What the Wax Couldn’t Join
“Mr. Saye, when Mr. Quill asked about wax, he was asking how to preserve the arrangement of stones in a ring, correct?”
The prosecutor stood beside the witness box with the fitting card in his hand. He had laid it on the rail between Saye and the magistrate, its date visible to the room.
Saye looked at the card, then at the prosecutor. “He asked whether an impression could preserve an arrangement.”
“And the two stones in the ring Sera Lindqvist described were arranged as she described them?”
“That is what she said.”
The prosecutor let the pause settle. Sera sat at the defense table, hands folded around each other. Imogen had seen her keep them still through worse questions. Today, Sera’s thumb worried the edge of one fingernail.
“Then the inquiry and her memory agree,” the prosecutor said.
“Objection,” Imogen said. “He’s making the witness supply a connection he never established.”
The magistrate glanced down at his notes. “Ask about the inquiry, counsel. The witness may answer from his own knowledge.”
The prosecutor inclined his head. He was good at retreating without looking as if he had retreated. “Mr. Saye, did Mr. Quill bring you a ring when he asked this question?”
“No.”
“An impression?”
“No.”
“Did you make one?”
“No.”
“Did he tell you why he wanted to know?”
“No.”
“Did you understand that he might be asking about a ring he owned?”
Saye considered it. “I understood he was asking about a ring.”
A few people in the benches shifted. The answer was plain enough to sound like an answer and empty enough to be useful to neither side. Imogen watched the prosecutor decide whether to try again.
“You have testified that an impression can preserve the stones’ arrangement.”
“Yes.”
“And that arrangement could be compared with a description given by another person.”
“It could be compared.”
“Thank you.” The prosecutor reached for the fitting card. “Now, this is your record of the replacement ring you made for Mr. Quill?”
“It is.”
“The stones were a dark garnet and a pale moonstone?”
Next
Petra must explain what Quill wanted to learn from tracing Pell’s ring ownership, and whether the purpose she withheld will strengthen the case against Sera or expose another gap in it.