The First Mold Inventory Led Us Past The Shop Door

Nolan answered the demand for access with a picture of an empty shelf.

"Cleaning house," his message said. "Some of this junk isn't worth storing."

Eva added the picture to our court papers.

We filed in Wayne County, asking for access, records, and an order to protect company property while the ownership dispute went forward. Nolan received notice. His lawyer appeared at the first hearing two days later.

I wore my only good gray pants. There was a thin white stain near one knee that had survived five washes.

Nolan wore a blue suit.

He smiled at me across the hall as if we had come to sell a job together.

"Last chance to talk like adults," he said.

Eva stepped beside me. "Send any proposal through counsel."

Inside, Nolan's lawyer said the agreement was old and the business had changed.

The judge turned a page.

"Do you have a later signed agreement?"

"Not at this stage."

"Then we'll work with the signed agreement we have."

That was all. No speech. No grand moment.

Nolan stopped smiling.

The lawyers worked out an interim order, which the judge entered. I would have access. Company records and equipment had to be preserved. No molds could be sold or moved without written agreement or another court order.

An independent plaster conservator, Lewis Kline, would observe the inventory. Disputed items would stay put.

"This isn't a final decision on damages," Eva told me afterward.

"I understand."

"And we still need to find where those rental payments went."

The bank had accepted the management documents after its review. It removed Nolan's spending access and stopped a pending $18,000 transfer for which it needed fresh approval.

He described the transfer as his final management fee.

There was no such fee in our agreement.

On Friday morning, I entered the shop with Lewis, Eva, and a locksmith. Nolan's lawyer watched from beside the sample table.

My apron was still behind the desk.

I left it there until we finished the first rack.

We counted by the original bill of sale. A number, a photograph, a condition note. Safiya entered each item in a clean sheet on her laptop.

"What goes here?" I asked, pointing to the location column for an empty bay.

"Unknown," she said.

"He knows."

"Then he can supply a location and we'll record the source. Until then, unknown."

I watched her type the word. That blank space had made me want to fill it with everything I feared. Her sheet made me separate what I knew from what I still had to prove.

There should have been eighteen historic master molds.

We found ten.

"Eight absent," Lewis said.

"Out for cleaning," Nolan said.

"Where?" I asked.

"I'll have to check."

He had once known every place that owed us fifty dollars. Now he could not name the place holding eight of our most useful molds.

L-7 was among the missing pieces.

I checked the floor beneath its rack. The wooden cradle was gone too. I had built that cradle with a soft cork strip along one side so the repaired lip would not carry weight.

Lewis photographed the empty space.

In the casting room, I found a rough leaf wrapped in brown paper. It had been set behind a bag of fiber.

I ran my thumb down its waste edge.

Three tiny steps.

"This came from L-7," I said.

"Obviously," Nolan said. "We own L-7."

"There's fresh blue release stain here. I haven't used blue release in two years."

Lewis bent close. He asked permission to bag the sample and record where we had found it. Both lawyers agreed.

The paper wrapper carried a job number: BH-214.

Safiya searched the company job list.

Nothing.

"It might be an old lead," Nolan said.

The paper was dated the previous Tuesday.

I finally took down my apron. In its pocket, my small steel finishing spoon rested exactly where I had left it. I closed my hand around its smooth handle.

The shop smelled of wet gypsum and warm motor belts. It should have felt like coming home. Instead, I kept looking for other places he had cleared without telling me.

Celia called while we photographed the mixers.

"We have a delivery here," she said. "Was it approved by you?"

"What delivery?"

"Six balcony leaves. The driver has your company's invoice."

"Don't install them. Please send me a picture of the label."

My phone chimed.

The label showed our full company name, a phone number I did not know, and the words EASTSIDE ANNEX.

Below them was the same job number stamped on the wrapper in my hand.

BH-214.

Then Celia sent a second picture. It showed a bill for $18,750, marked PAID, with a bank account ending in 4408.

I turned the screen toward Safiya.

"That isn't our account," she said.