Evan felt the same sensation he sometimes experienced when a stubborn diagnostic finally pointed toward the real fault. He had expected a store to tell him whether it could honor the paper. Instead, it had shown him a contract revealing that Blackridge had been warned against doing precisely what it had done. He asked Leonard whether there was any reason the inventory record might be inaccurate.
Leonard answered by pulling up the archived purchase invoice, the bank receipt, and the expiration schedule attached to the sale. "Three records, different sources, same amount," he said. "I wouldn't put my name behind it otherwise."
That answer made Evan trust him more than any reassurance could have. Leonard printed copies of the relevant documents, omitting unrelated buyers' information, and stamped the pages with the old corporate seal. He wrote the lot number on a manila tab, dated the folder, and signed a statement explaining the condition of the instruments and the purchase restriction. Ruth fetched a stapler that worked only if she struck it twice with the heel of her hand.
"You might want a lawyer," Leonard said as he passed the folder across the desk. "I don't know what your employer has told people, but the documents won't look good next to that pay envelope."
"I might need one," Evan admitted. "First I want to understand the whole picture."
Leonard watched him tuck the folder into a battered briefcase. "You work in quality, don't you?"
"Calibration."
"I thought so. You're looking at this like a defective batch."
"One bad piece of paper can be a mistake," Evan said. "Thirty bad envelopes means somebody designed a process."
He thanked them both and left without asking Leonard to honor the certificates. On the drive home, he passed a shuttered Becket storefront with dark windows and a faded banner advertising savings on winter bedding. He thought about people who had lost their jobs when those stores closed, and about how the owners of one struggling company had apparently taken more care in drafting protections for workers than the executives of another company had taken in paying them.
Sophie had made pasta by the time he reached home. She left a saucepan on the stove and sat at the kitchen table pretending to study until he put his keys down. Evan knew the look: his daughter had noticed something unusual in his face and was waiting for him to decide how much of it he would share. He washed his hands, warmed the sauce, and brought two plates to the table.
"Is it work?" she asked before he sat down.
"Mostly."
"Does mostly mean we're going to have a problem?"
"It means the company made a payroll decision I think was wrong. I'm checking it before I decide what to do."
She studied him. "Are we okay for Christmas?"
Evan looked at her plate, at the repaired zipper on her coat hanging by the door, and at the kitchen lights that always looked warmer in December. "We're going to be careful," he said. "But you're safe, and we're keeping the house. I won't promise things I haven't checked yet."