Mireille Brought Her Own Emails To The Sworn Interview

The email had five short lines.

Bernard told Mireille that I would never sign away the collection. He told her the auction would want a release. Then he wrote that she should make one and leave the rest to him.

June did not let me build the whole case around that page.

“We need the full chain, with its records. Her lawyer is producing it. We will also ask him under oath.”

“He'll say it means something else.”

“Then he'll have to explain the rest.”

Mireille's sworn interview took place around a table that could have served a church committee. A court reporter sat at one end. There were glasses of water and a small microphone.

Nobody raised a voice.

That made it harder to watch her.

She admitted she had been involved with Bernard for two years.

“Was Halina aware?” June asked.

“He said she understood they had separate lives.”

I had packed his lunch every weekday until he retired from regular sales.

My face grew hot, but I kept my eyes on June's pen.

Mireille said Bernard had asked her to open Alder Landing to handle a “private purchase.” There was no written purchase from me to the company. No money had gone from the company to me before Reed's deposit arrived.

“Who wrote Mrs. Wozniak's name on the release?” June asked.

Mireille put down her water.

“I did.”

“Did Mrs. Wozniak authorize that?”

“Bernard said he could speak for her.”

June put the email in front of her.

“He also told you she would never sign.”

Mireille looked at her own lawyer. He told her to answer the question.

“Yes.”

I remembered her cream suit in the warehouse. This has become very ugly. As if the ugliness had come from outside and landed on her shoes.

June asked why the release carried a date three months before it was made.

“Bernard chose that date.”

“And you used it?”

“Yes.”

“Why offer the pipes again before delivering them to Mr. Reed?” June asked.

“Bernard said an auction might bring more.”

“Had Mr. Reed failed to meet his terms?”

“No.”

“Had he agreed to give up his purchase?”

“No.”

Mireille pressed her palms against the table. I watched the court reporter keep typing. There would be a record of those answers even after everyone in that room went home.

She had copied my name by hand from an old shop document. Bernard had scanned the result and sent it for upload after Celine questioned the title.

The full email chain included his instructions and her reply: Done. Tell me if the H looks wrong.

I looked down at my own hands.

For a moment, I could not remember what I had done with them besides work for him.

Then June asked for the next exhibit, and I took out my notebook.

Bernard's interview came a week later. He said he had meant to repay Reed after the auction.

“Did Mr. Reed know his purchase was being offered to another buyer?” June asked.

“It was a business arrangement.”

“Where is his agreement to that arrangement?”

There was none.

He said the $14,000 sent to our household account proved I had benefited.

June asked who had written the payment note.

“I did.”

“Who had access to the account statements at that time?”

“I managed those.”

“When did you tell your wife about the deposit?”

He asked for a break.

Outside the room, I heard him call my name. I stayed in my chair and hummed one low note with my lips closed.

Saul finished his accounting that month. The records supported the entire $46,000 trail. Of the condo payment, $9,000 could be returned after cancellation. The other $3,000 had been spent on fees that would not come back.

That missing sum stayed on my page.

Elias had his own claim for it. June made sure our requests did not count the same loss twice.

Our costs were growing too: legal work, the accountant, and storage that I had never asked to need.

Bernard sent an offer through his lawyer.

He would “allow” the pipes to be returned if I dropped my claims, paid the storage, and signed a statement that the dispute had resulted from confusion.

He also wanted me to promise never to discuss Mireille.

“He still thinks he owns the verbs,” I said.

June slid a blank sheet toward me.

“What do you want your answer to say?”

“No. Then put the reasons below it.”

We offered clear terms of our own: recognition of my ownership, repayment to Elias, payment of my documented costs, and no false statement from me.

There was no agreement.

The next afternoon, June called while I was repairing a wooden test pipe at my kitchen table.

“We have a trial date,” she said. “And Bernard has asked to put you on the witness stand.”