Kline Counted My Pianos While I Kept The Original Receipts

I declined the meeting at Kline's house.

My reply said I could answer service questions in writing. Mara had told me I had no duty to accept his invitation. She had also asked me to stop working on his instruments while the threat was assessed.

Losing that work hurt. Going back would have hurt in a different way.

I put the cancellation in my book and left the old entries alone. I had always corrected mistakes with a single line through them, so the first words stayed readable. That morning, the habit felt almost foolish. I wanted a clean page, one without his name. Instead, I kept the page as it was and made a fresh pot of coffee.

Friday morning, Kline came to my workshop instead.

Ruth Bell had just arrived to pick up a repaired bench. I left the front door open and stayed beside the counter.

"Private business," Kline told her.

"Then write him a letter," she said.

He set a leather folder between us.

"Let's count," he said. "My grand. Nine donated uprights. The spinet at the warehouse. Anything else?"

"Would you like copies of the invoices?"

"I want to know what you heard."

There it was, plain at last.

I kept both hands on the counter.

"Which service date are you asking about?"

"Don't play clever. You take those little things out, and you can't follow a normal conversation."

"I don't remember saying that."

He leaned closer.

"Joel said the pads on the wood were just measuring shakes."

"The equipment was described on your work orders."

"And I paid for your time."

"Yes."

"Then I own what you made."

I took one of his signed orders from the drawer. I had left the original archive elsewhere. This was a routine office copy, with my fee and recording terms on one page.

"You bought the tuning," I said. "I kept the reference files. That was the agreement."

He read it without touching it.

"You're a repairman."

"Yes."

He had thought I was a man who could be dismissed when the keys sounded right. I was also the person who held the dated originals, including his permission to make them.

I had not hidden that from him. He had simply never cared to look.

"My lawyers will explain your mistake," he said.

He glanced at Ruth, then lowered his voice.

"Joel saw you outside Ellison's office. She seemed very concerned about you. A woman's career can suffer when people start asking why."

My face grew hot. We had done nothing wrong, but he had found something I wanted to protect beyond my tools.

"Please have them send the explanation."

Ruth lifted her bench by one end.

"Mateo, this is heavy."

I helped her carry it to the door. When I turned back, Kline had gone.

Ruth agreed to write down what she had heard. I called Mara, including what Kline had said about her, then closed the shop for the afternoon. She arranged a safety review and told me how to report another visit at once.

Our next meeting took place inside her office building, in daylight. A second investigator sat in while we discussed the visit. My fear had become something other people wrote down, which helped more than I expected.

When he left, Mara asked whether I was sleeping.

"In sections," I said.

Her hand moved toward mine, then stopped beside her notebook.

"Mateo, I need to say something clearly. You deserve help that doesn't depend on whether you like me."

The room felt very still.

"I do like you," I said.

"I know. I like you, too. That means I need firmer lines while I'm working with you."

"All right."

"Case meetings here. No private favors. If anything changes, my supervisor needs to know."

It was the kindest refusal I had ever heard. It was not quite a refusal, which made it harder to carry home.

Before I left, she asked about the warehouse spinet.

I checked my service book.

"Serial number ends in 882. It needed a pinblock. I said repairing it would cost more than the piano was worth."

"Did you service it again?"

"No. Kline told me he'd sold it to a private buyer in Nebraska."

"Do you still have that message?"

I did. It included a request to cancel the proposed repair.

Mara logged another copy. She did not tell me why she needed it.

I learned later that Prairie Key's books listed that same instrument as a $14,000 donation to a youth program. The program had never received it. My small service note gave investigators a place to test a much bigger claim.

That evening, I warmed leftover rice and listened to the ordinary sounds of my apartment: water in the pipes, a truck outside, my fork against the bowl.

I missed the part of my life when every strange sound had a screw I could tighten.

At eight, someone knocked.

The man at the door asked my name and handed me a thick envelope.

Kline had sued me for $96,000. Behind the complaint sat a proposed emergency order demanding that I deliver every recording to his lawyer.