll have proof he was told."

Outside, my phone showed six missed calls from him.

I played the last message in Ruth's office.

"Nolan, lawyers cost money. You don't have any. Come by Friday and sign your exit. I'll give you fifteen hundred."

Ruth wrote down the time.

I didn't answer him. I wrote to our landlord, June Arlen, asking for a copy of the building lease and any request to change its tenants.

June replied within twenty minutes.

The tenant was our company. Everett had told her I had retired.

"You look young for that," she wrote.

I almost smiled.

She attached his email. He had asked her to put the building lease in his name alone. She had refused without signed company approval.

I forwarded everything to Ruth.

Then I called the cedar yard. Our account was overdue by $4,820. The owner told me Everett had promised payment after the expedition deposit arrived.

"That deposit arrived five weeks ago," I said.

The man went quiet.

"Then I don't know what to tell you."

I drove to City Beach and parked facing the lake. Wind pushed rough little waves against the shore. I had tested our first shop canoe there in weather like that, Everett on land taking pictures while I checked the seats and trim.

I had liked that arrangement once.

My phone buzzed with a message from Ruth.

The bank had confirmed my identity as an authorized company manager. I could collect statements the next morning. Online access had been turned off, but Everett couldn't erase my authority with a password.

I turned the river stone over in my hand.

For years, I had checked each new hull with the same small weight. I checked the slings first, then the center mark, then the way the boat settled. Guessing saved very little time.

Tessa sent another message.

"I'm bringing the expedition contract tomorrow. There is something beside my signature you need to see."