The Second Receipt Book Put A Price On His Lies

We worked through Saturday with customers coming at set times. Each person checked a suit number, signed a pickup sheet, and received a copy of its known repair history.

Where I couldn't verify a test, I wrote that clearly. I didn't cover uncertainty with my initials.

Owen stood beside my bench while I checked the wrist seal he had first brought on Tuesday. I used the length of tubing and listened along the patched area.

“There,” I said.

He leaned closer.

The leak made a thin, steady hiss. I marked the spot with chalk.

“I thought you'd say everything was ruined,” he said.

“One bad receipt didn't put a hole in every suit. It just means we have to check.”

That work steadied me. Glue had a cure time. A seam either held or didn't. I could explain those things without arguing about what somebody meant.

Lila arrived with printed bank entries and a laptop. Under the court's records order, both partners had supplied exports of the shop files. Beckett's lawyer had also arranged access to the computer he used for billing.

“I need a second table,” Lila said.

We cleared the lunch shelf.

She matched the red receipts to customer statements and bank deposits. There were twenty-four suit entries across nine customers. Each entry had a $480 deposit. Twelve also showed a $300 balance charged after a claimed completed test.

“Eleven thousand five hundred twenty in deposits,” she said. “Three thousand six hundred in balances. Fifteen thousand one hundred twenty dollars altogether.”

There were no matching test logs.

Some customers had received real repairs under separate bills. We kept those apart. A replaced neck seal didn't turn an unperformed test into a performed one.

“Did any of them go somewhere else for testing?” I asked.

Lila shook her head.

“No outside invoices. We'll ask him to identify any outside provider in writing.”

Neil's report arrived that afternoon. It showed the out-of-service tag and the replacement gauge still packed. He could not find evidence that the chamber had been returned to service during the dates on the receipts.

His report didn't claim to know every movement Beckett had made. That careful limit made the facts inside it harder to push away.

On Monday, Lila sent the list to Beckett through both lawyers. His reply named no outside provider. Instead, he said the deposits were earned because he had reserved time.

The receipts called them test deposits. Twelve called the tests complete.

Dana requested an order setting aside $15,120 from the business account while the refund plan was reviewed. Beckett could object. He did, and the judge heard him the following week before approving the fund and the notice to customers.

While that happened, the four unknown transfers came into focus.

Beckett admitted the receiving account was his. He called the $6,240 sales commissions.

Our agreement allowed equal profit draws after expenses. It didn't allow either partner to invent a commission. The bookkeeping showed no approval, invoice, or earned profit calculation for those transfers.

“He paid himself for selling work nobody did,” I said.

Lila wrote down the numbers without answering. I was grateful for that. I needed a clean report more than I needed agreement.

The document examiner cost part of the $1,450 audit and records bill. Her report compared Beckett's contribution schedule with our permission agreement and the files from his computer.

The signature on his schedule was an inserted image. Its shape and stray staple mark matched the scanned agreement. The schedule file had been created two days before he changed the lock, though its printed date claimed it was years old.

Beckett still had the right to offer an explanation. Dana sent the report and asked for one.

That evening, I returned to the barge during my access hours. The washers knocked in the wind. I touched them twice, then once, before opening the door.

Inside, I found a note from Mara beside a returned gear bag.

Thanks for telling us before we went out.

I kept that note in the job book.

At home, an email from Beckett waited. He had copied no lawyers.

You want to talk about false tests? Ask what Paul was doing his last winter. Drop this before I have to tell people.

He had attached seven old payment slips.

For a moment, I couldn't feel the chair beneath me.

Then I forwarded the email to Dana with its full header and wrote one sentence.

Please add this to the file.

An hour later, Owen called. His voice had the careful sound people used when they thought they might hurt me.

“Beckett called about your husband,” he said. “He says those old payments prove you both did the same thing. What exactly is he talking about?”