We Opened The Old Steps And Counted What Was Missing

Beatrice wouldn't let me try the basement stairs.

"Tell me where the case is. You can direct from up here."

I heard her move a stool, then the scrape of wood against concrete.

"Heavy little staircases," she called.

"Oak lasts."

She carried the case up in two trips, models first. I set a straight flight beside my tea. Its tiny chair had a red seat made from one of Yer's old leather purses.

For a moment, I rubbed that seat with my thumb.

"The latch is under the handle," I said.

Beatrice lifted the false floor. Bundles of pink paper lay beneath it, held with cotton tape. Each bundle had a year written on a card.

"She thought these went out with the shop books," I said.

Beatrice looked from the case to me.

"How many years?"

"Since the pipe burst. Eleven."

She cleared the rolls from the table and washed her hands.

We found all twenty-four active contracts. We found the payment schedules and the signed customer permissions. We found no order telling anyone to pay Lantern.

"Absence alone won't prove everything," she said. "But it gives us a clean place to start."

She scanned each page beside its numbered cover. She made a list showing where every paper had come from. The originals went back into sleeves, then into the case.

I kept the miniature straight staircase on the table.

Over the next two days, customers brought check images, bank printouts, and receipts. Beatrice matched those records to the contracts and the last good Cedar Rail ledger.

The result filled one sheet.

On January 1, twenty-four customers had owed a total of $86,400. Each paid $300 a month. All twenty-four had paid January, February, and March installments to Lantern.

That was $21,600.

Their true remaining debt was $64,800.

"The buyer is being offered the old amount," Beatrice said.

She tapped the difference with her pencil.

"These payments have disappeared from the sale records."

I pictured Ruth opening her tin and counting money she'd already paid.

"They'll collect it twice."

"If nobody corrects the record."

Beatrice had found Lantern's public company filing. Yer was listed as its organizer and manager. The address was a small rented office outside Lancaster. Another filing named Owen Rusk as a manager added in February.

I knew Owen. He had sold battery packs to our shop. He was younger than Yer and wore clean boots even in bad weather.

He'd once watched me demonstrate a folding rail with my models.

"You could put that on a screen," he'd said.

"People like holding it," I had answered.

Now his name sat beside my wife's on a page I could hold.

We needed a lawyer. Beatrice called Mara Pike, who handled business disputes in Lancaster. I signed a fee agreement for a $2,500 retainer from my personal savings.

Mara visited because the office steps were still hard for me.

"Can you stop Friday?" I asked.

"First I can give the buyer proof that the sale is disputed. If they proceed anyway, we'll ask a judge for help."

She examined the company records and the pink contracts.

"Keep your statements narrow. Say what you know. Let the documents carry their weight."

That evening, Yer found the model on the table.

"You had somebody digging downstairs."

"I needed my records."

She pulled out the chair across from me but didn't sit.

"I kept this business alive while you were lying in a bed."

"Then help me understand Lantern."

"A fresh start. Batteries are easier than hauling rails."

"With Owen?"

Her hand stopped on the chair back.

"He's helped me."

"Have you been seeing him?"

She looked toward the window.

"I was going to leave after the sale."

I waited for the sentence to hurt less. It didn't.

"You could have told me you wanted to go."

"You would have made it impossible."

"You told people I couldn't think."

"You wouldn't have understood another way."

There it was again. My answer chosen before I could give it.

She asked what I planned to do.

"Count the money. Correct the balances."

"Don't ruin what little we have left."

She went upstairs. I stayed beside the little staircase until the tea went cold.

The next morning, Mara sent our dispute notice to Quarry Bridge, with my written permission and copies of six sample accounts. She requested that it hold the purchase and preserve every document Yer had supplied.

An hour later, the buyer's manager replied.

He attached the proposed purchase schedule: $54,000 for $86,400 in claimed unpaid debts.

He also attached an assignment bearing my name in blue ink.

The signature had been dated on a day I was in intensive care.