Nine Old Numbers Led Us Back To Three Waiting Owners

Helen Sayer was alive, eighty-one, and angry enough to make Naomi hold the phone away from her ear.

That was how Naomi described the call when Ruth and I came to the station two days later.

“Did she own the animals?” I asked.

“One. The goat. Her husband left it to her. She lent it to a traveling display five years ago. The display closed, and the goat vanished.”

“She reported it?”

“She brought the report number to breakfast.”

“You had breakfast with her?”

“She said I couldn't discuss a dead woman's estate on an empty stomach.”

I pictured the call and smiled.

Then Naomi put a copy of Dray's estate receipt on the table.

The seller's signature read Helen Sayer, Executor.

“I guess she couldn't be her own executor,” I said.

“She made that point. Several times.”

Helen had agreed to send copies of her husband's estate inventory, photographs, and the loan form. Her goat's old number was HS-7. My rubbing showed the same letters and number under D-22.

One owner found. Six horses accounted for. Two animals still needed homes.

The stag and rabbit carried KM marks. A search had led Naomi to the Kettle Mill County Museum, a small Illinois museum housed in an old school.

Its director wanted them back so badly that she made one mistake.

She sent a photo of the wrong stag.

The antlers had a different bend. The base had square corners where Dray's stag had rounded ones.

“It could have been changed,” the director said during our video call.

“It could,” I said. “But we can't write that just because we want it.”

The room went quiet.

I thought I had lost her.

Then she nodded.

“I'll go back downstairs.”

The right box held a conservation report from eleven years earlier. KM-31 was the stag. KM-32 was the rabbit. Both had disappeared while on loan to the same traveling display that had borrowed Helen's goat.

The report named every old repair. The rabbit had a brass peg inside its raised paw. The stag had a filled screw hole behind its right shoulder.

Naomi arranged for a trained examiner to check those features in secure storage.

I did not get to do the checking myself.

“You gave us the map,” she said. “Someone else needs to walk it.”

That made sense. It also left me sitting at home, staring at my phone.

I hated how much of proving myself meant keeping my hands still.

On Friday, the examiner confirmed both repairs. The museum sent its signed loan records and the original loss report.

We had owners for all nine animals.

I made a chart for my own mind: six village horses, two museum pieces, one widow's goat. Beside each, I wrote the old number, Dray's new number, and the paper that linked them.

I left a space for recovery.

Only three spaces could be filled.

The other six were still behind Dray's doors.

The parks clerk asked whether the horses could ever run again.

“I can't promise that from photographs,” I said. “The bodies need checks inside. So does the ride.”

“We've waited six years.”

“I know.”

She let out a breath.

“Then we can wait for a proper answer.”

I wrote that on the back of my chart. I had spent days wanting someone to believe me at once. The owners needed more than belief. They needed animals that were truly theirs and safe to use.

Meanwhile, my ordinary work kept shrinking. A customer canceled a $950 repair after hearing about police in the alley. A dealer paused a $1,500 job.

“Just until it's settled,” he said.

I could not pay rent with settled.

Ruth answered the lease notice with the time of my first police report and a request that the landlord preserve any calls from Voss. He agreed to wait before taking further action.

I kept carving. The rocking horse ear lay bare on my bench, ready for paint. I could not bring myself to finish it until its glue had fully cured.

That evening, Naomi called about the warehouse stock.

“The insurer confirmed your survey uploads. They also have Dray's dealer list. It says the nine animals cost him $9,200.”

“That's too low, even damaged.”

“The proposed resale total is $186,000.”

I sat down.

“To whom?”

“Voss arranged several buyers through one shipping order. We're checking what each buyer was told.”

She sounded tired.

“Do you ever get to look at art without looking for a crime?” I asked.

“Once. The frame turned out to be stolen.”

I waited.

“That one was a joke, Emiliano.”

“I'm getting better at those.”

“Slowly.”

After we hung up, I opened the message Ruth had forwarded from Dray's lawyer. Buried beneath the demand for money was a sale notice.

Final pickup was scheduled for the following Friday.

Across the bottom, in red, someone had added: Seller May Advance Collection Without Notice.