The Customers Brought Receipts For Work I Had Never Done

Owen met me beside the harbor office with an envelope soft from rain. He took out two receipts and held them by the dry corners.

The first was our usual printed form. It listed two seal repairs for $260. I had done those repairs. My initials sat beside each suit number.

The second had a red edge and a different number series.

“Fleet safety package,” I read. “Six units. Deposit, $2,880.”

Below that was a line marked Final Test Completed. Three suit numbers were checked beside it. Someone had written my name in full.

“I didn't write this.”

“That's why I called.”

“Did you pay a balance?”

“Nine hundred dollars. Three hundred each on three suits Beckett said were ready.”

The math was simple. The meaning wasn't. Owen had paid for work he believed would support his crew's own winter gear checks. A false receipt could travel much farther than a bad seal.

“Have those three been used?”

“No. They're still packed.”

“Keep them out of service until somebody checks them. I can help arrange that.”

He folded the receipt.

“Somebody?”

“I can't promise access to my bench yet.”

Tessa had given me copies of the berth license and its most recent renewal. My name was alone on both. The partnership was listed as a permitted user. A note required harbor review if the use changed.

“This doesn't decide who owns equipment,” she had told me. “It does tell us who can speak for this berth.”

I liked that she hadn't offered more than the paper could hold.

I called Beckett from my truck.

“Owen showed me a red receipt.”

“Premium service form,” he said.

“Who performed the tests?”

“We can discuss operations after your buyout.”

“My name is on work I didn't do.”

“Your name is on the business.”

“That's different.”

“You always need to be the only expert in the room.”

I wrote down his words as soon as we hung up. I included the time. Then I sent a short email asking for the job logs, receipts, bank statements, and appointment book. I asked him to preserve everything, including messages.

I still had access to the business bank account. He had changed the door lock, but the bank required both partners to change account authority. I downloaded the statements without moving any money.

At home, I spread them over the kitchen table.

Three brass washers hung above my sink too. Paul had made that second set after I told him I missed the sound when he worked late. The washers touched when the window shook. Two quick clicks, then one.

I put my hand around them until they stopped.

This wasn't going to be about what Paul would have wanted. I had signed papers. I had paid bills. I needed my own name to do its work.

Our bookkeeper, Lila Chen, answered on the fourth ring.

“Do we have red receipts?” I asked.

“Not in the records I receive.”

“Can you review the last three months?”

“As a partner, yes, you can ask me for that. Send the scope in writing. I'll copy Beckett.”

“Please do.”

I found four transfers labeled Vendor Advance. Each went to an account I didn't recognize. Together, they came to $6,240.

I didn't call them theft in my notes. I wrote Unknown Destination and circled the amount.

By supper, two more customers had called. Beckett had told one I had retired. He had told the other I was ill. I corrected both and asked for copies of anything they had paid.

One woman said, “He told me not to trouble you.”

“You weren't troubling me.”

After that call, I ate my cold lunch from the jar. Then I opened the steel box.

The original inventory was there, signed by both of us. So was the later permission agreement. We had allowed the business to use my barge for $600 a month toward berth costs and upkeep. The paper called it a use fee, not a purchase payment.

At eight, Beckett sent an email with an attachment.

You should know what you signed before you start calling people.

The attachment was called Property Contribution Schedule. It listed the Mercy Bell, the chamber, and a value of $94,000.

My signature appeared at the bottom.

I knew the shape of it. The little tail on the K came from a day when my pen had snagged on a staple.

I pulled out the permission agreement and laid it beside the screen.

The same snag appeared in the same place.

Then I saw the date on his schedule. It was six months after the day he had copied my signature from.