The First Denial

The prosecutor began with the lie, not the ring.

“When you were first asked whether you had seen anyone at the back door, you said no?”

Sera sat with her hands flat on the witness rail. “Yes.”

A small movement passed through the courtroom. Nobody needed to whisper. The answer had reached them plainly.

Imogen kept her eyes on the page in front of her. Her notes had done what she said they could do: established that Sera described the two stones’ orientation before the court heard of Quill’s inquiry about Pell’s ring. They had not made Sera’s delay disappear. They had never promised to.

The prosecutor lifted a sheet from his desk. “And that answer was false.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

The question had sounded simpler in the corridor that morning.

Before court, Sera had stopped Imogen beside the water jug and asked her what she should say if the prosecutor asked why she waited. Imogen had told her the question was the prosecutor’s to ask. She could help Sera remember the order of events; she could not give her a reason that would sound better than the truth.

Sera had looked at her for a moment, then nodded once. “Good. I don’t have one that sounds good.”

Now she watched the prosecutor rather than Imogen. “I was afraid you’d decide I knew who it was.”

“You had seen only a hand?”

“A hand and a sleeve. The person was leaving. I couldn’t see a face.”

“Yet you remember the ring.”

“I remembered it later.”

“Later than your first interview.”

“Yes.”

“Later than your first answer.”

“Yes.”

He let the two admissions sit. “You knew the stones were unusual. Dark and pale. You knew their position.”

“I could see them.”

“And you chose not to mention them.”

“I chose not to say anything about the hand.” Sera’s voice stayed level, but she had begun pressing her thumb against the side of one finger. “I thought if I said I saw a ring, you’d ask whose it was. I didn’t know.”

“You knew Mr. Quill wore a ring with two stones.”

“I’d seen one like it on him.”

“Like it?”

“I can’t say it was the same one.”