A Storage Room Inspection Put Every Missing Piano Back On Paper

By the third week, I had seen nine of our twelve pianos.

I followed them through recital rooms in Concord, Manchester, and Laconia. I checked one in a church basement while volunteers carried folding chairs past me. Another stood behind a school stage beside a cardboard moon.

I asked permission. I took photographs. I kept copies of work orders.

No one had to choose a side to tell me what stood in their building.

The last three were in a storage room outside Concord. Owen had refused my first request to inspect them.

"It's a secured facility," he said through his lawyer.

After Miriam filed the civil case, North Lantern agreed in writing to keep the fleet in New Hampshire and allow a joint inspection. The agreement covered records too. It gave the lawyers time to exchange documents without another urgent hearing.

Miriam hired an independent piano appraiser. His fee was $900.

We met at the storage building on a wet Thursday. Lydia stood beside Owen beneath the loading awning. She had brought no umbrella. He held his over himself.

The storage manager unlocked the room.

Inside were a grand and two uprights, wrapped in quilted covers. With the nine already inspected, they made five grands and seven uprights. Our whole fleet.

The appraiser examined the instruments. I showed him where each serial number lay, then stepped back so he could do his work.

"You've kept detailed service records," he said.

"I bought used pianos. I needed to know what I was buying."

Every soundboard had a history. One upright had four short shims across a repaired split. The other had a long patch that ended beside a dark knot. The grand had a round plug near the bass bridge and two narrow repairs below it.

My photographs showed those same marks years earlier.

Lydia folded her arms.

"Wood doesn't prove where money went."

"No," Selam said. "The bank statements do that."

She had come to check inventory against the rental ledger. She stood with her little notebook open, looking almost sorry to interrupt.

"Could you help me with one expense?" she asked Owen.

"Which one?"

"The $2,400 emergency rebuild. The invoice describes work on this grand in April. Dawit's service sheet says it was in good condition in March. Who did the rebuild?"

"A contractor."

"What was the contractor's name?"

"I'd have to look."

"Please do. The bank record shows the payment went to your personal account."

Rain tapped the metal awning beyond the open door.

Owen said he had advanced the cost. Selam asked for the original bill and proof of his payment. He said his lawyer would answer.

She wrote that down too.

The appraiser's report arrived the next week. Current used value: $148,600. That was lower than the insurer's replacement schedule, but far above twelve dollars.

Three pianos needed caster work. Two needed regulation to make the keys respond evenly. None needed to be thrown away.

Selam finished her reconciliation after records arrived from the bank and venues through the lawyers' requests and subpoenas.

New rents had gone into a separate operating account under the preservation agreement. Her report covered the eight months before that cutoff.

She put the totals on one page.

North Lantern had no employees or instruments before ours arrived. Owen's office supplied its address. Lydia supplied the customers and the account access.

North Lantern had collected $47,860 from our fleet and diverted bookings. Supported operating expenses came to $19,240. That left $28,620 to account for.

Only $6,220 remained in the rental account.

Lydia had received $14,400 in transfers marked advances. Owen had received $8,000 marked owner loan. The claimed rebuild was part of his $8,000, not a second missing amount.

"We count every dollar once," Selam said.

"Even theirs."

"Especially theirs. A clean number is harder to push over."

She had allowed real delivery, storage, insurance, and repair costs. She had removed duplicate invoices and transfers between accounts so they did not swell the income total.

It was less money than an angry guess would have produced. It was money she could show.

Afterward, I tuned an upright at a community center to pay the next legal bill. A boy waited nearby with a music book pressed against his knees.

"Do you have to get every string exactly right?" he asked.

"Close enough isn't always close," I said.

I sounded the fork. He listened to the slow pulse where the string missed it.

"It's wobbling."

"That's how it tells me."

That evening, Lydia sent me a message.

She did not ask about the storage room or the boy or whether the van had survived another day.

"Owen says he can make this stop," she wrote. "Be at his office at nine. Bring the original blue box."