The Lawyer Opened Her Safe And Counted Six Original Slips

I left the photograph on my bench and copied the number onto a repair ticket.

Vincent watched from his office window. I made my usual slow notes: loose lower panel, worn pedals, unknown action condition. Fear could make a person rush. Small piano parts punished rushing.

"Where should I look?" I asked.

"You're the repairwoman. People call you when instruments turn up."

"They call with sticking keys."

"Then listen better."

He gave me until Friday. It was Tuesday.

At home in the North Ward, I put his reduced check beside my rent notice. Rent was $1,280. His check was $930. The numbers looked quite calm beside each other.

I was less calm.

My mother had been Black, my father white. Both had taught me how easily a polite voice could put a person in her place. My father had also taught me to keep the second copy of every work order.

I opened my old metal file box.

There was the scratched case, dated and signed. There were forty-two other intake sheets. There was no sheet for piano 44178.

But there was a bill for an eighteen-dollar hinge set.

I had sold it to Noel Finch, Vincent's courier, twelve days earlier.

He had paid cash and asked for a receipt.

"For the boss?" I had asked.

"For me," he had said.

That small answer had seemed odd. Now I wrote it down.

The next morning, Mara met Elias and me in her office above a tax service. She charged me $150 for the first meeting and said we would discuss any further fees before she ran them up.

I liked a clear bill.

"Before anything moves," she said, "Corinne tells us exactly how she found it."

Elias set a clean recorder on the table.

"May I?"

I agreed. He asked about the bench, the broken keys, the sleeve, and who else had entered the room. When I did not know, he wrote that I did not know.

Then Mara opened her safe.

She brought out the sealed package and her intake record. My photographs showed the sleeve under the keyboard. Her record showed when it reached her, who had handled it, and where she had kept it.

Elias checked the seal before anyone cut it.

"You're not taking them today?" I asked.

"Only with the transfer documented," he said. "Ms. Teal and I agreed on that. Today I can work from clear images while the proper evidence pickup is arranged."

It was the first promise I saw him keep.

We looked at all six slips together.

The bonded warehouse was Harbor Ledger Storage in Elizabeth. Vincent's business, Rallo Instrument Exchange, appeared as the collecting carrier's customer. Each front page named a sculpture held after an overseas loan exhibition.

Someone had attached letters claiming the owners wanted the works moved to a different storage site.

"Were they stolen there?" I asked.

"We have theft reports from the owners," Elias said. "We still have to prove who knew those letters were false."

On each back, someone had written a piano crate number and a delivery price. One said $38,000. Another said $61,500.

Vincent's signature appeared beside a line marked RECEIVED BY CARRIER.

"That's his V," I said.

"We'll ask the dock clerk who watched him sign."

"You don't trust my eyes?"

"I trust you to tell me what you saw. I need evidence for what it means."

I looked at him for a moment. He did not fill the silence.

Mara turned the sixth page. Its back showed 44178.

Beside that number were two words: NORTH FIGURE.

Elias went still.

"A limestone sculpture," he said. "A seated woman holding a bowl. Reported missing last month."

I thought of ninety-four pounds beneath a soundboard.

"Noel bought hinges from me," I said.

I showed him my duplicate receipt. Noel had written a delivery address so I could mail the screws I had forgotten to include.

It was a community music room near Ferry Street.

"Don't go there alone," Elias said.

"Will you put cars outside my apartment?"

"If there's a specific threat, tell us. We can make a plan. I won't promise a guard I haven't arranged."

He gave me a direct number. Mara gave him a look that said she would use it herself.

I returned to work with the hinge receipt in my bag.

Vincent had moved my eggcups into a cardboard box. One porcelain handle had broken.

"Less clutter," he said.

There was an envelope under the box. The return address belonged to the music room.

Inside was a delivery card asking me to service a donated upright, serial number 44178.