The Final Accounting Put A Price On Every Hidden Transfer

The investigator met me at Dana's office two days later.

Adrian now said I had asked him to sign for me because I was busy with a model deadline.

“Did you ever give him that permission?” the investigator asked.

“No.”

“For any of these documents?”

“No.”

He asked about our scanner, my license copy, and who could enter the studio. I answered what I knew. When I couldn't remember a date, I said so.

He took notes and left. I went back to work.

The museum model had been delivered on time. The client paid my final $3,200 invoice without knowing that half its stairs had been built in someone else's dining room.

I used part of that payment to rent a small work space for six months. It had a sink, two good outlets, and a door Adrian had no key to.

I slept there only in the sense that I finally stopped building stairs at three in the morning. My colleague's spare room remained my bedroom until I found a small apartment.

At Bellwether Court, Ruth's monthly reports came to both owners.

November rent had paid the actual bills. December rent had done the same. After repairs and reserves, money remained.

Nobody had found a magic new source of income. The rent had simply stayed where the reports said it was.

Adrian stopped calling me directly after Dana warned his lawyer about the messages. His offers came through counsel instead.

First, he offered to manage the property for free if I dropped the identity complaint.

“The criminal investigation isn't mine to trade,” I told Dana.

She sent that answer back.

Then he offered to sell me his interest at a price based on a building with no income.

We paid for an independent appraisal. It valued the six-flat at $318,000. The mortgage balance was about $142,000.

The appraiser used the actual rent rolls. Leonard supplied the verified expenses.

Adrian's next offer was closer.

Winter passed. Snow melted into gray ridges along the curbs. I kept making models and paying my own bills. Sometimes I felt brave. Usually I felt busy.

Beatrice visited the new studio with a tin of buttons she thought I might use for tiny light fixtures.

“You can say no,” she told me.

I kept six and returned the rest.

“Look at that,” she said. “A business decision.”

In the spring, the investigator called to say charges had been filed over the forged documents. Dana reminded me that a charge wasn't a conviction. I did not post about it or send notices to tenants.

Ruth continued to handle the building.

The divorce took longer. We had to value the house, the duplex sale proceeds, retirement accounts, and the building. We had to account for the recovered $31,920 as marital money, rather than pretend it all belonged to me alone.

I hated that last part for an afternoon.

Then Leonard showed me the full balance sheet.

“You're asking for an honest division,” he said. “That requires an honest total.”

I signed off on his numbers after checking them.

The review took most of a Saturday. I found one small mistake in my own list: I had entered a $64 lock bill twice. I called Leonard and corrected it before the sheet went to either lawyer.

By September, we had a settlement. I would keep the six-flat and take responsibility for its mortgage through a refinance. Adrian would receive an agreed share of the other assets that balanced its equity. The house would be sold, and its net proceeds divided under the same written terms.

The recovered rent money was included openly. Nothing disappeared into a charge called maintenance.

The judge also ordered Adrian to pay $6,800 toward my legal costs after reviewing his incomplete sworn submission and the expense it had caused.

He asked to make that payment privately.

Dana arranged for it to come from his share at closing instead.

At our final divorce hearing, Adrian spoke only when asked a question. When the judge entered the decree, he did not look at me.

I thought I might want him to.

I didn't.

The refinance and deed transfer took another month. At the title office, I checked the legal description against the owner set before signing. Then I watched the closer place the papers in order.

Ruth called that afternoon.

“Whose approval do I need for the back stair repair?”

“Mine,” I said.

“I'll send the estimate.”

It came to $1,460. I read it, asked one question about the rail, and approved it.

Two days later, I received a formal notice from the prosecutor's victim services office.

Adrian had agreed to plead guilty. His sentencing date was printed in the middle of the page.