Croaktown P.D. — Known Associates File · Exhibit H
Cornelius Quill
'The Ledger'
Marsh accountant, keeps two sets of books
The one (1) very nervous accountant named all over the case file. Cornelius Quill keeps PooPee's numbers — both versions — in a waterproof folio he clutches like it might swim off. He has never lied to Croaktown P.D. He has simply never been shown the second folio, and he intends to keep it that way for the good of his health.
How he met PooPee
Quill was auditing the storm-drain casino for the swamp's tax skiff when PooPee slid a chair out for him and asked, politely, whether he'd ever seen a set of books that balanced too well. Quill said yes, that was a red flag. PooPee said good — then make mine balance exactly that well, and never explain how. Quill has been employed, and terrified, ever since.
He is the accountant the case file keeps referring to as 'one (1) very nervous.' He does not dispute the count of one, and he does not dispute the nervous. What he disputes is the implication that a frog who sweats through his visor is a frog who talks. Quill has never talked. He has only ever perspired, and perspiration is not admissible.
What he reconciles
Every fly that moves through the Holdings lands in one of Quill's two folios. The first folio is a work of civic art — clean, dull, and audit-proof, showing a modest swamp concern that barely clears its lily-pad rent. The second folio is the one PooPee actually reads, and Quill would sooner eat it than let it surface. On damp days he has considered doing exactly that.
He has been offered a clean, salaried, above-board job across the water, keeping honest books for a frog who never needs a second folio. Quill turned it down. He says an honest ledger is a boring ledger, and besides, the frog across the pond pays in gratitude, and gratitude does not reconcile. He'd rather sweat for the one whose numbers are worth hiding.
There are two sets of books. I keep them both. If you ever see the second one, so did the last frog who saw it, and he's fishing in the islands now.
Where this name turns up in the file
- The Holdings — the empire the books hideWhat the first folio calls a modest lily-pad concern.
- The rap sheet — the counts the auditors couldn't totalEvery charge that a balanced set of books quietly erased.
- The glossary — swamp terms, definedLook up 'two sets of books,' 'the folio,' and 'reconcile.'
- The whole crew, one line eachEvery toad, cricket, and skeeter on the payroll.