“The bank won’t approve a refinance against a property with a disputed shareholder in it. One owner had to hold it. One signature had to approve it. That was the condition of the approval.”
At the back of the file, on the borrower’s consent, a second block for a withdrawing shareholder. My name. A date three weeks old.
“Am I on this loan?”
“No.”
“Then why am I on the paper?”
She looked at the signature the way you look at a stain you did not make. “If that isn’t yours, you don’t start with me,” she said. “There’s a withdrawal of interest in this file, notarized. You start at the county.”
I drove out to Fennel Street with the window down, because the car smelled of fish.
The county offices were cold and smelled of wet carpet. Vera Lund had the counter to herself, glasses on a chain, a bowl of peppermints pushed to the far edge where nobody would take them.
“The Copper Ladle,” she said, before I said it. “You’re Desmond’s girl.”
“Brannigan and Company, apparently.”
“That hasn’t come through here.” She rolled her chair back. “Give me the address.”
She came back with a folder an inch thick and went through it page by page in front of me. Then she turned one sheet around.
Withdrawal of Interest. I, Delia Marsh, do withdraw all right, title and interest in the business and licence conducted as Brannigan & Co. at 14 Weller Street. Signed: Delia Marsh. Dated: 2 April.
I laughed. It came out of me before I could stop it.
“April second,” I said. “That’s the day we buried him.”
I had the order of service in my bag, and I had not cleaned that bag out in years. Not grief. Sloth. That morning it saved me. His face from a photograph taken in 1998, the psalm underneath, the times on the back. Ten at Saint Anselm’s. Graveside, All Souls, one o’clock. Forty miles past the airport.
“One until three,” I said. “I stood in the rain at All Souls from one until three with my mother’s hand on my arm. I didn’t get a signal until the highway.”
Vera read the form again, then went through the door to the back room. I heard a drawer roll open. She came back with a bound book, gray cover, spine cracked.
“The notary journal. Notaries file a copy with us.” She turned pages with a wet finger. “Here. Withdrawal of interest. Two fifteen in the afternoon. Box is ticked for personally known to the notary.”
At two fifteen I was on the north side of the cemetery with mud on my shoes, waiting for the men with the straps.
“Who filed it?” I asked.
She took her glasses off. “I did. I was at that counter.” She said it slowly, checking the memory like a coin she wasn’t sure of. “A man came in with the folder already filled. Asked for the withdrawal form, said his fiancée would come in later and sign it. Came back inside twenty minutes with it signed, and I stamped it.”
“Did you see the woman?”
“No.” She set the glasses down. “I’d remember a woman signing her own name away at two in the afternoon. I remember the man. Good coat. He ate three of my peppermints.”
I got back to Weller Street after noon. The briefing had been at ten and it was over.
The crew stood in the dining room with the new menus in their hands, and Theo was at the head of the long table with his sleeves rolled, and they all turned when I came through the door.
“There she is,” he said. “I covered for you. Told them you were chasing a supplier.”
Nobody laughed. The dishwasher looked at her menu.
I pulled the invoice drawer out to the stop, because I needed Sunil’s number and I wanted onions by two. The folder was thicker than it should have been, and the top sheet was not an invoice.
Rao & Sons Produce. Statement of account. Balance due: $61,000.00. Last delivery: one week ago today. Deliveries suspended pending payment.
Sixty-one thousand dollars. I read it standing up, then sat down on the flour bin, which is not a place you sit.
Every carbon copy under it was initialled in my hand. I checked produce in at the door and signed for what came off the truck, every Tuesday for years, and never once looked at what the numbers added up to. I signed the deliveries. Theo paid the bills. I had thought that was a kindness he was doing me.
