The Judge Ordered Mai To Produce The Files Behind My Signature

The courthouse hallway smelled of wet coats and floor cleaner.

Mai sat across from me, speaking softly to her lawyer. She wore the silver glasses and a pale jacket I had bought her for an awards dinner.

I remembered being proud when she walked onstage at that dinner. I had thought her good name had room for mine.

Ruth touched the folder on my knees.

"Answer the question you're asked. If you don't know, say so."

"I know."

"Then don't guess because a silence feels long."

The hearing concerned the temporary restrictions and the machinery. It would not settle every claim or decide whether a crime had happened.

Still, when I took the oath, my mouth went dry.

Mai's lawyer showed me her new payment authorization. It listed all three transfers, down to the dollar, above what looked like my signature.

"Is that your signature?"

"It looks like an image of it. I didn't sign this page."

"Your wife ran the sales side with your permission?"

"Yes."

"You trusted her with payments?"

"Yes. Payments the mill actually owed."

He asked whether I had ever raised concerns about her work before our marriage broke down.

"I refused the expansion guaranty before she left," I said. "The bank has my written answer."

Ruth handed the clerk our exhibit copies.

The loan officer, Hannah Reed, appeared under subpoena. She explained that the proposed guaranty had arrived through Mai. When Hannah contacted me directly, I denied signing it.

"Was the $180,000 loan funded?" Ruth asked.

"No. We closed the application without funding."

"Was any debt from that proposed loan placed against the mill?"

"No."

My shoulders dropped a little. Hearing her say it under oath felt different from reading it alone at my table.

Then Ruth brought out my maintenance records.

The signature on Mai's payment authorization had a strange little tail beneath the H. A gray crescent sat beside it.

The same tail and crescent appeared on a maintenance form I had signed three years earlier. I had set a greasy washer on the page while changing a bearing.

Ruth placed enlarged copies side by side.

"Did you sign the maintenance form?"

"Yes."

"Did that form approve any payment to Valley Fiber Clearing?"

"No. It approved replacing a bearing for $286."

Mai stared at the table.

Her lawyer objected when Ruth asked whether the newer signature had been copied. The judge allowed me to describe the records but said the source files would need to be produced. Similar marks were grounds to investigate, not a complete finding by themselves.

I liked that, though it slowed us down. I needed an answer that would last longer than a room's first feeling.

Gideon testified about his agreement and his unpaid $5,800. He did not say I was a good man. He said the signed pages matched and the payment had gone elsewhere.

Mai's lawyer asked whether he disliked her.

"Today?" Gideon said.

The judge looked over her glasses.

"Answer without the comment, Mr. Price."

"I am angry about the missing payment. The records would be the same if I liked her."

The judge turned to Mai's lawyer.

"Your client relies on this authorization. Produce the source file and the signed original she claims exists."

"We will provide what she has," he said.

I held my hands flat beneath the table. In the mill, a bad bearing gave a warning before it failed. Here, the warning had been a gray mark no bigger than a pea. I was glad I had kept the greasy old page instead of making a cleaner copy.

By afternoon, the judge continued the restrictions. Mai had to preserve the source files and provide the claimed machinery purchase records. The disputed proceeds were to remain untouched. The mill could keep operating, with complete records of new receipts and expenses.

The judge approved the process for obtaining the brokerage records. Nothing in her ruling called the money mine yet.

Outside, Mai caught me beside the stairs.

"You enjoyed that."

"No."

"Then stop. We can still make this private."

"Send any proposal to Ruth."

"You used to listen to me."

I looked at the traffic moving along Broadway.

"I did."

For three weeks, I kept the mill alive one small job at a time. Daniel approved his fees in writing. Bea worked two mornings a week. I sent every customer a receipt with the lot number and a plain list of charges.

At night, I read statements beside my cold supper.

I found myself checking even the grocery receipt. Once, I went back to the store over a missing $3.19 credit. The clerk fixed it kindly. I sat in the parking lot afterward, ashamed of how close I had come to crying over three dollars.

Then Ruth called me into her office.

The brokerage had answered. She slid the certified response across her desk, open to a cash balance of $118,740.