Red Wool Tags Passed Through The Door He Locked

On Monday, Conrad opened the shop without greeting me.

The movers laid padded runners over his new floor. Their lead man, Ellis, read the court order, then read our removal list.

“Thirteen instruments,” he said.

“Nine to my workshop. Four to their owners.”

“Every serial checked before loading.”

I gave him a fresh pencil.

Conrad stood behind the counter. Beth was gone. Her lawyer had arranged to provide the records she kept, and she had found another office job. I was glad she would not have to stand between us again.

The grand went first.

We removed the lyre and legs, wrapped the case, and eased its weight onto a proper skid. Ellis called each step. Nobody rushed.

Conrad watched us lower the lid.

“You can't fit that thing in your garage.”

“It isn't going to my garage.”

“So you've been planning this.”

I checked the red loop against the ledger.

“Since you changed the locks.”

He went silent.

The bus driver arrived to collect his console. He signed my release form after we checked the pedals together.

Conrad came around the counter with both hands open.

“Glen, let me explain what happened.”

“You told me Hiroshi quit,” Glen said.

“There were some management issues.”

“Then explain those to your manager.”

He turned back to me.

“Do you still make house calls?”

“Yes.”

“Same number?”

“Same number.”

The other customers signed their own sheets. I returned their deposits or applied them to the work they asked me to finish. Each choice went on paper. Nobody had to follow me just because Conrad had lied.

All four chose to keep their repair appointments.

The music teacher asked to see her instrument before we wrapped it. I set the action on its rails and let her try the repaired keys. She played the same short phrase twice.

“That's what I was waiting for,” she said.

Then she asked where to sign. Conrad's new business cards sat beside her elbow, stacked in a silver holder. She moved them aside to make space for the release form. I waited until her ink dried before giving her the copy.

By noon, the showroom held three pianos and a large empty rug.

Conrad pointed at the wall shelves.

“You forgot those.”

“Those belong to the company.”

“Now you're careful about what belongs to whom?”

I handed Ellis the last signed sheet.

“Always was.”

At my new workshop, the grand filled the back wall. Cold daylight fell across its lid. I hung the inventory tag inside a cabinet and tied a small red loop around the cabinet key.

For the first time in a week, I heard a piano without also hearing Conrad.

I played three notes. The middle one needed attention. That was a problem I knew how to solve.

Then the bookkeeper's first report arrived.

The showroom owed Matsuda Restoration $7,400 for completed bench work. My invoices matched work logs and customer receipts. Conrad had marked them paid in the showroom's books, though no payments had left its account.

“He kept the payable off the reports,” the bookkeeper explained on a call. “Your business records still show the debt.”

The lender's $100,000 advance had funded $72,000 in expansion work. Another $28,000 had gone to Conrad as personal draws without the approval our company agreement required.

The missing upright's $6,800 sale was separate from those draws.

“Where did that money go?” I asked.

“His personal account. It paid part of a truck loan.”

I looked at my hands. One nail still held a dark line of old glue.

He had called me careless with money because I sometimes accepted wood, wire, and work in place of a check. Meanwhile, he had used a woman's piano to buy a smaller truck payment.

I sent the full report to Lena. Estelle and Nora received the parts concerning the upright through their lawyers. The lender received the company report.

Estelle chose to make a police report about the sale. I went with her and provided copies when the investigator asked. I told him what I had seen and what the records showed. I did not guess about anything else Conrad might have done.

“Do you have the original intake photograph?” he asked.

“And the file date.”

Estelle placed her own photograph beside it.

“And I have the wedding breakfast,” she said.

That evening, Conrad left another voicemail.

“You're making this public. Think what it does to both our names.”

I saved it without calling back.

The next morning, his lawyer sent a proposal. Conrad would pay for Nora's refund if Estelle withdrew her complaint and I described the whole affair as an inventory error.

Lena forwarded it with one line beneath it.

We can seek payment without selling your account of what happened.

I asked her to reject those terms. An hour later, she called again.

“He's listed his truck for sale.”