Della Read The Carbon Copies At My Kitchen Table

Della Brooks arrived with a flat scanner, two pencils, and her own tea.

"I don't trust a man's office coffee," she said. "Too much chance he'll expect thanks."

She was fifty-four, a Black woman with close-cut curls and square glasses on a red cord. For years she had balanced the books for small firms around Savannah. Lately, she spent most of her time finding where money had gone after somebody claimed it had vanished.

My former neighbor had given me her number.

"I can pay for your time," I said.

"Good. Working women should get paid. That includes both of us."

Her first review would cost $900. She wrote it down before she touched my papers.

I liked her at once.

She read the machinery agreement, the estate list, and the annual balances. The latest one, signed by Enzo eleven months earlier, showed $117,000 still owed to me.

"Eighteen payments," she said. "Then nothing?"

"He said it stayed as my credit."

"A credit is a debt wearing a clean shirt."

She checked the bank statements I had kept from my own account. They showed the first eighteen deposits. She made a separate list of the missing ones.

"Does this mean I own the company?" I asked.

"No. It means the company bought your machines and still owes most of the price. A lawyer can tell us how to collect. Words matter when people get slippery."

She scanned the lien papers without bending a corner.

Then we spread the repair tickets across the kitchen table.

Each yellow sheet held a job number, fabric used, hours worked, and a customer's signature at pickup. I had drawn my small blue crescent beside the number after checking the finished seam.

"Why the moons?" Della asked.

"So I know I inspected it. Enzo could stamp a ticket. He couldn't close a welt corner."

She lifted one sheet toward the window.

"You kept the carbon underneath while you added that mark."

"Every time."

"Then let's see what your moons earned."

We started with the jobs our reports called unpaid. I called the customers myself. I did not accuse anyone. I asked for receipts so we could settle a record problem.

Some sent checks. Others sent bank confirmations with everything except the payment details covered up.

By Thursday, we had proof that twelve supposedly unpaid jobs had brought in $38,740.

Every dollar had gone to Sable Quay.

"Could it be a proper collection service?" I asked.

"Could be," Della said. "We'll ask for the agreement and see whether it sent your company the money. A strange account isn't proof of theft by itself."

I felt foolish for wanting a firm answer so badly.

She pushed the tea toward me.

"Careful work takes longer than outrage. But it keeps better."

Enzo came home at noon. He paused when he saw our table.

"Rosalia. You should have told me we had company."

He held out his hand. Della shook it once.

"Della Brooks. Bookkeeper."

"Our accountant handles all that."

"Then he'll enjoy having such tidy source records."

He looked at the scanner.

"Those are company papers."

"These are my retained work copies," I said. "And my sale agreement."

"You don't know what you're stirring up."

Della put her pencil down.

"We're matching ticket numbers to receipts. It shouldn't stir much unless something settled on the bottom."

Enzo stopped smiling.

After he left, my hands shook so hard I could not fit the sheets back into their folders.

"He always gets quiet before he gets mean," I said.

"Then we should find you a lawyer before he gets quiet again."

That afternoon, we met Ada Wynn in an office near the courthouse. She had taken over the files of my father's retired lawyer. My original machinery papers were already in her firm's storage.

Ada checked the dates and called for that file.

"Your lien appears current," she said. "We'll verify the filing history. The agreement allows a demand after default, with fifteen business days to cure before acceleration. We need to follow it exactly."

"Can he just give the machines to Mara?"

"He can try. That doesn't make your claim disappear. Don't take equipment yourself. Let me handle the notices."

We also discussed the divorce offer. Ada set it aside with two fingers.

"This is an opening demand. It isn't a court order. You don't have to live inside his version of the marriage."

I paid her retainer from savings I had kept in my own name.

At home, Della called me from her desk.

"Sable Quay's public filing names Mara Vale as its manager," she said. "That doesn't prove who owns it. But I found something else."

I sat down.

"The same mailing address appears on six other business filings. And one of them just advertised your tufting press for sale."